by RaeLynn Fry
When I open my eyes again, the sun is lower in the sky and the temperature is something less blistering. I roll my head against the rock in the direction of Dhevan. He's sleeping fitfully. Muscles on his face twitch and his eyes squint as if in pain. I look down at my foot and pull up my pant leg. The skin is a considerable amount whiter than that of my arms, neck, and face. And besides being dehydrated and a bit shrunken, it looks younger and healthier. I fan out my fingers and study the texture of my skin. It resembles well-worn leather, but not as soft.
A sudden pulse of pain shoots from my ankle, up my calf, and into my thigh. Carefully, I unlace my boot, slipping my foot out. I wince as I peel off the sock. The flesh around my ankle joint is easily twice the size of my left one. It feels like a bowl of porridge has been stuffed into a cloth bag when I poke at it.
It's a bad sprain, it will take weeks to heal, and to continue walking on it like we have been will only make it worse and possibly not allow it to heal at all. I rub at the small of my back. Between my bum ankle and this damn snake bite, I’m a pathetic sight.
I look over again at Dhevan. He's stirring more; he'll be awake soon. Our mission was to find what was out in the Further. To get help. To expose the Corporation. And in my present condition, I'm only slowing us down. In this past day with my injured ankle, we should have traversed at least three times the distance we have. And this bite is really taking its toll. I’ve tried to hide it, but I won’t be able to anymore. I’m nauseous all the time and it takes everything I have to hold my head straight on my shoulders because it feels like it’s loose on a rolling, angry sea and nothing in my line of vision is straight.
I sit up and the world around me tilts and spins. I pinch my eyes shut for a second until it calms down, because it never goes away. When it’s manageable, I try to stand, but my legs aren’t strong enough, so I stay sitting.
“Morning, sunshine,” I say, when Dhevan begins to wake.
He grunts in response. “We shouldn't have stayed here so long.” He pulls out the last of our water and hands it to me. I let it hang in the space between us. I shake my head. “Man, you look worse than a pig who knows he’s off to the slaughter.”
“Thanks. I’ve felt better, that’s for sure.” I take a heavy breath. “Our supplies are low.”
“Low? Try virtually nonexistent.”
“And with my ankle and snake bite, I’m only slowing you down.”
“That’s true.” He glances over at Raj, who’s still sleeping, curled up with his back to us. “But I’m not leaving you here, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“While I’m sure your motives for that are far from sentimental, I still appreciate them. We should be getting to that dome sometime today. They may have medicine for the venom.”
“We’re going to have to sneak in and steal some. It’s risky, but we have to do it. Karis would kill me if I let you die out here.”
“We have a problem, though.”
“Getting into the dome? Yeah, I know. But we’ll have to try and figure it out when we get there.” He walks over to Raj and kicks the bottom of his foot. “Wake up. We need to get moving.”
Raj groans. “You’re not in charge,” he says as he sits up.
“Neither are you. We need to make it to that dome today.”
“You’re ridiculous.” Raj rubs at his eyes and starts to make up his pack. “You can’t promise that we’ll make it there today.”
“If we don’t make it there before sunset today, I will kill you myself.” Something in the tone of Dhevan’s voice makes me wary.
Raj’s eyes are wide and he sputters a response, but it’s incoherent. If he has even a pinch of brains, he’ll have picked up that Dhevan is a man of his word.
७
The sun is low in the sky and Dhevan has my arm slung over his shoulder, taking most of my weight. We’ve been making slow progress all day with no hope in sight. Raj has been keeping his thick form well ahead of us the entire time, occasionally shooting dirty looks back at us and barking a, “Hurry up!”
“Hold up,” I say when we get to another cropping of rocks.
“Oye!” Dhevan yells up to Raj. “Need another rest?” he says to me.
I shake my head and lower myself down to the ground. He offers me water but I push it away. “I’m slowing us down. Your deadline with Raj is coming up and I don’t want you to have to kill him if he hasn’t been really given a fighting chance.”
Dhevan gives a sneer in Raj’s direction, who’s standing impatiently about ten yards away.
“Listen, I want you to go ahead and find the dome. Get what you can and bring it back to me.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“Listen,” I say, breathlessly. “We both know this is the smartest choice. It’s getting to be night, it will be cooler and I’ll be safer by myself than I would be if we did this during the day. Go with Raj, find the dome, get me the medicine and come back here. If you take me with you, we’ll never get there in time.”
I see it in his eyes that he knows what I’m saying is true. “I’ll be as quick as I can.” He stands up. He turns around and trots up to Raj, saying something as he passes, and Raj hurries to catch up.
I close my eyes to rest until they come back for me.
७
There’s a rough shake of my shoulder. I feel my head roll on my neck from side to side but I can’t control it. I want to open my eyes, but no matter how hard I pull at my eye lids, they feel like they’re glued shut. There’s a scratching sound in my ears and it hurts my brain. I grimace and try to shake it away, but my body won’t obey what I tell it to do.
“Ethan!” The scratch turns into a shout.
“What?” I mumble, still unable to open my eyes. I can’t move anything.
“We’ve found it,” Dhevan says.
He tugs at my arms and lifts me up, dragging me over what feels like his shoulders. The only thing I can offer is a pathetic moan. My body is numb and I’m so tired. I wish he would just let me sleep until this heavy feeling goes away.
My body bobs up and down as Dhevan takes off across the desert. I have no way of marking time or distance, my brain isn’t exactly functioning at full capacity. We stop and my body is lowered to the ground.
“Hurry!” Dhevan says in a low voice. My wrists are grabbed and I’m being dragged across the hard ground. There are a few grunts and conversation exchanged between Raj and Dhevan, but I can’t make out anything more than that. I’m dragged over bumps and small objects before my hands are dropped to the ground again. There’s frantic rummaging going on around me, papers being thrown, drawers and cupboards being opened, objects being knocked to the ground. I try to open my eyes again, but can’t.
“There’s nothing here!” Dhevan says angrily.
“We need to keep moving,” Raj says. “Find somewhere else.”
Hands grab my wrists again.
“You, stop!” It’s a strange voice. I’ve never heard it before. “Drop your weapons!” Footfalls surround me and I want so bad to stand up and help Dhevan fight off whoever it is, but nothing is working. I hear what sounds like the beginnings of a fight, but it’s over quickly. There are grunts from what I assume are Raj and Dhevan as they’re being subdued.
“Intruders,” the first voice says. “Possible nomads. One needs med assistance ASAP.” There’s muffled static amidst some unintelligible words, next. Then, “Roger. We’ll bring him in.”
My wrists and ankles are grabbed and I’m lifted into the air, my head dangling back. “Put him down!” Dhevan yells. Then, I hear the sound of something hard hitting something soft, and Dhevan doesn’t say anything more. I’m carried away.
७
I wake up strapped down to a reclining table. I check my restraints weakly. I don’t have much energy and my brain is still fogged up so I can’t care too much about anything. My surroundings come into focus a little more each time I blink.
The room is small. I can tell right away it�
��s a medical center of some kind. I recognize some of the tools from Eta’s place, but I don’t care to really identify them. There’s a man standing with his back to me, looking down at something. He turns around, reading some papers on a clipboard in his hands. He spares me a glance.
“Good, you’re up.” But he sounds like he could care less. “We were able to give you the anti-venom you needed, but had it been any longer, it would have been pointless. You’ll feel weak and sore and pretty tired for a few days, but that will pass. The skin will heal and there won’t be any indications you were ever bitten.” He looks up at me, completely bored. “Your ankle was only a sprain, grade two. Keep it braced and try not to walk on it if you can avoid it. The pain is only superficial; you’ll live.” He turns away and says under his breath, “From that.”
I’m alone in the room and completely confused. Where am I? Who was that? I think about what I remember last. Dhevan carried me somewhere. Could it be that they found the dome? Is this it? It has to be. So much for taking them by surprise. I go to lift my hand to pinch the bridge of my nose, but it jerks short. Restraints. I forgot about them. I’m in here and I have no idea where they took Dhevan and Raj. I need to find them and we need to get out of here.
I look around, trying to find an escape from this impossible situation when the door opens again. It’s the doctor, flanked by two Guards. “This will help with any residual pain and keep you from wanting to fight.” He takes out a syringe and walks towards me. I pull away. He doesn’t seem to notice. He wipes off a section of my shoulder and stabs me with the needle.
“Who are you?” I say. “What are you doing?”
He un-straps the leather restraints, but I’m in no condition to try and escape or fight. My vision is going black around the edges and as the Guards start to walk towards me, I’m out completely before they reach me.
Karis
I stop in my tracks, jerking Adami still. My hand breaks free from his as I turn. I know that voice. I search through the darkness to try and find her.
“I know her,” I say, when he begins to protest.
“You know this creepy person trying to scare us?”
“Yeah, sort of.” I take a cautious step forward. My foot lands on something that crunches below my weight. I look down and see a small ceramic dish. The bowl that had held the pills Bak tried to sell me. White dust frosts the dirty floor, sprinkled amongst small chunks of fractured pills. Had she taken all he had? No, surely not. But a closer look tells me a different story.
Adami stays close by my side, and there's something about his stance, the awareness he has now, that tells me if something were to happen, we'd be okay. Not that I couldn't try and hold my own, but that he'd do whatever he had to to keep us both safe. That thought gives me a bit more courage.
“What's her name?” he asks in low tones.
“There are no names, here.” I raise my voice just enough so it carries to the witch's old ears. “The Black Market has moved on, why are you still here
Her limp body is supported by an old, precarious looking chair. One leg is shorter than the others, and with seemingly every frail breath she takes, the chair rocks and tips and thumps as her weight redistributes.
The top half of her body is folded over the surface of the table. Her left arm is stretched across the smooth wood and her head rests on her arm. Her oily, matted hair falls over her face, hiding her dirty, worn features, and fans across her stained skin and the old, abused table top.
When I'd seen it before, the table was organized, with ink cartridges sitting carefully in a plastic stand, needles lined up. Cigarette butts still litter the ground around her bare feet, toes the color of black, frostbitten death. Part of me feels sorry for her. She moans, her head rolling on her arm.
“Why are you still here?” I repeat.
“This 'ere's my 'ome. Why would I leave?” Her head rolls back further, stopping with a jerk as her neck refuses to give any more. Her dark eyes stare back at us through a split in the curtain of hair. They're clouded and unfocused, though; a filmy white I can only assume is a product of the drug she's so addicted to.
“Do you know who I am?”
There’s no response. And then, when I'm about to repeat the question, her slurred words drift through the air. “Ye da one I led to de Artist.” She groans again. “Dat was a while ago.” Another prolonged pause. “Yer not dead.” Her voice is funny, but I can make out a tinge of amusement there.
“No, I'm not.” She knew. She knew it would be a faulty Mark and still she brought me here. A hand squeezes my shoulder when Adami hears the anger behind my words. “What are you doing here?”
“Good a place as any t’live. Bigger den me last ‘ome.” She tries to pull herself up, but it doesn't look like she has any strength. Adami goes to help her but I hold him back and give him a tight shake of my head.
We watch for a few seconds as she struggles. Finally, she's able to push her torso up, her head lagging behind the rest of her body. Her chin rests on her chest, the folds under her jaw meeting the folds of her neck.
“Who dat wit ye?” It doesn't look like her eyes are open, they're pink and swollen, but she must be seeing the world through a slit and film of eyelashes.
“No names, remember?”
She shrugs, as if it doesn't make any difference to her. As if she is just trying to make small talk. “Why'd ye come back?”
“I need to talk to the Artist. I have questions.”
“I might’n be able t’answer ‘em for ye.”
“Where can I find the Artist?”
“Gon’ to cost ye a fair more den five pieces.”
“I'm not paying you anything. And I doubt you actually know anything. And if you did, you're so hopped up on the drug, you wouldn't be able to tell us anything.”
“Dat's not true,” she protests indignantly. “I'd be able to tell ye that after he gave ye yur new Mark, he high-tailed it out of ‘ere, leavin’ half of ‘is tools and all ‘is stash.”
I look over at Adami and he raises a brow in an approving question sort of look. Then dips his head as if to say, keep going.
“That's not any new information. I can tell that by looking at this place. What I meant to say is that you wouldn't be able to give us any useful information. Your brain is so riddled with holes and nonsense.”
“Lies!” She tries to stand but falls back into her chair, almost toppling over onto the ground with it.
“And why would we believe you? That any of this is true?” Adami asks.
She gives him a furrowed scowl, and if she were sober, I'd be afraid of retribution. “Cuz I was watchin’ that un.” She points a bent, shaking finger in my general direction before she lets it fall back down into her lap, like she didn't have any more strength to keep it in the air. “And when ye left, I started t’watch ‘im.”
I scoff and cross my arms. “And what did you see?” I say it as if I don't believe a word coming out of her mouth.
“Like I said, ‘e packed up ‘is tings and left. He went to the Comm down the block and made a call.”
“A Comm that works? Here? That's a stretch.”
“Dat's what I thought, thought ‘e was loony. ‘Specially when ‘e started talkin’ into it. But I hung back in de shadows and stayed patient. It's a virtue of mine. I can wait for days to get somethin’ I want. Months, if need be. T’was this one time—”
“What happened after he made this supposed call?” I interrupt.
“Went to de slaughter houses and waited. I followed him. ‘E was met by a Guard.” Her eyes become a little clearer, more focused, and the tremors that had been running through her body still for a moment. “Thought it was a bit odd. But dey talked. When dey finished, the Guard gave ‘im a small bag and de Artist gave ‘im his larger one.”
“That's it? Where did he go after that?”
“Back to de Inner City, I suppose.”
“So the Artist went back with the Guard?”
“No. Aren't y
e listenin’ t’what I'm tellin’ ya?” Her fist thumps down on the table with surprising force. “De Guard went back to Neech, de Artist disappeared.”
“Where to?” Adami asks.
“Like I told ya, if ye want t’know anythin’, it's gonna cost ye more den five pieces.” She smiles to herself like she's proud of her cleverness and that she's stuck to not giving us any information.
“Looks like the drug has addled you brain, you already gave us everything we need.”
Adami and I turn to leave. The chair clatters behind us. We spin to look and the witch is standing up on weak legs, the palm of her hand braced on the table for support. “Ye tricked me!” she screams.
The seriousness and dangerousness of the situation is finally hitting us full force. “We need to leave,” I say to Adami.
“I agree.”
The witch tries to launch herself at us, but the amount of weight she puts on the table is too much for its integrity, it crashes to the ground. “Ye gon’ t’be sorry, little girl! T’will find ye!”
Adami pushes himself between me and the old woman, one hand on my arm and the other on the small of my back. “Move!” he pulls me forward, out of the kitchen and down the hall. We don't stop until we're out into the streets and far away from that lonely light bulb.
Ethan
I start to wake in blinks of harsh color and angry buzzes of noise. My brain is refusing to make sense of the things my eyes are taking in. It triggers common sense a few sluggish seconds after I see the initial scene, after I'm well into another one.
Angry voices are all around me. I can't make sense of what they're saying, but I know it's between our captors and one of our party. I think it’s Dhevan, but then my eyes take in his unconscious form next to mine; hands bound behind his back, feet and knees bound in front of him.
