Shatter the Suns

by Caitlin Sangster

  Perhaps, if contagion is here already, it is just as dangerous either way. The guard looks up in my direction and gives a nod, which I return.

  June crouches in the shallow trough behind me, taking the guard’s gun when his body has gone slack under Tai-ge’s grip. Tai-ge ties the man’s hands and feet, then pulls a sock he brought from the heli and shoves it in the Red’s mouth. He won’t be yelling for help even after he wakes up. We’ll have until the next guard change—four hours, if our observations from today are right—before anyone finds him.

  June’s hands flit over her hat and hood, pulled tight over her hair. She can’t come into the camp. Even with a hood to cover her golden snarls and a mask to cover her face, we can’t risk a single person looking her straight into those green eyes before she sneaks away to ignite the growth regulators.

  “Ready?” I ask her without looking back.

  Before I can take her silence as assent, something hard taps the side of my leg. I look down to find the guard’s red enameled two-star pin in June’s hand. I take it and pin it to my collar, the sharp points pressing uncomfortably against my neck.

  Waiting until the man below us walks back to the cluster of soldiers, I hop down into the trench and duck behind the wall. June climbs up, adopting a wide-legged stance and peering down at the camp as if she owns the whole of it, down to the last tent. Tai-ge and I go to the edge of the rice paddy and set our feet on the steep trail that meanders down the hillside.

  Before we can even get to the third tier down, the soldier prowling back and forth runs at us, hand on his gun. “Stop! Where are you coming from?” He gives our mussed City uniforms a once-over, though he doesn’t look at my hand or my collar for stars.

  “We were scouting some suspicious activity a few miles upriver.” Tai-ge steps forward, deliberately flashing his two marks, though the guard’s stony stare almost seems to harden as a result. “Some of the boys saw a heli in the air, though we didn’t find anything. Is there a problem?”

  The muscles in my jaw clench tight as the man steps closer, the details of his uniform muddy under the padded coat and fur-lined hood. Unmarked, so far as I can tell. He looks down his nose at us, with none of the friendly camaraderie I’ve always seen among Outside patrollers, as if surviving beyond City walls puts you in some kind of club. Only, I imagine the turnover rate is high and the snacks are subpar.

  The patroller swears under his breath, speaking into a radio. “Scouts coming in from the north end of the rice paddies?” He narrows his eyes as silence draws out long from the radio, but then a confirmation crackles out from the speakers. When the person on the other end finishes speaking, the Red once again rolls his eyes over our disheveled uniforms. “They called everyone in for a meeting over an hour ago. Why are you so late?” He shoots a glare up at June’s outline, barely there as the last bits of light fade. “Did she even stop you?”

  “Of course she stopped us.” I try to inject a measure of disbelief and offended pride into my voice.

  “I can’t believe any of you are still alive.” The man still hasn’t let go of his gun, hand tense on the handle. “Go.”

  Any of you. As if he isn’t one of us . . . one of the Reds, anyway. I keep my nod brief and start toward the camp, Tai-ge close beside me. “What do you think he meant by that?” I whisper once we’re a safe distance away.

  “Maybe the Outside Patrollers are sick of dealing with people who aren’t used to being Outside. There’s a different set of rules out here. I had to learn them too, right?” Tai-ge peers out at the soft glow of lanterns pockmarking the camp, then back the way we came, though the whole mountainside is dark now. June’s upright form is lost in the shadows above us, the cluster of patrollers only a few steps down from her nothing but glints of metal and teeth, and I can’t help but think of the owl’s nest perched above our things.

  “At least we know they saw us land.” I pitch my voice low, nodding to another Red as we pass, this one with the City seal stitched into her coat. “Or they wouldn’t have bought the story about us coming back from searching for it.”

  Tai-ge nods, pulling his hood up as we descend the last set of stairs into the Chairman’s domain.

  The camp is set up in a series of circles arranged into ranks. The more important you are, the closer your tent is to the Chairman’s. Lanterns dot the perfectly spaced tents. I look up to where the black flag should mark the center of the camp, but it’s lost in night’s grasp.

  “If we’re trusting Howl, he said there are only two encryption keys. One with the new Red General, the other possibly with the Chairman. Except Howl seemed to think he doesn’t carry it around.” Tai-ge slows a step, keeping his voice down. “The Chairman’s tent space will be guarded more heavily than the General. Shall we try her first?”

  “Her? Did you hear who it is on the radio?”

  Tai-ge shakes his head, the movement slow as he watches the stream of Reds walking among tents, all seeming to head toward the north side of the camp. “Not names.”

  “Well, whoever she is, the new General will probably be towing around Reds behind her on a sled. I don’t think I ever saw your father alone.” A thought nibbles at the back of my mind, my stomach sinking a bit. Tai-ge’s father died during the invasion. His mother, though . . . What if she’s here in this camp?

  Tai-ge blinks as if he’s wondering the same thing. But whatever it is, memories of his father, questions about his mother, he lets the thoughts slide down like water off his newly granite-made skin.

  Our backs unbend as we enter the next row of tents, walking casually as if we belong. Tai-ge waves to a patrolling Red, giving him a good gander at the two stars pinned to his collar, but the man stops, an angry breath scratching out through the filters of his gas mask as he raises a hand for us to stop. “Hey! What do you two think you are doing?”

  “We just came back from a scouting mission and wanted to check our filters before going to the . . . meeting.” Tai-ge stands straight, just like his father. A general down to the very cadence of his voice, making the approaching soldier check himself, wondering who it is he’s talking to. These masks muddle everything.

  Thankfully.

  The Red lets his hand fall, Ta-ge’s confidence killing his abrasive manner. “Orders are everyone goes over there now, except for key guard positions.” The soldier adjusts the gun holstered at his side, more out of discomfort than a warning. “The Chairman has been so . . . well, it’s not my place to say. I just wouldn’t be surprised if they take your mask and chuck you into the forest for being late.”

  The Chairman? Howl mentioned the First leader was based here, but he made it sound like the Chairman was touring the camps, making sure everyone had food, masks. Boosting morale. He wasn’t supposed to be here. A hollow sort of anxiety scours my chest, the shadowy figure I’ve hardly ever seen off a telescreen suddenly looming overhead. He’ll know we’re here, somehow. He’ll stop us.

  I jump when Tai-ge laughs. Attempting to set the Red at ease, though the warmth of Tai-ge’s laugh is sucked out as it crackles from the nose of his mask. “He’s speaking to us in person?” Which is when I realize it might not be acting. That it might be panic fueling Tai-ge, too.

  I put a hand on his arm, attempting to add a jocular dose to my tone. “Should have let those Outsiders invade years ago, just so we could see his face.”

  The Red rolls his eyes. “I’m supposed to be clearing the tents to make sure everyone is in the mess area. I’ll have to escort you there.”

  He gestures for us to follow him. Tai-ge’s muscles are so tense it’s pulling his walk off-kilter, as if all his joints have frozen. “It’s okay,” I whisper, low enough the Red won’t hear. “No one will be looking for us under these masks.”

  “What if someone sees your scar?” Tai-ge asks. “Or your birthmark? What if the meeting takes all two hours and June sets off—”

  “We’ll just have to make sure none of that happens. You’re pretty recognizable yourself, you know.
Don’t preemptively blame me for getting caught.”

  Tai-ge gives a humorless sort of laugh.

  The mess area is open dirt, the remains of snow making the ground feel sloshy and unstable under my feet. It’s mostly sets of two stars I see muddy and rusted on uniform collars. I’d have expected ranks and lines, Reds organizing as they love to do, but the soldiers are in a messy clot, coagulating in wary-looking groups. Every person here is masked, their combined breaths droning in and out as if I’m one in a swarm of flies. Divided from where the Reds stand, there are lines of benches set up, the occupants a little too round-shouldered to be soldiers, with gray-clad men and women walking through their ranks with platters of food. Firsts being served by Thirds. There’s an unnatural hush over the hundreds of people, as if their vocal cords have all been cut.

  A figure strides from the tent at the far end of the crowded area, ringed by a group of Reds, their guns at the ready as if they expect an attack here in the center of their own domain. I can see the single star on the man’s collar from here.

  The Chairman. A slick of dread coats everything inside of me. The man Howl lived with for two years, hoping he wouldn’t notice his son had been replaced by a gore in disguise. He wears nonchalance like a coat, as if the City didn’t just get slit down its sides by a Menghu knife. He won’t look out at the crowd, as if the people here are nothing to him but a spate of fog, the tendrils curling around him, moisture beading on his coat, and only worth the attention it takes to wipe them away.

  Tai-ge nudges me when one of the soldiers guarding the Chairman moves to admit a newcomer to come closer. “Isn’t that . . .”

  My eyes are caught on the soldier who moved, his gas mask smudged over with mud and the evening’s shadows. Not enough to hide the design painted over the filters. Teeth. Gore teeth.

  I’ve only seen one person with teeth on her gas mask. Cale, from the Mountain. My eyes rake over the soldier, looking for hints of dirty-blond hair and cold blue eyes, panic racing in my veins. Could the Menghu have infiltrated this camp? Are we in the middle of what is about to be a massacre?

  I left Cale Asleep in Yizhi, machines hardly able to detect her heartbeat. It’s difficult to see much from this distance, but the soldier is obviously male. Masked, so he couldn’t be infected the way Cale must be now. My panic dulls down a bit, and I take slow breaths, attempting to counter the flood of adrenaline in my veins. The soldier looks sort of familiar, though I didn’t run with Reds often. High cheekbones. Hair slicked to the side . . .

  “Sevvy.”

  I refrain from swearing when Tai-ge’s sharp elbow finds my ribs, but only just. “What?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .” Tai-ge clears his throat, lowering his voice when the soldier standing on his other side looks at us, his overgrown eyebrows knitted together in annoyance. “It’s him. Isn’t it?” Tai-ge nods toward the man who joined the Chairman inside his circle of guards, the former obscured by the tubes of his gas mask as he rasps something into the Chairman’s ear. Salt-and-pepper hair, rumpled uniform . . .

  Dr. Yang.

  There’s not enough oxygen making it through my mask’s grille. My hand finds Tai-ge’s, gripping so tight it feels as if our fingers might fuse together. Dr. Yang was at the Mountain. He was the one who argued to invade the City. He was the one who killed half the First Circle. He was the one who put my mother to sleep when she wouldn’t give him the cure she’d invented.

  My panic returns, rising up inside me like bile. Dr. Yang belongs to the Mountain. At least, I thought he’d cast his lot in that direction when he helped lead Menghu into the City, bringing his contagious strain of SS. How is he standing by the Chairman’s side?

  The Chairman raises a hand to get everyone’s attention, though every eye is already glued to his broad-shouldered form.

  “Many men and women have died since Kamar attacked our walls.” The Chairman’s voice rings out over our heads, melodic underneath the grasp of his gas mask. “But we are strong. We will not be conquered, not by sickness, not by bullets or famine!” Not the voice of a killer. I don’t suppose he’s ever killed with his own hands—why should he when he can kill with just his signature, stamped in red ink? “You, my friends, my family, are strong. Your lives have been dedicated to honing the City’s strength to razor-sharp. When we return to our walls, we will take them back from Kamar!”

  He pauses, as if hoping for applause, and there are a few cheers and claps, but most of the crowd waits. I feel sick, every word boiling my panic into a terrified sort of anger. How can the Chairman blame the invasion on Kamar, a fictional military devised to frighten the City into submission, when the real terror, the real enemy, is standing right beside him? The air around me feels electrified.

  “The General has just radioed new information regarding Kamar that makes an attack imperative,” the Chairman continues. “We’ve been forced to rely on Mantis for so many years that a cure seemed impossible—”

  “Kamar? They’re the ones who brought the contagious strain of SS,” a voice hisses behind me. Other murmurs of dissent ripple out from the one protest. “What’s the point of attacking them? Kamar must be completely Seph-eaten by now.”

  “What about my sisters? They’re still back in the City. . . .”

  “Before I was transferred here, a whole section of the camp went down to SS, and when they checked their mask filters, they’d been disconnected. . . .”

  “SS could take all of us in one night! No one has enough Mantis to keep us all sane.”

  A voice breaks out from the murmurs simmering all around me. “What are Firsts doing to fix this?” No one hushes him.

  The Chairman nods, welcoming the question. “This camp is working to find out what is different about this new strain of SS. We know that it speeds up the Sleep stage, and that there is a period of contagion that lasts about two weeks after initial infection. We also know that our gas masks are still effective in blocking it. As long as you are covered, you are safe.” His words sound tinny and mechanical grinding out through the mask, insufficient to quell the questions that weigh heavy on this camp, these people who have been safe behind walls. Mantis in their mouths and children laughing on their knees. I can almost hear the questions no one is brave enough to ask. How can we survive outside the City? How can we kiss our partners or hug our children when we have masks permanently bonded to our faces?

  How do we live like this?

  The Chairman raises his hands. “There is hope, comrades. Both for us, and for your families still inside the City. We have reason to believe SS, contagious or otherwise, has a solution that will put our years of research to rest. We believe the reason Kamar was able to attack us at all is because they have found a cure to SS.”

  It should be a solid declaration, a First bombshell that causes spontaneous songs and adulation, but I can feel the Reds around me shift and squirm. Dr. Yang’s face is inscrutable behind his mask. Kamar is just a fake name the City gave people from the Mountain. I can’t believe Dr. Yang would want to lead an attack on the Menghu, his own soldiers. If Menghu have the cure, it’s because Dr. Yang gave it to them. What is going on here?

  I look to my right and left, wondering whether the men and woman around me can finally see the lies bubbling out from the Chairman’s mouth like tar. Why would Kamar invade the City and continue going after our Mantis stockpiles if they’ve already cured SS? How could Kamar have a cure when we’ve spent a hundred years searching, a whole segment of our society dedicated to finding a cure while the rest of us give over our lives to feed and defend them?

  The last thought seems so loud I can’t drown it out. The soldiers standing around me shift, some toward the Chairman and some away into groups, their heads bowed together. Whispers spiderweb out from the little groups like cracks in glass.

  The Chairman gestures for Dr. Yang to step forward, and my shoulders shrink down as if I can somehow hide inside myself to avoid his notice. The doctor stands military straight, his voic
e ringing out over our heads. “We must be strong. It was spies, weak men wishing for glory and riches, who allowed Kamar to infiltrate our walls, just the way invaders did during the Influenza War. We shall fight. We shall reclaim our City, our safety, and our lives.” The soldier standing guard next to the Chairman stands a little straighter as the doctor speaks, lantern light glinting from the teeth painted across his mask. Where have I seen him before?

  Dr. Yang’s voice rises, the men and women around me focused on him, their breaths coming faster. I can feel the heat of their excitement surge with each word. “This camp is made up from the best. The brightest. The unconquered.” The toothy-masked soldier looks to the side, exchanging a whisper with one of the other guards, a girl a few inches shorter than him. There’s a flash of white, something at her wrist. . . . “You have not been tainted by SS. In seven days we move against Kamar’s own city in the land below our mountains. The General will be here in a matter of hours, ready to coordinate the attack after analyzing their bases with the best scouts we have. We cannot fail. This is our only hope. I know my hope is safe because it rides on your backs. It will be realized by your strength!” He spreads his arms wide over the crowd as if he can embrace them all, hold them close, and I can feel them all standing a bit straighter. “We will not let these monsters poison our air and take our families any longer. We will take the cure and be done with them!”