by J. L. Harden
Need time to think.
So I ask, “Well, which one is it?”
“Huh?”
“One of your men said he would carve me up, slice me into tiny pieces and cook me. And now you’re talking about skewering me from end to end and roasting my body over an open flame. So which one’s it going to be?”
“You mad bastard. You’re fucking crazy. You’re crazier than any Wasteland Raider.”
I take that as a compliment and I say, “Thank you.”
And it’s right about now I see a look in Frank’s eyes, and it’s says that he’s thinking maybe he’s underestimated me and that maybe he’s played this all wrong.
Because something doesn’t feel right…
His army is late to the party.
There was only two bodyguards up here.
Something is off. Can’t put my finger on it.
Can’t figure it out.
And then behind Frank, I see Alphonse the Axeman. He’s alive and completely not dead and no one is more surprised than me. He’s stalking his way around the circular observation deck, coming up behind Franklin Kilgore, the Magician.
I do my best to not give him away. To not look at him. To not change my facial expression.
Play it cool.
Stay focused.
Don’t give him away.
I say, “Frank, I’m going to refuse your generous offer.”
And then I tell him how this is all going to play out.
I’m going to save the girl.
I’m going to save the good people of the Buried City.
I’m going to find out what the fuck is going on behind the walls of Wonderland.
But first... “First, we’re going to kill you.”
And he says, “We?”
And then Alphonse moves right up behind the Magician and he grabs his hand, the one holding the grenade. Alphonse then wraps his giant and calloused hand around the Magician’s hand, making sure the dead man switch can’t be triggered.
And before he can react, before he can get away or beg for his life or do anything, Alphonse uses the cutting edge of the axe to slit the Magician’s throat.
Chapter 14
Finally something goes right.
For us. Not for Frank. He’s just had his throat slit. But yeah, finally something goes right for us.
But this isn’t good enough.
It’s not good enough because the Raiders, they’re still going to cut the power, they’re still going to starve the Buried City, and they’re still going to damn the consequences.
And most importantly… they’re still marching up this tower.
They’re still coming for us.
Hungry and angry.
Crazy and ruthless.
Alphonse begins to carefully take a hold of the grenade still clasped in Frank’s hand. Once he has full control of it, he presses a button to disarm it. I’m tempted to tell him to throw it over the edge. But we might need it.
I untie the girl and get rid of the gag.
I expect her to say thank you. I expect her to show some gratitude. Maybe a firm and heartfelt handshake. Maybe a hug. I’m not a hugger, but I think it would be a nice gesture.
But there’s none of this. Instead she’s all business and she says, “We gotta keep moving. This guy here. He’s not in charge. He’s not the Magician.”
My heart stops and there’s this weird awful feeling in my gut. “What?”
“He’s not the Magician. He’s just a pawn.”
There’s a radio strapped to his belt and it squawks to life with the voice of a woman. “I’d like you to give a warm round of applause to my lovely apprentice, Franklin Kilgore.”
Frank. You son of a bitch. Smiling this whole time, like you had the upper hand, like you were in control. Even when we severed your hand, even when we killed your men, you were still smiling.
I pick up the radio. “Who the fuck is this?”
“I’m the Magician,” she says. “But my name is not important. Because what is important is… I’m about to make an entire city disappear. Would you like to watch?”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.
“The trick to being a good Magician,” she says. “Is it’s really only possible when the audience is distracted and misdirected. And for distracting you, for misdirecting you, for keeping you occupied, and of course, for giving his life, I’d like to dedicate this next trick to Franklin Kilgore. A talented assistant and apprentice. He will be missed.”
Fuck.
“Please turn your attention to the south. Way off in the distance, I’m sure you can see the Solar Panel Farm. Of course you can, you can see the fucking thing from space.”
“We’re too late,” Alphonse says.
The girl walks off around the corner, to the other side of the building, disappearing from view.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
She comes back a second later with the sniper rifle. Armed and ready. There’s blood on the stock and the barrel but she doesn’t care. She aims it towards the south, towards the Solar Panel Farm. She looks down the scope. She holds the weapon like she knows how to use it, like she’s a goddamn expert.
I did not expect this.
She starts scanning the Solar Panel Farm. Looking for a target. Looking for the Magician.
“Forget it,” I say. “It’s well over three miles away. It’s out of range.”
“Not from this height.”
“How do you even know she’s down there?”
“Because she’s not here…”
I speak into the radio with the hopes of stalling. “What the fuck do you plan on doing?”
“I’m going to blow the connection. I’m going to completely sever and destroy the main power source of the Buried City. But trust me, this is for your own good.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“There are worse ways to die than starving to death.”
“I suppose you’ve got assurances from Wonderland?”
“Don’t you know it.”
“Keep her talking,” the girl says. “Need to find her.”
“The Solar Panel Farm is not the only power source,” I say. “We’ve got the reservoir. It produces a shit-ton of hydro-electricity.”
“Sure you do. But it’s not enough for the entire city.”
“You really think you can trust Wonderland? They don’t care about you. They don’t give a flying fuck about you.”
“I’ve made a deal and I’m holding up my end of the bargain. But if they double cross me, they’ll pay a bigger price, they’ll pay a price they are not prepared to pay. Remember, I command an army of Wasteland Raiders. The only reason we haven’t stormed the walls of Wonderland yet is because we have never wanted to, never needed to. But if I give the order, we’ll burn those walls to the ground. We’ll burn Wonderland to the ground, like goddamn barbarians at the gate…” she trails off. Distracted by something. The detonator most probably.
Need to keep her talking.
“How do you plan on severing the connection?” I ask.
“I’ve got enough C4 here to blow up the moon. Should be enough, don’t you think?”
“I’ve got her,” the girl says. “She’s down there. On the edge of the Solar Farm. She’s taking cover behind some sandbags. She’s got her hand on the trigger, on a detonator.”
“Take the shot,” I say.
The girl wastes exactly no time.
She takes the shot.
Bang.
We wait with baited breath.
For a second.
Two seconds.
Three.
Four.
“Missed,” she says calmly as she lines up her target again.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” I ask.
“I’ve spent approximately half of my pathetic and wasted life on a gun range, with a gun in my hands. So yeah, I know what I’m doing.”
She then takes a deep breath
. Steadies herself.
Takes the shot.
Bang.
Four seconds that feel like a lifetime…
“Missed.”
I’m thinking maybe I should take the shot.
But then the Magician says, completely oblivious to the fact that we are shooting at her, she says, “Enjoy the show. Oh, and you want my advice? After I blow this, after the smoke clears, after your ears stop ringing, I’d seriously give some consideration to suicide. Either with a bullet to your skull, or throw yourself off the tower. I mean, when else are you going to get a chance to end it like that. Might as well go out in style. You could pretend to fly for a bit…”
Bang…
I don’t know if the Magician can hear the shots. Maybe she can. Maybe she doesn’t realize we can see her, that we’ve got a high powered high velocity sniper rifle at our disposal. Maybe she doesn’t know that the girl she’s been ordered to capture and kill is a trained and skilled shooter.
Four seconds pass.
Another lifetime.
I hear a scream through the radio…
“Got her,” the girl says with absolutely no emotion in her voice. “Clipped her. She’s down. Fuck! She’s still alive.”
The girl takes another deep breath. Steadies herself again.
Takes another shot.
Four seconds pass.
Nothing happens.
And then…
Boom!
A series of explosions rip open the Earth and the sky. And these explosions send dirt and sand and dust high into the air, blocking out the horizon and the Red Giant.
The Magician. She’s got a flare for the dramatic.
She takes a bullet…
Waits until the last possible second…
But she manages to press the button.
She manages to pull the trigger.
And in doing so, she makes a city disappear. She condemns the people of the Buried City to death.
Chapter 15
The dust. The aftermath. The echo of the explosion.
It all hangs in the air for a long time.
The feeling of failure hanging right there with it.
God fucking dammit.
Alphonse can’t believe what he’s seeing. And he says, “I can’t fucking believe this. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s over… the Farm… there’ll be no light. No light... What the fuck do we do now?”
“I don’t know.”
And I genuinely don’t know.
Because we failed the city.
The power’s been cut.
This means we can’t grow anymore food.
No more crops.
This means in a week or two or three, depending on how much has already been harvested and stored away, food supplies will run dry.
This means in a week or two or three, every single person in the Buried City will starve to death.
Can’t survive on rat meat alone.
Not enough for everyone.
Not enough for anyone.
“We’ll have to fix the connection,” I say. “We’ll fix it because we have to fix it. We have to rebuild it. There’s just no other choice.”
Because the other choice is death. The other choice is starvation.
And fuck that choice.
I turn to the girl. “What’s your name? Where are the others?”
I’m asking where the girls are because I’m still hoping some good can come from this mission, from this little expedition above ground. And even though I’m fearing the worst, I need to know.
“My name is London,” she says, still looking through the scope on the rifle, still looking for the Magician, still hoping to put a bullet through her skull. “Fuck! I’ve lost her.”
“London, I need you to tell me where the other girls are.”
I need her to tell me they’re alive.
But to be honest, I’m expecting more bad news. I’m expecting for her to tell me they’re all dead. Or that the Magician, the real Magician has captured them. Or that the Raiders have taken them to a lonely and hidden part of the Ruined City, to an isolated part of the Wasteland.
She finally lowers the rifle. “We had to split up. It was too risky to stay together. Once we realized they had tracked us to the farm, we made the decision. Brooklyn and Paris headed back for the abandoned tunnels. I stayed. We started to think that maybe our tracking devices hadn’t been fully disabled. I mean, how else did they keep finding us? Every time we thought we were safe, they’d show up. Like clockwork. We thought maybe the signal was being boosted by us all being together in the one place. Anyway, we decided to split. Didn’t come to this decision lightly. Ruby went off on her own. Haven’t seen her since. Same with Angel. Don’t know what’s happened to them.”
There’s good news and bad news and I’m just going to say this… So I say, “Ruby is dead. Angel is alive. I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t say anything. Not for a while.
“We knew the risks,” London says eventually, hiding and masking her emotions and her pain. “We knew it would take a damn miracle to get away clean. Ruby… she… she made it all possible. Not just by stealing the key to the vault door and the access code. But she knew… she knew that the Wonderland bosses, the Lord, the Collector, she knew they were distracted about something. She knew it was time to make a break. And most importantly, she made us believe in ourselves. She gave us the confidence to run. She gave us strength. We all believed.”
And then she says, “How? How did Ruby die?”
I don’t ask her if she really wants to know the how of it. So again, I just say it. I tell her the truth. Figure she’s been lied to enough her whole life. Figure she’s been kept in the dark. A prisoner. A slave. “They found her before she could get to safety. She was looking for protection. She found my brother, Hector. But they, Wonderland, an Overseer… he got to her first. Poisoned her.”
“Gabriel…” she says under her breath.
“What?”
“Gabriel. He was the Overseer in charge of us. That supervised us. He’s used poisons before, on other girls.”
And I’m thinking, no wonder the girls ran away. No wonder they escaped. It’s crazy to think how wrong we’ve all been about Wonderland. It’s crazy to think about what really goes on behind those walls.
“What about Angel?” she asks.
“Angel’s had a tough time of it. But she’s alive.” And then I add, “She helped my brother take down an Overseer.”
She’s a fighter. A warrior. Tough as nails.
“Where is she?”
“She’s hiding in a place where Wonderland can’t track you.”
“Are you sure about that? Wonderland is more powerful than you know. More advanced than you know.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. We’ve got friends. Allies. You’re not alone. We can help you.”
She lowers her head. I don’t think she believes me. I’m guessing she has some trust issues. I would too if I was in her position.
“Do you know where your friends, where Brooklyn and Paris would’ve gone?” I ask.
“No. They could be anywhere. Maybe they would’ve tried to get back to Sally’s place. She’s the only person, the only friend we’ve got.”
“Not anymore she’s not. London, you have to believe me, you’ve got more friends than you realize. We’re not going to give you or your friends up without a fight. We’re not going to let Wonderland get away with this… with everything that they’re doing and with everything that they’ve done. They’re about to pay a heavy fucking price for their lies and for their sins.”
For their fucking tyranny.
London smiles at this, and I see her relax just a little.
“I need to get you to safety,” I add. “We need to get below ground. I promised Angel I would do this.”
And Mia.
And Sally.
Zoe.
Max.
Myself.
It’s a promise I intend on keeping.
“Guys, we need to make a move,” Alphonse says. “We’re running out of time.”
Alphonse is still focused and ready. He knows we’re not out of danger yet.
Because we’re still essentially trapped atop the world’s tallest tower…
The tower of the Wasteland.
Of the Ruined City.
Whatever you want to fucking call it.
And a pack of blood thirsty, flesh hungry killers is climbing this tall tower as we speak.
More than just a pack… it’s a horde… it’s an army.
And they’re coming for us…
To kill us.
Violently.
Painfully.
To flay our skin and eat our flesh.
To eat our hearts and our souls.
To gain our strength.
Chapter 16
“So, what exactly is our next move?” London asks.
I’m checking my guns, making sure they are good and loaded. Making sure they are ready to rock. Ready to kill. “Like I said, our only move, the only move that will save the people of the Buried City, is to rebuild the connection.”
“And what about the Wasteland Raiders?” Alphonse says. “They’ll sabotage the rebuilding process at every chance they get.”
He’s right. The Raiders won’t let us rebuild, not while they’re siding with Wonderland. And why the fuck are they siding with Wonderland? I can’t figure it out. I mean, do they really believe Wonderland will help them? Does the Magician really believe she’ll be saved from the Red Giant?
“We’ll need to…” and I trail off because I don’t know. And I say, “I don’t know. We’ll need to call a truce. Call for peace. Show the Raiders that they can’t possibly survive without our help. Show them that there’s no way in hell that Wonderland is going to honor any kind of deal.”
“That’s a pipe dream,” Alphonse says. “And we just shot the leader of these crazy bastards. You really think the Magician will want to make a deal?”
