Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2)

by J. C. Staudt

  The first Marauder shouted when he saw them. Lizneth heard them running, saw the glint of armor against the tunnel walls. She trudged into the silt and told her little brother and sister to take the biggest, deepest breath they had ever taken, and to hold it until Sissy told them to let it go. Then she lowered herself the rest of the way in.

  The world turned to water, and she began to swim.

  CHAPTER 46

  Regime

  Merrick had seen Pilot Wax speak before huge crowds on countless occasions. Never once had the Commissar used notes or a script. Wax didn’t need aids like that; he always knew what to say, and he said it with such conviction that no one ever doubted him. Today was a different story; Wax neither knew nor meant what he was saying, yet he delivered his speech to the people of the city north like the seasoned orator he was.

  “Some of you may think I’m a man in his prime,” Wax began, shifting his stance behind the podium on the second-story roof of the Carola Street Opera House. It was too dangerous to let him speak from the street, so Merrick had arranged for him to deliver his address from behind an armored vestibule with a reinforced pulpit. “I’ve enjoyed serving this city for the last eighteen years more than you will ever know. But the stresses of leadership for a man in my position cannot be understated. I feel older than my years, and I fear that to go on as Commissar of North Belmond would only exacerbate the problem.”

  “Who’s the new Commissar?” came the inevitable shout from below.

  Wax glanced at his notes as if to remind himself. His eyes came to rest on his bandaged left hand, where a missing pinky and ring finger were the only tokens Merrick had needed to take before he agreed to give this speech. “My successor is… one of the most competent men who has ever worn the mark.” Merrick could hear Wax convincing himself to sound honest as he said it. “He has risen from humble beginnings to stand beside me as the second-ever Commander of the Scarred Comrades, and it brings me great pleasure to introduce him to you. Please give him a warm welcome. Ladies and gentlemen… Merrick Bouchard.”

  Merrick had instructed Wax to refer to him as Commissar Merrick Bouchard, but he was willing to let that slide. He took the podium under lukewarm applause, trying not to let the apathetic reception bother him. They would be cheering him at the top of their lungs after they heard what he had to say. One look at the sheer size of the crowd, a mix of northers and southers together for the first time in generations, made him dizzy.

  “I know the timing of this transition seems abrupt,” he said. “The recent breach in our defenses has a lot of you worried about the security of the city north and the future of Belmond in general. Let me assure you that Commissar Emeritus Wax and I have been working tirelessly to reestablish peace and order in the wake of these attacks. I believe our city will benefit most from a system of open trade and open communication between its two halves, in hopes that we might one day be united as one city, one people, and one cohesive society, working together to forge a path of prosperity for decades to come. That’s why I’ve chosen to pursue an open-border policy that would allow, on a limited basis, any souther with goods, services, or skills that might benefit the north to be granted temporal immunity from our current laws regarding exclusionary privilege to previously certified individuals.”

  The crowd broke out into a dissonant mixture of confusion, cheers, and ridicule. It came as no surprise to Merrick that most northers wanted the borders closed while most southers wanted them open. A gradual relaxation of the rules had seemed the best course, but now he wasn’t so sure. It had taken days to stop the riots after the southers broke through, and Merrick knew he needed to keep the peace if he wanted his plan to succeed.

  “I understand your concerns,” he continued, “and I want you to know that just as Pilot Wax has been here to address your concerns in the past, I’ll be here to do so from now on. You may feel like you’re alone; like your neighbors to the north don’t know your struggles, or the people from south of the Row have nothing to offer you. That couldn’t be further from the truth. No matter which side of the line you’re from, we’re all going through the same things—hunger, disease, low birth rates—and we’re better off facing them together. Change is never easy. It requires sacrifice. Everyone has to contribute toward the same goal if we want to find success. That’s the world we live in. We have a responsibility to one another. So instead of arguing and doing violence and stealing from each other, let’s make Belmond a place where people can live without the fear and prejudice that have tarnished us for so long.”

  Mixed applause.

  Merrick waited for quiet. It didn’t take long. “There’s one last thing I want to make you aware of. I know some of you have sustained injuries as a result of the recent rioting and street-fighting. You may or may not have heard the rumors about a healer; a man who can cure an ailment with a touch. I stand before you today proclaiming this: I am that man. I’m the healer who’s come to save Belmond. Show me you’re loyal to this cause—that you’ll work with me to make our city a better place for all—and I promise you, I’ll heal your wounds, your impairments, your disease. I’ll make you whole again.”

  Merrick left the podium with the crowd blaring its most positive response yet. He and his captains and advisors accompanied Wax through the Opera House and headed for the Hull Tower using a clandestine route which took them down several side streets and along an underground passage or two. Wax had escape routes mapped out all across his territory, knowledge of which was reserved for a privileged few. Now that Merrick was a part of that group, he’d resolved to learn all the nuances that came with the position. But Wax’s time was running thin; whatever Merrick hadn’t learned from him already, he’d have to discover on his own through trial and error.

  It wasn’t long after they returned to the Hull Tower’s ninth-floor office that a line of citizens began to form outside. Merrick thought nothing of it at first, calling everyone to the conference room as planned to discuss the new open-border policy. There were still two bullet holes in the conference room wall, along with a faint pink stain where Pilot Wax had blown a portion of Merrick’s head through the back of his skull. The captains and advisors all tried to pretend the grisly remnants weren’t there, but Merrick knew they replayed the events of that fateful day every time they entered the room. That was fine by him; an eerie reminder of what befell those who opposed Merrick Bouchard.

  By late afternoon, the line outside the Hull Tower stretched down the curved walkway, across the street, and into the haze of the city beyond. It was less a line anymore than a mass of bodies, norther and souther alike, sweat-stained and unruly, jostling for an audience with the new Commissar. The healer.

  After hours of debate with a team of advisors and military commanders who still hadn’t come to grips with Pilot Wax’s deposition, Merrick crossed to the window to look down on the gathering crowds. He suddenly felt very vulnerable. The Hull Tower was finally his. Yet now that he was here, way up in his fortress, he realized he would never feel safe leaving it again.

  It was as if Toler Glaive had seen all this before it happened. I would never be happy boarded up in some rich man’s fortress, watching life pass me by, Toler had said. Now Merrick wasn’t sure he could be happy any other way. Toler had known how famous the gift would make him. What you have… whatever it’s called. It’s gonna change how the world works.

  Toler had been right. Merrick was going to change the world—starting with Belmond. To do that, he’d have to leave the safety of his fortress and show the people his power. He thought of the energy station and its endless supply of electricity. That station was the most important place in the city as far as he was concerned. He’d have to pay a visit as soon as time allowed. For now, there were more pressing matters to attend to. “I want to go down to the street,” he said as he returned to the table.

  The others shared glances.

  Captain Feargus Brannon, a burly man with combed black hair who commanded the Engineers, spoke u
p. “You’ll get mobbed if you do that.”

  “We’ve been talking all day about how to bring north and south together. Those people down there are never going to follow a man they don’t know; a man who’s never done anything for them. Let me go down there and show them what I can do.”

  “What can you do?” Feargus asked.

  “This dway saved my life once,” said Wax. “I would’ve been dead long before now if it hadn’t been for him.”

  Merrick was glad to hear him acknowledge that. The admission wouldn’t save him, though—not any more than Merrick could save those people by staying up here. “What would you do if you had the gift I have?”

  Wax snorted. “I’d be down there in two seconds flat. It took me years to earn the respect and admiration of the people, even though I was the one who came up with the whole idea of a protected society where everyone contributed toward the greater good. Plenty of people out there still don’t like me. If I had a way to change that, like you do, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

  “My only hesitation is that people might start to think I have no limits,” Merrick said. “That I can solve every problem, not just the health-related ones.”

  “What’s wrong with that? You’d be giving them hope. That’s something a lot of people in this city have never had.”

  “Hope isn’t good enough,” Merrick said. “Not anymore. They need something they can see, and touch.”

  Wax laughed again. “Never underestimate the power of suggestion. If you can give people a reason to nod their heads, sooner or later they’ll think they agree with you.”

  “See, that’s where you and I differ.”

  “You and I differ in more ways than one,” Wax said.

  “I think people are more than sheep to be led around by the nose.”

  “Let me tell you something, Mr. Bouchard. You don’t rule a city for two decades without picking up a few things along the way. What I know, and what you have yet to find out, is that not only can people be led around by the nose—they want to be. I applaud your faith in humanity, but this overestimation of human free will is only going to leave you disappointed in the end. Take it from me and trust in the tried-and-true, by virtue of my own experience, which I’m now handing down for your benefit. Not because I like you, or because I don’t wish I could put a gun to your head and blow your coffing brains out—or even because I want to do you a favor out of the goodness of my heart—but because when I’m gone, I don’t want the city I’ve built crumbling to shit because some upstart chair jockey thought he could handle something about which he had not a single coffing clue. Learn from your elders, Bouchard. Watch and listen, and if this plan of opening the borders doesn’t cave in like a coffing sinkhole, maybe one day you’ll hear the echo of the round of applause I’m giving you from beyond the grave.”

  “That was lovely,” Merrick said. “I feel like we all owe you a round of applause right now.”

  No one clapped.

  Merrick heard a thump through the ceiling above. Wax had shown him the blueprint for his refurbished penthouse apartment on the Hull Tower’s tenth floor earlier that morning, and he’d been waiting to see it ever since. He ignored the noise. “Alright, then. You don’t like my plan. You’ve made that clear, and that’s fine. You won’t be around long enough to know whether it succeeds. For now, we’ll agree to disagree. You still think I should go down there, though, don’t you?”

  Wax nodded. “I hope they tear you to shreds. For the sake of your political aims, I do think it would be a good idea. You can still work with me as a member of my leadership team. It’s not too late to reconsider.”

  “You’re done, Wax. You’re two fingers down already. The next time you even suggest staying in power, I’m taking a thumb. As soon as this meeting is over, I’m going down to the first floor. Now, aside from the logistics of allowing a greater number of undocumented citizens to enter the northern territories, which we’ve already discussed, what other setbacks do we need to account for?”

  “Our supply lines aren’t what they used to be,” said sharp-nosed Captain Felix Mazlan, whose Armory Division was tasked with logistics and inventory as well as armament and weapon stockpiles for the Scarred.

  “Why’s that?” Merrick asked.

  “We’ve been under a great deal of strain over the last several months. The shortage is happening because somehow the nomads keep wiping out the trade caravans before they can get here. We’ve had a total of maybe four trains since the start of the long year.”

  Merrick frowned. “You still aren’t getting new caravans? When was the last time you had one come through?”

  “Must’ve been three months now.”

  Merrick couldn’t believe it. He’d been here when that train came through. It was the one responsible for his chance meeting with Toler Glaive. “There hasn’t been a single train since that one?”

  Felix shook his head.

  “The southers have been swimming in new trade, thanks to the savages,” Merrick said. “I didn’t think you all had it that bad up here, though. I assumed at least some of them had been getting through.”

  “Not a one.”

  “So, then… how is the city north getting by?”

  “We’ve been living off our reserves for the past year or so,” Wax said. “We were in talks last week to accelerate development on the power station. Then you showed up with your ragtag band of revolutionaries and forced us to focus our energies elsewhere.”

  “What about the crops you grow here? What about the factories and the animal processing plants? Isn’t any of that helping?”

  Wax leaned back in his chair. “You want to know what was helping? Putting a limit on how many people were allowed to live here on a permanent basis. This city has plenty of raw materials to trade away to the rural corners of the Aionach. That’s how we bring in enough food to feed ourselves in the long-term. Without that trade, we’re barely breaking even trying to produce enough to sustain the population. We need a larger workforce, and we need to get birth rates up. Letting in a bunch of mutants and elderly folks who can’t hold a job and have no reproductive value isn’t going to help us.”

  The conference room door cracked open, prompting Wax to lean sideways for a glimpse past Merrick. When he saw the curvy red-headed woman in her floral-patterned dress, he gave her an irritated glance and folded his arms.

  The woman poked her head into the room and gave Wax an apologetic smile. “I know you said not to interrupt, but… it’s Kayleigh. Something’s wrong.”

  Wax stood. “What is it?”

  “I—I don’t know. You’ll have to come.”

  “Dr. Kapperling,” Wax said as he strode out after the woman.

  The commander of the Medical Division stood, squinting wide-set eyes and combing his fingers through a thinning sheet of slicked-back hair.

  “You too, Mr. Bouchard,” said Wax. “And you, Shelder.”

  Shelder Depliades, Wax’s squat, balding assistant, stood and followed them out.

  Whereas the ninth floor was occupied by Wax’s spacious office, the entire tenth had been remodeled into a lavish domicile, complete with all the amenities a man living after the end of the world could want. A reinforced steel door guarded the entrance to all but the key carriers; film shades covered the windows to reduce harmful rays; modified bathroom facilities carried waste from the unit without the need for running water; a natural ventilation system provided fresh filtered air from the outside, even during sandstorms; a garden terrace with daylight shields provided food for a dozen people. The place even came equipped with modified water pipes connected to a running purification system on the roof. The only thing Wax had neglected to tell Merrick about the apartment was who lived there.

  A raised kitchen of steel and marble led to a cozy living room furnished in immaculate white leather and a dining area with an oiled ironwood table. At the back of the apartment, double doors opened onto a plush bedroom with padded walls, thick carpeting, and an enormou
s bed. On the bed lay a sickly-looking girl with pale skin and disheveled blonde hair. Her belly was swollen with what Merrick could only assume was pregnancy.

  Wax went to her, motioning Merrick into the room. “Okay, healer. Now’s the time. Do for her what you did for me.”

  Merrick felt himself flush with nervous heat. He’d healed countless southers, but somehow all he could remember were his failures. The cistern, before he’d learned of his powers. The mutie child, when those powers had failed him. Children were not his strong suit, it seemed—though admittedly he’d never tried to heal a child in the womb. “Is it—”

  Wax shook his head. “Not mine. I wish it was.”

  “I was going to ask if it was being born right now.”

  “I should hope not,” said Dr. Kapperling. “She’s only eighteen weeks along.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Give me a moment.” Kapperling opened his doctor’s bag and spent a few minutes examining her. “It’s hard to be sure,” he said, wiping his brow, “but it seems she’s suffering from the same phenomenon many prospective mothers have been experiencing in recent years. Conception rates have plummeted, but even healthy pregnancies are resulting in miscarriages at an alarmingly high rate. She could lose the baby.”

  “I don’t know if I can help her,” said Merrick.

  Wax wrinkled his brow. “Of course you can. Why wouldn’t you be able to?”

  “My gift doesn’t always work like I expect it to.” Merrick moved toward the bed.

  Wax stood, spreading his arms protectively. “Explain what you mean by that.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “I’m not letting you touch her unless you explain yourself.”

  “Are you going to stop me?”

  “This child is very important,” Wax said.

  “Yeah, population growth. I heard you earlier. I understand. I wouldn’t do this unless there was a good chance I could help.”

  “A chance isn’t enough.”

  “How about a better chance than her losing the baby?” Merrick had no way of knowing whether his gift really could increase the odds of survival for mother or child, but he wasn’t going to let himself make the same mistake he had with the mutie kid. If he tried and it didn’t start working right away, he’d stop.