Dark Humanity

by Gwynn White

  So now here he is, completely unable to just turn around and run in the other direction towards some sort of salvation. Unable to do anything but want to find them and somehow help them, hopefully.

  Die trying? He looks down at his chest and the metal that shines through between flashes of his skin. Decidedly so, his head says, and he breaks into a run again.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Sidney

  Her sleep came in fits and starts and she finally wakes with a heavy head, as the sun rises to the right.

  Remembering where she is and more importantly, who she's with, she sits up quickly, fighting the headache in her temple. Though it’s no longer night, the same sense of darkness and dread remains in the air—the same sense of helplessness slams into her chest and she tries to breathe past it.

  "Here," a gruff voice says to her right and she scuttles back on her haunches.

  "The bot said to feed you, to offer you water, girl. So here." Then he shoves a metal bowl at her as he places a flask beside her right leg.

  She grabs the bowl but wants to throw it right in his face. "Don't even think it," he growls as he walks away.

  He's not one she'd noticed before—just slightly taller than the big raider with the dirty beard. He wears glasses held in the middle with a silvery-brown tape. His shoulders bend forward like he's never quite grown up right and she watches his retreating back as he turns to one of the bikes.

  Then she looks in the metal bowl. It's a concoction of several different types of beans—she recognizes broad beans, kidney beans, lentils--none of the others, and little bits of meat. Oh heck no! She shoves the lot away from her, causing some of it to spill on to the trailer.

  The raider with the broken glasses comes back to her side and stares at the spilled sauce. "You're lucky I don't make you lick that up, girlie!" he says as he grabs a dirty rag off his shoulder and cleans up the spill. "You think we’re made of food here or something? You eat that up."

  "No way," she cries. "I'm not a cannibal. You can not make me a cannibal! I'd sooner starve to death."

  He frowns at her, then breaks into a wide grin and finally starts laughing so hard, the other raiders around the camp perk up. "Whatchoo laughin' there for, Zorle?" one of them yells across the way. "Like you never laugh mate, I thought someone had died."

  Zorle wipes his eyes, then yells back, "This sparky one, mate. She's a funny one. Claims she doesn't want to be a cannibal like the rest of us I ‘spose." He walks away, laughing some more.

  Sidney glares after him, wondering what could make Allendians so bad, they'd become cannibals and laugh about it like it's nothing. Still, she calms slightly when Petra walks around from another tent and makes her way to her.

  Sidney reaches out to her like a baby and sobs when Petra's arms go around her. "I'm so sorry," Sidney says into her shoulder. "I shouldn't have hurt you, and I thought you'd died, and now we're here, and they're gonna eat us and—"

  "Shhhh," Petra says as she pats Sidney on the back. "You're all right. I need you to calm down, to save your energy. You need to eat, Sidney."

  Sidney pushes her away. "No!" she says vehemently. Her eyes land on the bowl, then back to Petra again. "I am not going to be a cannibal."

  Zorle says something under his breath, and Sidney catches something that sounded like, "too late," but he walks away so fast, she doesn't have a chance to ask him.

  Petra continues to shush her, then picks up the bowl and scans it. "I assure you, Sidney," she says, "you will not become a cannibal. This contains five kinds of beans that have been slow cooked over a hot fire for several hours."

  "There's meat in there!" Sidney says, pointing at the bowl like it's full of poison.

  "That is, indeed, meat," Petra confirms, "but not human flesh. This is bird. The same type of bird you've eaten before, Sidney."

  She stares into the bowl again, seeing the little bits that Zorle's cut into uniform pink cubes, then she looks up at Petra's face. The bot reassures her with another smile and a pat on her shoulder. "These are not cannibals," she says, as she places the bowl back in Sidney's waiting hands and offers her a soft smile.

  "So—what are they?" Sidney whispers as she stares at the group of men packing away the tents and things back into the trailers. "They're raiders, aren't they?" They may not be cannibals but something still tells her they're dangerous, that they need to keep away from these men.

  "That they are," Petra agrees, "and from what I can tell so far, they're normal Allendian men, trying to survive out here until the re-emergence.

  "The freeze didn't take for some people, Sidney, that's why they still roam. They don't have the flu, they haven't been left with much to survive, so they roam and they raid—"

  There's something Petra's not telling her, she can tell, but why?

  "What happened to you last night?" Sidney asks as she points her chin in the direction of the tent that's now packed away. "In there, what happened? What were they doing?"

  Petra leans back slightly as if she's cracking her back—such a very human thing to do, Sidney thinks. Then Petra's eyes glaze over as if she's scanning something in her internal systems.

  "It's not anything appropriate for a child your age to know," she concludes. "But don't worry about me, I am fine."

  The mystery of what happened in that tent racks at Sidney, but she doesn't insist. She takes a good look at Petra and sees she's not injured in any way so whatever it was they did, at least it didn't leave her hurt, Sidney thinks. Maybe they're not as bad as she'd thought?

  Then Petra says, "Now eat and have some water. I need you to have all your energy. When we get to the city, we'll need to run."

  “Wait, what do you mean? If they’re not harmful—”

  “I said they were not cannibals, Sidney. I didn’t say you’re safe.”

  The one with the broken glasses eyes them from across the way, though Sidney hopes he’s too far away to hear their words. Still, she brings her voice down.

  “But what if something wrong happens when we run. I mean what if we get split up, or I fall, or what if—”

  “If we get split up, you keep running, we’ll try to meet up later. Or if something happens, you keep running.”

  “No,” Sidney wants to yell, though her voice still stays low. “No I can’t do that—I will not leave you and I won’t—” she starts to hyperventilate.

  Petra leans in to hug her, touching her shoulder. “Sidney,” she says, “it’s an impossible decision for you, I know. For me, it’s simple. I protect you.”

  And Petra turns away again, just to be accosted by one of the raiders. She throws her leg over to sit on the bike behind him, and they drive off towards the city.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Henry

  He makes his way to the old burnt mansion, knowing that the raiders likely drove right past—there'd be nothing here of interest to them. Even the bikes the other raiders had left behind are destroyed.

  Most of the house is in shambles, some parts still smoking, leaving a burnt wood stench in the air, so dense Henry wonders if it will stay for ever.

  He rummages through the wreckage and, finding nothing, decides that running all the way back to the city is the only way to go. They might both be dead by the time he gets there but he’s unable to accept such an outcome.

  If he'd just moved faster, if he'd just not been so stupid, he thinks, maybe he would have been able to save one of the twins in this house. He didn't even really care about them. He just knew what they'd gone through wasn't right.

  A glint off something to his right makes him turn, just in time to face a bespectacled old man with a rifle, now pointing at Henry’s chest.

  His hair is white, with wild tufts licking around his large pale ears. Henry eyes the weapon, knowing that it’s illegal in Allenda. Tazers are the only weapons allowed on the planet, and even then, only to be carried by license-holders, only by security bots.

  "What did you do to my home?" the man says as hi
s eyes water. His eyes dart from Henry to the rubble and back to Henry again, and he shoves him with the rifle until Henry lands in the rubble on his behind.

  "I didn't do this," he says, not wanting to disclose that he witnessed it all. "I found it like this. It was your home? I’m so sorry, mate."

  He eyes the rifle—it looks old, not like any type of weapon he's ever seen before. He stays still, wondering if the man's as crazy as the twins had been. Or worse.

  "What happened here?" the man says, though he does drop the weapon slightly. "When did you find it like this?"

  "Just now," Henry says, "I was heading into the city and this was here."

  He notices that the man has a large brown leather bag thrown over his torso with matching straps, like he's carrying something heavy. He drops the rifle even more and brings it down to rest on its top to his side, like it's a walking cane. The hat on his head, all worn leather, also matches the bag.

  "You been traveling?" Henry asks, pointing in the man's general direction. Behind him, a small vehicle rests—like a round disc, but not, it hovers over the ground silently. "Have you been outside the dome?"

  The man's old eyes rest on Henry again. "I have—and what is it to you?"

  Not a very polite Allendian, Henry decides. Still, he eyes the vehicle behind the man and offers him his hand. "I'm Henry. I can help you fix your home. Rebuild it if you like."

  At first he thinks the man's about to rebuff his hand, then he lays his rifle-staff on the ground and places a warm wrinkled hand in Henry's. "I'm Gideon."

  After a couple more minutes of pleasantry, Henry decides that Gideon should know exactly what happened to his house, and to the twins--his granddaughters.

  "They were my everything," the old man wails. "I'd only gone to the Red Dome to get more medicine for them. They've been sick you see, they've been—setting up traps, tricking people—they were never like that before. I was looking for a cure for them. Then, this—"

  Gideon cries so hard, Henry can't help but hold him in his arms. "I'm so sorry for the loss of your girls," he says. "This should never have happened."

  "I thought they'd be safe," Gideon cries. "We had a cloaker. Why did it stop working?" Apparently the house had been hidden for years even before the end of Allenda. "I'd built the cloaker myself, made sure it was working. What happened?"

  "That I don't know, Gideon," Henry says, still comforting him. "What I do know is that it was raiders."

  "Damn raiders!" Gideon cries. "I want them all dead."

  Henry tells him exactly how they did all die—he doesn't hold back on Petra's abilities. "She's amazing," he says, "and she's a hunter. She can find even more raiders like the ones that—hurt your granddaughters. She's heading to the city now."

  Gideon jumps to his feet. "Then we go into the city, too," he claims, his old eyes wild with fury. "And we kill every single raider we can find. They can not be allowed to roam Allenda any more. Not with what they do—"

  Henry's not about to argue with the man. He helps him stand on the hovering disc as he stands beside him—there's not much space for both of them—it really was only built for one. When it hovers forward at a speed close to the ones of the bikes, Henry doesn't care about the discomfort, about how close he has to stand next to Gideon with his arm around the man's waist. He doesn't care because now he'll make it to the city right around the same time the girls do. There's hope yet, he tells himself. There's hope yet.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Sidney

  She sits upright in the trailer, watching as the city looms up ahead. It's just a big gray square-shaped grid city really, nothing all that impressive. None of the buildings are higher than fifty floors, per Allendian laws, everything nice and uniform. Efficient and clean.

  She spies cleaning bots going about, still not able to vacuum any of the silver dust strewn about, and old buildings that she's already been through. It's all familiar and reminds her so much of Nayne, her insides hurt.

  Then she remembers that Petra had instructed her to prepare to run. She's still not sure why Petra has the raiders come this way, nor why she'd need to run, but she's ready. She watches Petra's back as they drive down the first street, as Petra points to the raiders wherever it is she needs them to go.

  The bowl of beans and bird sits heavily in Sidney's belly as she anticipates just when this 'running' needs to happen.

  The bikes slow to a point where she can actually hear Petra's calm voice over their din, and she hears her say, "Nearly there."

  The words are meant for the raiders, but she wonders if they're instructions for her too. Just in case they are, she turns slightly so she faces the back of the trailer instead. There's a slight lip at the end of it, easy to slide off rather than try to jump over its high side rails.

  Petra says, "Yes, just around this corner here."

  As the bike turns right, Sidney recognizes the block they're heading down. She knows every single one of these buildings like the back of her hand. In fact, there's the one she'd hidden in that day that Petra wasn't broken yet, the day she was being hunted—

  "Right at the end of this block," Petra says. "Just a couple more minutes."

  The bikes slow even more and the raiders turn their heads, looking down quiet alleyways and doors. They all remain silent, thinking about what Petra had promised was out there. Will it show its face? Sidney suspects it must be something huge, if they were to travel all the way back here.

  Then Petra yells, "Now Sidney! I'll meet you there!"

  Sidney doesn't even think—she stands and runs to the end of the trailer, jumps off and lands on a roll. She turns right, left, right again though it sounds like someone's pursuing her on a bike, then she's in a building and speeding up the stairs, remembering that this one connects to the next one across on the twelfth floor.

  She doesn't stop to take a breath. She hears someone below pursue on foot and she runs through a door taking her down the hallway which connects to the next building. She runs back again, catching the door before it slams shut, then lets it click quietly in place.

  Though everything in her body tells her to keep running, she keeps her ear against the door, waiting.

  She hears a loud grunt and huff as the man following her rushes past the door, and continues on up the stairs. When she's certain he's not coming back down, she runs down the hallway and on to the next building, not stopping until she's reached the one across.

  From memory, she knows that she's five blocks away from where the raiders have parked now and she makes her way up, until she reaches the thirtieth floor of the same building she'd hidden away from Petra the day they’d met.

  She arrives at the roof, remembering how she'd set up the explosives—just a bit of silver powder, her sparker, everything else she'd owned are still in that knapsack that the skinny nasty raider stole.

  She gets to the roof of the building and, hearing loud roaring from below, peeks over the side. She sees the raiders split up, some heading up North Avenue, some others on First and yet more others on Hawking Street. Not a sign of Petra anywhere to be found.

  How long will they roam around here, she wonders. She hopes they'll just give up of course, go about their way. But the way they're revving all up and down the streets down there, she knows that's not likely. They're peeved, and sometimes, when people are peeved, they're even more determined to get what it is they've lost.

  Like her knapsack. She needs it back. She can't actually let them get away with it. It's got everything she owns in it. Still, she waits, because she knows this is where Petra had meant when she said, "I'll meet you there." It has to be. It's where they'd first met, after all.

  When night falls and Petra still doesn't show, Sidney's heart races and she has a hard time swallowing. Petra would have come by now. She wouldn't leave Sidney here, alone, not with those raiders down there planning who knows what.

  Then the bikes stop revving below and they're replaced with hoots and hollers from the raiders. When S
idney peeks from the roof again, she sees that they've built a bonfire at the crossroads of three streets. She watches them throw things into the fire, building it up to make it even hotter, more menacing.

  She wonders just what they’re up to, when she hears the door to her hiding spot open wide, and her heart stops.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Petra

  Sidney runs faster than Petra had ever thought her capable, and she knows she’ll be fine. Petra’s already running in the other direction, meaning to meet up with her at the old building they’d first met.

  She knows that’s where Sidney’s mind would go—nowhere else makes sense. The portion that Sidney had blown to bits is on the east side—she’ll make her way to the west portion, which she knows is still intact.

  She’s running down Northern Avenue as the raiders all panic behind her and take pursuit. She finds the door to the building locked, but easy enough to slot her index finger and open it wide, allowing her to shut herself in.

  By her calculations, she should get to the building Sidney’s running to now within fifteen minutes, as long as the streets are clear of these raiders, which of course they’re not.

  So she waits. Eventually, they’ll tire out, she analyzes. They’ll decide that it’s not worth all the fuel to chase ghosts down the streets. Eventually, they’ll move on to the next thing.

  She scans for the large cats that stroll the city, but can’t sense them anywhere. Did they leave the city after not finding any more humans here? It’s possible they were destroyed under the acid rains. She has no time to analyze it now. She also knows the rains are scheduled to start shortly, so she’ll need to make her way to Sidney sooner than later.

  Then she hears it, as a fight breaks out amongst the raiders and her calculations change. Perhaps they’ll injure each other enough that Petra and Sidney won’t have to worry about them anymore and just go about their day.