Arch-Conspirator(25)

“She did,” I said.

“She’s just some girl with busted wiring.”

“She said you were a smart guy who tried to look dumb,” I said.

He laughed again—deeper this time, like he really meant it. “Smart guys don’t commit treason, especially not in front of Kreon’s kid.”

“Well, I committed treason two nights ago, by setting off an explosion that gave Antigone her opportunity to use an Extractor,” I said. “So now you have a weapon against me. Maybe you won’t mind so much giving me one against you.”

“How would someone like you know how to set off an explosion?”

“I had a rebellious phase as a teenager,” I said. “Used to go to East Field, you know that empty lot in the Ne?stan? I’d blow things up there. All you need is some fertilizer, and the High Commander’s house has plenty.”

“Shameful waste of fertilizer.”

“Like I said, I was a teenager. Not exactly thinking about conservation of resources at that age.”

A shout from the next room punctured our silence. I straightened, sure for a second that my father’s men had come to the apartment—but laughter followed, just the board game running its course. Parth waited for it to die down before he spoke.

“Say you could set off another explosion,” he said. “How would you time it?”

“There are ways,” I said. “The more important question is: time it for what purpose?”

“Do you know how an arch is built, Haemon?” Parth said. He pulled out the seat across from mine. It creaked under his weight. He put the heels of his hands on the table. “You build up the sides, so they curve up, like this.” He curved his hands so the heels stayed planted and the fingers arched over them. “And then you stick a rock right here at the middle.” He tapped his fingertips together. “We call that rock a cornerstone. It keeps the arch stable, so both sides are balancing against each other. But if you knock out the cornerstone…” He slapped the table with both palms. “Wham. Arch comes down. So you can either spend all your time chipping away at the little bricks, or…” He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “… you can go straight for the one that really matters. See what I mean?”

I did, of course.

My father was the High Commander of this city. The cornerstone. He was not the only one in power here, but all the others took guidance from him, sought his approval. Without him, everything would fall apart.

“You want me to kill my father,” I said.

“Now, I didn’t say anything of the kind,” Parth said. “But if we were to lose our cornerstone, there are a great deal of people poised to take advantage of the chaos that would follow.”

“Opportunists?” I said. “And would any of them be any better than the High Commander?”

“Some better, some worse,” he said. “But all committed to a free election.”

“And if the election turns out someone worse?”

Parth leaned forward.

“Then at least we would be responsible for our own doom,” he said, “instead of someone else deciding it for us. And really, isn’t that the most any of us can hope for?”

I wished I had asked for water. My throat was dry and I needed something to do with my hands.

The first time I saw my father’s cruelty on full display was during the riots, as he watched my uncle, Oedipus—the first and last victor of a free election this city had had—get struck down by soldiers. He did nothing to stop it; he just watched the man fall. I was only a boy at the time, still half convinced that my dad, a man I was afraid of, might have some good in him.

He never touched me, or my mother, only raised his voice to us a handful of times. But there was always danger in him, boiling just beneath the surface. It made my steps careful and my words guarded. It made me sneak into the kitchens to play poker instead of just going there. He didn’t have to shout at me or smack me around for me to know what wasn’t going to be acceptable to him. His shadow was long, and filled every corner of our house.

Still, the little boy who wanted to find something behind the fear lived.

Could I kill Kreon?

“How would this save her?” I said.

“She’s the figurehead of a resistance movement now,” Parth said. “For some reason, you talk to people about food shortages, power outages, contaminated water, the government disappearing people—you might as well be speaking another language. But if you tell them their High Commander wants to send a pretty young thing into space to waste away? Suddenly they’re listening.”

Parth leaned back and sighed.

“What I’m telling you is,” he said, “people all over this goddamn city are itching to keep that ship from launching. You just have to give them an opening.”

I thought of the monkshood blooming in our greenhouse, and the curve of Antigone’s hip in the moonlight, and the way my father had sneered at me as I argued for mercy. Somehow I didn’t feel like I was making a choice. I felt like he had already made all the choices, and I was just the response to his call, the effect of his cause.

“That’s what I’ll do, then,” I said.





14

Antigone