Burn (Pure #3)(18)

*

Surrounded by bodyguards, Partridge is ushered from the car and taken to the set of elevators reserved for the Dome’s elite. The war room is buried in the core of the Dome on the lowest subterranean level. The elevator doors open, and they step into a building with mazelike halls that echo loudly with the clomp of their bootheels.

One of the guards opens the door to the war room with a series of codes typed into a wall-mounted keypad. The door opens, revealing a long mahogany table surrounded by leather chairs. The walls are covered with black screens, now dark and glassy, almost wet-looking.

The guard ushers Partridge in along with Beckley.

Partridge walks the length of the table and runs his hand over the back of the chair at the head of the table. His father’s chair. His father’s body was once here. His mind flashes on his father’s face again—his skin festered red and, in some spots, already blackened with necrosis, and his hands, curled inward, shaking with a constant palsy. Willux had overdosed for decades on drugs to enhance his mental abilities. It caught up with him, causing Rapid Cell Degeneration. Partridge tries to remind himself that his father had done himself in, but it doesn’t mute the guilt. There’s no way to let it go. “Has anyone been inside the chamber since my father’s death?”

“No, sir,” Beckley says. “We were under strict orders only to retool the codes. We weren’t allowed to enter—only outfit it so that you could.”

Partridge wonders if this room is really meant for his protection—or was it a trap, a way to eliminate him if he didn’t perform exactly as the Dome wanted him to? Is this something that his father dreamed up for his successor, or has it been rigged by Foresteed so that he can take over? Partridge feels a cool ridge of sweat across his back, and he thinks about his father, who was a leader for so long. Is this the kind of doubt and suspicion he lived with all the time? Is that why he ruled with such an iron fist?

Partridge looks at the guard who opened the door. Partridge has never been completely sure who he can trust. Even his trust of Beckley has been hard-earned and sometimes feels shaky. But now that he’s spoken the truth about his father, Partridge is even less sure who’s been rocked by that news and how they might decide to turn on him. These are the Pures—not the types to rise up. But he still has to be careful. He glances at Beckley, trying to gauge his read on this guard. Partridge doesn’t want to go into the chamber only to be isolated and get attacked.

Beckley looks back at him calmly. “You okay?” he asks.

“Fine,” Partridge says. He has no choice but to trust those around him. They’re all he has. “Let’s see it.”

Beckley nods to the guard, who reaches under the head of the table, perhaps pressing a button hidden there, and one wall breaks into panels and opens, revealing a door.

On the other side of the door could be his father’s secrets. He’s never understood his father. His father was so absent—even when he was in the same room, his mind was working on something else. Partridge doesn’t remember ever having the feeling that his father was actually looking at him. His father was more than aloof. He seemed nearly hollow. But he hadn’t always been like that; there was something about his father—once upon a time—that had made Partridge’s mother fall in love with him. Hadn’t he once been funny? Thoughtful? Maybe even a little vulnerable?

He’s also well aware that on the other side of the door there might be proof that he could offer the people here—proof that his father was the mastermind behind it all, that the people on the outside need their help.

He walks up to the door. “How do we do this?”

“You look into this beam of light for the retinal scan,” the guard says, “and press your hand on this square to check your fingerprint.” The beam is blue and it appears from a small camera-like lens in the wall. The square is made of glass, but it too has a bluish glow.

Partridge leans into the beam. Something inside of the lens clicks. He presses his hand to the glass square, and he hears another series of clicks. Partridge puts his hand on the knob, but the door opens automatically. The room is dark.

Beckley moves forward to usher him in.

“Wait for me outside,” Partridge says. “All the way out. In the hall.”

“Yes, sir,” Beckley says, and he tells the rest of the guards to back out of the room.

Partridge steps just inside the dark room; he can tell that it’s relatively small, and it feels cluttered. From the dim light cast by the war room, he can see that the chamber walls are covered in something that seems to shiver. He thinks of wings—the birds on Bradwell’s back and how, when they shifted, his shirt would flutter.

Is his father’s chamber filled with batting wings? He wants to call this off, back out of the room, but he can’t. He’s gone too far now. They’d know he’s afraid.

It’s not logical, but he feels like he’s about to move into his father’s mind. He always sensed that his father held infinite secrets, that he seemed so absent because there was a version of himself that he refused to share. A secret self.

And Partridge has uncovered so many secrets—destruction, death, so many layers of lies. He doesn’t want to know any more of them.

He shudders then takes a step past the threshold.

Immediately, the lights flicker on. The room fills with light. The door slams shut behind him.