by Joel Ohman
Charley suddenly realized he was starving. After hiking all day, catching gobster, and fending off a manateel, he was so hungry that he didn’t really care what he was eating. If gobster was half as good as Grigor made it out to be, then it would probably be the best thing he had ever tasted.
It was.
Charley leaned back against a log and slowly rotated yet another gobster on his stick over the fire. He had never had lobster before—or goose, for that matter. Grigor told them that in the Old Days it had been customary for people to dip their lobster in butter, which they didn’t have here, of course, but he said that, really, gobster meat was creamier and fattier than old-fashioned lobster because of the combination with the goose, so they didn’t even need it. Charley bit into the succulent white meat before it was fully cooled down. Grease dribbled down his chin and he almost burned his tongue, but it was worth it.
“Wow. Wow. Wow. That’s all I can say. Grigor, you were right—I’m sorry I doubted you. Gobster is the most delicious thing I have ever eaten—by far.” Sandy smacked her lips in a very unladylike way that set everyone to tittering.
Charley took another bite and felt himself relax. He had a full belly, he was in good company—even counting Hank, there were stars shining above him, the moon was limning the night sky with soft glowing light, and he was happy. This was a good night. A happy night. It could have only been better if Alec was there to share it.
The last bite of gobster no longer tasted quite as good. It required a little more effort to swallow. Charley knew he was prone to these bouts of melancholy, and that they were just as likely to surface in good times as in bad. On some level, he welcomed them. In a weird way, they kept Alec alive.
With great effort, he swallowed his last bite of gobster. He’d had enough.
Armen interrupted Charley’s thoughts. “So, Grigor, how safe are we out here exactly?” The skinny boy’s eyes were nervously darting into the dark beyond the flames from their campground.
“Safe? Why, we’re never really safe!” Grigor guffawed and took a big juicy bite out of a freshly roasted gobster. Grease dribbled down his chin. “Ooh—ahh, hot—hot!” He pinched in his face and fanned his mouth, but that didn’t stop him from taking another immediate and monstrous bite. He looked back at Armen. “We are never totally safe out here, and you will do well to remember that. But we’re relatively safe here around the fire and buttressed up to the water like this.”
“Why is that?” Hector asked.
“Well,, it would be pretty rare for any of the bigger, more aggressive water creatures to come up out of the water and toward the fire, unless they were provoked in some way. Like, say, if someone stuck their foot into their mud home.” Grigor looked at Hank and chuckled.
Hank mumbled something unintelligible, his eyes on the ground, and took another bite of his gobster.
“So this is an important part of the lesson about building fires and choosing safe spaces: so we are somewhat safe on the three sides surrounded by water. The one remaining side is pretty open and without any shrubbery or cover, so we would see anything coming from a long way off.” He patted his crossbow with a big, greasy hand. “And anything I can see coming won’t be a problem.” He sucked on a gobster shell and threw it in the fire, where it sparked and the grease instantly ignited. “Of course, I am leaving one thing out—who can tell me where we are still vulnerable?”
“Up above,” Charley said, as everyone turned to look at him. “We are still vulnerable to an attack from overhead.” He looked steadily at Grigor, who nodded in return.
“Yes. Very good, Charley. The weakness of our campsite is that we are susceptible to anything that can fly.”
Charley was starting to feel less relaxed, and his stomach flip-flopped as he thought back to the potential flying snake. He quickly pushed the thought from his mind.
“And what might that be?” Sandy asked, her eyes zipping upward.
“Well, there are the usual minor annoyances, like crants, like we see a good bit during the day. And festrels, ferret–kestrels; those things are really annoying, but you don’t see those that often. Umm, binches, beetle–finches; those don’t get too close to the water because they know they’ll be eaten by water creatures. The ones to really watch out for at night, though, are the snicks, snipe–ticks. I hate those—they will swoop down in a swarm and all start trying to suck you dry. They love human blood, and they are not the easiest to kill.”
“Great …” Hank said, as Charley felt the imagined sensation of a huge flying insect brushing up against his arm.
“Will we see any of them tonight, do you think?” Lila asked, leaning forward with bright eyes.
“You and your brother really love animal combinations, don’t you?” Grigor said.
Lila leaned back on her elbows and looked over at Hector. “Well, yes, we do.”
“Definitely,” Hector said.
“And that’s fine. Someone has to learn more about them and figure them out,” Grigor said. “So, let’s see how much you already know. Can either of you tell me why we have animal combinations?”
Lila leaned forward. “Well, everything we’ve read says that animal combinations came about as a result of the mutations caused by the Event—”
Hastily, Hector interjected. “But no one really knows exactly how it happened. The general belief, though, is that it was intentional.”
“You mean it was caused by man, right?” Sandy asked.
“Yes.”
“But I’ve never really understood why,” Sandy said.
Hector glanced at Grigor for permission to continue. “Well, some say animal combinations were the unintended consequence of trying to engineer some kind of organic super weapon—”
Hank cut in. “You mean like an army of mutant animal freaks?”
“An army of aggressive mutant animal freaks,” Charley corrected.
“Something like that …” Lila said.
Charley gazed into the forest beyond the water and fought down an involuntary shiver. He could just picture an army of flying snakes or herd of bions swarming out of the dusk and right at him.
“In theory, it was a pretty smart idea, actually,” Sandy said, as all eyes turned in her direction. “I mean, if you drop a nuclear bomb, then you wipe out everything, but what is left is essentially unusable for a long time. But if you do something to trigger these destructive and aggressive biological mutations, then you just sit back and let the environment turn on itself.”
“It wipes itself clean,” Charley murmured.
“Of course, something that seems like a smart idea in theory doesn’t always work out as expected,” Sandy continued, stretching her long tan legs in front of her as she leaned against a log.
“Very good.” Grigor grinned as he used a gobster claw to scrape something from his teeth. “It’s unclear what government or rogue terrorist group first unleashed the agent that began the mutations, but what is clear is that things quickly spiraled out of control.”
“And here we are,” Charley said.
Grigor eyed Charley closely.
“And what is the point of merit scores in this world of mutant freaks? Whose idea was that?” Charley asked.
Grigor sighed. “Whenever there is chaos, there are always those who would seek to spread their ideas of how the world should be. When the Old Days’ government fell, other forces rushed in to fill the void.”
“But how was it decided which forces and whose ideas were the right ones?” Sandy asked.
“When people are desperate, they will do almost anything. With limited resources, the merit-scoring system helped to make us strong,” Grigor answered simply.
“It made us strong at the expense of the weak. We sacrificed the weakest among us on the altar of our own security and convenience.” Charley’s jaw clenched as he spoke.
“It is what it is,” Grigor stated and then paused. “Not everyone likes the merit system.” His eyes were trained on Charley.
&nb
sp; “So why hasn’t anyone done anything about it?” Charley demanded.
“Some have tried. Each one has failed.”
“Please,” Charley snorted. “I’m not afraid of Commander Orson.” He knew he was saying more than he should, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Nor should you be. Commander Orson is tasked with ensuring the well-being of all High Scores—especially young High Scores like you. If I remember correctly, Commander Orson spared your life.” Grigor continued to watch Charley from beneath his great furrowed brow.
Charley lowered his gaze. “Yes,” he said softly. “He did.”
“But who gave Commander Orson that responsibility?” Hector asked.
“Ahh, now that is the real question, isn’t it?” Grigor said vaguely.
“Well?” Hank demanded.
Grigor shifted his weight and poked with his gobster stick at the embers in the fire. “Well …” he began. He batted at a spark as it flew at him from the fire. “Listen, I care about each of you, I care about all High Scores under my charge, and I don’t want you to go doing anything reckless that will put you in danger.” He looked briefly at Charley and Sandy before gazing back into the fire. “So, I will tell you this: Commander Orson’s father was the one who put him in charge of Meritropolis. I’m not really sure who he is or who he represents, but I do know that he is the only man Orson is scared of.”
“Wow,” Armen exclaimed. “Commander Orson’s scared of him? His own dad?”
“His own dad, yes. Then again, if your father was the founder of the System, then you might be afraid of him, too. It’s rumored he proved his commitment to the System by putting his own wife out of the gates,” Grigor said in a low voice.
“Commander Orson’s father was the founder of the System?” Charley asked, bile rising in his throat.
“Yes.”
“And his mom was put out of the gates by his own dad?” Sandy took a quick breath and looked incredulously at Grigor.
“Yes.”
“Where is he now?” Charley asked, trying not to sound overly interested.
“Orson’s father? He’s not in Meritropolis, obviously. He and the others in his employ—hired hitmen, really—are the reason we know there are others outside Meritropolis. He and Commander Orson have been in communication ever since he left. After leaving Orson in charge of Meritropolis, they set off to who knows where.”
“Is he returning to Meritropolis?” Charley asked, hoping to verify what Abigail had told him while also hoping that he hadn’t sounded too eager to know.
“Hopefully not. I think he would only return if Orson made a catastrophic mistake. They keep in touch somehow.” He paused, seeming to consider something, then he exhaled and spoke. “There are advanced electronics in the Tower, that I know.”
“Thank you for telling us …” Sandy said hesitantly, watching Grigor struggling with whether he should say anything more.
Grigor let out a great sigh. “All of you need to know. Some of you more than others.” He looked pointedly at Charley. “If one of you thinks that doing something to Orson will somehow make things better—trust me, it won’t. You really don’t want his father showing up. None of us do.”
Charley looked Grigor squarely in the eyes. “Commander Orson told you to tell us this, didn’t he? He told you to take us all out on this overnight trip and use this story of his dad as a threat.”
Grigor’s eyes widened, then his great face creased into his customary smile. “You are very perceptive. But whether Orson directed me to tell you this or not, it’s no less true. Bad things will happen if Orson’s father returns to Meritropolis.”
As Grigor spoke, Charley felt a coalescing of purpose. Everything was becoming clear. He knew what he had to do.
And Grigor was right: bad things were definitely going to happen in Meritropolis.
* * *
Surprisingly, the night passed uneventfully. Grigor spent the hours of darkness standing watch by the fire. But even with that security, Charley had lain awake for a long time straining his ears for the slightest movement from the water, the air, or the forest beyond the field. Eventually, the utter stillness of the night put him to sleep.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” Charley was up earlier than the others and, rising from the ground, directed his question at the still-awake Grigor, who was watching the sun rise molten orange and purple across the water.
Grigor didn’t turn his head away from the burst of colors beyond the horizon. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” Charley shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked again at Grigor. He was a study in contrasts: a man enormous in physical proportions and trained in violence, yet enraptured by a sunrise.
“Why do you serve Commander Orson?” Charley immediately stepped back, regretting blurting out his thoughts with no filter.
Grigor stiffened, almost imperceptibly, then relaxed his bulging back and neck muscles once again. A few moments passed before he answered. “I didn’t always serve Commander Orson.” He spoke softly, his voice like the low rumble of distant thunder. “But he holds … a certain power over me.”
“You are scared of him?”
“I am not scared of him or any man,” Grigor said simply, his eyes till trained on the sunrise.
“Then what do you mean?”
Grigor sighed. “I felt as you do once—long ago. I’ve had those I loved put out of the gates; who hasn’t?” Charley’s face tightened, and he was glad that Grigor’s eyes were still on the sky. Grigor continued. “I once thought that the way to take down the System was all-out war: revolution. But there was too much killing. So much killing.”
Grigor’s steady voice carried on, as if he were willing himself to relive old memories. “For every guard that was killed, Commander Orson put ten more people out of the gates. Innocent people. People that could still be alive if it hadn’t been for me.”
Grigor finally turned to look at Charley, creases of regret etched across his face. “I had to stop the killing. Innocent people—young children, young mothers—they were being put out of the gates because of me. For every day that I didn’t turn myself in, more were killed. What choice did I have? To continue fighting was to be as bad as the System.”
He bowed his head and turned back toward the water. “Commander Orson spared my life. In return, I swore allegiance to the System and to Commander Orson to stop as much of the killing as I could.”
“But there is still killing,” Charley whispered.
“Yes. But not like before. I pray for reformation of the System. Reformation, not revolution.”
“Whaaaaa—whoaaaa! Over here! Over here!”
Charley and Grigor snapped their heads toward the campground. Armen was waving his hands wildly while being pursued by a swarm of black insects.
“Ahh—ouch! Ouch! One got me!” Armen smacked at a coin-sized black lump that zoomed from the swarm and attached itself to his arm. “They’re trying to suck my blood!”
“Snicks!” Grigor bounded over, Charley right behind him. “Run to the water and jump in!” Grigor shouted to Armen. “They are part ticks; they live on blood. Everyone, hop in the water!”
The entire camp was now in an uproar. A bleary-eyed Hank staggered around until Sandy pushed him down the hill and into the water, closely followed by Hector and Lila, tripping and half-falling, half-sliding down the bank as they ran.
“Charley! Your bottle!” Sandy inclined her head to Charley’s pack.
“What?” He felt flustered at the thought of how to fight the swarm.
“Your spray bottle. Go get it!”
He suddenly understood. Charley veered his course away from the water and grabbed the bottle of red juice from his pack.
By the time he adjusted the nozzle to “mist” and started again toward the water, Charley realized that he was the only one still on land.
And so did the snicks.
Charley licked his finger and lifted it to gauge the directio
n the wind was blowing. He quickly adjusted his position and held the spray bottle in front of him with his arms fully extended.
The snicks weren’t fast fliers, but there were close to 20 of the little creatures: bird-sized ticks with little wings and a beak.
Just as they were almost upon him, Charley sprayed.
The effect was instantaneous. The swarm of snicks veered crazily away from Charley as if hitting a wall. Swelling up into balls of veiny, blood-red fluid, the snicks sunk slowly toward the ground. Charley was already backing away when the first one exploded in a shower of blood and pus.
“Ewwww!” Lila screamed from the water, her head peeking out along with the others.
Charley hurried quickly backward as the snicks bounced and sagged along the ground before exploding like rotten fruit. It was a revolting fireworks display of blood, innards, and insect parts.
“Yeah!” Armen cheered from the water, splashing his arms enthusiastically.
Rising from the water like a leviathan from the deep, Grigor surged to the shore. “Pack up. Time to head back.”
Charley wiped a splatter of blood from the side of his neck, blood from who knows what other kind of animal, or human, that the snick had been preying on.
Charley got the distinct feeling that his future was to be just as bloody.
CHAPTER 13
Rampage
How do you approach a crime lord for help? Humbly? Hat in hand? That had been the question in Charley’s mind ever since Commander Orson’s comment about Chappy’s unsanctioned free enterprise within Meritropolis. Charley felt foolish at the fresh-from-underground naiveté he had displayed upon first meeting Chappy, not even recognizing him for the powerful man that he was. Charley now knew that Chappy probably had people constantly groveling before him with one request or another, so he knew he needed to take another tack to stand out. He needed to do something to get Chappy’s attention—and, ultimately, to secure his loyalty if he was ever going to take down the System.
