25. Prairie Null Wake Up Call #2
“So the suppressants aren’t the problem.” Granny Lu’s gaze was uncomfortably penetrating. She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was careful. “You said you met in an alley. Both of you bleeding. You patch each other up?”
“Yeah.”
“Your blood mixed?”
Riot shrugged. “Probably. We weren’t exactly focused on sterile technique.”
Granny Lu looked at Dante. Dante looked at Orion. Orion’s eyes widened slightly, and something complicated passed across his face—recognition, maybe, or a memory.
“What?” Riot demanded. “What the hell is that look? You all just did the same thing.”
“Did we?” Granny Lu’s expression gave away nothing. “Must be your imagination, sugar.”
“Bullshit. You know something. All of you.”
“I know a lot of things.” She smiled, and it was the smile of a woman who’d hand him fresh-baked sourdough and tell him she was feeding him to wolves, all without changing her tone.
“Doesn’t mean I’m going to share them with a boy who brought an Elysian into my community without so much as a by-your-leave. ”
“I didn’t have a choice—”
“Everyone has choices.” Her voice went hard.
“You chose to bring him here instead of leavin’ him in the Neutral Zone.
You chose to keep him instead of handing him off to someone else.
You chose to spend two days fuckin’ him loud enough to wake the dead instead of thinkin’ about what it might mean for the people who live here.
” She leaned forward. “So don’t tell me you didn’t have a choice.
You had plenty of choices. You just made the ones that suited you. ”
Riot didn’t have an answer for that, mostly because she was right.
“Here’s what I know about Elysian,” Granny Lu continued, settling back in her chair.
“I’ve planted bombs in Gensyn buildings.
I’ve sabotaged SVI supply lines. I’ve told Thresh to get off my god damn porch and shot Sunco toes off.
Those corporations are bastards, but they’re honest bastards.
You can see their cruelty, map their operations, hit their weak points. You know what you’re dealing with.”
She pulled out another cigarillo and lit it, the flame casting shadows across her face.
“Elysian is different. Elysian is a black box. You can’t fight what you can’t see, and you can’t trust what you can’t verify.
Every person who walks out of Elysian territory is a potential true believer who doesn’t even know they’ve been compromised.
” She exhaled smoke. “And you’re telling me this sweet, helpless boy just happened to need rescuing?
That his conditioning just happened to fail? ”
“He’s not a plant.”
“How do you know?” The question was soft, almost gentle, which made it worse. “How can you possibly know? Elysian specializes in makin’ people believe things. In makin’ people feel things. How do you know what you feel for that boy isn’t exactly what they wanted you to feel?”
“Because I know,” Riot snapped
“You don’t. You believe. That’s different. And belief is exactly what Elysian manufactures.”
Before Riot could respond, the bedroom door creaked open.
Cass stood in the doorway, wearing Riot’s black t-shirt again, his eyes were still heavy with exhaustion, but there was something determined in the set of his jaw.
“I heard you talking,” he said quietly. “About me.”
Cass crossed the room to Riot, folding himself onto the arm of the chair and pressing close. The contact settled something in Riot’s chest, even as it made Dante’s jaw tighten and Orion shift restlessly.
“You don’t trust me,” Cass said to Granny Lu. His voice was soft but steady. “I understand. Elysian doesn’t... people don’t come back the same. That’s what people say.” He swallowed
“And you?” Granny Lu asked. “What happened to you?”
“They tried to make me different.” Cass’s hand found Riot’s shoulder, his fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
“But it didn’t work. Brother Matthias said I was still spiritually deficient.
Too broken to be fixed.” He paused, his brow furrowing slightly.
“I know I’m not smart, people tell me that a lot.
I’ve tried to be smarter and understand the things they wanted me to understand, but I couldn’t make them fit in my head. They kept sliding off.”
“Convenient,” Granny Lu murmured.
Cass looked at her with no trace of offense. “I don’t know what that means in this context.”
“She means it’s suspicious,” Riot said, fighting to keep his voice level. “That Elysian’s programming failed on you specifically.”
“Oh.” Cass considered this, finger combing a strand of hair as he looked back at Granny Lu. “You can believe me or not. I can’t make you. I just need to go back for Honey, and I was hoping someone would help me.”
Granny Lu studied him for a long moment, the cigarillo burning unattended between her fingers.
“Tell me about Springfield Gardens,” she said finally. “Tell me about the layout, the schedules, how things work. If you’re what you say you are, you’ll know details a plant wouldn’t bother to learn.”
Riot listened to him talk about the meditation schedule that was really guard rotations, explained in simple terms that made the pattern obvious once he heard it.
He described the paths between buildings, how the rose garden was the fastest route to the women’s quarters but the vegetable plots had better cover.
He mentioned the commissary’s broken window latch that had never been fixed.
He explained which Elders took tea at what times and how the therapy rooms were always empty during evening reflection.
It was, Riot realized, an operational briefing. Cass didn’t know that’s what he was giving, he was just describing his home, the way anyone would describe any place they lived their whole life. But the information was there: entry points, timing windows, security gaps.
When Cass finally trailed off, he slid from the arm of Riot’s chair and crossed to his robes, still crumpled on the ground of the living room and picked them up. His fingers felt along the inner lining, tracing along a seam.
“Riot.” He held the fabric out, pointing to a small hand-stiched ‘x’. “Can you tear this? Right here, above the mark.”
Riot took the robes and pulled. The old stitching gave way easily, and something small and rectangular tumbled into Cass’s waiting hands.
A photograph. Laminated, yellowed with age, but the image still clear. Cass’s hands began to shake as he held it, tears welling in his eyes as he looked down at it and smiled.
Riot saw two young people grinning at the camera, maybe in their teens, both in Elysian robes and looking mischievous.
The boy had golden hair hanging loose and wild, his face soft with youth.
Beside him stood a young woman who towered over him, easily six feet tall, with radiant dark skin and dozens of twisted locs decorated with crystal beads that caught the light.
“This is Honey,” Cass sniffled, holding the photo like it was made of glass. “She’s a real person with real feelings. I have to help her.”
The photograph made its way around the room. Riot studied the easy intimacy of the pose, the genuine happiness in both their faces, before passing it to Dante.
“Please…be careful with it. We’re not supposed to keep things like that, so it’s the only picture I have of her from before they separated us into gendered housing,” Cass said, staring at the ground as his fingers went back to his hair.
“We love each other. Just not the way the Elders decided we should.”
When it reached Granny Lu, her face gave nothing away before she handed it off to Sage. Sage’s brow furrowed as she stared at the picture, then passed it back to Cass.
“She’s expecting me to come back,” Cass said into the silence. “She knows I wouldn’t just leave her.”
“Pretty picture,” Granny Lu said. “Pretty story.”
“It’s not a story.” Cass’s chin came up—the first flash of something like steel Riot had seen from him since he’d entered the room. “It’s just true.”
Granny Lu took a long drag on her cigarillo, watching him through the smoke.
“Alright,” she said finally. “Say I believe you. Say you’re exactly what you appear to be: a broken Elysian who wants to save his friend.
You still haven’t told me how. Springfield Gardens is a sealed community.
They don’t let people in, and they sure as hell don’t let people out.
You can’t just walk up to the front gate and ask nicely. ”
“I have an idea about that,” Riot said.
Everyone looked at him.
“I’m going to tell them I want in on the transcendence.” He let that land. “Their whole philosophy is proving their methods can fix anyone. What’s the ultimate proof? Converting someone everyone else considers irredeemable.”
“You want to walk into Elysian territory,” Dante said slowly, “pretending to be a Berserker seeking enlightenment?”
“Not pretending. I am a Berserker.” Riot smiled, and it wasn’t a nice smile. “I just leave out the part where I’m there to steal someone.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Orion said. “I love it.”
“It would work.” Cass’s voice was thoughtful, the way it got when something made sense to him in a way that bigger things didn’t.
“If I came back with someone like Riot who wanted to convert...” He looked at Riot.
“They wouldn’t just forgive my failed mission.
They’d celebrate it. And Honey helps with welcoming ceremonies for new seekers. She’d definitely be there.”
Dante leaned forward, a crooked grin on his face as he steepled his fingers.
“I’ve run operations in Elysian territory.
Their psychological screening is sophisticated, but it’s calibrated to catch people hiding resistance—doubt, fear, resentment.
It’s not designed to catch someone hiding a rescue mission behind genuine interest in conversion.
” He paused, calculating. “If Riot can sell the seeker angle convincingly enough to get inside, and if Cass’s intel on the facility is accurate, the chances are maybe. ..”
“Three percent,” Orion said quietly.
Dante kissed him on the cheek, and Orion turned bright red.
“That sounds bad,” Cass said, taking his picture back and holding it to his chest.
“Three percent was what we were working with getting away from Gensyn and SVI at the same time,” Dante said, then tried to lean over and kiss Orion again. Orion grabbed his face and shoved him back.
“This is insane,” Lilac said, but she was listening. Really listening.
“Most things worth doing are,” Riot replied.
Granny Lu’s cigarillo had burned down to a stub, the ash threatening to fall into her lap. When she finally spoke, her voice had lost its sharp edge, replaced by something heavier. Wearier.
“I’m not helping you,” she said. “Not officially. Not in any way that leads back to this Collective. You go into Elysian territory, you’ve never heard of Prairie Null.
You’ve never heard of me. If you get caught, if they put you in one of their therapy rooms and start taking you apart, you die before you say one word about my people. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” Riot said.
“You wait until you’re both stable.” She nodded toward Cass. “His heat may have broken, but first heats leave a mark. Give it a day to make sure it’s really done. Then you go.” She stubbed out what was left of her cigarillo. “I won’t stop you. But I won’t help you either.”
“I want to go with them.”
Every head in the room turned toward Sage.
She stood with her arms crossed, her expression set like concrete. “If women and men are separated in Elysian territory, having a female operative could cut the extraction time in half. I can access areas Riot can’t.”
“No.” Granny Lu’s voice was flat as a blade.
“A Null convert would be almost as valuable as a Berserker—”
“I said no, girl.” Granny Lu wheeled around to face her, and there was something almost like fear in her eyes.
“I’ve watched Gensyn take people apart with efficiency.
I’ve watched SVI break them with brutality.
But Elysian?” She shook her head. “Elysian makes people disappear into themselves. Makes them thank you for the privilege of losing everything they were. I’m not sending you into that. ”
“Granny Lu—”
“This discussion is finished.” The words came out hard as stones. “Riot’s already damaged goods, whatever’s happening with his biology, he’s compromised. But you were raised here. You’re mine. And you are not setting foot in Elysian territory.”
Sage’s jaw tightened.
“One more thing.” Granny Lu fixed Riot with a stare that could have frozen steel.
“Whatever else happens, you protect whoever goes with you. You bring them back whole. Not smiling and empty. Not grateful and broken. Whole.” The threat underneath was real and cold.
“I’ve buried enough of my people. Don’t add to the list.”
“Understood,” Riot said quietly.
She studied him for another moment, then wheeled toward the door without another word. Lilac pushed off from the wall and followed, pausing just long enough to give Riot a look that communicated we’ll talk later and you’re an idiot and don’t die all at once.
When they were gone, the room felt smaller. Quieter. Dante was watching Riot with an expression that was almost approving—the closest thing to respect the man seemed capable of showing.
“For what it’s worth,” Dante said, “that went better than expected.”
“Your definition of ‘better’ needs serious adjustment,” Orion muttered.
Cass was still standing, the photograph of Honey clutched in both hands, trembling. .
“Hey.” Riot stood and crossed to him, pulling him close. “You did good. Coming out here, facing her—that took guts.”
“I had to.” Cass’s voice was small against his shoulder. “She needed to see that Honey’s real.”
Yeah, Riot thought, looking at the photograph of two kids grinning at the camera, before the world decided their love was a problem to be solved. She is.