Son of Sedonia

by Ben Chaney

  “I’m taking a break!” Matteo announced to the crowd. A few chuckled, but they seemed to forget him instantly. He wiped sweat from his eyes, then focused on the door. Each step was a prevented fall as he blundered through the psychedelic dance floor, pushing and barreling into people along the way.

  “Watch it, asshole!”

  “Hey fuck you, kid!”

  The voices seemed to shout from half inside a dream. Shoving hands passed him back and forth like a soccer ball. Somehow he kept the door in sight. Finally getting there, he shouldered into the handle and flung the door wide. The sound of it hitting the concrete wall echoed off the curved walls of the space.

  Rows of candy-colored hover cars lined the deck, their backs turned to the panoramic exit at the far end of the bay. A widescreen movie of the nocturnal City glistened beyond, silhouetting Liani and her visitor. A puff of smoke wafted up and away from the curly headed shadow. Against the ringing in his ears, their voices carried to him over the cool cement platform.

  “So you just broke it in half?! Li, I realize you felt guilty, but it would have buried those responsible! Justice!” the male voice said. Matteo decided he didn’t like the tone. He took a couple steps toward them. The whole platform seemed to tip underneath his feet, turning his knees to noodles. He buckled at the waist and grabbed onto his thighs. The conversation continued.

  “Yes! I did it! I helped them cover it up. You think I feel good about that?! No! I feel like shit! I haven’t stopped feeling like shit since I heard about the Raid! If that story broke now, what do you think would happen?”

  “Revolution,” Corey said.

  “You mean war,” said Liani, “Maybe a civil one. I thought it would save more lives if people didn’t know.” After that, there was a long silence between them.

  “That’s not our job as journalists, Li. We give people the information, and they make up their minds. We don’t do it for them. I know you think you deserve to be back here in this shithole, but—”—

  “It was a nice dream, Corey, but the reality...I can’t live with that kind of shit on my conscience anymore. At least here, I know what to expect,” Liani said.

  ‘Raid.’ ‘Revolution.’ ‘Civil War.’ The words echoed in sync with Matteo’s thumping heartbeat. Images of Rasalla materialized in front of him in fleeting but extremely sharp detail. Like watching a floating movie screen. The picture morphed and shifted to his glass cell on Themis. And as a familiar face appeared in countless ages and situations, another word rolled in his mind. Jogun. Jogun. Jogun. A flood bubbled up from his stomach and into his throat. Splashed onto the concrete.

  Rapid footsteps approached Matteo like an EXO on the warpath. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the two blurry figures above him.

  “What the hell are you doing back here?” asked Liani, stooping to help him. He wrenched his arm away.

  “I’m okay! I’m okay, I can do it,” he planted his palm on the ground and crouched. The man Liani called Corey grabbed him under the shoulders and stood him up. Matteo swung a wild fist, nicking against Corey’s cheekbone.

  “Whoa, chill the hell out, bro!” Corey dropped him back on the concrete as the door opened behind them. Matteo craned his neck. Caught an upside-down view of two bouncers coming toward him.

  “I’m...not your brother...” Matteo muttered as the bouncers scooped him up, “I’m nobody’s brother!”

  Minutes later, he landed on the front sidewalk like a sack of rotten garbage. People in the queue outside laughed like a pack of stray dogs. He crawled for a few feet before making the attempt to stand. An invisible metal shard jabbed him in the temple when he finally did. Motherfuckers...Blue ones. He drooled a little as he snickered. The smile faded. The Raid...Jogun...What does she know about them? She’s beautiful...

  He stumbled down the line, pushed through the people there, and started back up the video block wall. People shouted up at him this time, pointing, laughing, and recording. Whatever. The wall-kick to the roof vents proved harder than the first time. His foot slipped during the plant and he caught the ledge by inches on his fingertips. Arms shaking, he heaved himself up and over the ledge, fell flat on the roof, then commando crawled all the way to the vent.

  Someone was in the bathroom stall when he came crashing through the ceiling. Shrill screams pierced his eardrums as the stiletto heels threatened to pierce his skull. The cat-like brunette shoved Matteo to the side then stormed out of the stall. He crawled out like an old dog.

  “AAAH! What the fuck are you doing in here! Out! Get out,” a familiar voice screamed. Matteo turned his bloodshot eyes to look.

  “Liani? Liani!” he croaked, coughing as the recent injuries seized his lungs.

  “Listen, buddy, you don’t belong here, you—”

  “I know, I KNOW! ‘Look at that wall,’ right?! I should’ve...should’ve stayed on my side of the wall...” He heaved up to his feet. Braced himself against the stall bracket. Liani squinted her shining green eyes at him. In an instant, a pack of girls pushed through the door. Liani lunged for the opening and slipped through, leaving Matteo pawing at empty air. He followed her out.

  The club had turned on him since he left. Jagged green vines and blooms surrounded him in step with a flurry of electronic notes. He felt his head loll back a few times. Everything was moving too damn fast. He focused on the curly red hair as it bounced away from him. Stopped. He grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “The Raid!” Matteo screamed with tears in his eyes, “Whaddyu know ‘bout the Raid!? Can y-y-you take me home?”

  She answered him with a frozen, wide-eyed stare. He let her go and hung his head, sobbing heavily. Liani didn’t move.

  “Hey, here he is!” One of the bouncers appeared behind her and pointed at Matteo. Liani looked behind the bouncer toward the door. Matteo stood on tiptoes to see, then felt the blood drain from his face. Kabbard!

  “Kabbard? What would somebody like him want with—,” she stopped. Matteo plowed through the dance floor, dodging punches, elbows, and flying glassware on the way. Bursting through the back door, he found Corey talking to someone on a glowing display. Almost ran him over.

  “What the—! Fuck, man, you don’t know when to give up!” Corey said. Before the door could snap shut, Liani swung it wide, knocking Matteo across the platform. Out cold.

  “Oooh...I uh,” she glanced to the door behind her then back to Matteo, “Grab him,” she said, “We’re getting him outta here!”

  “What?! Why?”

  “Something’s up with him,” Liani said.

  “No shit! What does that have to do with us?”

  “I—just shut up and help me get him to your van!” Liani threw one of Matteo’s limp arms over her shoulder.

  “My van?!” Corey gaped at Liani. Meeting her angry matron stare, he groaned and stooped under Matteo’s opposite shoulder.

  “Fine,” Corey said, “but since this is your change of heart and your idea we’re taking him to your place!”

  34

  Resurrection

  JOGUN’S STOMACH AND back had ached for the past eight hours. He just wanted to sleep. To lay down and not wake up for at least a full night. But it was still dark when the nausea had roused him. Still dark when he decided to go up to the roof and let the others sleep. Morning had crested over the Sedonia City skyline by the time his feeble legs made it up the gnarled concrete steps. They throbbed with the sensation of a thousand pricking needles.

  Two heaves came up dry, then his stomach went dormant. He collapsed back in the aluminum folding chair, staring up at the yellow ripples of dawn. The cheap-shit anti-radiation meds they had rationed to him on Themis had run dry in his veins before they even left. It took this long for his body to realize it was poisoned. Shivering in the morning haze, he pulled the moth-eaten fleece blanket up to his chin and tucked his arms underneath. Tried to breathe deeply. Into the belly like he’d told Matteo so many times.

  “Maybe we understand each other better now, li
ttle brother,” he said, wheezing into the wind. Sighed a breathless sigh.

  It was nice, at least, to be among growing things again. The rooftop garden hadn’t changed much in six years. If anything, it looked healthier. Happier. A strange island of life in a twisted metal ocean of smoking rubble. And the water was about to rise. He could feel it everywhere. Anger, madness, grief, and now...hope. They think I’m that hope. And there would be no stopping the war. Jogun heard Suomo and the others planning it in the rooms around him. Plans that depended on him. Another dry wretch gripped his stomach.

  Padded footsteps came up the steps with a swishing of loose fabric. A low-humming tune lilted in the air as the sounds got closer. The corners of Jogun’s mouth creased in an attempted smile.

  “I’ve always been a morning person,” said Utu in his half-laughing way. Jogun craned his neck to watch the man weave a path through the rows of leafy fronds. They seemed to nod as he passed carrying a steaming terra cotta bowl. The spiced fragrance of Utu’s chicken broth arrived before the broth itself, triggering a flicker of an appetite. Jogun’s nausea rolled right over it. He slouched back into the chair under the blanket as the doctor stopped next to him. After a waiting a few silent moments, Utu gave a little shrug.

  “Hm,” Utu grunted. Placed the soup to the side on a stack of plastic crates. Jogun tried closing his eyes to calm his stomach, but felt a backward spinning sensation. The kind like he’d had after drinking his ass off then smoking up for initiation. An inability to hold onto the floor. He flashed his eyes open, focusing on the first thing he saw. The Border. As his tunnel vision cleared, the anxiety trickled back in. Became a deluge. I can’t do this! I can’t!

  “Open up,” Utu said, holding out a pinched finger-full of ground leaf pulp. The fire died a little inside as Jogun focused on the green-black mush. Comprehension came slowly. He wrinkled his nose as he parted his lips only to have them instantly stuffed with pulp. Utu met his shocked glare with a deep, piercing look.

  “Chew,” said Utu. The stuff was bitter as hell both on his tongue and in his nose. Cool menthol juice flooded his mouth as he bit down. Utu watched quietly. Jogun bit again. And again. Very slowly, the first effects did their work, calming the shaking in his belly. Utu walked to the roof ledge, interlaced his fingers, and twisted his arms up in a grand stretch. Relaxing, the doctor looked out to the Border. Beyond it.

  “Did you know we come from the stars?” Utu asked without turning. Although Jogun just shook his head, Utu seemed to hear him. Continued.

  “Not so long ago, some very bright men discovered this. Through study and observation, they traced the smallest pieces of our bodies to the deaths of faraway suns. And not just pieces of us, but of all things. The earth, the sky, the moon,” Utu faced the sky, then back down to earth. “...and the Border. Like us and the suns, nothing made of this...Stuff...seems to last forever. Through time, or the will of other Stuff, it all dies so that new Stuff can be born. Over and over.”

  Jogun didn’t follow much of it, but the words had a kind of ring to them. He couldn’t place it.

  “That supposed to help me?” Jogun asked, forgetting the numbing mouthful of pulp. A bit of dark green drool dripped on the blanket. Ashamed, he wiped his mouth.

  “Nope,” said Utu, “That’s just what is. Keep chewing.”

  The two of them waited there in the humid dawn as the sounds of the waking Slums drifted up to them. A distant echo of boards dropping. A baby crying. A dirt bike motor choking and sputtering to life. Then the morning metal-drum song of the Stepstones...the call to prayer for those who wished to pray. Hollow metallic tones bounced gently through the jagged streets and debris mounds.

  “Can you feel it?” Utu asked. Jogun breathed a deep, mixed lungful of menthol vapor and the dusty Rasalla perfume. Nodded as he slowly chewed.

  “No, fool, the caffeine! It should be coursing through those atrophied muscles of yours by now,” Utu said. Jogun snapped alert. Moving under the blanket, he realized he did feel stronger.

  “We’ve got to get you moving as much as possible if we’re going to rebuild,” Utu said. Before Jogun could think about what ‘rebuild’ meant Utu clapped his hands together.

  “Try to stand,” said the doctor, yanking Jogun’s blanket away. He folded it as Jogun leaned forward in the chair and flexed his toes. The roof felt rough and solid. Pushing with his arms and legs, Jogun began to rise. Utu braced him gently with a hand on the back. Every muscle tensed with the effort, pushing and pulling him into shape. Finally, he was upright. He lifted an arm for Utu to enter as a crutch.

  They took one step together. Rising tremors in Jogun’s thighs quivered up his waist, into his core, and up his spine. He gritted his teeth. Took another step. Then another. And another. Acid pain tightened the vice on his limbs. Chanting rose above the Slums behind him, faint at first. As his heart pounded blood into his failing legs, the voices got louder. Though his will could have flipped a shuttle, his body was done. He went limp in Utu’s arms.

  “I—I can’t,” Jogun said, “How the hell can I climb the Border if I can’t walk...” He stopped as the words of a rising chant took shape in the streets.

  “Die EXO, Die EXO, In pain all alone! Die EXO, Die EXO, In pain all alone!” A crowd of dwellers, Healed, and T99 soldiers massed in the Temple below, led by a wagon carrying a corpse. The EXO’s body laid face up and sprawled on the wood in full uniform. Ragged, bloody gouges marred the signature urban camo and flak jacket. Kolpa and Oki emerged from the group.

  “Healer!” they called out. On the roof, Utu lowered Jogun back to the chair and covered his feeble legs with the blanket. Returned to the roof ledge.

  “Jogun!” they called again.

  “He’s up here with me,” said Utu, “Bring the EXO.”

  Oki and Kolpa exchanged glances, looked up at Utu, then lifted the corpse off the wagon. Carried it upstairs.

  “Here! Here,” Utu said as they reached the top. He cleared a space among the heavy burlap sacks. They dropped the EXO in a bloody heap at the foot of Jogun’s chair.

  “In the Pits last night,” Oki panted, “caught us stockin’ one of the ships.”

  Jogun looked down at the EXO’s face, it’s expression stretched in a sort of disgust. The eyelids sagged heavy and still, but just barely open. As if the man’s hate made him hang on for every last drop of life. A fever chill rushed through Jogun. Utu crouched beside the body and closed its eyes, soundlessly murmuring to the dead man. He paused, breathing deeply.

  “Now,” Utu said, brightening, “Send for a Lifter.”

  “What would I need a Lifter fo—” Jogun stopped, realizing.

  Within fifteen minutes, Yasin, one of the Black Hoods, followed Rusaam up the stairs to the garden with a blanket-roll under his massive arm. He stopped and looked at Jogun. The giant’s dark eyes glittered in the shadow of his hood.

  “This him?” asked Yasin.

  “It is,” Utu answered. Yasin stooped, put the blanket-roll on the ground, and got down on his knees. Bowed until his forehead touched the ground.

  “Nah, man...stand up. I ain’t the son of God, just a busted ass Nine,” said Jogun. Yasin looked up, paused, then stood as commanded. He unrolled his tools on a crate beside Jogun. Tiny, delicate surgical tools beside bits of tech. Circuits, wires, Wi-Fi cards, all cobbled together and connected to a tiny rectangular screen. One of the ‘phones’ from before the Border. After turning all of it on, Yasin crossed to the EXO.

  The giant’s hands were shockingly fast with the tools. A few cuts, pulls, and tugs in the officer’s forearm, and the RFID chip was torn free. He cleaned it gently, mounted it to the device, and keyed a flurry of buttons on the screen.

  “It’s ready,” Yasin said, “DNA and BioSigs are wiped. Go ahead an’ get the Augs.”

  Utu stooped by the EXO and popped each of the seals on the smooth, urban camo panels. Jogun watched as his forearm was cleaned. Stared as the razor blade cut into his flesh. It burned like a son-of-a-bitch. He
jerked when tiny jets of vapor puffed out of the Aug rig sections. Piece by piece they took it off.

  “Aight,” said Yasin, pulling the last stitch closed, “Check this out.” He tapped a button on the screen and rocked Jogun’s world. Nanotech coursed from the chip into his body, introducing itself as it reached his brain. He felt the nausea disappear. The headache vanished. Yasin seemed to know. The stoic Black Hood nodded to Rusaam and Kolpa. With reverent care, the two of them fitted the gear onto Jogun’s withered body.

  It came online all at once. A million pinpricks of fire rippled through him then faded to a low, steady hum. They’re a part of me now. The fact came to him. He lifted one leg, then the other. Panels and joints shifted with his muscles underneath, obeying his commands with the soft buzzing of servo-motors. He stood up, quick as a soldier. Laughed out loud.

  “What was taken, let it thus be restored,” Utu intoned, “through this joining of flesh and invention.”

  Jogun grinned, taking a few solid steps on the roof. Yasin smiled.

  “That ain’t shit,” said Yasin, “It’s still in Neutral.”

  “Yeah,” Oki said, turning to Kolpa, ”’Legs On.’” Anyone who’d ever fought the EXOs and escaped knew the phrase. It usually meant it was time to run.

  “Time to run,” Jogun said. He crouched, turned the dial on the right hip. The high-pitched whine that all of Rasalla learned to fear sliced through the dense morning air. Jogun stood, walked to the edge of the roof, and jumped.

  Maybe too high. He hadn’t expected a ten meter leap from flat feet. The animal fear in his brain faded as all focus shifted to full body awareness. Midair, he pitched himself perfectly to land in the street below. In the center of a group of T99s. They staggered back. As they recognized him and cheered, Jogun jumped again, planted his foot on a ship’s hull wall, then pushed off to the nearest roofline. Step-step-step-step-JUMP-step-step-JUMP-step-JUMP. He sprinted like a demon over concrete, gravel, shingle, fiberglass, and tin.