The Archived

The shower in the bathroom at the end of the hall is going, and someone is singing off-key but loudly as Jackson shoves me away and rears back to kick. I spin as the rubber heel of his shoe lodges in the drywall, and grab his wrist while he’s off balance, pulling him toward me, my forearm slamming into his chest and sending him to the floor. When I try to pin him, he catches me with a glancing kick, and pain blossoms across my chest, forcing me to let go.

Wesley is there as Jackson scrambles to his feet and into the living room. Wes swings his arm around Jackson’s throat and pulls hard, but Jackson fights like mad and forces him several steps back. A glass coffee table catches Wesley behind the knees, and he loses his balance. The two go down together. The shower cuts off as they crash in a wave of shattered glass. Jackson is up first, a shard jutting from his arm, and he’s out the door before I can stop him.

Wesley is on his feet, his cheek and hand bleeding, but we tear into the second-floor hall. Jackson, in his panic, has stormed past the entrance to the landing and toward the elevator. We close in as he rips the glass from his arm with a hiss and forces the grille open. The dial above the cage door says the elevator is sitting on the sixth floor. The lobby is two stories tall. Which means two stories down.

“It’s over,” calls Wesley, stepping toward him.

Jackson stares at the elevator shaft, then back at us.

And then he jumps.

Wes and I groan together and turn, racing for the stairs.

Histories don’t bleed. Histories can’t die. But they do feel pain. And that jump had to hurt. Hopefully it will at least slow him down.

A scream cuts through the air, but not from the elevator shaft. Someone in 2C lets out a strain of words between a cry and a curse as we hit the landing. Halfway down the main staircase we see Jackson clutching his ribs—serves him right—and making a limping but determined beeline for the front doors of the Coronado.

“Key!” shouts Wes, and I dig the black handkerchief from my pocket.

“Right for Returns,” I say as he grabs it, gets a foot up on the dark wood railing and jumps over, dropping the last ten feet and somehow landing upright. I hit the base of the stairs as Wes catches Jackson and slams him against the front doors hard enough to crack the glass. And then I’m there, helping hold the thrashing History against the door as Wes gets the Crew key into the lock and turns hard to the right. The scene beyond the glass is sunlight and streets and passing cars, but when Wes turns the key, the door flies open, ripped from his grip as if by wind, and reveals a world of white beyond. Impossible white, and Jackson Lerner falling through it.

The door slams shut with the same windlike force, shattering the already cracked glass. The Crew key sits in the lock, and through the glassless frame, a bus rambles past. Two people across the street have turned to see what reduced the door to littered shards and wood.

I stagger back. Wesley gives a dazed laugh just before his legs buckle.

I crouch beside him even though the motion sends ripples of pain through my ribs.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

Wes stares up at the broken door. “We did it,” he says brightly. “Just like Crew.”

Blood is ru

“Come on,” I say, turning toward the elevator. Wes gets shakily to his feet and follows. I hit the call button, cringing at the thought of using this death trap, but I don’t exactly want to retrace the path of our destruction right now, especially with Wes covered in blood. He hesitates when I pull open the grille, but climbs in beside me. The doors close, and I punch the button for the third floor and then turn to look at him. He’s smiling. I can’t believe he’s smiling. I shake my head.

“Red looks good on you,” I say.

He wipes at his cheek, looks down at his stained hands.

“You know, I think you’re right.”

Water drips from the ends of my hair onto the couch, where I’m perched, staring down at the Crew key cupped in my hands. I listen to the shhhhhhh of the shower ru

How did Roland know?

How did he know that we’d need the key today? Was it a coincidence? Da never believed in coincidence, said chance was just a word for people too lazy to learn the truth. But Da believed in Roland. I believe in Roland. I know Roland. At least, I think I know him. He’s the one who first gave me a chance. Who took responsibility for me. Who bent the rules for me. And sometimes broke them.

The water shuts off.

Jackson was returned. I returned him myself. How did he escape a second time in less than a week? He should have been filed in the red stacks. There’s no way he would have woken twice. Unless someone woke him and let him out.

The bathroom door opens, and Wesley stands there, his black hair no longer spiked but hanging down into his eyes, the eyeliner washed away. His key rests against his bare chest. His stomach is lean, the muscles faint but visible. Thank god he’s wearing pants.

“All done?” I ask, pocketing the Crew key.

“Not quite. I need your help.” Wesley retreats into the bathroom. I follow.

An array of first-aid equipment covers the sink. Maybe I should have taken him to the Archive, but the cut on his face isn’t so bad—I’ve had worse—and the last thing I want to do is try to explain to Patrick what happened.

Wesley’s cheek is starting to bleed again, and he dabs at it with a washcloth. I fish around in my private medical stash until I find a tube of skin glue.

“Lean down, tall person,” I say, trying to touch his face with only the swab and not my fingers. It makes my grip unsteady, and when I slip and paint a dab of the skin glue on his chin, Wes sighs and takes my hand. The noise flares through my head, metal and sharp.

“What are you doing?” I ask. “Let go.”

“No,” he says, plucking the swab and the skin glue from my grip, tossing both aside and pressing my hand flat against his chest. The noise grows louder. “You’ve got to figure it out.”

I cringe. “Figure what out?” I ask, raising my voice above the clatter.

“How to find quiet. It’s not that hard.”

“It is for me,” I snap. I try to push back, try to block him out, try to put up a wall, but it doesn’t work, only makes it worse.

“That’s because you’re fighting it. You’re trying to block out every bit of noise. But people are made of noise, Mac. The world is full of noise. And finding quiet isn’t about pushing everything out. It’s just about pulling yourself in. That’s all.”

“Wesley, let go.”

“Can you swim?”

The rock-band static pounds in my head, behind my eyes. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Good swimmers don’t fight against the water.” He takes my other hand, too. His eyes are bright, flecked with gold even in the dim light. “They move with it. Through it.”

“So?”

“So stop fighting. Let the noise go white. Let it be like water. And float.”

I hold his gaze.

“Just float,” he says.

It goes against every bit of reason in me to stop pushing back, to welcome the noise.

“Trust me,” he says.

I let out an unsteady breath, and then I do it. I let go. For a moment, Wesley washes over me, louder than ever, rattling my bones and echoing in my head. But then, little by little, the noise evens, ebbs. It grows steadier. It turns to white noise. It is everywhere, surrounding me, but for the first time it doesn’t feel like it’s in me. Not in my head. I let out a breath.