Faller

by Will McIntosh

  Five or six of the Orchids closest to the front huddled together out of earshot. When they broke, one clapped her hands. “That’s enough for now. If your duties don’t involve these strangers, it’s time to get to work, if you want to eat.”

  That most definitely sounded like the words of someone of higher status. Evidently even in a group of people who were all exactly the same, some ended up in charge.

  39

  A CHURCH bell sounded in the distance. All of the Orchids in sight—save for the four who were in charge of “escorting” the five newcomers around—burst into frantic motion.

  They disappeared into various intact structures and returned carrying pails, tubs, bowls, plastic tarps, which they set out in neat rows.

  “What’s going on?” Penny asked one of their Orchid guards. Based on her patch, Faller was fairly sure her name was Purple Brick. Ever efficient, the Orchids had evidently picked out a dozen objects in sight at the time—brick, cloud, tree, bird, et cetera—and a dozen colors, and everyone’s name was just a combination of the two.

  Purple Brick motioned toward the horizon, where a cluster of dark clouds had gathered. “There’s rain coming.” It would have made more sense to simply leave the containers out. Evidently that was more clutter than the Orchids could tolerate.

  A second guard, Orange Boot, encouraged them to move along, toward, Faller assumed, yet another interrogation. The Orchids kept thinking of new questions, yet felt no compunction to answer any themselves. Most pointedly, Snakebite had repeatedly asked whether they would eventually be allowed to leave, or should consider themselves prisoners, and, of more immediate concern, when they would be fed. It had been two days since they’d last eaten, though they had been given water.

  They passed through a new, slightly more bombed-out part of town that had already been cleared and scrubbed clean. The buildings left standing were taller than in other areas, and more elaborate. They didn’t look like stores, exactly, but definitely weren’t homes.

  As they passed a tall, broken first-floor window, Faller spotted figures in beds. “Hang on.” He stepped closer.“What is that?”

  “The dying center,” Purple Brick said matter-of-factly.

  “The dying center?” Penny asked, eyes wide. “What the heck is a dying center?”

  “Can we see?” Storm asked.

  Purple Brick shrugged. “If you want.”

  “No they can’t,” Orange Boot countered. Or maybe it was one of the other guards. Faller couldn’t see her patch.

  “Why not?” Purple Brick asked.

  “Because it’s none of their business.”

  Purple Brick rolled her eyes and motioned them inside as Orange Boot went on arguing, asking Purple Brick who exactly put her in charge.

  The beds inside were evenly spaced, set in a perfect rectangle, and filled with emaciated Orchids.

  “Jesus.” Penny went to the closest bed, bent over the gaunt woman lying there, her breath coming in a harsh rattle.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Melissa asked the Orchid watching over the dying women.

  The woman shrugged. “Nothing’s wrong with them. They’re too weak to work, so they’re starving.”

  “Well, why don’t you feed them?” Storm asked.

  The caregiver frowned, looked at Storm like she was slightly deranged. “They didn’t earn it, and they didn’t win it, so they don’t get it. If we handed out food to everyone whenever they wanted it, we’d all starve.”

  Faller had to admit, there was a logic working there. Of course where he came from, food went to whichever tribes could get it, whether through murder, intimidation, theft, or alliance. There had to be better ways to decide who lived and died. Seeing them lying there with their meatless arms and sunken cheeks, these old, old young women sent a knife through his heart.

  “How do we earn food?” Storm asked.

  “I don’t know,” the caregiver said.

  Storm turned to Purple Brick, eyebrows raised in a silent question. Purple Brick shrugged. “Ask the women in charge, when you see them.”

  From what Faller could tell, there were about a dozen women in charge, with a dozen others trying to push their way into the mix. It reminded him of chasing Melissa through the hall of mirrors, only this wasn’t an illusion.

  They needed to get away from this place. Seeing how they treated each other, Faller had little doubt they’d shoot him and his friends, or let them waste away until they were in one of these beds. But even if they could get hold of their parachutes and get to the edge, they needed to replenish their food and water supply first.

  “We’ve got a long walk,” Purple Brick said. She led them outside into a light drizzle.

  Storm fell into step beside Faller. “I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.”

  This would be their third meeting with the Orchid intelligentsia since they’d arrived.

  “Me, too,” Faller said.

  The lead guard headed up a steep flight of stairs set into a hill.

  “Based on what I know of Orchid—the woman who—” He caught himself. He was about to say he thought he understood how their minds worked, because he knew the woman whom they’d been made from. That was like saying he could understand Storm by watching Melissa, and he didn’t think Storm would appreciate that assertion.

  “It’s okay.” Evidently Storm had seen where he’d been going.

  They reached the top of the stairs, followed a brown brick path between two wide, identical three-story buildings with evenly spaced windows. The one on the right was heavily damaged, the one on the left, untouched. Beyond them a dozen similar brown brick buildings were scattered in the open, weedy space.

  “How are you doing?” he asked Storm. “Any better, now that you’re back on solid ground, and had some time?”

  “To be honest, I’m too hungry and scared to think much about it.”

  They were led to the base of a tall building that was mostly intact. Actually it was more like a tower than a building, narrow and windowless, with a pointed crown and a clock set below three slatted openings near the top. The Council of Orchids was waiting at the base.

  “We want you to show us,” one of them said.

  “More than happy to.” Faller accepted the pack from one of the council members. The tower must have been the tallest structure on their world.

  The interior was nothing but a winding staircase that left him rubber-kneed as he reached the top. There, he knelt and prepared the chute, checking and double-checking the clasps before refolding it and strapping the pack to his back.

  Everyone was looking up as he took two quick steps and leaped out of the tower. The chute deployed perfectly; he floated toward the ground, treated to a view of the city spread out below the hill, and clear sky beyond the edge.

  Faller flinched as a familiar bang lit the air. Shouts erupted and people ran, most heading into the tower, a few Orchids running in the opposite direction. Suddenly Faller’s progress felt glacially slow. He was a perfect target, dangling below the chute.

  One of the Orchids fell as Faller scanned the landscape for the attackers. He spotted two, in a second-story window of the building they’d passed. He couldn’t be certain from this distance, but they looked like Orchids.

  Faller jolted after each shot, expecting to be hit at any second. Three of the Orchids lay injured or dead in the courtyard. He looked for his people, saw Snakebite inside the base of the tower as he finally touched ground. Immediately, he dropped flat on the pavement, allowing the chute to cover him as the gunfire continued. He slithered across the bricks in the direction of the tower, hoping the chute would make him a harder target. No one was shooting at him, though; the assailants seemed to be targeting his captors.

  Suddenly the parachute was gliding over him, being pulled away.

  “Hurry.” It was Storm. She led him inside the tower, where twenty people huddled away from the doorway.

  “We don’t want to be shot, either,” Snakebi
te shouted at the Orchids by the stairs, his jaw rippling with anger. “We’re pinned down. They can burn us out, or pick us off one by one if we try to leave. Give me my shotgun. I can help.” He held out his hand, left it there, fixing the women with a glare that could melt stone.

  One of them shoved Snakebite’s pack at him. He dropped to one knee, pulled out his shotgun and a handgun, went to the door.

  “Cover me,” he said to a handful of Orchids standing near the door with pistols drawn. Then he was gone.

  Renewed gunfire rang out.

  “Cover him, damn it,” Penny said.

  Two Orchids were already poking out the corners of the doorway, firing at the buildings on either side.

  As Snakebite disappeared behind the building on the left, it grew quiet.

  “We should have people at the top of the tower,” Faller said. “We can’t see behind us from this doorway.”

  “They’re on their way up,” Purple Brick answered.

  Muffled shots coughed somewhere outside. It sounded like Snakebite’s shotgun. Faller scanned the rise up to the building, watched for movement through the windows, but it was impossible to see inside from their angle.

  “There,” Purple Brick shouted. Snakebite appeared from around the front of the building, his shotgun trained on two unarmed Orchids walking ahead of him.

  Armed Orchids poured out of the tower, raced toward the trio.

  “Get his gun,” someone behind Faller shouted.

  Some of the guards took control of the captives, while others trained their pistols on Snakebite.

  “Drop the shotgun.”

  Snakebite’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  They raised their guns higher. “Put it down.”

  Snakebite flung the shotgun at the nearest woman in disgust; she lifted her foot to avoid being hit. “You’re welcome. There are two bodies in the building as well. I’m sure you’ll want to clear them out and scrub the blood from the floor.”

  “I don’t understand,” Faller said, “why were they shooting at you?”

  It seemed as if no one was going to answer.

  “They’re insurgents,” Purple Brick finally said. One of the other Orchids gave her a look. Purple Brick stared her down, gestured at Snakebite. “He just risked his life while we stood with our tails between our legs. I think they deserve to know.” She turned back to Faller. “A group that wasn’t happy with the status quo attempted a coup. When it failed, they ran.”

  Which explained why everyone carried a gun.

  “Let’s go,” Orange Boot said. “In the morning we’ll put a noose around their necks.”

  For an instant, Faller thought she meant his and his friends’ necks, then realized she was talking about the insurgents. But he suspected their turn would be coming soon.

  XXI

  HARRY PUSHED the box of Dunkin’ Donuts down the table to Peter. He took a chocolate one, slid them across to Kathleen. “Kathleen, hold up a cue card, let me see how they look,” Peter said, squinting under the bright camera lights.

  “How long is this message?” Roberto Sanchez asked. Peter still hadn’t gotten over his surprise that Roberto Sanchez had flown down personally for this interview. Likely thanks to Kathleen’s powers of persuasion.

  Kathleen swallowed a doughnut. “Don’t worry. Under five minutes, then you’re free to ask any follow-ups you like.”

  Peter looked at Melissa, sitting off to the side, hands in her lap. Having her and Kathleen here felt a lot like sunshine on his face. He hadn’t realized it, but part of the strain of working in the lab nonstop had been seeing the same five faces, day after day. Having someone new join them had given him a boost; that one of those people was Melissa felt like a miracle.

  Sanchez got into position; the cameraman counted down with his fingers, pointed at Sanchez. After a brief introduction, Sanchez turned it over to Peter. He began reading the statement off the cue cards.

  This was a risk. They weren’t giving away the precise nature of this “new, revolutionary, limitless energy source” that would be free to all, but each side’s brightest minds would be able to make some decent guesses. If they could get all sides to agree to a cease-fire, even a slowdown in the ever-escalating aggression, it would be worth it.

  As he neared the end of the statement, he looked at Melissa, who gave him a tight, encouraging smile.

  “We’re on the brink of a new era that will render this terrible war pointless,” Peter read. “We’re not asking any party on either side of the conflict to make concessions. All we ask for is ten days. Just ten days to prove that these are not hollow promises.”

  Sanchez followed up with thirty minutes of questions. He all but accused Peter of treason, pressed him repeatedly to reveal the nature of the power source, and reminded viewers that he faced charges of murdering the “real” Peter Sandoval. It took all of Peter’s willpower to suppress an urge to tell Sanchez to go fuck himself.

  40

  SNAKEBITE AND Storm were in a corner of the room, speaking in low tones. From the snippets he caught, they were exchanging Day One stories, just as Faller and his tribe had done every so often, sitting around a fire. He remembered Daisy, legs pulled up to her chin, her face so serious as she described coming awake in a classroom, huddled together with twenty other children and one adult man.

  God, he missed her.

  Penny was in her corner, meditating, her two hands forming a cup at her abdomen, eyes closed.

  Melissa was sitting on one of the beds, her legs crossed inside her filthy white dress, head back.

  “What was that story you were acting out on your world?” Faller asked. “Just from the snippet I saw, it was much better than anything I ever saw on my world.”

  The question amused Melissa. “It was a bastardization of a play by a man named Shakespeare. Once upon a time, I wanted to be an actress, and I figured now was my chance, since no one else remembered any plays and I did. You could only get away with ripping off Shakespeare on a world where everyone’s memory had been wiped.”

  Despite the splendid mattresses the Orchids had provided, they’d all waked before sunrise, likely because they were hungry.

  “Melissa?” Snakebite said. “Do you recognize me from before the fall?”

  Melissa gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. It was a big world back then.”

  Snakebite shrugged. “Just curious. I’m not sure it makes a difference who we were in that world.”

  “Given your scars, your fighting ability, there’s no doubt about what you were. You were a soldier. Probably in one of the elite forces.”

  “Clearly you were also a master chef,” Faller added. “I’ll never forget that oatmeal and ham stew you made for us in Penny’s apartment.”

  Snakebite smiled. “I bet you wish you had some now.”

  “Hang on,” Melissa said. “Snakebite, did you find a wallet in your pocket, after your memory was wiped? That might tell us something.”

  Snakebite dug into his pack, pulled out the worn black wallet and tossed it to Melissa. She pulled out a laminated card, studied it.

  “You lived in Bethesda, Maryland. That was a big military town. That’s probably where your children are.” She dug into the center compartment, pulled out more cards, and a folded piece of yellow paper. “Ah, here we go.” She smoothed the paper on the bed. “Your name is Robert Harjo. You were on leave, to visit your dying mother.” Melissa looked up from the paper. “I’ll bet you anything that’s why you were in that town. Your mother lived there.”

  Snakebite’s eyes were unblinking, wide with interest. “Bethesda, Maryland. It’s a start. Thank you.” He turned toward Penny. “Penny? What about you? Did you have anything in your pockets on the first day that Melissa could read?”

  Penny shook her head without shifting position. “I was wearing a dress. No pockets.”

  The locks on the door clicked open. A contingent of Orchids motioned them out. They were led to what had o
nce been an ornate building, with a dry fountain outside, moldy burgundy carpeting on the floor of what had been the inside. Remnants of two walls remained, but that was it—nothing of the roof remained but a single naked support beam. A few badly beaten wheels and tables stood in the otherwise clean and empty space, plus some colorful, boxy machines.

  Casino, Faller’s little voice said.

  Twin ropes dangled from the support beam, nooses already tied. One of the prisoners cried out and began to struggle when she saw the nooses. The other just stared.

  The prisoners were led to one of the tables, where a wheel lay inside a bowl. A hundred other Orchids closed the space around them, trying to see.

  “Roulette,” Snakebite said to no one in particular. That struck a chord with Faller’s little voice.

  An Orchid whose name must have been Black Bird, based on her patch, pointed at the prisoner on her left, the calm one. “What number?”

  “Twenty-eight,” she answered, her voice a shaky mess.

  Black Bird pointed at the other prisoner, who only shook her head.

  “It’s a chance, at least,” Black Bird said. “You’d rather have no chance at all?”

  “I can’t choose.” The woman was so breathless with fear she could barely speak. “I can’t.”

  “Okay,” Black Bird said. “I’ll choose for you. Your number is zero.”

  She gripped the wheel and sent it spinning, then flipped the steel ball along the wall of the bowl, heading in the opposite direction.

  Everyone watched, silent, mesmerized, as the ball slowed, dropped onto the wheel, and clattered for a moment before sticking in the hole above the number 3. Two spaces away from zero.

  Everyone began chattering at once.

  “Oh, well.” Black Bird struggled to be heard over the din. “Bad luck.” She gestured at the makeshift gallows. “String them up.”

  Three Orchids had to drag the skittish prisoner to her noose, while the other walked under her own power.