The Moon Dwellers

by David Estes

  I kick him hard and below the belt. Then I follow it up with a roundhouse kick to his head, which has dropped to waist level as he clutches his groin, groaning in agony.

  I hear a yell, which likely comes from one of his mates, who are surely watching the exchange with interest, getting a good laugh up until the point I’d kicked him. Then I hear shoes pounding on the barren rock. Coming toward me. But I’m not worried about the footsteps, because strangely enough the Pen has a code of sorts. With the exception of multiple gang member brawls, fighting is limited to those involved in the fight. There is no jumping in, no ganging up. You can watch, but not intervene. The code won’t protect me the following day or the next week, when, had I been staying in the Pen, I would most definitely have to fight the rest of the gang members in succession, but I am relying on it now.

  “Get up, boss,” I hear one of them say. I almost smile. Verbal encouragement is permitted. The guy he refers to as boss is a tough guy, and he would get up despite the brutality of the wounds I have already inflicted on him, but I’m not about to let him, not about to underestimate him like he has me.

  So as soon as he pushes up to his knees I kick him in the face again. He spins away from me, lifting slightly off the ground before crashing onto his back. I think his skull hits the rock because blood starts seeping from the back of his head where I didn’t kick him. This time he isn’t getting back up.

  And then Cole and Tawni are at my side, grabbing a shoulder each, backing me away from the semi-circle of gawkers who have formed to watch the painfully lopsided fight. It is over before it ever really starts. A fast fight is a good fight, my father always used to remind me during my lessons.

  Tawni takes my hand and pulls me over to my stoop. I close my eyes, dip my head into my hands, start trembling. My whole body is shaking, like a virulent flu has attacked my insides all of a sudden, giving me a bad case of the shakes. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the rush of adrenaline that comes with extreme violence. I am no kind of adrenaline junkie, am not addicted to it, don’t crave it. Although I’m prepared to engage in violence when I’m forced to, I don’t particularly like confrontation. Unfortunately, confrontation seems to like me quite a lot.

  The last time I fought in the yard—when I victimized those two guys’ legs and sent a message to the rest of the inmates—I’d cried afterwards, in my cell, alone. I’d never wished more to have my parents with me, to comfort me like a child, to hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay.

  This time, however, I have Tawni. I’m not crying this time, but I am distraught, exhausted, both mentally and physically. She wraps an arm around me, pulls me close, holds me. Normally it would be a bad idea to show such weakness in front of the rest of the “guests,” but I don’t care. We are leaving and I will never look back.

  My thoughts are interrupted by Cole. “How’d you do that?” he says.

  “Preemptive strike,” I say simply, my voice muffled through my hands.

  “No. I mean, where’d you learn to fight like that?” he persists.

  “I told you I know how to fight.”

  “But where’d you learn it?”

  “My father taught me,” I say, opening my hands and raising my head. Tawni is still holding me, and where it had felt good a second earlier, it now feels weird, I think because it is such a public place and Cole is watching. I give her an awkward look and she seems to get the message and releases me, but continues sitting close to me, which is fine.

  Cole is looking at me with those strong eyes of his. Clearly he is perplexed by me. Now I feel like the puzzle. But I’m not really. It is simple: my father was taught how to fight by his father, my grandfather, and he taught me. Growing up, he never let me rest on the fact that I am a girl. Not in the world we live in. He said everyone will need to know how to fight eventually given what is coming. I’m not sure what he meant by that.

  I was a good student and loved our training sessions together. He was hard on me, but I didn’t mind. I just knew I wanted to spend time with him and it was as good a way as any to do it. I remember the day he told me I was ready. I didn’t understand. He said he had taught me everything I needed to know. I didn’t feel ready.

  My father is not a violent man. He told me never to use what he taught me except to defend myself or others. Never be the initiator, never the aggressor. Including my most recent fight in the Pen, I’ve only fought three times in my life, outside of training. I haven’t lost yet, unless you include the skirmish with the man-giant that Cole pulled me out of. But I don’t, that was hardly fair.

  Although I had a good teacher in my father, he said I have a natural talent for fighting. I would tell him I got it from him, but he always countered that I inherited my talent from my mom. I never understood that. My mom is the least violent person I know. With the exception of the night she was taken, I have never seen her so much as lift a foot to squash a bug. When I asked her about it, she just shook her head and said, “Your father has a big mouth sometimes, Adele. He’s the fighter, not me.” Like my grandmother, my mom is not a natural liar, so I could tell there was something she was holding back, but I never had a chance to find out what.

  Cole looks like he is about to ask me another question about my fighting, but I wave him off with a hand. “I’d really rather not talk about it right now,” I say. I am glad when he doesn’t push it any further.

  To his credit, he doesn’t so much as mention fighting the rest of the afternoon, or the evening for that matter. The last day in the Pen seems to sprout wings and fly away. I think it is because I can’t wait to get out of this dump.

  Night falls. Not that it makes things look any different. Outside the Pen it is still the dull gray that it always is. Inside the Pen it is still fluorescent white, painfully bright in most areas. Tawni and I walk to our cells for what I hope will be the last time. After a quick and knowing sideways glance, we push through our respective doors. As I close it, I insert the plastic square between the bolt and its hole.

  Ten minutes later the speaker announces lights out and I hear the lock click. It sounds different than most nights—not the hollow click announcing my nightly imprisonment, but a duller thwap! that confirms the plastic has done its job.

  The waiting is painful—each fifteen-minute interval drags on until I am straining to hear the clap of the guard’s footsteps on the gray-painted stone floor. By the third guard, it feels like an hour has passed since the last guard clipped past my cell. That’s when I start worrying.

  At first it is just a nagging voice in my head that says something isn’t right. But soon it becomes a shouting that says that the guard’s patrol pattern has been altered, that someone knows about our attempted breakout, that even now they are handcuffing the wayward guard who took our money. Perhaps it is already past midnight. Perhaps the fence is still charged and ready to shock us into oblivion when we touch it. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

  I try to think about my family to take my mind off of my nerves. I desperately want to see them again. For the past few months I have done my best to forget them, letting their smiles fade from my memory like a hunting bat drifting into the gloom. Elsey, with her contagious optimism and proper way of speaking. My mom, with the heart of a lion and an abundance of compassion. My dad, the fighter, quick to smile, slow to anger. My rock, my hero.

  The fourth guard comes. Eleven o’clock—if the patrol pattern hasn’t changed. My mind is relentless, and soon my heart joins in the fun, hammering in my chest, striving to pound its way through my bones and skin. But I am handling it. Barely.

  Until my lungs decide to join the party.

  My breaths start coming in ragged heaves, short and choppy, until I am gasping for breath. It is like my whole body—all its parts, internal organs, and nerve endings—decide to mutiny at the exact same time.

  That’s when I lose count. I can’t remember if the last guard I heard was the fourth or the fifth. I am thinking fifth, but I can’t be sure. When the
seventh—or is it the sixth?—guard goes by, I know I have to play it conservative. This is one time I can’t be late.

  So I block out all my kooky, mutinying body parts and start counting. I put every last ounce of concentration and brain power into keeping count, maintaining a steady rhythm, treating the act of counting like it is the most complicated math problem.

  Right on six hundred, I pull my door open and step into the dim hallway. Ten seconds pass and Tawni still hasn’t emerged. I think I must be too early. It is probably eleven-forty and the next guard will be coming soon—the guard that should have triggered my counting. But then I have a very bad thought. What if I am too late? What if I missed two guards passing and it is really twelve-ten now? What if Cole and Tawni waited for me, and when I didn’t come, carried on the plan without me?

  Tawni’s door creaks open, and like a shadow, she emerges. I take a deep breath and approach her. “You count slow!” I hiss.

  She raises her wrist, displaying the digital numbers on a wristwatch. 11:55. “Sorry, I forgot I had this,” she whispers. “I guess you got excited and counted too fast.”

  I don’t know why the twelve o’clock guard chooses to come down the hall at that moment. It’s possible he is just bored, choosing to start his circuitous route through the complex a few minutes early to pass the time. Or perhaps Tawni’s watch is slow, as well as my counting. Maybe he is right on time. Whatever the case, all of a sudden he is here and we have nowhere to hide.

  When he sees us standing in front of our cells, he stops, looking confused. He rubs his eyes, as if he thinks the shadows are playing tricks on him.

  We run.

  It doesn’t take him long to realize we are real. He opens fire on us with the big gun he is hefting. Yeah, he actually shoots at the backs of two defenseless teenage girls who are inside a secure facility, presumably for the petty crime of breaking curfew. I don’t know where the Pen hires these psychos from, but I make a mental note to write a letter to the government about them. The same government that abducted my parents. Yeah right, like they are going to listen to me.

  At first I don’t realize what is happening. As I flee, I feel a weird rush of air burst past one of my ears, and then see a spark to my right when something glances off the wall. It isn’t until we reach the end of the hall and I see the bullet holes that I know for sure that we are being shot at. I know, it should be obvious, what with the thundering booms from the dude’s rifle, but I have never been shot at before, so I don’t really have anything to compare it to.

  Somehow we manage to get down that first hall without getting shot, but we aren’t even close to being out of the mines yet. We start to turn right, to take the fastest route to the yard, but are forced to veer left when we see three more guards charging toward us. A few more bullets whiz past, shot by the original guard. I hope he hits the other guards by mistake.

  The three new guards are yelling to the other guard to “Stop freaking shooting!” which gives me hope that perhaps they aren’t all so trigger happy. With a parade of slapping feet behind us, we take the long way around to the yard.

  It is intense, I gotta say. More intense than anything I’ve experienced in my entire seventeen years of life. Especially because of the guard with the loose trigger finger. When you’re moving that fast and you know at any moment you could get knocked flat on your face by a bullet in the back—well, that’s pretty intense.

  As we round the next bend, the sweat is dripping into my face and I have to use the sleeve of my gray prisoner’s tunic to wipe it away. I try to stay with Tawni, but her legs are longer than mine and her long, graceful strides soon edge her several paces ahead. Just as she passes a corridor on her right, a guard steps out, facing me. He is holding a thick black nightstick and looks ready to use it.

  I leap, aiming a high kick at his face and hoping he will get the worst of whatever collision is about to occur. I catch him high, just above his left eye, but not before he is able to take a half swing with his club. Thank God he doesn’t have time to wind up the entire way. CRACK! I feel the rod slam into my ribs, sending shivers of pain through my stomach and into my chest.

  There is a crunch as I land on top of him, one foot on his head and the other on his chest. I think I might’ve broken his sternum. Somehow I manage to keep my footing and stumble off of him, using my momentum to continue moving forward.

  Tawni hears the commotion and stops, waiting for me to catch up. I try to yell, “Keep running!” but it comes out as a wheeze—I am having trouble getting air into my lungs after the hit from the nightstick. I wave Tawni on with my hand and she gets the message. She turns and continues running, but at a slower pace, until I am able to get alongside her. We run abreast at my slower pace, cutting through the back entrance to the cafeteria, past the benches and long tables, and out the front entrance. Each step sends shockwaves through me, and my stomach heaves, threatening to toss up whatever gunk I ate for dinner.

  Once out of the eatery, we cut sharply to the left and then push through the outer door in tandem, crashing each of the double doors into the stone wall outside. Compared to the air inside the Pen, the outer air feels fresh and quickly fills my faltering lungs. Perhaps if I hadn’t lived in caves my entire life, the air would feel thick, dense, but to me it is as fresh as it gets.

  A dull light illuminates us for a moment, before we have a chance to duck against the wall.

  Cole is waiting just outside, in the shadows.

  “Could you be a little quieter!” he hisses. “Someone’s gonna hear us!”

  “Too late for that,” I choke out.

  “They’re after us,” Tawni says, grabbing Cole’s hands and forcing him toward the fence.

  We have no idea whether Cole’s guy came through for us, but by God we are going to try anyway. Cole finally seems to grasp the urgency and powers ahead, reaching the fence about five seconds before us. He uses the time to rip his prisoner’s tunic over his head and chuck it against the fence.

  Nothing. No crackle of electricity, no smell of burning cloth, nothing. The fence’s power is off—but for how long?

  We aren’t about to sit and place bets. Cole already has his tunic back on and is a quarter of the way to the top when Tawni and I start climbing. As usual, she gets in front of me immediately, using her long reach to skip as many rungs as possible. I hear a shout from the yard, but don’t risk looking back. I have to keep climbing. Stretching my arms over my head makes my stomach throb and I can feel my crushed ribs grating against each other. But I push through it, even when the pain grows so bad that I start seeing stars.

  We are so close I can practically smell the freedom.

  So close.

  And yet so far.

  Cole is straddling the barbed wire at the top of the fence, trying to avoid getting poked somewhere that will have a permanent impact, when I hear the next shout. It isn’t from the yard this time, but from the street outside the fence.

  This time I look. I don’t even have to turn my head, just have to look down. Half a dozen guards, armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, which are pointed right at us, are shouting for us to get down.

  We are trapped like rats.

  Chapter Eight

  Tristan

  When we exit the transporter, it is getting very dark in subchapter 14. The day lights on the roof of the cavern—which are already dim to begin with—are nearly extinguished, simulating twilight. I am glad. It makes it easier to avoid being spotted.

  Although most of the time the many subchapters in the Moon Realm blend together in my memory, becoming one continuous subchapter in my mind, I have a pretty good idea of the layout of subchapter 14 because we just visited it. Roc also has a map—he has a map for every place in the Tri-Realms—and we use it, along with our memories, to navigate our way from the transporter station, through the streets past the familiar government buildings, and into the light commercial district, near where the Pen is located.

  I still haven’t worked o
ut what to do when we get there.

  We emerge from a crowded street, full of people bartering goods and services for their next meal, and see the intimidating fence surrounding the Pen. It is a formidable obstacle, complete with barbed wire and signs warning of “Electrified Fence—Keep Back!” It certainly makes you appreciate being on the outside of it.

  The rock yard beyond the fence is empty. It’s getting late and the inmates are probably in their cells. I’ve never visited the Pen before—never had a reason to—so I don’t know their rules around prisoner visitation.

  We have a choice to make. Hole up for the night and wait until morning to try to get inside the Pen, or give it a try now, at a time which will be considerably more suspicious. We decide to get a hotel room first.

  The only option in near vicinity to the Pen is a ratty old building across the road. The ancient clerk at the front desk has a wispy white beard and pockmarks covering the whole of his face.

  “We’d like a room for the night,” I say gruffly.

  The guy doesn’t bother to look up from the newspaper he is reading. “Which one would ya like?” he says.

  “Do you have anything available that overlooks the Pen?” I ask.

  The man starts to chuckle, but then starts coughing—a heaving, wheezing blast of air from his mouth that reeks of disease. When he gets control of his lungs, he says, “We currently have one hundred percent availability.”

  I guess I should’ve known, considering the number of people commuting out of the city every day. There is no reason for travelers to stop in the 14th subchapter.

  “Top floor, dead center view of the Pen,” I say.

  “Room twelve thirty-five,” the man says, handing me a key. He’d slipped the key from a peg on a board without even looking at it. Roc and I make eye contact; his lips are curled into a smirk that I am pretty sure mirrors my own.