by K. Makansi
It’s the smell that pulls me halfway out of sleep. Rhinehouse has hung rosemary, thyme, lemongrass and bags of dried rose petals everywhere to try to mask the scent of dead flesh coming from the burn victims.
“Can’t this wait? They’re still sleeping.” Vale. I recognize his voice, but in the fog of my drug-induced sleep, panic grips me and all I see is Evander’s boot on his throat, Evander’s bolt pressed against his temple, Evander’s knife in his shoulder.
I gasp, sitting up and throwing the covers off. “Vale!” I cry out. Then I remember that he is okay, that we are still here, I calm down. Beside me, Kenzie moans.
“No it can’t wait.” It sounds like the Director’s voice, but I’m not quite sure. “Get her up and bring her to the meeting room. Now.” Definitely the Director. And whatever they gave me, they must have given twice as much to Kenzie. I attempt to run my hand through my hair, stand, and pull the blanket back up over her shoulder. The taste in my mouth is horrendous. What was in that stuff? I push the door open and step out into the hallway. Vale’s standing just outside as if he’s on sentry duty.
“How is Jahnu?” I ask.
“Hanging in there, but….”
“But?”
Vale looks away. “It doesn’t look good. He’s stable, but the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will make all the difference.”
Suddenly, the idea of Kenzie passed out while Jahnu’s life hangs in the balance really pisses me off. “Maybe Kenzie should be in there with him, instead of sleeping in here with me. Whose idea was that?”
“Doctor’s orders. He said she needed to get some sleep. We can wake her up before heading to the briefing, if you want. Did you sleep well?”
Vale reaches up as if to touch my face, but catches himself midair and instead lets his arm drop awkwardly to his side. He clears his throat.
“The Director wants to see you.” He looks like he wants to say something else, so I wait. I place a hand on his forearm. His skin is warm under my fingertips, but he pulls back, just out of my reach, nervous, or jumpy, or something. He takes my hand then and leans forward, and I almost think his lips might touch my forehead, but he stops and looks down.
“I want to thank you.” His voice is thick and soft, with an intimacy that both confuses me and sends me tumbling into unfamiliar territory. The space between us feels wildly different than before. I find I cannot move. I am drawn to his warmth like iron filings to a magnet. “You saved my life.”
“And you saved mine. The shooter. You took him down.”
He nods, and then asks, “What did you do to Evander?”
His question, though there’s no hint of accusation or disgust in his voice, brings me up short and I pull away, breaking the moment, feeling the accusation and disgust well up inside myself. I say, perhaps too defensively, “I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even really hurt him.”
“I know that now, Soren told us, but—”
I look at the wall. I can’t bring myself to say it and look at him at the same time. “I cut him.”
His hand instinctively moves to his face where his fingers rub over his chin, as if he could feel the ghost of the pain. “On his face?”
I nod “He’ll have the letters ‘R’ and ‘A’ scarred permanently into his cheeks.”
He draws in a slow breath. “That explains everything.”
“What happened between you and Evander?” the Director demands even before I’m through the door.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I didn’t kill him. Though he doesn’t deserve to live.”
She’s glaring at me, and even though she’s about a centimeter shorter than me, her ferocity combined with the drugged haze makes her look about three meters tall.
“Evander and Corine made an official Sector broadcast yesterday denouncing you as the leader of the group of rebels that destroyed Round Barn.”
“I cut off the power supply to their illegal meat factory, but beyond that, all destruction at Round Barn was Evander’s doing.”
“They say they have video of you carving the ‘symbol of the Resistance’ into Evander’s cheek.”
My cheeks flush. “They’re lying about the footage, there weren’t any drones nearby.” I don’t mention that the video footage I took captures that moment in excruciating detail.
“Answer me!”
“Yes, I cut him.” I say, trying to keep my voice even.
“What the hell did you do that for? And what symbol are they talking about?” she demands.
“It was the letter A for Alexander and the letter R for the Resistance. And for ‘Remy.’”
She studies me for a moment. “That’s not all.” She takes a step toward me and out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad flinch. “Tell us everything that happened, Remy. Everything. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”
The pain etched into my father’s face cuts me as surely as my knife cut Evander’s flesh. Would he rather I killed him? Everyone stares at me, waiting. The heat from Vale’s body warms me, and I realize he’s stepped closer, and I’m glad he’s there.
“That’s all,” I say, shaking my head. “Some part of me wishes I’d killed him. But I didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t.”
Carving into Evander’s skin was primal. It was an out-of-body experience. The act arose from a place so deep within me I don’t even recognize it now. Cutting him solved nothing, I know that. But I don’t regret it, either.
“What made you think it was a good idea to carve your initials into the Dragon’s face? By all that’s sacred, Remy, what were you thinking?”
He deserved it, after what he did to the workers at Round Barn. He would have killed Vale. He would have killed me. How can the Director not see that? A little scar on his cheek won’t ruin his life. She shakes her head at me as if I’m a wayward child. The rage bubbles up again, nearly choking me.
“What was I thinking? I was thinking of my sister and my mother. I was thinking of my dad and Eli. I was thinking of my friends, Rose and Luis, whose lives are ruined because of Evander—because of the Sector, because of their lies! I was thinking of everyone who died, everyone who was burnt by that airship. Everyone else that I’ve never met that Evander killed, as if they were bothersome flies. Cockroaches to be exterminated.” I couldn’t stop the words from pouring out. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see his boot on Vale’s throat. You didn’t see how he looked at him, how he looked at me. You didn’t see the look on his face as he watched dozens of people go up in flames. He was happy. He would kill you, me, every single one of us and not even think twice. He’s the personification of evil. And he was unafraid, even when I could have killed him. And believe me, I wanted to make him afraid.”
“Please. Tell us that’s everything, that’s all that happened.”
I don’t say a word. Everyone in the room is waiting. I meet Eli’s gaze and he’s looking at me with awe, as if he’s never seen me before. Soren and Bear and the rest of them, looking up at me as if I’ve grown a second head. A much scarier head. With horns, maybe.
“Remy,” my dad says. “Is there anything else? We need to know.”
“That’s all. Except when he woke up, he spat in my face and said ‘you’ll pay.’ I knocked him upside the head with my Bolt and that’s it. That’s everything.”
The Director looks as if she wants to shout at me some more. But in the end, she sighs.
“Here’s what’s happened, Remy, because you did this thing.” Her eyes are boring a hole in my skin. “They’re painting the battle as a victory against the rebels who kidnapped Vale, and they’re claiming you’re the newest leader of the movement. Evander’s gunning for you. Not just the Resistance. You. To try you for treason, war crimes, and mass murder.”
War crimes? Mass murder?
“They’ve pledged to track you down and execute you on public broadcast, for the whole Sector to watch.” She pauses to take a breath. “Evander even made a personal statement after the official transmission.”<
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“What did he say?” I ask, but I feel as though I already know.
“He said, ‘No matter where you go or how hard you try to hide, Remy Alexander, you’ll pay.”
I pull out a chair from the table and sink into it. I should be shocked, trembling with fear. But I’m not. Instead, I’m thinking of everything they’ve done to strip me of who I am. I remember my mom and dad giving me the news that Tai was dead. I remember sitting across a desk from Vale’s dad while guards applied electrical feeds so they could tase me over and over again. I remember Soren’s bruised face as he recoiled from General Aulion, and my father bending over my mother’s lifeless body as more OAC Black Ops—Vale’s mother’s operatives—dropped from airships overhead.
But still I didn’t kill Evander. Does that somehow make me better than them? That I can carve my initials into his face, and not kill him, and imagine I showed him mercy?
My fingers reach for the compass that hasn’t left my body since Vale gave it back to me. Which way is north, Granddad? I’m lost in the woods, and I don’t know how to find my way. The golden metal against my skin, warm from my body, is comforting. Calming.
“I have camera footage of the battle. I can prove that the Sector’s forces were harming the Farm workers, not members of the Resistance. It will prove that the Resistance tried to protect the Farm workers. We can prove that Evander is lying.” Maybe I can find my way, after all. “We already knew they were hunting us. Ever since Soren and I escaped from our prison.”
The Director sighs again, and this time it seems to lift a weight from her shoulders. She straightens and drops her gaze to the floor.
“We’ve been hunted since the moment they discovered the existence of the Resistance. The only thing that’s changed is that now you’re the target. You’re the eye of the storm.” She pauses, takes a breath. “Where is this video?”
“I have it.”
“We need to watch it. To see just what, exactly, it will prove. How it will help us.”
“Okay.” But I can’t give it to her. I can’t give it to anyone, yet, not until I erase the part where I cut Evander Sun-Zi. No one can watch that. That is history I never want repeated.
“Philip and Corine are one thing, Remy,” my dad begins. “History is littered with power hungry politicians like them. But Falke Aulion and Evander Sun-Zi are monsters of an entirely different species.”
My dad looks over at Rhinehouse. For the first time I see worry, fear, on his face.
“I’ve known those men for decades,” Rhinehouse says. “Aulion was a friend of mine for more years than I can count. We fought together and explored the ruins of the Old world together. When and why he turned, I may never understand. Aulion may have codes, principles that he operates by, buried somewhere within him. But Evander…he was never a man I could relate to.”
“No one could,” the Director adds. “He has no codes, no morals. He’s fierce, ruthless, and brilliant—he couldn’t have risen as far as he did otherwise. But he’s psychopathic, hungry for power, without real human emotions that make him vulnerable. He’s not afraid of you, Remy, because he’s not afraid of anything. His nickname fits. You’ve awakened a monster.”
I can’t bring myself to say anything. Nothing seems appropriate, helpful. So I look at the Director and wait to see what she will say.
“We’re relocating this base tomorrow. Everyone has to move.” My jaw drops.
“But what about the wounded? What about Jahnu? Is it safe to move them?”
“You’ve given us no choice, Remy. They’re coming after you, and they know where we are.”
Hot tears well up in my eyes but I bite the insides of my cheeks to keep them from spilling out. I’m ashamed, confused, angry, distraught over everything all at once. I am appalled at the hatred and violence that emerged within me when I cut Evander, but do I regret what I did? Can I regret it? Should I have killed him? Should I have run away from him like a scared little child, afraid of monsters hiding under the stairs? And what can I expect of him now, now that his eyes are focused directly, squarely, on me?
“Where are we going?” Vale asks.
“We’re not going anywhere together. You—” she gestures to me, Vale, and Soren “—are going to find the Outsiders.”
21 - REMY
Spring 15, Sector Annum 106, 06h55
Gregorian Calendar: April 3
“They are beautiful creatures,” my dad says, stroking Lakshmi’s nose. Lakshmi, the tawny mare that will be my ride for the next few weeks, is smaller than the other horses, but I think she is more beautiful by far. Her mane’s the color of butter and her coat glistens, even at this early hour, with the merest hint of dawn sieved through the branches overhead. The idea of climbing on her broad back and making her do what I want would normally be hilarious, but no one is laughing. Granddad had a couple of horses before he got too old to take care of them, and he’d hoist Tai and I up on them and lead us around the garden, but that’s the last time I’ve ever even seen one in real life.
Now my dad gives me a boost up, and Lakshmi promptly begins snorting and pawing the ground. I have no idea whether she is eager to get moving or none too happy to have me on her back. I rub her elegantly arched neck, but its solid strength, a wall of pure muscle, is intimidating. Why would such a powerful animal ever deign to listen to me? Rhinehouse insists I’ll get the hang of it in no time, but I’m not sure I believe him.
Rhinehouse and the Director, it turns out, are accomplished riders, having done quite a bit of it back when they were communicating once every three months in the middle of the Wilds and he couldn’t risk flying airships out of Sector territory. Both have been given us pointers for the last twenty-four hours, but their advice has done more to terrify than reassure me.
They decided we’d travel on horseback to avoid drones. Horses, of course, don’t give off electromagnetic signals like hovercars and airships, and, apparently, there are wild herds roaming the outer reaches of the Wilds so a few more won’t raise suspicions. Plus the Outsiders use them so we’ll be less likely to scare the hell out of them showing up on horseback than if we arrived in a hovercar or popped out of the air in a cloaked airship. Besides, as the Director has made abundantly clear, every airship and hovercar the Resistance has access to is needed for evacuating the temporary base and for transporting the injured. Injured like Jahnu.
So while Soren, Miah, Vale, and I hit the trail like cowboys, as Firestone calls us, everyone else is staying behind to help with the evacuation. Bear is hanging back to be with the Farm workers who decided to join our cause—few of them did, after the chaos at Round Barn. But there are enough that the Director specifically asked him to stay, especially after Rose and Luis turned up with several stragglers in tow. Eli is staying to work with Rhinehouse on the LOTUS project and to organize the raid to finally get their hands on a 3D printer. He’ll be working with Zeke’s team on the raid. Zeke asked Miah to stay with him and join his team, but he opted to go with Soren and Vale, probably as a buffer to make sure they wouldn’t kill each other along the way. Firestone is needed as a pilot to help with the evacuation, and although Dad wanted to come, in the end he decided to stay, again at the Director’s request, to provide a calming presence for the injured, and to be with Jahnu. Kenzie, who, of course, will not leave Jahnu’s side, was visibly relieved when Dad told her. She will get to see her own parents again soon as they’re helping to prepare for the influx of people at the new base, but in the meantime, Dad will be there for both her and Jahnu.
Jahnu hangs onto this world by sheer stubbornness. Always right in the midst of the fray, he was protecting a group of children from several of Evander’s more vicious Enforcers and suffered a third-degree Bolt burn to the shoulder and took three old-fashioned lead bullets—one sliced clean through his thigh, one nicked his pelvis, and one shattered a rib and nearly punctured his lung. Kenzie made sure the two Enforcers didn’t live long enough to celebrate taking Jahnu down. Now, although his vital
signs are stable, they’re still not good, and I can hardly bear to leave him. But the Director has made it clear I have no choice in the matter. My job now is damage control, cleaning up the mess I made. And that means reaching out to the Outsiders to convince them to join our cause. We can no longer take on the Sector alone.
Before mounting up, I visited Jahnu in the infirmary one last time, biting back tears at the sight of the white bandages stark against his handsome ebony skin. I laced my fingers through his, laid my head on his dinky little pillow, and cried. The carefully constructed dam I’d built to wall off my emotions collapsed, and everything poured out in a torrent. I told him everything I ever wanted to say, just in case….
“You will always be my best friend, and I love you. If you don’t, if you can’t…. I’m going to find the Outsiders and I’ll miss you with me. You’re my rock, Jahnu. My sanctuary. I’m so grateful for you, for your friendship, for sticking with me even when I was an ass, for always being truthful, but never judgmental, for all the laughs we had when we were little, for the funny faces and silly games and daydreams and quiet times when neither of us had to say a word….”
“Hey,” he croaked, his voice almost inaudible. I jerked my head up and wiped my cheeks. His eyes were open. “Fly the damn coop, Little Bird. Make some magic in this world … for me.”
With mom and Tai, there were no true goodbyes, and that was cruel. So I pledged to commit to memory everything about the moment, not just the words, but the brown of my fingers intertwined in the black of his, the barest beginnings of creases around his eyes and lips that may never deepen, the intensity of his gaze as he struggled to make himself heard.
