Noise by Darin Bradley Page B

again at Mary. She had untied her mask. Four had painted her entire face and neck white before we left. She looked porcelain, a doll. The virgin queen.
    I smirked. “Four’s girl saw a pure, white Mary step into the darkness.”
    “White Mary.”
    “She liked that Plan better.”
    “They’re one Party, but different Groups.”
    “What?”
    Levi turned back to look at them. “It was a coordinated operation—some of the best cooks around, sent to task by their Leaders.”
    Organized Salvage?
    “The hell?”
    “They aren’t Primary. Were only here to wait on their escort out.”
    Jesus. The kid with the syringe had been their sentry
.
    “Leaders wouldn’t risk them running around town on their own.”
    “Where’s the escort?” I asked.
    “An hour late.”
    I turned to leave. “Line them up.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “Stop asking questions.”
    •   •   •

    Mary was standing next to me. They’d lined them up.
    “Did you get the last line of White’s story? From one of them?”
    “Yes.”
    “Read it.”
    Last made his goggles with cobalt-blue Depression bottles. He filed the shattered bases smooth and wore them with wire. He printed a trowel inside the shanty …

    Mary looked at me. That was where it had cut off—where our version of the story had originally ended.
    “Read the rest.”
    … and ground his spare glass into the earth.
The water it made gave him the mud. Last worked in the sun. Last made bricks to build walls for his dead.

    “How many Groups are you?” I asked the line. Eight male, two female—
    I was fifteen the first time I created a secret society. With Chuck and Adam. We created a knighthood
.
    —Mary looked at me. I nodded.
    “This isn’t an interrogation,” she said.
    “We don’t want your Groups’ intel. Just the details of this operation.”
    By-laws. Codes of conduct. An entire philosophy for secret life
. Salvage had rites and contests and ways for determining Leadership.
    “Six,” Four’s girl said.
    Six. Christ
.
    “Who’s Party Leader, then?” I asked.
    A couple of them looked at each other. Most were looking at Mary.
    “Gong,” one said. “The sentry by the Meyer door.”
    “Dead,” I told them.
    “We had a rendezvous point here, in the bookstore,” Four’s girl said. “It was planned once White’s last broadcast came through.”
    She looked down at her hands. “They were going to get us out. Take us back”—
    In our knighthood, we wore key rings on chains around our necks. A circle, our symbol. We wore them at all times. I wore mine that summer, on an exchange trip. Italy, Austria, Hungary. Trying to live with honor in foreign countries
.
    —“What happened?”
    “We don’t know.”
    “You’re cooks,” I said. “All of you?”
    “Yes”—
    In the order, in the knighthood, we had new names. Titles and epithets. Designations of rank
.
    —“You cooked the trap under the Humvee?”
    “Yes.”
    “But your Leaders wouldn’t let you detonate it.”
    “Too much risk, they said,” one of the males said. “Even running like fuck, through the service tunnels under the road.”
    “Your escort is probably up to its ass in artillery, on campus.”
    “You can’t stay here,” Mary said.
    “Are you staying with your families?” Four asked.
    “Don’t ask about their families.”
    “Ishmael was supposed to come,” Four’s girl said.
    I looked at Levi.
    •   •   •

    “Mary, talk to them. Find out.”
    I signaled Levi:
Make the offer
.
    I walked away. To do Something Important, as far as they were concerned.
    I came back.
    “Dietary restrictions?” I asked Mary.
    “No.”
    “Medical?”
    “No.”
    One of the cooks had worked the grenade-launcher mod for his 20-gauge. He had at least ten shells and dowel mounts around his waist, under his belt. But he didn’t have any cocktails. Levi and I had thought about the modification before, but we didn’t have shotguns.
    We had plenty of cocktails.
    I handed