by Makansi, K.
“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.”
“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 o
ff 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.
“I have to go, Jahnu. Promise me ... promise you’ll try your hardest?”
He nodded, an almost imperceptible movement.
“A favor,” he whispered, his voice creaking, like a branch in the wind.
“Kenzie … tell her….” he paused, glanced over at the bedside table where there’s a damp cloth and some ice chips. I wet his lips and he drew in a ragged breath. “She is my morning star.”
Now Dad puts his hand over mine as I stroke Lakshmi’s neck. He gives it a squeeze, and looks up at me. “You and Lakshmi make a good team. Take care of each other out there,” he says as much to the horse as to me. “And try not to worry about Jahnu. Kenzie and I will be with him.”
We both know not worrying is an impossibility, that life is not something you can bend to your will. Kenzie had been waiting outside the infirmary door, and I told her what Jahnu said. Seeing the happiest person I’ve ever known choking back tears, her eyes rimmed as red as her hair, was devastating. If anyone could will someone to live, it would be Kenzie. Or my dad, as he held my mom in his arms. But life doesn’t work that way.
Again and again and again we say goodbye, we separate, our circle loosens, lessens, disintegrates. I memorize my friend’s faces, keep the moment that I said goodbye to them imprinted forever on my soul. If I had more time, I would draw them all, etched not invisibly in my mind, but permanently in the world.
But I don’t have time.
Today, we’re headed into the Wilds to find the Outsiders. The real Wilds, not the forests we navigated through in the winter after we escaped Okaria, not the wooded areas between the Resistance bases; these are places that were destroyed by nuclear or environmental devastation in the ruination of the Old world. They’re nearly inhospitable, or so we were always told, and in the Sector they’re called No-Go Zones. But now we know better. Now we know that the Outsiders—and who knows who else—have been living out there for generations, and we’re going because, as the Director says, we need allies. We need people who know how to work between the Sector’s lines, and the Outsiders have been doing it for decades. We need them because there is safety in numbers, and we need them if we’re ever going to make use of the LOTUS database.
If we learned anything from the battle at Round Barn, it’s that simple rebellion isn’t enough. To execute our strategy, we need the Outsiders. To win over the citizens of Okaria, we need my video ... but I'm not willing to show it to anyone just yet.
“Remember,” Rhinehouse says, “your goal is to convince the Outsiders to work with us. Not for us, but with us. They’ll benefit as much as we will from the overthrow of the OAC leadership and the reestablishment of a Sector that lives up to its founding principles. You’re all carrying the coded coordinates of our message drop points—in case you’re separated—so try to get word to us as soon as you can, and we’ll do the same.” Then to me, “Remy…be safe. Be careful. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Off you go, then.”
Vale, who has been appointed the leader of our expedition, nudges Mistral, his horse, to start. But all she does is shudder so violently I wonder if Vale is going to fall off, and then Mistral snorts out a loud fluppery noise and turns around to look at him as if to say, Seriously? You want me to do what you say? Vale kicks the horse’s sides a few more times and all it does is lift its tail to plop out great brown steaming patties as the rest of us sit in our saddles waiting for someone to do something. Then Miah—who appears to think riding a horse is as exciting as flying an airship—surges forward with a soft whistle and a light slap of the reins on his horse’s butt.
“Some leader you are, Vale,” he calls, heading down the trail as if he’s been riding all his life. Being a kid in the factory towns was apparently much different from being a kid in the capital. Firestone starts yeehawing like a wild man and yelling, “You go, Calgary 2!” and, as if that isn’t amazing enough, I catch Soren and Vale exchanging glances.
“Did you know he could ride like that?” Vale laughs.
“No idea,” Soren shakes his head in amazement. “Wonder what else he’s been hiding from us?” Leave it to Miah to have Vale and Soren laughing together.
Then, without
doing a thing, our horses begin to trot down the trail, following Miah’s as if pulled by an invisible tether and jarring my teeth together like rapid-fire hammer blows. I turn one last time and see Rhinehouse shushing and scowling at Firestone and wonder what lies before us in the giant maw of the Wilds.
22 - VALE
Spring 18, Sector Annum 106, 19h00
Gregorian Calendar: April 6
After three days of traveling, we make camp in a dusty little ravine, overgrown with ragged, stunted trees, craggy shrubs, and a surprising abundance of wild goats. They’re strange but friendly, unafraid of either us or the horses, and adorable in a kind of old-bearded-man-animal way. They keep attempting to eat everything in sight—including Remy’s curls, the horses’ tails, and our canvas saddlebags. Remy’s taken to keeping her hood up and tied under her chin to keep them from sucking on her hair. I’m reminded of some photographs from the Old World I studied in my history classes. Some female adherents to an old religion called Islam covered their hair with headscarves. With her hood over her head so that only her face is visible, she looks like one of those women, and it makes her amber eyes stand out even more dramatically.
Our campsite is not completely inhospitable, but it’s certainly no place I’d like to call home. For our purposes that’s a good thing, since it means the Sector will have no reason to send any reconnaissance drones out this far. No reason to have drones in the region at all, since there’s nothing to watch over besides the goats.
Unpacking and setting up camp tonight was a major chore because our collective asses are chafed and sore. After our first day of riding, I wondered if I’d ever walk with my knees in close proximity to one another again. By the end of the second day, Remy started sitting sideways in the saddle every once in a while just to give her legs a break. Soren was groaning like he had both feet in the grave. Miah’s the only one who seems to be able to handle the pain. By the third day the horses finally seemed to get used to us, and we to them. We took the pace a little faster that day, often cantering and even galloping full out when we could. Whenever one of the horses gets a little stubborn, Miah takes the lead and they all fall back into line.
