by K. C. Finn
“You out?” I ask. “Why? Malcolm, you can’t just… We have to try and save you.”
He smashes his broken hand against my chest, grasping but gaining no purchase. Malcolm heaves out a wheeze, dragging his poor neck up so close to my ear that it’s soon wet with blood.
“I have… an idea.”
He’s mad. He has to be. But when I look at Sheila, she shakes her head at me. Her tears are flowing and her hands are still working, but the message is clear.
“Leave him,” I say.
“What?” Stirling shouts at once.
“Fix up the hole. Keep the Legion secure, and leave Malcolm out here. It’s what he wants.”
I start kicking and pushing everyone back. Sheila runs like her legs aren’t working, crying furiously, and I have to butt Stirling with my gun so that he falls off balance and slams backwards into what’s left of the nearest corridor. Goddie doesn’t need encouragement. He lifts Malcolm’s head off his knee, leans down and whispers something to our general, then comes away. We build the wall back, brick by brick, each of us sombre with silent tears falling. Can Malcolm’s plan simply be for us to let him go? I hope not. I hope to whatever God might be listening that he knows what he’s doing.
“It’s working!”
Apryl is the one to yell. She’s not at the wall, building the bricks, but has climbed one of the ladders to the lookout post a little way along, where the structure is still intact.
“Keep that wall strong, it might try to get in!”
“It?” I cry back. “What do you mean?”
She flaps her hand at me, and I race to the base of the ladder. I scramble with slippery feet to get to the wall, craning to peer over and see what Apryl is seeing. At first, I can’t spot Malcolm’s body where I expect to see it, only a glistening shadow surrounded by the hot orange dust of the wasteland. Another blink, and the shadow shows its true form. It’s a long, sleek vehicle the size and shape of a coffin. A boot-clad foot is the last thing to be slowly lowered into it by a mechanical arm. Then the arm recedes, and the sleek shape starts moving.
I have never seen one of these things in real life, though I know what I must be looking at.
“How could he have known there were Reavers nearby?”
The tears are still hot and wet on my face. Apryl’s hands are over her mouth, her eyes fixed on the Reaver as it wheels our half-dead leader away. The speed increases, the little vehicle jetting off so fast that it starts to look like a beetle scurrying across the sweltering wilds of the wasteland. Apryl just shakes her head. It’s all so much. Too much.
“We ought to send a message through to Kip and the others.”
Apryl breaks her silence only when the Reaver is a dot on the forest’s edge. As its final glint vanishes, she buckles, her weight collapsing with a single step. I prop her up a moment, then she stiffens and gets herself together. We traverse the ladder more carefully on the way back down, sniffing and wiping at our faces. I can’t ask again about what just happened. It doesn’t seem real. It can’t be right.
“Where is Kip?” I ask.
“With Briggs,” Apryl answers. I gape, but she just nods. “Oh yeah, we got him all right. We caught our Reborn. Malcolm wouldn’t have sacrificed himself for anything less than victory.”
*
There is only one place to go in a time like this. When I arrive in the little room at the top of the South Tower, Goddie is already there. He leaps from the bunk that used to be his and throws himself into my arms. I hold him close, clinging to the broad muscles of his back as he shakes out a sob. A cough breaks us up, and a moment later Stirling and Apryl are with us. My cheeks are too tired to flush, and all four of us make a break for the little shared bathroom at the same time. Nobody stops to let the other through, and soon we are all crammed around the single shower and the sink.
Goddie takes the hose off the wall and switches the cool water to full blast, soaking me down from head to toe. A layer of blood and tears comes rippling off from the force of the water, and I stay there an extra moment, hoping it’ll blast some of the thoughts from my head as well. Apryl washes at the sink, then spits up into it suddenly, as I did earlier on. Stirling rests a hand on her back, until it’s his turn to get the blast of cold water on him. When all of us are clean but soaked, dragging ourselves around in chilly, wet gear to combat the heat of the room, it’s Goddie who finally speaks.
“Did anyone go to see Briggs yet?”
We shake our heads.
“Kip’s with him,” Apryl replies. “He radioed. Says they have a bag on his head and he’s weighted down with straps and dumbbells and every other damned thing they could find in his office.”
“We’re not going to be able to move him back to base, are we?” Stirling asks.
Apryl sucks at her cheek a moment, one heavy hand going automatically to her hip. “Not unless you want a repeat of… Well…”
“Nobody wants dat.” Goddie slumps onto the lower bunk now, head hanging.
“So what the hell do we do now?” Stirling says, pacing to the window where I so often watched him watch the world go by.
I suck in a breath. The heavy over jacket is too much now that it’s wet, so I throw it off with a thud. Everyone looks at me.
“Stronghold,” I say.
“Come again?” Apryl asks.
“Malcolm.” I pause, my teeth on edge even though I’m the one who mentions him. “He said it. Stronghold. I think he knew we’d have to stay here. Hold the Legion hostage until we have what we need from Briggs.”
“No way.” Stirling shakes his head. “There’s about five hundred kids in the Bastion. We can’t hold them even nearly long enough without risking a full on riot. We had surprise before, but now they know we’re here. Giving them time to organise, it’s-”
“Den what’s your solution, huh?”
Goddie is back on his feet, charging so fast towards Stirling that he creates a breeze when he passes me. The wild rush of air turns forceful as he grabs one of Stirling’s soaked lapels. He’s all over the place, his muscles twitching under the wet folds of his clothes. Stirling’s eyes are sharp as cut glass, but he doesn’t grab Goddie in return. He lets himself be held, his blade legs teetering as Goddie pulls him down to face him.
“You think you’re de only one with a sentence on ya head? We’re all dying for this cause. Malcolm… just did. So maybe it’s time ya started giving a shit again and putting some thoughts forward, instead of shooting Raja down.”
Stirling’s lips burst with breath. He sucks it back, taking a few deep ones that feel like they’re connected to my own. I close my mouth, wiping my dry lips. I step up, a hand on Goddie’s shoulder, but his grip only tightens on Stirling’s chest. He snaps his head in my direction.
“Tell him.”
It jars me. I feel it like a kick to the gut. Stirling rolls his eyes at me, but then his look flutters to the ground.
“If this is about you two,” he starts, but Goddie shakes his head violently.
“No. Raja, tell him what Malcolm has made you.”
I haven’t told anyone, though I’m sure most of the soldiers know. But the news wouldn’t have reached Stirling through the no-information policy he was on, up until about two hours ago. I let Goddie go, skewing my lips a moment.
“Malcolm appointed me the new Junior Leader, Stir. After Delilah passed.”
The young Highlander’s mouth opens, then shuts. I have his job now, and perhaps I’ve had it from the moment he went down in the rubble at Valkyrie. Malcolm’s right hand man, the one party to any and all plans and secrets. He’s trusting me with this one last secret too, a plan he didn’t have a chance to explain.
“Yeah,” Goddie says. “So ya better show some respect for de rank and file. Now dat Malcolm’s gone, we answer to Raja. All of us.”
Goddie lets Stirling go at last, and that’s when the Highlander moves. Stirling’s fist comes whizzing past my head to smash into Goddie’s left cheek, knocking the bo
y down. Before anyone can do anything, Stirling’s bounding from the room, leaving wet splashes everywhere as he thunders off. Goddie scrambles to his feet to head after him, but Apryl steps in and pushes him back.
“Jesus, will you cool it?” She breathes hard, her hand on Goddie’s chest. “Isn’t it bad enough, the mess we’re in? Without fighting amongst ourselves?”
“He just-”
Goddie starts, but I cut him off.
“Let him go.”
Apryl’s hip holster gives that tell-tale buzz. She looks down, but doesn’t check it, biting the inside of her cheek.
“I guess I’d better start looking into programming?”
It’s a question. Right at me. And Goddie’s right, though he’s wild and violent about it. I’m the one they’re looking to now.
“Yeah,” I say with a nod. “I don’t even know where you’d start trying to break Briggs down, but if you’ve got ideas, you’ve got my permission. I don’t care what happens to Briggs in the process.”
The nod Apryl gives me in return is grave, but she’s calmer than before.
“Sir, yes, Sir.”
And she leaves us. Me and Goddie, alone and silent in the South Tower as the sun slowly begins to fall outside the window. Not so long ago, we were walking together in the woods without much of a care. If we hadn’t run into those stupid kids, none of this would have gone down this way. Malcolm would be calling the shots from the safety of the canopy.
“What the hell’s got into you, Goddie?”
He spits on the ground, a hock of blood shooting from his mouth. I step up, taking his chin and turning his face to look at the reddening patch on his perfect dark skin. His eyes are shining now, no longer laced with rage.
“I’m not some damsel you have to defend the honour of,” I say.
He breaks a grin. At last. My Goddie is still somewhere in this damaged soldier.
“No,” he replies. “You’re our leader. Ya deserve respect. And ya give him so much leeway to walk on ya, even now.”
I gulp at the dryness in my throat. “He’s dying.”
“So are we,” Goddie shoots back. “Some of us faster dan him. Some of us won’t get da chance to know we’re going. To say goodbye de right way.”
He pulls me in, landing a kiss on one side of my mouth. We’ve spent so much of our time together running from danger, our lives at stake every moment. I guess I didn’t think about what it would be like to die, because it was just going to happen if it happened. It’s always been something that happens to everyone else around me. Now, there’s a shaking in my chest, and a buzzing in my head. I kiss Goddie again, full force, and though he groans at the pain in his jaw it doesn’t stop him returning every movement, every touch.
When we break, his hands are under the back of my wet shirt, moulded to my sore, scarred skin.
“I wish we had time for this,” I whisper.
“I’ll take whatever time you give me,” he replies.
I step away, taking my heavy jacket back and shaking the water out at the window. It’s still baking hot as the sun casts blood red rays over the darkening sky, and some patches of the heavy camo are already drying. I feel cleaner and more alive than before, my head full of thoughts. Whether Goddie likes it or not, Stirling is right about the Bastion. If Apryl’s busy handling the Briggs issue, then the tidal wave of teen recruits is my business to deal with.
“Goddie, radio me an armed guard. We’ve got to cut some numbers down.”
Six
Night has fallen outside the high windows of the Bastion. When we flick the lights on, the gathered soldiers rattle and mumble into slow awakening. When we unbar and open the double doors, there’s a sudden rush, soon quelled by my new guard team. Goddie has recruited the tallest and broadest of our men and women, and that’s saying something considering their Highland lineage. They move like a snow plough to give me access through the crowd, down the central aisle between the rows of seats in the old lecture hall. Some of the rebels remain at the door to bolt us in, containing the audience for the time being.
In the centre of this ring of guards, I walk with Mumma, Dad, Vinesh Pranjal, Goddie and Reagan the reject. Eyes in the crowd keep going to the one-armed girl, then back to me. Some faces I vaguely recall from my brief time here, and others are new ghosts waiting to die for Prudell’s grim crusade. I can hope to make them see sense this night, when the very place they called their safehouse has been overtaken. I can try to help them through this, if they’ll let me.
It’s unnerving not to see Doctor Bartlett in the crowd. After he fell into the throng of angry teens, no-one seems to know what happened to him. I scan the floor for an unconscious body, or worse, but there’s nothing when I reach the place where Sheila used to deliver our missions. I don’t stand on the table like Bartlett did, but place myself before it with my family and fellow recruits behind me. A sea of faces watch, each as dependant on my words as my own rebel forces are. More pressure. Like a wrench to the spine, twisting me until my head hums with the force of it all.
“I am Raja, the Bullet Girl of the Underground, the Junior Leader of Malcolm Stryker’s Revolt.”
They don’t need to know about Malcolm: where he is, what’s happening to him. I wouldn’t even know enough to tell them if I wanted to.
“I came to this Legion as a recruit, just like you, to fend off starvation and find my family.”
I look at Mumma. Her expression is set firm, and she only nods at me, clutching my father’s hand tight. Only a few weeks ago, they’d have never let me announce myself as so publicly against Prudell and her ideas, but now their fears have new perspectives. Pranjal stands proud, a gun still clutched in his grip, his eyes roving around the crowd like he’s looking out for me. Vinesh has turned his good ear forward, his body tense as he hangs on my words.
“This is what I have left of my family. The System took two of my brothers. Good, young men who had never harmed another person in their lives. One of them was shot down in cold blood just for being a scavenger, and the other was turned into a Reborn. A monster, like your Senior Commander. A mindless, savage, killing machine that wouldn’t think twice about killing you too if you were in the way of its target.
And many of you will have come from places where targets are rife. If you came here, it’s because you’re part of Prudell’s Unfortunate Few, too poor to survive where you were living outside her blessed System. Or, you came here because you lived within the System, and you didn’t fit its rules. I’m here to tell you that Prudell’s numbers don’t add up. If you take those trapped inside the System, and the Unfortunate Few strewn all around this nation, and combine them with the likes of us, it makes something new.
A Powerful Many.”
The crowd is silent. I would have expected cocky kids to jeer at me. I thought they’d call me names like they used to when I first arrived here, or tell me I was talking out of my arse. But no-one speaks. They are rapt in that moment, the way that silence used to fall when Prudell’s awful face came over the huge screen above my head. I have to glance, just for a moment, to make sure she isn’t there, watching over me. I clear my throat, but the blockage doesn’t budge.
“Some of you have already realised the best place for you, just like I did when I was here.”
I glance back at Reagan, and she nods.
“Unlike Prudell, we don’t believe in letting people starve. Unlike Prudell, we don’t believe in letting children die for the greater good of the System. You might think you have no other choice than to follow what the Governor sets for you. But I want to give you another option. You can join our ranks and help us, here in the Legion. Put your training to use to help your families, and yourselves, out of the System we’ve been born into.”
“Or what?”
Someone shouts. The crowd parts a little to my right. Pranjal trains his gun, but I wave a hand at him to lower it. There’s a figure sitting in a seat, her bloody leg propped up on the row in front to drain the fluid fr
om it. She winces, her brown skin paler than it was when I last saw her. The girl I shot. The girl who ran.
“What happens if we don’t comply?”
I shrug. “Then I let you go.”
It doesn’t seem to sink in. The girl’s dark brows contract, her parted lips searching.
“I let you go,” I say again, “because we believe in freedom of choice. That’s the point of it all. Tomorrow morning, anyone who doesn’t want to stay and help is free to walk to the barricade, south of here, and seek asylum with the System. If you trust that they will take you in, you can go. And we’ll remain enemies, and we’ll see you out there in battle someday. That’s when my offer ends. That’s when the ‘or what’ becomes something much worse than the choice you have today.”
Goddie’s breath is sharp behind me. I don’t look back. I don’t, for even a second, relish the thought of defeating these poor kids in battle, but I know by the soldiers I’ve seen in this land that they wouldn’t mind picking off the Bullet Girl, whether she’s only turning seventeen or not.
“Remain calm and seated, whilst my guard goes amongst you. Those seeking medical aid need to come with us. If you want to be treated, put your hands behind your back and expect to be bound whilst we take you to Sheila.”
A scoffing sound erupts somewhere further off.
“You trust Sheila?” A male voice asks the question.
“With my life,” I answer with a smile.
*
“You did well in there, my child. Those children are our future. We need them, all of them, if we’re ever going to make this land united.”
My father has a hand to my shoulder. He’s a little roughed up from the fight, but it looks like he escaped the worst of it. I don’t know where Mumma, Pranjal and Vinesh were during the fight, but it seems they have acquired a cabin out in the yard that Dad’s gentle guiding arm is pushing me towards. I recognise the hierarchy, the way that the recruits of each cabin increase in value as they move towards the centre, and my family has good taste in location. These are the homes where the most hard-boiled of the Legion’s kids would live, praised by Briggs for their obedience. The very kids I’m trying to convince.
