by David Estes
Not that any of it matters. So what if they starve?
He’s sitting on a rock, staring at nothing.
That voice again, so familiar and yet so muddled.
Someone’s blocking the nothing he was staring at. A boy, standing before him, tearstained and covered in mud and filth. A survivor, like him.
A survivor, like she was supposed to be.
He’s got her eyes and her fine, blond hair. He’s got the same natural frown that can only be obliterated by a sun-filled smile that seems to literally brighten everything around him.
He’s not smiling now. Not crying, either. Just calling to Benson with angry eyes. Not calling—no, that’s not the right word. Shouting. Demanding, his hands pulled into tight fists that look ready to hit anything within their reach.
The boy’s name is Geoffrey.
He is—was—Luce’s younger brother.
Two tasks that Benson HAS to complete:
1. Find Geoffrey.
Check. Fourteen-year-old Geoffrey is standing before him, a bundle of barely contained fury. He’s the antithesis to Benson, who doesn’t feel a single shred of emotion. It’s like his body has wrapped itself in a shell of protection, encasing his heart in a thick layer of numbing snow.
2. Take care of him.
Benson says, “Your sister asked me to take care of you.”
“Just like you took care of her?” Geoffrey screams, his voice cracking.
Benson’s surprised when the words make sense. His brain isn’t dead after all. Dying, maybe, but not dead. “I—” The dozens of excuses on the tip of his tongue slide away. At the same time, the snow around his heart melts, taking with it the numbness he so desperately needs.
The pain is immense. Almost indescribable. On a scale from one to ten it would be a hundred. Like glass shards being pressed into his heart. Like his soul being ripped in half and strung up on a flagpole.
“I? Is that all you have to say?” Geoffrey’s chest is heaving, dark blue pools filling the space between his eyelids.
“Yes,” Benson says, out of words.
For a moment Benson thinks the boy might hit him, and he almost wants him to, but then Geoffrey’s shoulders slump, his head drops, his fingers uncurl. He falls into Benson’s arms, sobbing, his entire body wracked with a sort of pain that you have to feel to understand.
Benson understands it deeply.
He clutches Geoffrey to him, but doesn’t try to comfort him. He can’t. Instead, they comfort each other with their shared despair.
“She’s gone,” Geoffrey sobs.
The words are like silenced gunshots, muffled as the boy’s lips move against Benson’s chest.
~~~
Everything is a pile of crap. They’ve all been dragged through that pile, smeared with human excrement, filthy with the blood of the fallen. Harrison took care of his mother first, wiping away the blood—Luce’s blood—and crap from her arms and legs. She’s sleeping now, curled up in a ball, one hand covering Benson’s old Zoran watch, as if protecting it.
Then he checked on Benson, but he’s still in shock, unable to respond to anything. Harrison doesn’t even know if Benson heard him when he told his brother he was sorry about Luce. So sorry. A few minutes ago Luce’s brother finally seemed to get through to him. They’re crying and hugging, a display that Harrison wants to stay as far away from as possible. He’s just glad that Benson’s doing something.
Leaving his brother to mourn his dead girlfriend, Harrison makes his way past where a few of the survivors are preparing some kind of an unappetizing-looking meal. He heads for the makeshift medical tent, which is mostly empty. The truth is, there weren’t many injuries. You either died or survived, not much in between. Those injured got left behind, which means they’re dead now too, in accordance with the law. Illegals and traitors—the worst kind of scum. Harrison thinks that last part with venomous sarcasm. Oh how he remembers everything they learned in school, the government-mandated curriculum. All propaganda, he’s finally realized. He was too obsessed with popularity and hoverball and how much he loved/hated his father to figure it out earlier.
All a load of the same crap that’s clinging to his clothes, crusty and dry. God, he stinks. Luckily, they all do, so there’s no reason to worry about it.
“Is she going to be okay?” Harrison hears Simon say inside the tent. He takes a deep breath and pushes the flap aside. Simon’s eyes dart to him and then back to Minda, who appears to be sleeping.
One of the surviving Lifers who apparently has medical training, says, “I don’t know. She inhaled a lot of the gas. It’s very deadly. She’s lucky to still be breathing. That’s a good sign, but her body is in a significant amount of distress. If she makes it through today, she should survive.”
Having heard enough, Harrison steps outside of the tent, where the air has turned brisk. With colored leaves still clinging precariously to many of the trees, winter seems to be creeping in earlier than usual. Simon joins him a moment later, shoving an electronic cigarette between his lips.
If Minda wasn’t potentially dying inside the tent, Harrison might almost laugh at the scene. A few days ago he thought he had nothing in common with the barrel-chested Canadian. Now it’s like they have everything in common. Battered faces, inflicted by each other. A common cause: their hatred of Pop Con. Sore muscles, from carrying Minda for many kilometers. They didn’t speak, not once, sharing the task silently.
Simon blows a blue vapor ring. “Thank you,” he says to Harrison.
Harrison watches as the ring changes color, to purple. Then again, to red. “Two words I never thought I’d hear you say to me,” Harrison says. There’s no spite in his voice, nor gloating. Just mirth-filled truth.
Simon chuckles. “That makes two of us. Anyway, Minda is my friend. I don’t have many. I didn’t see her in the sewer so I was about to go look for her. Thanks for giving her a fighting chance.”
“No offense,” Harrison says, “but I didn’t do it for you. She saved me. Destiny, too. I owed her.”
“You’re big on fairness, huh?” Simon says.
Harrison stares at him. He’s never really thought about it, but… “I guess so,” he says. “I play sports. Sports have rules you have to follow. The rules are part of what makes it fun.”
“Like the rules that say your brother has to die?”
Harrison recognizes that Simon’s baiting him. Evenly, he says, “Certain things rise above the rules.”
“Like?”
“Like family,” Harrison says.
“And friends?”
Harrison nods.
“You consider Minda a friend?” Simon asks.
“A new one, but yes.”
“What about me?”
“Umm…”
Simon laughs, deep and throaty. “Fair enough. But you know I’m illegal, right? A Digger? Just because they haven’t caught me doesn’t mean I’m allowed to be in the RUSA. Are you going to turn me in because I’m not following the rules? Because I’m not your friend or family?”
“No,” Harrison says. “Rules can be changed sometimes. Rules should be changed sometimes.”
Simon nods thoughtfully, sending a series of smaller vapor rings through the color-changing one, which grows bigger and bigger as it gets higher. “Maybe you’re not the arrogant, self-righteous prick I thought you were.”
“Coming from you I’ll take that as a major compliment,” Harrison says.
~~~
Destiny volunteers to be one of the first people to guard the perimeter. She’s dead on her feet, but not tired. With each push, her hoverskates carry her soundlessly away from the center of camp. Away from the aftermath of her stupidity and recklessness.
Harrison has mostly ignored her since they stopped their march, too busy with his mother, his brother, and Minda. She’s glad. She doesn’t think she can face him. A couple of people called Destiny a hero to her face, for helping Harrison save the guardswoman.
Destiny feels lik
e a fraud. You can’t save someone you endangered in the first place. Even if Minda survives, one life doesn’t make up for the dozens lost.
She should’ve known her escape from the Hunters was too easy. They had her surrounded. She’s a good hoverskater—no, a great hoverskater—but not that great. Not fast enough to dodge real bullets, that’s for sure. They easily shot the tracker right into her back, and she arrogantly assumed it was shrapnel because she’d dodged the bullet. The thought is so ridiculous now that all she wants to do is find a hole and bury herself in it.
It’s what she deserves.
She ruined the one place she was supposed to feel safe. She got people killed. And yet, she survived. Why, God, why? she thinks.
All the years of running and surviving were for what? So she could lead the enemy right to Refuge’s doorstep? What was the point of it all? Why couldn’t she have been caught sooner so that this never would’ve happened? Why why WHY!?
She realizes she’s pulling her hair, pain pricking at her scalp. But she doesn’t stop, relishing the pain, the way it makes her forget, even if only for a few cherished moments. She pulls harder, and then harder still, until it feels as if her skin might tear away from her skull.
Her hand flies loose, ripping away so quickly it arcs downward and slams into her hip. When she opens her fingers a thick tuft of frizzy hair falls to the ground.
Her scalp throbs dully where she uprooted the hair.
She can’t live like this. She doesn’t deserve to live at all—not after what she’s done. For her there will be no redemption, no way forward.
So she steps outside the perimeter and away from the camp. Her hand taps the gun tucked in her waistband, reassuring herself that it’s still there. They gave it to her without question when she volunteered for perimeter watch. She doesn’t even know how to use it, but she’s pretty sure it can’t be that hard. Just point and shoot. And she’ll only be firing it once, from very close range.
One squeeze of the trigger and equilibrium will be restored.
She’ll get the punishment she deserves.
Chapter Nineteen
His mother is still sleeping; Benson is back to staring into the woods and doesn’t look interested in company, with Geoffrey asleep at his feet; Minda is fighting for her life; Check and Rod and Gonzo are discussing something with the Lifer leader.
In an instant, Harrison feels utterly alone, despite being surrounded by people, many of whom he knows. He shakes it off, internally chastising himself for his self-pity. Compared to most of these people, he’s led a life of privilege. He’s not in a position to feel sorry for himself. Then he remembers someone who’s probably feeling even more alone than he is.
Destiny.
He scans the camp, looking for, of all things, her hair. Of all her features, her hair is the easiest to pick out of a crowd. She’s not standing anywhere, so she must be sleeping. First he checks those passed out on the ground in the open air. Strangers, mostly. Next he pokes his head into the handful of makeshift tents that have been erected. He earns himself a glare or two and one “Get the hell out of here, you’re letting in the cold!” but for the most part those in the tents just stare at him with glassy, unseeing eyes until he leaves.
And there’s no Destiny. Where is she? he wonders.
An icicle of fear runs down his spine as he remembers how distraught she was back at Refuge. How she refused to save herself, trying to pull as many bodies into the sewers as she could, even when it was hopeless. If he hadn’t stopped her, they would’ve killed her. No, he thinks, she would’ve let them kill her.
Oh no. He should’ve kept her close, shouldn’t have let her out of his sight.
“Where’s Destiny?” Harrison asks a random guy who seems to be in some sort of a leadership position, issuing commands to various guardsmen. He thinks his name is Blake something-or-other.
“Who’s Destiny?” maybe-Blake says.
Harrison grits his teeth. “Frizzy hair a mile high,” he says.
“Oh,” the guy says. “The Slip you saved.”
“That’d be her. Where is she?”
“She signed up for perimeter patrol. Her hand was up before anyone’s. Sent her northeast.” He points in the direction she went. “We’ve got a tight perimeter so she won’t be far.”
He tries to control the deep breath of relief he pushes out between his teeth. It makes sense that she’d want to protect them. He knows she feels responsible for everything that happened.
Harrison starts off, but then notices a haphazard pile of hoverboards. He turns back. “Hey, you mind if I borrow one of those? Probably better that I don’t make a lot of noise.”
“Be my guest,” the guy says. “Most of the owners are dead anyway.”
Bitterness coats Harrison’s tongue, but he manages to say, “Thanks,” before heading in the direction indicated. Flicking a switch on the side of the board, the lights on the bottom immediately go green and the sensors detect his shoes, which are specially made to sync with any board. With a graceful motion that’s as familiar to him as walking, he slides the board forward and leaps atop it, where it clamps to the bottom of his shoes.
It’s a good board, Harrison realizes immediately. It reacts instantly to the most subtle movements of his feet and ankles, allowing him to deftly steer around trees and rocks. In less than five minutes he’s reached the perimeter, apparent only because he happens to notice the clear tripwire out of the corner of his eye. He glides to the right along the wire, scanning for movement and for hair. The thought almost makes him laugh, but he’ll save that for when he finds her.
After a hundred meters or so, he spots a woman dressed in camouflage perched in a tree. He only notices her because she shifts slightly, trying to get comfortable. Her eyes go big when he swoops in, air-stopping at the base of the tree. As he stares up at her, the barrel of her stun gun stares down at him.
“I’m the Saint Louis Slip’s brother,” Harrison says. “So I suggest you point that thing somewhere else.”
Her eyes go even bigger, but she raises the gun away from him. “The resemblance is striking,” she says.
“Have you seen Destiny?” Harrison asks. Her eyebrows go up and her mouth opens, but Harrison stops her before she can ask. “The Slip who arrived at Refuge a few days ago.”
“You mean the one who got herself followed?” the woman says, flinging the words like sharp stones.
Damn, Harrison thinks. Word travels fast. “It wasn’t her fault,” Harrison says. “Your own scanners didn’t pick it up. It was a new device. No one could’ve known.”
The woman narrows her eyes skeptically. “That girl should hope I don’t see her anytime soon,” the woman says. “She got two of my friends killed.”
“You come near her and…” Harrison says, leaving the threat unfinished.
“You’ll what?” the woman sneers from above.
The truth is, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. For some reason, he feels protective of Destiny. She’s got no one. She blames herself for everything bad that’s happened in the last half day. And all he knows is that when he’s around her he feels less…uncomfortable. After all, they’re both outsiders, in a way. Different kinds of outsiders, but outsiders all the same.
“Thanks for your help,” he says sarcastically, steering his board back the other direction. When he reaches the next perimeter guard, he asks the same questions and gets basically the same answers. Everyone wishes Destiny would just disappear, not exist anymore.
She came to Refuge looking for hope and safety, and all she’s getting is the cold shoulder.
And now she’s out there, somewhere beyond the perimeter...doing what exactly? Did she accidentally pass the tripwire, hover over it on her skates? Or did she leave purposely, to escape the glares and the muttered curses she was surely getting from those in the camp?
Either way, he has to find her fast, before someone from Pop Con does.
He races back to his starting point, the approx
imate median between the two unhelpful guards. From there, he leaves the perimeter, aiming his board in as straight a line as he can, weaving between tree trunks and ducking overhanging branches. His worry for Destiny combined with the thrill of the wind whipping through his hair speeds up his heart and sends adrenaline to his outer limbs.
Then he sees her.
She’s on her knees in a small clearing, her head bowed, as if praying. He’s about to shout to her, but clamps his mouth shut when he sees it:
The gun.
The black pistol is clutched in her right hand, which is trembling.
The weapon is pointed at her right temple, the metal barrel pressed tightly against her skin.
No, he thinks, his mind racing.
He’s afraid to shout, or to startle her, as she might accidentally pull the trigger. But she might purposely pull the trigger if he doesn’t do something. Kneeling, trembling, muttering under her breath, she seems to be working up the nerve to do just that.
“She can’t. She can’t. She can’t.” The words roll off Harrison’s tongue with each exhalation, like a prayer of his own. He presses forward, into the clearing, coming in from behind, as stealthy as an unseen Hawk drone high in the sky.
Her hand stops trembling. Steady. Steady.
He’s ten meters away.
She takes a deep breath.
Five meters.
He’s so close he can see the skin on her finger tighten as she begins to depress the trigger.
No time, no time, no time—
He dives, throwing himself off his board much the same as he would diving to save a well-placed hoverball headed for the corner of the goal. Except this isn’t a hoverball. And it isn’t a game. It’s life or death.
At the same time that his body collides with Destiny’s, he swats at the gun.
Bang!
The gun’s report is like a hammer between his ears. He crashes to the stick-strewn ground, hearing Destiny groan in pain or surprise or both. His hoverboard catches up to him, slamming into the soles of his feet, knocking him heels over head. Rolling to a stop, he twists around, ignoring the barbs of pain shooting through his ribs. The gun lies nearby, lighter by one shell. One deadly shell.
