BRINK: Book 1 - The Passing Read Free Page B

his agreement to one of them.
    “Okay, then,” I persisted, “why didn't you start conversations with him? Weren't you curious how everything worked?”
    Harlow shrugged and pushed a hand into his thick black hair, which he was growing long because Johanna had decided she liked it that way this month. “I don't know. I guess not. I never really thought about the Passing at all until I met her.” He motioned toward Johanna, who was asleep on her textbook, mouth wide open. Even with a small amount of drool puddling beneath her cheek, she managed to look beautiful. Harlow smiled absently.
    “Now,” he said, “it seems like the most important thing in the world.”
    I let him work for a while in silence, pondering the seriousness of the bond between my two friends.
    “Harlow?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Do you believe in the curse?”
    He laughed and scratched his nose with his stylus. “Rough question to put to the guy who's father's employment depends on it.”
    I gave a small smile and waited. He looked at me for a long time.
    “No,” he said finally. “I don't believe in it. Or, more accurately, I don't believe the evidence is strong enough to support it. In fact, I think critical evidence against it may very well have been hidden.”
    My stomach twisted at that. “What do you mean?”
    “I...have a lot of work to do before I can back up any of my hypothesis, but...okay. So, modern theology is based on the texts of the three major world religions before the great war – Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism, with the majority of prophetic citation coming from the former. Following?”
    I nodded. “My father quotes the Bible often. Specifically the section of Isaiah.”
    “Right. The verses about the great war and the curse, and the joining together of the remnant of survivors. My father quotes them as well. And there's nothing specifically wrong with that...except that those are, with a few exceptions, the only verses I ever hear at the Assemblies every month. I've hacked the sub-internet for more of the Bible, and I must tell you that what I've found doesn't seem to match up with what we've been told our entire lives. The God of those scriptures bears only vague resemblance to the God of the curse. Still, it's the missing parts that worry me most.”
    “Missing parts?”
    “There were supposed to have been 66 books in all, or 73 according to some, but I've never been able to find the Bible in it's entirety. Nor the Koran, nor the Shruti and Smriti. There are excerpts everywhere, but from the information I've been able to gather, large portions of those texts have simply vanished. Which is not only unlikely to ever happen by accident, given the amount of information we've retained from before the war...it would also take a considerable amount of effort to make happen even on purpose. So, all this to say...I think that if the curse is supposed to be of God, and our best information about God has mysteriously gone missing, well....there is room for skepticism.”
    Despite the warmth of the room, I felt a wave of something cold and dark rush over me.
    “If there is no curse,” I said slowly, my voice low and quiet, “then why are we dying?”
    Harlow shook his head at me. “I don't know,” he murmured, almost to himself. “But if it's within my power, I plan to find out.”
    I remember feeling incredibly proud of him at that moment, as well as mind-numbingly afraid. If the curse wasn't of God, then it was of men. And despite my naivety about the world, I knew men didn't like having their plans unraveled.
    “Be careful,” I finally said to him. “And for heaven's sake, don't ever mention any of your suspicions to my father. He'd never let me see or speak to you again.”
    With a chuckle, Harlow promised me he never would.

IV.
    We've passed through the second and third gates, forming a tighter and tighter group as we go, so that now we must almost appear to be in marching formation. I catch bits of conversation