Fate of Order

by Julian North

  We reached the expansive yard where the detention center had recently been expanded. The prefabricated chipping units with their silvery-smooth exteriors had been joined together to form a single construction, just as Nythan had predicted. The seemingly complete assembly now resembled a giant H, with two long lines of joined units extending from the prison’s western wall to the new perimeter. An ominously long, unmarked transport idled with its hatch open at the terminus of one of the legs. I wondered if Matias and Nythan had been taken away on a truck like that. I might have freed thousands on this day, but I’d failed my blood. It stung.

  Yet what I saw beyond the chipping units was a mild salve to my misery: high ladders from fire brigade vehicles were parked outside the perimeter, extending over the top of the prison’s walls. There were men in fire suits atop the ladders and on the prison walls; some were in the yard itself, but they didn’t carry fire suppression equipment. Instead, they had instruments of mayhem: force rifles, projectile weapons, flare guns. They distributed the armaments to the crowd as others set up ladders and ramps over every section of the wall. I knew a similar scene was playing out all around Fishkill. The confusion of the fake fire had provided the perfect cover to allow fire engines to approach the prison unchallenged by the Authority’s drones. Except that every fire suppression vehicle in Bronx City had been commandeered by the gangs. Everyone had blood inside this place—Corazones, Midnighters, Trinitarios, Black Sheep. The Authority had managed to do something no one else had before: get the gangs to cooperate. We were fighting together. I wished Mateo could’ve seen that.

  The triumph of the moment was fleeting. The Authority soon realized what had happened. The first bluekent drone swooped from the darkening sky like a bird of prey, unleashing the deadly power of its force cannon indiscriminately on those below. People scattered, screaming. A few people fired back, although the bluekent was too swift for manually fired force weapons to do much good. But Kortilla and I had planned for this as well. Smoke and fire grenades were hurled from over and within the wall. Within moments, a thick fog descended over the area. Magnesium flares flooded high into the skies—high enough to blind the drones but not the people below. The angry hum of the bluekent and its arriving brethren continued to linger ominously above the clouds, but the smoke, blazing light, and false heat of the fires had bought us time. For some, at least. The occasional burst of weapon fire still reigned down, but for now, the machines were confused.

  My viser vibrated with an incoming red ping. It was Kortilla. There was no further need for security. I wanted Virginia to know that I was alive and coming for her.

  “Where are you, hermana?” Kortilla asked.

  “In the yard. Your papa is on the plane with Rhett. He’s on his way out.”

  What I didn’t say spoke volumes. Kortilla’s voice cracked. “Matias? Nythan?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to answer. It was better to tell her face-to-face. They were probably both chipped. Slaves. Worse than death. Shipped out to some corporate ore mine as property. I imagined Nythan on that transport, my stomach heaving. The transport! A tiny flame of hope lit within me. I dashed across the yard, dodging prisoners as I went. I knew the faint wish I carried within me was foolish, but it was all I had.

  My viser kept vibrating, demanding my attention. I ran instead of answering. Chipped slaves were property. Property wouldn’t be listed in the prisoner database.

  I reached the transport, running up its open rear hatch. I don’t know what I expected to find. Nythan and Matias waiting for me? That was a silly, stupid dream. The transport’s belly was empty—it didn’t have windows or seats. Instead, there were squares on the floor, each one numbered, a cord dangling from above for the chipped slaves to hold onto as they were transported. A digital clock hung on the wall nearest the front of the compartment. Fifteen hours, eleven minutes, fifty-seven seconds… fifty-six… fifty-five. It was counting down its departure time, I realized. This thing was scheduled to load up and depart the detention center in about half a day. That meant a shipment was being prepared! My hopes soared anew. I dashed out of the transport to the chipping unit. The mob had already ripped the exterior door from its hinges. I entered the slave manufacturing facility.

  The air inside was colder, drier, and cleaner than outside. The first chamber was just walls of screens, all switched off. A single operator’s chair was soaked in blood, its occupant crumbled beneath it, his skull cracked, his dead eyes still open. I bent over him and yanked up his sleeve. He still wore his viser, and it was still linked to the data flow of the facility. A long blue bar extended across the viser’s display: Production run 56% complete. The word “error” flashed beneath.

  The door into the next compartment was still closed and sealed, but it was a thin, fabricated thing, not a security door. I blasted its hinges with my force pistol, then kicked it out of my way. I gasped in horror as I entered the next chamber. Men and women stood shoulder-to-shoulder in three precise rows, each attired in identical formless gray smocks, each staring forward without blinking; they were all chipped. My knees trembled as I pressed through, gazing at each face. Everyone here had once been a person; this place had turned them into property. None of them were Nythan or Matias.

  I entered the next pod. It was the same model we’d hijacked on the road outside the facility just the week before—except this unit was fully operational. Two dozen planks extended from the ceiling to the floor. In each station was a person strapped to the equipment. They too had been chipped. Their stares were vacant. These people must have just been chipped when the emergency was declared and the production line halted. I held my breath as I looked at each face, relieved that none were my blood.

  The next unit was a preparation area. A long bench extended from each wall; the entire length was filled with blank-faced men and women facing each other. They all had shaved heads and a fluorescent gel rubbed onto the back of their heads. The right sleeves of their gray gowns were rolled up past their shoulders. I inspected the person nearest to me—a girl no older than me, with a crooked nose and dark skin as rough as sandpaper. Two angry red welts dominated the upper part of her bare arm. Precursor chemicals, I remembered. Nythan had told me about them when we’d hijacked the chipping prefab. The precursor chemicals damage the mind, he had said. Chipping wasn’t just about the device attached to the skull. The subject had to be properly prepared, as these people had been.

  With a heavy heart and fading hopes, I examined the victims. Even without chips on their necks, they appeared lost to the world. Neither slaves nor people, existing in a sorry state. Sorrow battled fury for primacy within me. The evil that people inflicted on one another knew no bounds. My inspection was so mechanical, so devoid of hope, I almost missed him. He was a shell of who he had been when I last saw him, with faded eyes and a skeletal frame, but there was no mistaking him.

  I fell to my knees and hugged him. Tears flowed freely. “Oh, Nythan, I’m so sorry…”

  I placed my forehead against his. His eyes, once so full of mischievous life, saw nothing. He didn’t blink. His skin was cold, his soul empty. The gel had been applied to the back of his bald head, but he had only one of the red injection marks rather than two. Hope sprang within me. I squeezed his hand. He didn’t move, but there was still a person in there. I knew it. I believed it. I had to.

  “Come on, let’s get you out of here,” I said to him, not expecting a response.

  I unlatched Nythan from his seat, hoisting him to his feet. I could move him, but even in this emaciated state, he was heavy. And I still had to find Matias.

  I flicked my viser. “Kortilla, I found Nythan. I’m holding him. I need to keep searching for your brother.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Inside those damn prefab units. The one on the north side. Just keep going through until you find us.”

  I managed to drag Nythan out of the prep unit to the end of the next prefab by the time Kortilla arrived with her cousin, Zippo, and Mateo�
��s lieutenant, Inky, at her side. They all had wicked-looking force rifles in their hands with thick black straps slung over their shoulders to help steady the heavy guns.

  “Get him out of here,” I told Kortilla. “I’ll go look for Matias.”

  She stared at Nythan, her eyes puffed with sorrow and torn with indecision. “I’ll go—he’s my brother.”

  I didn’t like it—the heart makes bad choices. Kortilla would stay too long. She’d get herself killed trying to find her brother. But I couldn’t deny her the right to look for her kin.

  “Get Nythan out of here, Dee,” she said. “Zippo will help you.”

  I stood, grabbing Inky and yanking him toward me. “You run down the length of this facility with Kortilla, then the next one, and that’s it. Most likely Matias is long gone—that’s the ugly truth of it. Kortilla won’t want to leave. You pick her up and carry her, you do whatever you have to, but you get her out of here. You’ve got three minutes.” I grabbed his chin and stuck my face an inch from his. “If anything happens to her, they’ll be telling stories about what I did to you for the next twenty years.”

  Inky’s eyes grew wide, anger flashing within, but something registered in that pack-bred brain of his. He got my message.

  Kortilla and Inky ran off in one direction, Zippo and I carried Nythan in the other. We emerged into the swirl of battle. Force blasts echoed in every direction, even as exploding ordinance rained from above. The clatter of rapid-fire projectile weapons answered. A massive explosion detonated from somewhere outside the prison walls. The vibrations shook my bones. I barely kept my feet.

  Otega found us before we’d traveled ten steps, a dozen grim-faced men and women at his back carrying a mélange of weapons. I recognized Kross and several other Corazones among them. “Kortilla said you’d be here. Where is she?”

  “Inside, looking for Matias.”

  “You’ve done a job here, Daniela, but we gotta bug out now. Authority tanks closing in. Jefe Black and the Trinitarios are blowin’ streets to slow ’em down, but we’re too exposed to fight them on their turf.”

  “Get Kortilla out. I’m sorry, Otega, but Matias is probably gone. Save your sister.”

  Otega dipped his head, the way gang brothers do when one falls. Gangs don’t mourn—they avenge. “I’ll get her. The boys will get you and corpse-man over the wall and someplace safe. We got cars ready. Jefe Black’s men are going to try to blow the bridges to Manhattan.”

  I ran beside Zippo toward the wall of the prison, Nythan in our arms, heading for the ladders. A force blast hit five feet to the right, sending dirt and debris flying. I reluctantly let Zippo carry Nythan while I took the lead—he was too heavy for me alone. At the top of the ladder a young boy stood, an old projectile rifle in his hand. He was screaming, nearly hysterically, “Nui Cohete! Nui Cohete!”

  He was looking at the city, maybe at the approaching Authority troops on the streets, not at me. I doubted he had any idea who I was. Nui Cohete was just a symbol to him, something to yell. Yet it was frightening for me to hear. I continued to climb. A bluekent roared somewhere in the polluted sky.

  “Nui Cohete!” I heard the madness in his cry.

  A blast erupted from the invisible drone. It struck the boy in the chest, and he fell from the wall. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again, the boy had been transformed into a barely recognizable mass of bloody flesh on the ground beneath me. But I saw something else as I looked down: Nythan’s eyes were blinking. He was confused and dazed, but alive. Nythan was alive.

  That boy on the wall might be dead, but the shouting didn’t stop. It came again, this time from somewhere just beyond the prison’s perimeter. Someone else picked up the cry, and it traveled through the prison yard behind me. A dozen voices yelled it, then a hundred.

  “Nui Cohete!”

  Chapter 15

  Nythan’s head lay in my lap, his eyes shut, the rest of his body sprawled across the car seat. Zippo was at the wheel of the old gas guzzler. Kross rode shotgun, a force rifle in his hands. Around us sped motorbikes, ATVs, other cars, as well as men and women on foot—all fleeing Fishkill.

  “You see those smoke plumes to the south, Dee?” Zippo said. “I think that means Jefe Black really did it—took out the damn bridges to Manhattan. It’ll take ’em forever to get any more goons up here.”

  I didn’t answer him. If I had, I would’ve pointed out that whether it took twenty minutes or two hours, Virginia would send more troops—a lot of them. This victory would carry a heavy price, but for me it had been one worth paying. We’d struck a heavy blow against Virginia’s factory of horrors and freed my brother, Nythan, Harren, and Kortilla’s father. Alexander was still a zombie down south, and the Northern war machine was still grinding on, but this was a battle won. I’d done right by my blood, but I’d failed Jalen. I still didn’t know how Virginia was turning the South’s people against them. A dark part of me wondered how much I should care. The others weren’t my blood.

  Nythan was shivering in my lap, and he seemed to be getting worse.

  “He needs a doctor.”

  “You crazy, girl? Where do ya think you are? Let’s just get you the hell outta BC. That’s what Otega told us.”

  Nythan moaned as his body gave a mighty shudder. His eyes snapped open. I gasped.

  “Nythan!”

  His lips closed as another tremor racked his body.

  “What about St. Barnabas Hospital?”

  “No way, Dee. The black boots are spread thin right now, between their wars and the little party we just gave them, but you can be sure the one place they’ll be out in force is the only frakkin’ hospital in Bronx City. Can’t take you there.”

  I could’ve forced him, but Zippo was right about where the Authority would deploy their available forces—St. Barnabas would be a deathtrap. Still, Nythan was in bad shape. I didn’t know if he’d make it without medical attention, or what damage the wait was doing to him. After all this, I couldn’t let him die in my arms.

  His eyes fluttered open again. They were shot with blood. Tears escaped when he opened them. His mouth trembled but didn’t quite open.

  “Rest, Nythan, I got this.”

  He choked out a sound, but it was unintelligible. His teeth were chattering, his lips blue.

  “R-reviver-r…”

  “A reviver shot?” I was nearly shouting. “Zippo, where can we get a reviver shot?”

  “Now? Crap, Dee, that’s expensive stuff. It ain’t something fixers keep in inventory. Only a place like St. Barnabas, and I already told ya we ain’t going there.”

  Nythan’s bony hand squeezed me. “C-C-Clinic.”

  “Yes! Our clinic beneath the maze. Zippo, take us right now.”

  “Otega said—”

  I pulled out my force pistol with my free hand and pointed it at the ceiling. I could’ve trilled Zippo, but this was easier. “Don’t be stupid. I told you where we’re going. Just get us there.”

  Zippo and Kross looked at each other. “Aye, Nui Cohete has spoken.” The engine rattled in protest as Zippo fed it more gas.

  Authority drones circled overhead, but they apparently had a limited number of the armed bluekents at their disposal, and there were hundreds of vehicles to track. If Jefe Black had really attacked the bridges, that would be the Authority’s priority. Weapon fire rang out from the roofs every few minutes. The bluekents were too large and fast for projectile fire to hit, but a couple of surveyors took shots. One crashed on a rooftop as we sped past. Somehow, we made it to the maze without taking any direct fire from above.

  Zippo and Kross carried Nythan inside and downstairs to the clinic. Nythan’s breathing was irregular and his shaking had become constant and violent, like a slow-motion seizure. I rifled through the medical cabinets, my hands shaking until I found the revivers. I jammed the syringe into Nythan’s chest and pressed the red button on the top, the way I’d seen others do it. Nythan convulsed, his back arching. I thought I had killed him, but his mu
scles unclenched almost immediately. Within two minutes the shaking had stopped and his breathing normalized. I realized mine had as well. I took his hand. His skin was still cold.

  “Come on, Nythan.”

  “Prelazine.”

  It was a voice from the underworld. It didn’t sound like Nythan.

  “What?”

  His eyes were still closed, but his mouth was moving. “Prelazine. Tall bottle, bottom shelf. Put one pill on my tongue. It’ll dissolve. And a bit of water.”

  I found the drug and did as he asked. I smiled as I held his head up to drink—if he could order me around that meant his mind was intact. I thought he managed a half-smile before sinking back down, his eyes closed.

  “I’m glad your boy is doin’ better, but we shouldn’t stay here too long,” Zippo said. “We’re safe enough for now, but eventually those black boots are gonna get their act together. They’ll seal up the city. Maybe to hunt for prisoners. Maybe to kill us all. Best get out while we can, before they’re organized.”

  Kortilla arrived at that moment. She ran to Nythan, grabbing his hand with hers so hard I worried she would break one of Nythan’s bones.

  “How is he?”

  One of Nythan’s eyes crept open at the sound of Kortilla’s voice and the touch of her hands. “The sleeper has awakened.”

  Kortilla stared at him, dumbfounded. She wiped a tear from her eye, shaking her head. “You…” Then she yanked his head up an inch and kissed him.

  “Wow-di-dee-da,” Kross exclaimed. “Caliente.”

  When Kortilla released him, Nythan still looked like crap, but he wore a ridiculous face-splitting grin. “How can this be? Because I am the Kwisatz Haderach.”