The Nethers

by M. E. Parker

  “Open the door.” Rounder had found a way through the secret entrance. “Hurry.”

  Sindra stood on one foot and stretched her arm toward the door, an inch shy of reaching it. “I can’t get to it.”

  “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  “What are you doing over there, my pet?” Megan snapped her fingers. “Get away from that wall.” She pointed toward the pole.

  “I was just admiring your chamber.”

  “Has my pet not yet learned to hold her tongue? Perhaps I shall cut it out.”

  Sindra ambled toward the pole, keeping her ear toward the secret passage. She could still hear Rounder, muttering curses, some she recognized, others in a foreign tongue.

  “Megan,” Rounder called.

  The tapestries on the wall muffled Rounder’s voice, but Megan heard it. She sat up straight and dropped her brush. The moment of quiet stillness, of anticipation, waiting for Megan’s response, reminded Sindra of the singing of an E’ster piss whistle, guessing how close it was and where it would explode.

  “Whoever’s job it was to block that passage dies tonight.” Megan motioned to Ren for her to open the secret door. Megan picked up her hairbrush and hurled it in Rounder’s direction, where it struck the wall, shattering the bone handle.

  Rounder hurried into the room. “I just came from the road.”

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Oh, not another warning, please.”

  Rounder took a deep breath. “I want you to listen to me.”

  “Listening to you has,” she held up two fingers, “caused a panic on more than one occasion.”

  Sindra’s eyes trained on the open door with excitement. She expected to see Myron stroll in after Rounder to replace her anxiety with dreams of lonely islands. Myron’s absence hit her gut with a sharp pain. Nico wasn’t there, either.

  “The Alliance has mobilized. I saw the convoy from Jonesbridge.”

  Hearing the name Jonesbridge made Sindra shudder.

  “A convoy, you say?”

  “Everything they’ve got. They’ve even fabricated some sort of…mechanized steam walker.”

  Megan returned to primping for the show. “What a fabulous tale, Rounder.”

  With Megan’s back turned, Rounder lowered the curtain over the main door to block the view of the drudgers guarding the hallway.

  “Megan! They have enough firepower to turn this place into a burning heap. They mean it this time.”

  Megan waved Rounder off with her free hand. “You’ve only just returned, and I’m already getting tired of yo—”

  Rounder clutched the iron pipe he’d smuggled in his shirt. He pulled it out and swiped Megan across the head. She wobbled and collapsed onto a pile of pillows. He rushed to a hook, grabbed the key, and freed Sindra from her chains.

  “Rounder?” Ren gazed at him in disbelief.

  “Ren, your choice. Come with us or stay here and burn.”

  Ren knelt beside Megan and touched her face. She checked to make sure that she still drew air.

  “She’s as bad as the worst of them, Ren. After what she did to those Jonesbridge cockrels, they’ll show no mercy here.”

  Free of her chain, Sindra ran to the table, chugged the water, and shoved as much food into her mouth as she could while Rounder urged her to the door. “Is Jonesbridge really coming?” Bits of food sprayed from her mouth as she spoke.

  “They’re comin’, all right.”

  “Where’s Myron?”

  Ren walked backward, eyes still on Megan, and shouldered past Sindra to leave with Rounder.

  Megan had blocked the passageway, but Rounder knew the way. “Close one hole, open another.” They traversed a tighter passageway than before, but managed to find a new way out, with Rounder twisting through cracks and under debris.

  “Chasm knows how long Megan’s going to be out, but she’ll wake up with fire on her breath.”

  In Megan’s Point, running, or even a fast walk, was often mistaken by drudgers at their posts as signs of a thief making a getaway. “Walk fast, with business purpose. Not with panic.”

  In the catwalks above the market, drudgers walked their beats as usual, unfazed by Rounder, Sindra, and Ren striding through the alleyways to Ktala’s stall.

  “Get the merchants to the tunnels. Hurry,” Rounder said.

  “What are you on about?” Ktala made her way from the clay oven behind her stall.

  “The Alliance is coming.”

  Ktala gathered her stock, three remaining doughnuts, and gave one to each of them.

  “Now you have doughnuts?” Rounder shoved the pastry into his mouth. “Ack. What kind is that?”

  “I’m calling that flavor prairie fire. Do you like it?”

  Rounder spat the remainder of his bite into his hand when Ktala looked away. “That’s a good name for it.”

  “Only so much I can do without the confectioner’s powders.”

  Rounder threw his hands in the air. “What are you waiting on? Tunnels. Hurry, before Megan wakes up.”

  “Too late.” Ren pointed toward the market security catwalks. Megan had mobilized the full drudger battalion.

  Rounder took Ktala by the arm. “Let’s go.” They skirted the view of drudgers fanning out over the market. Ktala led them to the weaver, who raised the loom while glaring at Rounder, who was about to break the one rule of the tunnels: go only at night. The weaver uttered something in Gapi and opened the manhole cover.

  “What’s he saying?” Sindra whispered.

  “He said we’re going to get everyone killed. I told him if he was smart, he’d follow us down.”

  “This isn’t one of your—”

  “No it’s not, Ktala. This is it. They are coming.”

  Ktala exchanged glances with the weaver as Sindra and Ren climbed down the ladder first, followed by Rounder. The entrance began to close as the giant loom came down to seal the entrance.

  “Ktala!” Rounder cupped his hand around his mouth to yell.

  “What is it?” Sindra asked.

  “Aunt Ktala. She stayed.”

  “Why?” Sindra asked.

  They emerged into a very different tunnel than the one Sindra remembered. Instead of people gambling, conversing, and trading under the smoky haze of torchlight, during the daytime the tunnel was empty and dark, echoing each footstep.

  “My Aunt Ktala’s had that bakery stall as long I can remember. Since even before Megan showed up, when this place was a den of thieves and dishonest business.”

  Sindra and Ren followed Rounder to a fork where the tunnel branched in three directions. “Megan wasn’t always so bad. You and Myron remind me a bit of how me and Megan…used to be.”

  “You and Megan?” Ren smiled. “Jasper, Rounder, whatever your name is. You’re just another toy with her hand up your back.”

  “At least I’m not her property.” Rounder kept moving. “Doesn’t matter now. Megan’s drudgers won’t stand a chance against Jonesbridge. She deserves to roast for all the bad she’s done. But it won’t be the same out here without her.”

  Rounder inspected an inscription on the wall. “Ktala said there was two ways out. I’m guessing the other way comes up outside of town.” He held the torch to the symbol on the wall. “That there is the Gapi symbol for sky. Probably the way out.”

  “Probably?” Ren asked.

  “This is only the second time I’ve been down here. A guess is as good as I got.”

  “What about Myron and Nico? What if they get lost?” Again, no answer from Rounder.

  As they progressed, the tunnel grew smaller and rougher, caved in in places. They traveled in silence for a while before the tunnel ended with a cascade of bricks blocking any further travel. It reminded Sindra of the tunnel she and Myron took to get to the chapel. In the center of the passageway, a rusted ladder led to a circular line of sunlight above them. Rounder climbed up the ladder and put his shoulder into the manhole cover.

  They emerged into an open flat two hects fr
om Megan’s Point, far enough, at night, for the drudgers on wall sentry to mistake them for rocks.

  “Rounder, I’m not going any farther until you tell me where Myron and Nico are.” Worry replaced anger. She visualized one scene after another in which Myron met his demise—shrapnel from a popcap, run through with a pike, or piñata-ed on stage before a cheering crowd. She also harbored a sense of responsibility for Nico. He would never have been exiled from his home if she hadn’t shown up.

  “Myron?” Rounder rubbed his face. “Mouth gets the best of me sometimes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Means I sort of ran him off.”

  “You ran him off? How? Where is he?”

  “I said some things I shouldn’t have.”

  “What about Nico?”

  “Last I saw him, he was with Myron. Then I went out rounding. That’s when I saw the Jonesbridge forces.”

  “Where is Myron?”

  “My guess, somewhere between here and Mesa Gap.”

  “Well, that’s where we’re going, then.”

  “No point.”

  “Look, I flew across a gorge full of muck and E’ster blood to a village full of fanatics that cinched me up into some sort of depravity suit. I’ve been bought, sold, left for dead, chained to poles, and raped by Jonesbridge ghosts no-sense-in-counting-how-many times. Myron and my baby are what I have in this world. And that’s it. Come with me. Stay in that sewer. I don’t care.” Sindra took a breath and shrugged. “How do I get to Mesa Gap, anyway?”

  “There’s an Old Age highway.”

  “Where?”

  “Just over that hill.” Rounder pointed west.

  In the dark, the hill looked like an easy climb, but after hiking the rest of the night, as the clamor of Megan’s midnight show waned, yielding to the peach hues of sunrise, Sindra gazed back down to see a formidable hill, Iron’s Knob without the cliffside. Rounder stopped on top of the hill and stared at a cloud of dust rising from an Old Age highway that stretched from one horizon to the other.

  “They were heading for Megan’s Point. I was certain of it.” Rounder sat down, still staring at the Alliance convoy from Jonesbridge snaking down the road. “I can’t believe it. I was sure they were headed for Megan. But nope.”

  “Where are they going?”

  “That way? Either the League or Mesa Gap.” Rounder counted vehicles and men with his finger.

  “What is that?” Ren joined them on top of the hill. She pointed to the head of the convoy where a giant vehicle belching smoke rumbled on track wheels.

  “That is a steam walker. I got a closer look at it yesterday. Some sort of short-range artillery tank with gate-busters on the front. Those legs on the side hoist it up to fire over obstacles with accuracy. Thing’s a fiery beast.”

  In Jonesbridge, in the Nethers, walking the rails, at Orkin’s Landing, Sindra had never seen anything that would fit that description.

  “And look at all that coal and tanks of slick.” Rounder pointed to a caravan of mule-driven wagons and overloaders laden with supplies. “And I’m estimatin’ three hundred or so fighters down there. And enough coal to light them factories for a week. They’re practically leaving Jonesbridge unguarded and unproductive. Now I’ve seen everything. Whatever they’re after, it must be something special.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “What does it mean to go shopping?” Myron ran his finger under a phrase in his grandfather’s book. “Every time this woman encounters a frustration she says she’s going shopping. But it seems like an empty phrase because she doesn’t do it.”

  Myron’s grandfather reached for the book to have a look. “Sometimes strange phrases like that need some context.”

  Myron watched his grandfather read two or three paragraphs before the phrase. His grandfather cocked his head and turned back several pages. “Well, let’s see. Where did you find this one?”

  “It was in the barn under the thresher.”

  His grandfather read for a while before he spoke again. “Okay, I think I have an idea.” He explained that not all shops were workshops, that the word shop had two meanings. When Myron’s grandfather went out to the shop, it meant that he would spend hours tinkering in the barn, but in the Old Age, people referred to market stalls and merchant stores as shops.

  Though he’d only read thirty pages, this revelation transformed Myron’s mental image of the book. Now, instead of imagining the character going to a barn with tools, he pictured her going from vendor to vendor, shop to shop. The biggest lesson he learned from his question was that he would have figured it out himself in the next chapter, when the woman conducted an actual shopping affair that involved opulent vendors of shoes and blouses of all colors and styles, another wonder of the Old Age that he wished he could have been able to see.

  • • •

  The highway ended where an enormous sign blocked the way. The sign lay crunched on one side, the pole that once suspended it in the air sitting by the highway buried halfway in sand and plastic and Old Age garbage that even the wind could not dissipate. The words loomed large on the highway, though not all the letters were visible. MESA V__TA SHOPPING MALL.

  Mah-ré tugged on Myron’s arm and collapsed. Her sister fell at almost the same time. Nico, now pallid and shivering, even in the heat, mumbled nonsense. The sun hung midday in the sky, and the wind pelted them with sand and granules of dirt. The water that Myron took on their flight from Megan’s Point he’d given to the twins and Nico. Since Myron was now confident that he was a true slog, he drank slick that he discovered in a puddle, which tied his stomach in knots and made the tips of his fingers tingle until he could no longer feel them.

  Myron hoisted Mah-ré over his left shoulder and carried Gah-té on his right. Their hair dangled down his back as he hiked off the highway and around the sign to see a formidable wall as tall as a hill constructed of remnants of other buildings, stones, signs, tires, bricks, railroad ties—so many incongruous elements that it tested Myron’s imagination. He stumbled toward the structure underneath the wall, dropping Mah-ré twice, while urging Nico to keep stumbling forward. Another sign on the ground read: MALL PARKING.

  He walked under an arch and into a burnt-out building with a crumbling ceiling where rays from the sun knifed through missing pieces of the roof. He drew closer until he saw an Old Age storefront with a sign that read GAP, and beside it another sign that read BABY GAP.

  “Mesa Gap.” He lowered the twins. “We’re here. Mesa Gap.”

  Beside the entrance, a narrow door within a large gate, two men stood guard with shotguns. The guns resembled Rounder’s strong arm but with shorter barrels. Above them, the city wall extended from the top of the building, and, lost in the jumble of errata that made up the wall, Myron saw turrets and guard posts scattered throughout.

  One of the guards walked into the guard shack, picked up a communication device, and spoke into it while the other approached with his gun aimed at Myron. He spoke in Gapi to the twins, who did not respond, and then he inspected Nico. Myron knew that the twins had not yet croaked because he’d heard and felt their breaths on his back during the hike. The other guard emerged from the shack, and six women rushed from the entrance, each of the women on one end of a medic stretcher. They rolled Mah-ré, Gah-té, and Nico onto the stretchers and jogged them into the shopping fortress under the Gap sign.

  The guard inspected Myron and held up a hand for him to wait. In a few minutes, a Gapi man emerged from the gate, pulling a cart with a small load in the back. He wheeled it over to Myron and removed a barrel. “Dosh kani.” He pointed to where the women had taken the twins and Nico, then pointed at Myron. “Naaki tó.” He nudged the barrel toward Myron, who realized that he’d received the payment that Rounder had spoken of for bringing people to Mesa Gap. Though he thought it strange that he was not paid for Nico, only the twins.

  “Wait.” Myron ran after the guard, who stopped, turned around, and positioned the barrel of his gun aga
inst Myron’s chest. “Me.” Myron slapped his hand on his own chest. “Inside.” He pointed to the entrance.

  The guard shook his head, slapping the back of Myron’s hand where it bore the brand of Industry.

  “I have to see Te Yah.” Myron backed away, hoping the guard would lower his aim.

  “Nop.”

  Myron picked up the small keg of water and found a place to sit in the shade. He held it up and turned the spigot. Water gushed into his mouth faster than he could swallow it overflowing onto his face, flushing his eyes and causing a flutter in his heart, so he closed it, afraid to waste too much of his precious water.

  He wiped the drops from his eyes and noticed a patch of green sticking up out of a giant pot. His excitement grew as he neared it, a plant, five times the height of a shin pine, with broad leaves and a smooth trunk, the same kind of tree as in his postcard of Bora Bora. The first leaf he stroked fell off the trunk, leaving a perfect hole with a notch. He picked up the leaf. It had the texture of a buffing rag. When he reached for another, the tree toppled over the edge of the pot. It had no roots, only a painted cylindrical trunk, making it nothing more than an ornament. By the pot with the fake plant, the remnants of a freestanding wall bore the words FOOD COURT.

  Lost in thought on how to approach the guard shack, Myron wandered through the area around the entrance of the Gap, stepping over tables and chairs. He circled around an enormous crater that pocked the center of Food Court. Edging up to it, he peered into the pit. As deep as the height of ten men stacked head to foot, the steep walls of the crater tapered to a rounded-out bottom filled with skeletons of Old Age mattresses. The sun bore down on the center of the crater through a shattered glass roof with a jagged edge that resembled the blade of a rock saw, heading Myron toward the conclusion that whatever had made the crater had come from the sky.

  He climbed up a slope of debris to a second story that had no floor except at its edges. At the end of a wide corridor he spotted two more guards. He continued along the sides of the floor to a bridge that connected two corridors and approached the guards who aimed their weapons at him the moment they spotted him. “Te Yah. I need to see Te Yah. It’s…important.”