Black Moon

by L. A. Weatherly

  “Math.” I reached for another dusty rock. “I loved how logical it was, like working out puzzles. I’d do all the problems really fast and then draw airplanes.”

  Ingo gave a tired grin and swiped his wrist over his grimy forehead. “All right, that doesn’t surprise me. Okay, first time you got drunk.”

  I was struggling a shard free. It came loose with a scrape and the pile of ancient debris shifted abruptly, lurching us sideways. I held back a yelp and Ingo grabbed my arm, holding me in place. We stayed motionless for several beats, staring at the ceiling.

  Finally he let go of me. We exchanged a look…but neither of us suggested stopping.

  My heart still pounding, I twisted to heft the rock down the tunnel.

  “It was when I was fifteen,” I said, as if nothing had happened.

  “With Rob the bad-boy boyfriend?”

  “Yes, exactly.” I glanced at him; my tension faded a little as I smiled. “If you already knew, why did you ask?”

  Ingo craned for another stone. “Details, my friend. You know the rules.”

  “All right, it was at a party. Ma said I couldn’t go and so I snuck out through my window and climbed down the fire escape. Rob had stolen some cherry brandy from his parents’ liquor cabinet and we drank it on the way there.”

  Ingo gave an amused wince. “The whole bottle?”

  “It wasn’t full. But we each had a few swigs, and I thought it was delicious. Like drinking cherry lollipops.”

  “Ugh.”

  “I know. And then we got to the party and there was beer, and someone had brought the dregs from one of their parents’ cocktail parties that they’d collected in a milk bottle—”

  “You can stop now. I’m feeling sick.”

  I wrestled another shard free. “Nope, you get to hear the whole sad story. I had three beers and a few gulps from the dregs bottle and some wine that someone had brought, and I danced for hours even though I’d never danced before, and then I threw up on the way home and Rob couldn’t get me back up the fire escape. And so he had to ring our doorbell and when Ma answered I threw up again on the doorstep, and she was livid – not that I remember much about that part since I’d pretty much passed out by then. I didn’t drink again for almost two years.”

  Ingo had started laughing halfway through this. “I don’t believe it. That’s even worse than the first time I got drunk.”

  “At home?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Why do you look so surprised? You grew up on a vineyard.”

  “Exactly. Dad started us off with a splash of wine mixed with water at dinner, then a quarter glass, then half, and so on. I could drink responsibly by the time I was twelve. No, it was when I was in boarding school—”

  We both froze at a creaking moan.

  Our gazes clashed. We scrambled to our feet, staring at the dark ceiling.

  I licked my lips. “Maybe we only…” I started, and then the groan came again. A crack shivered open above the cave-in. Pebbles pattered against the rubble. Behind us, a few larger stones fell, landing with quiet thuds.

  “Get out!” cried Ingo. He snatched the lantern; I was already lunging to grab our backpack.

  The darkness swung crazily in the lantern-light as we raced down the tunnel. Pieces of falling masonry came steadily now, pelting at our feet. I cried out as my weak leg tried to buckle, and Ingo put his arm around me, hurrying me on.

  The world erupted. Noise roared through me – shuddered up through my shoes. Panting, I risked a glance back and saw the bend we’d just come around disappear under a black, shifting curtain.

  Finally it ended.

  We jogged to an unsteady stop and stood clutching our knees, trying to catch our breath in the dust-choked air. The bullet wound in my thigh throbbed – dazedly, I wished that I still carried my cane.

  “We’d…we’d better go and see,” I said in a faint voice.

  Ingo scraped his hands over his face. “Yes,” he said at last. “Let’s find out just how depressed we should be.”

  We held our arms over our mouths and headed back, coughing, until we reached a new, solid barrier of debris.

  Neither of us spoke. Ingo held up the lantern as I took out our hand-drawn map and spread it against the wall. I touched our location. Ingo put his own finger where we’d just been digging.

  We gazed at the distance between the two.

  “I wish to hell that I didn’t know the scale on this thing,” Ingo muttered. We were standing close, arms touching.

  Fifty feet. I choked out a laugh. “So…I guess the answer to how depressed we should be is ‘very’.”

  “Unless it’s ‘extremely’.”

  Wearily, I put the map away. “No, let’s go with ‘very’. Save ‘extremely’ for the time we don’t run fast enough.”

  We looked at each other. And although nothing was funny…after a beat, Ingo’s mouth twitched. An answering snicker escaped me – after the hours of hyped-up hope, it was that or cry.

  Once we’d started, we couldn’t stop. We slid down the wall to the ground, shaking with helpless laughter.

  “You realize…you realize that we’ve probably both gone insane,” got out Ingo.

  “I can’t think of anyone better to go insane with,” I gasped.

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

  “Statement of fact, pal. Statement of fact.”

  When our laughter finally faded, there was only darkness, and the weight of two cities above: one ruined, one modern. I stared at the cave-in, taking in its jagged shadows.

  We’d been so close.

  Finally Ingo sighed and got up. He reached a hand out to help me, his fingers firm against mine. He let go the moment I was standing.

  “You know,” he said, “I’m not sure pilots should spend so much time underground.”

  The days passed in a blur of tunnels – digging out cave-ins, exploring even deeper in the abandoned labyrinth. The tunnels were treacherous but had a weird beauty: the way our lantern-light stroked across the ancient bricks, or revealed arch after arch heading off into the blackness.

  You could tell from odd artefacts that after the Cataclysm people had lived down here, maybe for centuries. We found dusty makeshift shelters, weird murals, signs for “roadways”.

  Once we rounded a corner, and I gasped. Bones. Thousands lay stacked in a curved alcove across from an old subway control room. We’d found several “graveyard” chambers piled high with skeletons; some centuries-ago person had made this one into artwork. The scrolled ends of femurs made geometric patterns. A line of ribcages had skulls inside.

  I shone our light over the structure in wonder. “Was the artist insane, do you think? Or just bored?”

  “Or both,” Ingo said. “One doesn’t preclude the other.”

  “Personal experience?”

  “Ho, ho.”

  The thought of a bored maniac was amusing, in a grisly way, and I smiled. “It needs a name.”

  Ingo straightened from where he’d been examining its base. “Yes, you’re right.” He came over and took the water canteen from me; he took a swig and absently handed it back, studying the bones intently.

  “‘Maniac’s Delight’,” he said.

  I wrinkled my nose. “Really?”

  “All right, you think of something.”

  “You’re the creative one.”

  He gave an amused snort as we started walking again, our footsteps echoing. “I am? Since when?”

  “Well, you’re the one who reads poetry, anyway.”

  “Oddly enough, there are very few poems about a shitload of bones stacked in an abandoned tunnel.”

  “‘Ode to Bones’,” I said, and he barked out a laugh.

  “Now that is even worse than mine,” he told me.

  Just as we’d already done for weeks, Ingo and I spent almost every moment together. Sometimes frustrated, sometimes hopeful – but always talking. We often lay awake in our bedrolls, sleep imposs
ible when there was so much to say to each other.

  Though it was cold down here, we kept our bedrolls separate. On the run together six months ago, we’d slept pressed together for warmth every night and thought nothing of it. Now this was something to be avoided, as definitely as if we’d discussed it. I wasn’t sure why. It just seemed like a bad idea.

  But night after night, I listened to Ingo’s steady breathing a few feet away, and was glad he was there.

  Whenever our supplies ran low, we had to return to Jakov’s, or to caches stocked by the others. In the upper tunnels, especially under the West Side, we had to choose our routes carefully to avoid the Guns we occasionally saw.

  Each time we returned, it was harder to tell Mac that we hadn’t found the route out yet.

  Two days into our latest journey, we were both edgy. We’d spent over three weeks now discounting various routes in the deepest, most ancient tunnels under the island’s northern tip. If a route out existed, we had to be getting close.

  When a new passage branched off from the one we were exploring, Ingo paused and took out the map. “This section’s worse than a rabbit warren,” he muttered, glancing at his compass. “I think the ancients were just building tunnels for the hell of it.”

  I checked the twine we used to measure distance. “Or to torment us. Fifty-two feet.”

  “Thanks. And, yes, that too. They thought, ‘How can we make life as difficult as possible for a pair of pilots-turned-cartographers a few thousand years from now…’”

  He crouched and spread the map on his leg. His hand, as dirty as mine, made careful marks. As he worked, my gaze lingered absently on the line of his thigh – the way his dark hair curled so crisply against his neck.

  The need to record everything slowed us down, but was vital. And despite our urgency, it was satisfying to see the map grow, bit by bit, a perfect representation of the tunnels.

  I liked it that Ingo understood this – that he felt the same.

  When we finally put our gear down tiredly hours later, we were in an abandoned subway station, its tiles still eerily fresh-looking. We compared our hand-drawn map against the ancient chart on the wall and it ignited us again.

  “There, you see?” said Ingo, pointing at the Broadway Line. “All the way under the river. That must be the route Will found.” He rapped the wall. “If we could just get around these damn cave-ins.”

  Will had been his boarding school friend. From Ingo’s tense frown, I guessed he was thinking not only of the Resistance, but of hearing from his family. It seemed to be weighing on him – he’d been uncharacteristically quiet for hours.

  “Look…maybe here.” I traced the newly-drawn branch on our map. “It might run adjacent to the cave-ins…what if there’s a service tunnel that cuts across and connects?”

  Ingo grimaced, rubbing the stubble that grew only on his left jaw. Most of the service tunnels we’d found ran parallel to their main routes.

  Finally he glanced at my thigh. “Could you manage it, even if we found one?”

  He was right; my wound was aching. “I’m fine.” The possibility, however slim, made me too edgy to sleep. “You’re not tired, are you? Want to go check it out?”

  Ingo studied the map again. “All right. Might as well.” He quickly packed up our bedrolls and shot me a grin. “Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky for a change.”

  We didn’t.

  We spent hours exploring the ancient sewer. No service routes. No way to cut across. By the time we finally made camp in a niche in the sewer’s curved wall, it was after three in the morning. We were both quiet with discouragement, too exhausted to be hungry.

  We put the lantern on low. The shadows drew closer. The ancient concrete was cold, even through my bedroll, and I hugged myself. Ingo lay gazing at the arched ceiling, the unmarred side of his face grim.

  Distantly, a slight rustling came – a rat, maybe. I stiffened. For a change, Ingo didn’t tease me about it.

  Silence.

  “I asked Mac to get in touch with Collie,” I said out of nowhere.

  Ingo’s head turned. He looked at me in surprise and I sighed, remembering a conversation I’d had with Mac the last time we’d returned to Jakov’s.

  “For Hal.” I rolled towards Ingo, propping myself on one elbow. “He doesn’t know yet that we’ve been in contact with Collie. They’ve always been like brothers. I think he needs to see him, if Mac can manage it. Especially now, when…”

  I trailed off with a weary shrug. Ingo knew about the current distance between Hal and me.

  He was silent for a moment. “Good,” he said. “I hope ‘Collie’ can work his magic.”

  “There’s no magic,” I said, nettled. Ingo never called Collie by his nickname – he’d given it an ironic twist. “They’ve just always been close.”

  “My mistake.”

  “What’s with you?”

  “Nothing. I’m delighted for them.”

  “Fuck off, Ingo,” I said, and he stared at me – then got it. It was what he’d once told me his sister Lena said, to let him know he was out of line.

  “Fine, I’m sorry,” he said. “Forgive me if hearing about Collis Reed isn’t what I feel like doing just now.”

  “What do you feel like doing?”

  “Not talking at all, if that’s the best conversation you can manage.”

  He didn’t often get in this mood. It annoyed me when he did. I didn’t bother answering. I lay studying the ancient stonework, irritably counting its patterns – wishing I was tired enough for sleep.

  At last Ingo sighed and rubbed his temples. “I apologize,” he said in a low voice. “I know how worried about Hal you’ve been – I’m glad he’ll get to see Collis. I mean it.”

  I looked over at him in the dim light. “Accepted,” I said finally.

  “Today’s Erich’s birthday,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said softly, suddenly understanding. Erich was his brother. They were as close as Collie and Hal.

  Ingo lay gazing up at the stonework. His tone was too level. “He always goes home for it. Everyone will be there. If they still think I’m dead, it’ll be…”

  “Don’t think about it.” I stretched to touch his arm. “Tell me about another birthday instead.”

  His good eyebrow arched. “Whose?”

  “Anyone’s. One of your favourites to remember.”

  After a pause he shifted onto his side, facing me. “All right. It was Dad’s seventieth two years ago. My family always makes a big deal of birthdays – everyone comes, all our cousins, neighbours, everyone. There’s a special meal, outside if it’s warm enough. You can see the vineyards…smell the olive trees…the kids run around, playing…”

  Wistfulness touched me at the look on his face. It reminded me of how I’d felt about the farm I grew up on. The rambling old house with its surrounding woods and fields had once been my whole world.

  “So we threw a surprise party for Dad,” Ingo went on. “We had it the day before his birthday, so he wouldn’t guess. Lena and I had letters going back and forth for months, planning it.”

  “Erich?” I said.

  “He helped get everything ready. Quite a covert operation, apparently. And he picked me up in Pisa when my ship got in. I’d saved up all my Peacefighting leave so I could be there.”

  “Were you seeing Miriam then?”

  “No, thank fuck.”

  I laughed. “Why ‘thank fuck’?”

  “Because I might have been demented enough to take her home with me, and it would’ve been a disaster.” Ingo gave me a dry look. “Are you determined to talk about our exes tonight?”

  “No. Go on.”

  Ingo smiled slightly, his eyes remembering. “At the party, Dad pretended to be annoyed – he kept demanding to know why we were all making such a fuss. ‘I’m seventy, not dead!’ But when he first realized what we’d done – when he saw the decorations, and that I was home – he had tears in his eyes. Later, he took me into his stud
y…” Ingo stopped.

  “What?” I said.

  He hesitated, his expression battling sadness. “He told me he was proud of me,” he said. “When I became a Peacefighter he didn’t try to stop me, but it wasn’t what he wanted – I knew that. It wasn’t even really what I wanted; I just got swept up in it. But he told me that he’d always seen himself in me…and that when I finished my term and turned twenty-one, we’d have a serious talk.”

  Ingo was twenty-one now – he’d had a birthday in Harmony Five.

  “About the vineyard?” I guessed.

  Ingo nodded slowly. “Erich’s never been interested. And Lena wants it as a place to come home to, but not to run it. Dad knows how much I love it. All of it – every vine, every stone of the house. It’s been in our family for over a hundred years.”

  I swallowed, thinking, He could be there now, if he hadn’t chosen to help fight.

  As if hearing my thought, Ingo’s mouth quirked wryly. “Maybe that’s partly why I had to stay,” he said. “Because I care so much about my home. And if Pierce isn’t stopped…” He gave a bitter laugh and shoved his hand through his dark curls, gazing at the ceiling. “Ah, hell, that sounds so…stupidly noble, saying it out loud, and I’m not. But it’s true, I guess.”

  “I understand,” I said quietly.

  Ingo turned and looked at me, his mouth still wry but his eyes warm. “Tell me about one of yours.”

  “Homes?”

  “Birthdays, you noodle.”

  I snickered. “Noodle?”

  “Go on.”

  I thought for a minute. “When I was seven,” I said finally. “Dad took me up in his Firedove. I think it might have been the first time he let me take the controls. It was…” I shook my head, not having words – remembering aiming the Firedove at a cloud and then lifting it higher – the feeling of soaring, the smell of machine oil, the Dove so responsive at my fingertips.

  “I can imagine,” said Ingo, his tone soft.

  Recalling Dad’s hand occasionally guiding mine as I steered, sadness touched me. Would I ever have a memory of him again that didn’t bring back what he’d done?

  “Don’t, Amity,” murmured Ingo.

  Glancing at him, my muscles eased. We exchanged a small smile.