Unraveled (25 page)

“You never wanted to marry me,” I realize.

“Now you’re catching on.”

I wasn’t a distraction for the citizens of Arras, I was a distraction for the Kairos
Agenda. Because of me they walked right into Cormac’s trap in the Eastern Sector.
But worst of all, I’d been so caught up in guessing Cormac’s next move in our staged
plan, I never saw any of this coming.

“Pryana? Alix? You knew they were Agenda,” I guess.

Cormac’s lips curl as he nods. “I figured it out. They both proved quite useful. They
were too busy thinking they were clever—”

“To realize you were feeding them information,” I finish for him. That’s why Pryana
hadn’t heard anything about Cormac’s order. He had purposefully slipped the information
to Alix, knowing she would pass it on to the rest of us.

“It was simple. Feed one rebel rotten information and she’ll poison the rest of the
group. Watch the lie spread and ferret out the traitors. Soon there will be no more
Agenda infestation.”

“And now the whole of Arras will believe you’re their hero,” Dante says. “Because
there will be no one to tell them any differently.”

“You’ve done a good job cementing yourself in the minds of the people of Arras,” Cormac
says to me. “When I share my heartbreak over your rebellion, they will feel the outrage
that only betrayal can cultivate.”

“And who will keep your looms running?” I ask. “What will you do when the Earth fails
to produce your precious raw materials?”

“Once we remove the threat left below there, I won’t have to worry about the interference
of scum like you.”

“And what if there’s a singularity?” I challenge.

“That’s a theory,” Cormac says with a wave of his hand. “My men don’t believe it’s
a threat.”

“Albert does,” I say in a low voice. “Keep harvesting and you’ll destroy Earth
and
Arras.”

“Aren’t we taking our Whorl role a little too seriously?” His lips press into a thin
smile. “There’s no Whorl. It’s only a legend passed between desperate men.”

Nothing about Cormac’s dismissal of me or the Agenda stings, because he fails to understand.
Even now, I’m only beginning to comprehend it myself. “Those desperate men are your
people, and they believe their
legend
.”

“What good is belief? Perhaps saying that you believe in something helps you sleep
at night, but you and I both know there is no power in that.”

“It’s not just the belief,” I say as a sense of purpose plants itself in my brain,
growing roots that lodge within my soul. “It’s the possibility, and once people see
what is possible, even in one tiny, insignificant moment, they’re capable of imagining
more. There is power in imagination. Undeniable, unpredictable, uncontrollable power.
You’re right. The Whorl might be nothing more than a dream, but the idea has given
people the ability to dream again. You won’t find it easy to control them now.”

Cormac’s jaw tightens, but there’s no trace of anger or annoyance or even amusement.
He’s calling my bluff.

“But you already know that,” I continue. “Girls and boys deciding not to marry. Spinsters
refusing to stay at their looms. What will you do when all the Spinsters begin to
dream?”

But he only smirks. “Every society must evolve.”

He raises his fingers and trails them through an invisible pattern in the air. After
a moment, a crack in the fabric of the room appears.

“What did you do?” I ask in a breathless voice.

“There are those who said men shouldn’t have this power, but I disagree,” Cormac says.
“Not just
any
man should have this power. But I am not
just any man
.”

“You’ve been altering yourself,” I realize aloud. His erratic behavior. The scar I
glimpsed. It makes sense.

“Isn’t that why you kicked Kincaid out? For perverting the research behind the Cypress
Project?” Dante asks. “Or did you kick him out to steal his idea?”

“Kincaid was a fool. He was always too busy showing off to consider what the people
around him needed.”

“Does that sound like anyone we know?” I ask in mock innocence.

“It takes one to know one,” Cormac points out.

He might have a point. Even now I’m too busy showing off and talking back to consider
what I need to do in order to ensure that the others survive this.

“So you’re a Spinster—or are you a Tailor?” I ask. I pull against the rope binding
my hands. I wasn’t scared to be in the same room with him before. Now I am.

“I’m a thinker. A Tailor. A Spinster. A spy,” he says. “But most important, I’m a
Creweler.”

“I don’t believe you,” I say, because I need it to be false. I need to believe he
doesn’t have these abilities.

“Oh, rest assured, Adelice. Thanks to your measurements, our scientists have been
able to synthesize a genetic compound that has given me the same set of skills you
possess.”

I stare at him, trying to wrap my head around this. The thing is, it’s not simply
that Cormac has been altered to have these abilities. They’ve been synthesized, like
in the earliest experiments with the serums on Earth. Experiments that had gone horribly
wrong. The fact is, Cormac is merely a test case, which explains the unpredictability
of his behavior and his erratic attitude in the past few weeks.

“I thought you seemed off,” I say to him. “I wrote it off as stress, but it seems
it was more than that. You’ve been running your own personal Cypress Project all along.”

Cormac hadn’t been losing his mind. He’d been warping it, pushing his own genetic
abilities to the brink.

“I don’t need your condescension, Adelice,” Cormac says. “Nor do I appreciate it.”

“You’re insane,” Dante says. “Can you appreciate that?”

“I’m powerful,” Cormac says. “If I were insane I wouldn’t be nearly as successful
as I am.”

“You have an entire world living a lie—”

“That they’re eager to believe,” Cormac interrupts me.

“You think lies are that easy to swallow?” I ask. “Arras knows you’re full of it,
Cormac, and soon they’ll have proof.”

“And who is going to show them?” he asks. “You?”

“Believe me, I’m up for the challenge.”

Before he can retort, a shrill siren sounds. Jax has managed to trip the protocols
and set off the evacuation alert. Now we merely need Cormac to say the pass code and
Protocol Three will be initiated.

That shouldn’t be hard, given his god complex.

“I see you didn’t come alone,” Cormac says. “What were you saying about wanting to
come back and make things work?”

“I have no idea what’s going on,” I say, keeping my face blank. In truth, I don’t
know where Jax is.

Cormac holds up the PTD that Jax gave us to communicate and waves it at me. “Who’s
at the other end of this?” he asks.

“No one you know,” I say.

“Not my dear Erik then? Pity. I would love to rip that nuisance right out of Arras.
But it is someone you know, Adelice. You pulled a little trick once at the Coventry,”
Cormac says, “and I’ve often thought of it. You disregarded proximity standards. Do
you remember?”

I know what he’s talking about. I had called up the repository in Loricel’s room and
rewoven it into the strange screens in her studio, so that I could enter it and search
for information about my sister. Because I was manipulating the space around me, I
risked the integrity of the Coventry’s weave. It shouldn’t have been possible for
me to do it, and it probably wouldn’t have been if I had been using any loom other
than Loricel’s. Still, the loom had warned me by issuing a proximity alert. I have
no idea what that has to do with the PTD that connects me to Jax, though.

“I’ve had them install a toy in my office,” Cormac says. He presses a button, opening
a hidden panel in his wall to reveal a gleaming new loom.

“That’s your problem, Cormac,” I say. “A loom isn’t a toy. Arras is doomed if you
think it is. You can’t even access it within the boundaries of Arras.” Now I know
why he mentioned the proximity alert. It isn’t safe to weave and do Crewel work within
Arras. That’s why the coventries exist between Earth and Arras—as a safety measure.
And Cormac is disregarding that. I’ve spent too much time laughing off his drinking
to realize his real addiction is power.

“Let’s see what we can do with it anyway,” he says.

He presses a series of buttons on the side of the loom and it whirrs to life. I strain
against my bindings, trying to get a better view of the loom.

“You know how dangerous that is?” I ask in a quiet voice. “You’ve made your point.”

“No, I have not,” he screams, moving back toward me and getting in my face. “Because
you still don’t respect me. You don’t fear me.”

“That’s what this is about?” I ask. “You want me to fear you? Well, you’ve got what
you wanted. Seeing you playing with that loom with no regard for its power or the
consequences of your actions frightens me, Cormac. And if you were sane, it would
frighten you, too.”

He’s not the Cormac who picked me up on my retrieval night. That Cormac did what he
thought was right for the greater good, even if his perception of what was best was
warped. He’s incapable of logic or consideration. He can’t see anything but shades
of gray.

And that makes him a danger to everyone.

Before I can react, a piece of the weave appears on the loom. In comparison to the
protocol sirens blaring through the room, the blinking red proximity alert seems weak
and inconsequential. But that doesn’t mean it’s not more dangerous.

“I’ve pulled the weave of this room onto the loom,” he says with a smile.

And there it is. We’re laid out in front of him and all it would take to destroy us
is one careful sweep, if he has the talent for it. Could he have had that spliced
into him or is he too arrogant to see he lacks it?

Without precision, he’ll just take out the entire room. That would end the threat
of Cormac, but it wouldn’t solve our bigger problem. Arras is full of men too old
and too set in their ways to change course. Another corrupt leader will simply rise
in Cormac’s place—and another and another. Perhaps it won’t be any different on Earth
if we evacuate, but at least we won’t face the possibility of a singularity that could
wipe humankind from existence.

Cormac picks up the PTD Jax gave me and presses the com button.

“You guys okay?” Jax’s voice crackles over the speaker, and my heart sinks.

“It’s a trap!” I yell, but it’s too late. Cormac already knows where he is—now he
wants to play with his prey.

“Adelice and I were visiting,” Cormac says into the PTD. “You’ve been a busy bee.”

“It’s too late,” Jax says. “I’ve locked the evacuation protocol and reopened communication
channels between sectors. They know what you’ve done.”

“Do you think they’ll take the word of a rebel?” Cormac asks, practically screaming
into the PTD.

“They won’t have to,” he says. “Loricel sent the communiqué.”

Cormac curses into the PTD and drops it onto the floor. “Screen,” he barks.

A wall screen bursts to life over us.

“I want you to see this,” he seethes. “I don’t know who your friend is. He must be
quite bright to have breached our entire system.”

“He is,” I say, “and he’s a better man than you.”

“How touching,” Cormac says. He barks a coordinate to the screen and the security
stream for that section of the guild offices projects above us. Jax is moving quickly,
checking over his shoulder. I want to yell at him, but I know it doesn’t matter. He
can’t hear me, and even if he could it wouldn’t matter anyway. Cormac knows where
he is. Cormac has a loom.

Cormac can weave, which means Cormac can rip.

My stomach turns over and shoots bile into my throat, but I swallow it down as Cormac
returns to the loom and hesitates for a moment, staring at the brilliant tapestry
laid before him.

“What’s he looking at?” Dante asks. “It’s a tangled mess.”

I’m somewhat surprised Dante can’t see it clearly for himself, but the minute differences
between a Spinster and a Tailor have always surprised me. “It’s here,” I say, “he
has this building on the loom.”

Dante’s eyes fly to the screen and he struggles against the rope binding him to the
chair. Jax is his best friend and he can do nothing to warn him.

“You don’t have to do this,” I say to Cormac. “Everyone in Arras is evacuating. Come
with us. Start over on Earth.”

He ignores me, turning a gear to zoom in on the image.

“Go home,” I add softly.

“I have no home,” Cormac says, turning his attention from the loom for a moment and
buying Jax a few more precious seconds. “You’ve destroyed it.”

“Arras was never a home,” I say. “It was a lie. It’s time to let it go. What’s the
pass code for Protocol Three?”

“So that’s why you’ve come,” he says with a laugh. “So that Cormac Patton can betray
Arras.”

“No, I came to give you a chance at redemption,” I say. “If Arras isn’t unraveled,
both worlds will be erased from existence. You have the power to stop it. You can
be the hero.”

“It’s too late for redemption, and I don’t have anyone to redeem myself to,” he says,
and then he turns back to the loom and, with the confidence of a well-practiced Spinster,
plucks a single thread. It pulls out slowly and over us Jax is frozen in place, disappearing
limb by limb, slowly being wiped from existence.

“Stop!” Dante yells, but it’s too late.

I don’t know how to feel. One moment Jax was there, racing through a corridor, about
to escape. And then he was gone.

That’s the evil of this system. It’s insidious how easy it is to remove someone without
their feeling a thing. Even watching it happen is unreal, as though Jax could pop
back on the screen. But I know enough about this world to know that’s not going to
happen. The proof that Jax is gone rests in Cormac’s hands.

“There was a time when this strand would be sent off for alterations,” Cormac says.