The Earth Dwellers

by David Estes

  It gets later and later as we wait. Or maybe earlier and earlier. Is it the end of the day or the beginning of the next? I’m not tired because of how late we stayed up the night before and how late we slept in today, but my eyes feel stingy, either because of the dust or because I’m not blinking enough, afraid I’ll miss something.

  Another truck comes and the events from earlier repeat. Door opens, door closes, air is filtered out, other door opens, truck enters.

  “What should I do?” I say when the sequence is finished.

  “Abort mission,” Tristan says, half-grinning, his teeth purple under the night sky.

  “Nice try. I’m thinking I just stroll up the next time a truck comes by, slip in behind it.”

  “This isn’t the Sun Realm and these aren’t garbage trucks,” Tristan says, reminding me of the time when we used a similar tactic to infiltrate the Capitol. “They’d see you right away.”

  “I don’t have many other options.”

  “Just be one of them,” Tristan says. “Pretend you were on a mission, got hurt, disoriented, lost in the desert. Something like that.”

  I stick my chin out. It’s not the worst plan ever. “That could work,” I say, “but it’d have to look real. I’d need to have injuries.”

  “Are you giving me permission to hit you?” Tristan says, and it should be a joke, but he looks horrified.

  “I think you’ll have to. I’d hit myself, but I’m not sure how effective it would be.” Are we really talking about hurting me like it’s some tactical problem we have to solve?

  Tristan screws up his face.

  “We don’t have a choice,” I insist.

  “Not that,” he says. “There’s something else.”

  Oh, crap, what? “Tell me,” I say.

  “Everyone in the city has a microchip inside them, in their wrist.” I remember Tristan telling me about how he had to wear a metal armband when he visited the New City with his family.

  “To track them,” I say. “But I thought they wore bracelets.”

  Tristan shakes his head. “That was just for visitors. The residents get something more permanent.” Great, I think. Another chip. I’ve already got the one in the back of my neck—although it’s deactivated now—that my mother implanted to connect me to Tristan. Now I have to get one in my wrist.

  “So we have to make it look like someone cut it out,” I say.

  “Exactly,” Tristan says, his lips curled in disgust.

  “No biggie. Just make it quick.” I hand him the knife I borrowed from another dead Glassy.

  He takes it and says, “Right arm. Turn it over. Close your eyes.”

  “I can watch.”

  He shrugs as if to say, “If you pass out, at least it’ll delay the mission.” Slowly, painfully slowly, he digs the tip of the knife into my skin, higher up on my forearm than I expected. At first it’s just a sharp prick, almost more like pressure, but as he digs deeper it becomes a searing pain that lances through my arm to my fingertips. Blood wells up and I grit my teeth, grab a jagged corner of the rock with my other hand, fight off the urge to flinch, to pull away, to hit him.

  He twists the knife. “Arrr,” I growl, keeping my voice as low as possible, so it doesn’t rise above the boulder.

  And then it’s over. He pulls the knife out and presses a corner of his shirt firmly on the wound, which is throbbing wildly. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry. I had to make it as ragged as possible so it would look real, as if someone like Skye cut it out.”

  I almost laugh at that, despite the fire in my arm. “I think you’ll have to dig in one more time to make it look like Skye did it,” I say through my teeth.

  “If you say so,” Tristan says, starting to pull the cloth away, raising the knife once more.

  “No, no, no, no, I was kidding,” I say quickly.

  “I know,” he says, slipping the blood-stained knife back in my belt. I don’t ask him to clean it; it’ll look more realistic with the blood on it, like I’d been fighting the natives before they took me down and cut my chip out.

  Tristan tears off a piece of his shirt, exposing his abdomen. He wraps it tightly around my shredded arm, tying it rapidly and somewhat poorly, like how I might’ve done it myself if I was injured. His sharp mind is working double time, thinking of every detail to give me the best shot possible.

  “Do you want me to hit you now or wait a few minutes?” he asks. The wry grin is back, and I know that joking is the only way he can cope with everything.

  “I’ll barely feel it after the kni—”

  His fist comes up so fast and unexpectedly that I don’t even have time to think about moving out of the way. The impact twists my head to the side and rocks me back. I slam to the ground, hitting my head on a small stone. My cheek and eye are stinging and throbbing and burning, and I can already feel the pressure of a goose egg rising on the crown of my head.

  Tristan’s all over me, hugging me, spooning me, kissing the back of my neck. “Adele, I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  I choke out a laugh, blinking the water out of my eyes. “Don’t be. I’m fine. Training with my dad there’s never been a question as to whether I can take a hit.”

  We lay like that for a few minutes, my head swarming with so much fog it’s like I’m underwater. Tristan knows how to punch, that’s for sure, and he didn’t hold back. Again, I know he did it for me and that it probably killed him having to do it. This is the world we live in. Hurting those we love to help them. Hitting me to save my life. A backwards world.

  Eventually, I stir, force Tristan off of me, my head spinning slightly. “How do I look?” I ask.

  Tristan blinks, his jaw tightening. He manages to compose himself, forces a smile. “Like you just went toe to toe with a brick wall.”

  “Good,” I say, grabbing a handful of dust and smearing it on my face, on my arms. Trying to look as weathered and beaten as possible.

  In the distance, there’s a cough.

  Leaning forward quickly, I give Tristan a kiss on the lips and say, “Showtime.”

  I push to my feet and step out from the rock. Behind me, Tristan says, “Be careful,” but I don’t look back. Step by step, I stumble toward the black gates, doing my best to stay in character, which isn’t that difficult with my head still floating through the clouds.

  The truck is getting closer, the beam of the headlights bouncing just beside me now. I look back, squinting, a hand cupped over my eyes as the glare locks onto me. I stagger…and I fall, first to my knees, and then right on my face. I don’t even bother to cushion my landing with my hands, which hurts like hell. But it had to look real—I pray it looked real.

  Gravel scraping, tires skidding, voices shouting.

  I let the world spin as my eyes flutter closed.

  “Soldier! Soldier!” someone shouts. I don’t react.

  Strong arms lift my arms, my feet, swing-carry me through the air. I play dead.

  They lay me gently on something hard. I groan, just like I should.

  “Go, go!” a husky voice says, and the truck roars to life, vibrating beneath me, sending jolts through my bones with every bounce over the rough terrain. Humming, humming: I know the New City gate is opening. Can this be happening? Can this be working?

  The truck stops and the gate whirs and clicks and hums as it closes.

  I’m in.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Siena

  So easy. Almost too easy. The Glassies didn’t question it, didn’t stand ’round scratching their chins and saying, “I wonder if this is some sorta trick.” They just grabbed Adele and slung her into their fire chariot and took her inside. So easy.

  Are we the fools?

  “She’s one of THEM!” Skye hisses, stabbing her finger in the dark toward the now-closed door.

  “She was acting,” Wilde says, but her voice is much less convincing’n usual.

  “Ha! See what’d happen if I tried to act. They’d shoot me on the spot,” Skye says, st
abbing another finger at the Glass City.

  Yeah, but… “You don’t look like ’em,” I say. “She does.”

  “Exactly!” Skye says, much too loudly, as if I’ve made her point. “If someone looks like ’em, talks like ’em, rides in fire chariots like ’em, she must be one of ’em.”

  Her logic makes sense, but that don’t mean it’s true. “So…what? She was spying on us the whole time?” I say. “She’s gonna go tell ’em ’bout the Unity Alliance, ’bout us hiding over ’ere? That’s nothing, Skye. If she was gonna spy on us, she woulda waited till we took her back to New Wildetown, then tried to escape.” Do I believe what I’m saying, or do I just wanna believe it?

  “Then where’s Tristan?” Skye says, her eyebrows raised, as if that was the winning argument. Where is Tristan? I wonder, looking ’round.

  “I’m right here,” a voice says from behind us, making us all jump a little.

  “You baggard,” Skye says, her finger swinging ’round to aim at him now. I’m glad she doesn’t have her longblade with her or we’d be constantly ducking to keep our heads on our shoulders.

  “I’m the baggard?” Tristan says hotly, staring Skye down. “You’re the ones who made her go in there alone. They might’ve discovered her already, killed her already.”

  He stomps away, back inside the hideaway. “Don’t prove anythin’,” Skye mutters.

  But it does and she knows it. He came back. And if they were spies he wouldn’t’ve.

  ~~~

  More’n more fire chariots return to the Glass City during the night. Eventually I lose count and my excitement dies down each time Lara or Hawk come running in saying, “Another one!”

  When I finally fall asleep, it’s so heavy the second coming of the Meteor God couldn’t wake me.

  It’s my nose that pulls me back to life. I awake to the aroma of spiced ’zard. Ugh. Same old, same old.

  But my stomach growls anyway, ’cause sometimes it doesn’t give two blazes ’bout what I put in it, so long as I put something in there.

  I sit up, rubbing my eyes. Skye and Hawk are out, lying ’gainst the cave wall at opposite ends. Lara’s nowhere to be seen, so she’s probably camouflaged up top, watching for more chariots. Wilde and Tristan sit ’cross from each other, heads bowed, having a conversation so low I can only catch snatches of it.

  “…has to be a reason they’d…” That’s Wilde.

  “…found your…” Tristan’s response.

  “…be ready.” Wilde again.

  I flinch when Wilde’s head suddenly snaps in my direction, like she realizes I’ve been watching ’em, listening.

  “Uh, is it morning?” I say. There’s plenty of light coming through the hole in the roof, so it’s probably not the smartest question.

  “Yes,” Wilde says. “Today’s the day we go back to New Wildetown.”

  “What ’bout Adele?” I ask.

  “Only the sun goddess can protect her now.”

  “She’ll do her part—now we need to do ours,” Tristan adds.

  “The fight on the outside,” I say.

  “Searin’ right,” Skye says, rolling over. “’Em baggards won’t know what hit ’em.”

  Is she right, or is it just Skye being Skye? Confident, sure of herself, tough as a tugskull. Yeah, we beat the Glassies the last time they came for us, but we surprised ’em. We even surprised ourselves. I mean, the Heaters didn’t expect the Wilde Ones to show up, and we sure as scorch didn’t expect Feve and the Marked to crash the party. We got the best of our pale-faced neighbors, but the next time they’ll come in harder, with more soldiers, with more weapons…

  Will we survive? Do we have any chance? With Adele on the inside, maybe, but only half a chance. With the Icers fighting with us under the Unity Alliance, maybe a whole chance. I gotta believe; it’s the only way I can stay sane when Circ’s not ’round.

  I blink away my thoughts when Lara comes rushing in, her eyes bigger’n a Killer’s gaping jaw. “Something’s happening,” she says.

  We follow her out of the opening, creep to the top, slither under the rock-colored skin. Even Hawk wakes up and follows us up without asking any stupid questions.

  Sure enough, as Lara said, something’s happening. But that’s a major understatement, ’cause it ain’t just something, it’s a BIG something. Dozens of fire chariots are setting just outside the Glass City, not moving, just waiting. Half of ’em are full of Glassy soldiers, all wearing masks like the one Tristan’s wearing, all wearing uniforms and balancing black fire sticks on their knees. The rest of the soldiers are piling into the remaining empty fire chariots.

  I duck my head even lower. If one of ’em spots us…

  But no, our cave is pretty far off. Unless they ride right at us, we’ll be fine.

  Skye curses under her breath. “They musta found us,” she says, and I know she don’t mean us us. She means New Wildetown. She means all of us. The mothers, the fathers, the children. Circ. Feve. Jade, our younger sister. Veeva. Everyone I care ’bout. My world.

  “We gotta get back. We gotta get back now,” I say, and I feel my heart racing and a creep of chill running through my veins, almost like I’m back in ice country.

  I’m already pulling away, ready to grab our stuff and go, charge ’cross the desert, attempt to outrun the fire chariots, even when I know it’s impossible. But Wilde stops me with a hand on my shoulder. “Wait,” she says. “Look.”

  I don’t wanna—I wanna run, run, run!—but I hafta look, ’cause when Wilde says something you just do it. I snap my gaze back to the Glass City and see what Wilde’s talking ’bout.

  The first of the chariots is leaving, spitting black smoke out the back and growling. A cloud of dust plumes in its wake, but the second chariot just drives right through it, following behind. The third, the fourth, and then all the rest do the same. A long line of fire chariots, like a disgustingly long snake roping its way through the desert. We’re too late. They’re too fast and we’re too late.

  But wait, look, I think, my thoughts echoing Wilde’s simple command from only a moment ago.

  The chariots ain’t heading west, toward New Wildetown, in the direction most of ’em arrived from during the night. No. They’re heading north.

  And there’s only one thing that’s north.

  Ice country.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dazz

  There’s no easy way down the mountain. Not for the entire village anyway. Why would there be? No one ever goes down the mountain; they have no reason to. Back in the days when Buff and I worked for King Goff—may he rot in Chill—and we went to collect trade items from the Heaters at the border, we used to simply strap our sliders on our feet and zip our way down the snowy slopes. This venture south is quite a different experience.

  The wooden cart handle is digging into my shoulder. Next to me Buff is mumbling obscenities as he gets similar treatment from his handle. He’s even stopped mocking me and calling me a “sissy-eyed doe-lover” or whatever his usual insults are. Whose idea was the cart anyway?

  With each tree root, stone, or bump in the ground, the handles bob up and down, slamming into our bodies, sending shockwaves through our bones and muscles. At least the cold’s not a problem, I think. I’m sweating beneath my thick, bearskin coat.

  “Freezin’, icin’, no-good son of a Yag herder,” Buff mumbles. “Yow!” he grunts when we hit a particularly large hump in the frozen earth, hidden beneath the ankle-high snow. I grimace, too, switching the handle to the opposite shoulder for about the hundredth time.

  “What the chill are we doing out here?” I ask no one in particular, glaring at a Glassy soldier who smirks at me as he passes by.

  “The consortium voted and decided to—” Buff starts to say.

  “Yah, I get that,” I say, cutting him off. “But why’d they make such an idiotic decision?”

  A voice on my right says, “You should watch what you say, talk like that could be misconstrued as treason.” />
  I don’t need to turn my head to know the voice. Abe.

  Gritting my teeth—not in anger, but with exertion—I turn to look at him. Of course, he’s walking easily, loping along beside me, carrying nothing. His bags are strapped to his ogre-like brother, Hightower, who manages them as easily as the mountain manages us.

  “It’s not like you voted for this decision,” I say through clenched teeth.

  “True,” he says, tapping a dirty fingernail on his yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. “But it’s hard to argue with Glassy soldiers. Hey! Do you want a hand with that cart?”

  I know he doesn’t mean his own hands. “It’s our responsibility,” I say.

  “C’mon, Dazzy, don’t be such a spoiler. It’s not like I’m selling my brother into slavery. He likes helping, don’t you, Tower?”

  Hightower grunts something that sounds enough like a yes for Abe’s purposes. “See? Take a load off. You, too, Boof.”

  “It’s Buff,” Buff says, but he stops at the same time as I do, lowering to a crouch to set the cart on its front stopper. The temptation is too strong.

  “Okay,” I say, “but we’ll take it back when he gets tired.”

  “What’s going on down there?” a voice says from the cart bed. A face appears, hanging over the front. Darcy. “Why have we stopped?” She spots Hightower and shrinks back, ducking behind a barrel.

  I move aside, massaging my neck, rolling my shoulders, feeling like I might if I’d gone sliding into a tree. Buff looks equally battered as he stumbles over to me.

  “Ain’t that better?” Abe says.

  I can’t say no, so I don’t say anything.

  Hightower throws Abe’s and his bags onto the cart, drawing a squeal from the kids in the back, and then positions himself between the two handles. He takes a moment to scratch his arse and crack his knuckles before stooping to lift the cart, letting out a minor grunt. And then we’re moving, Hightower looking as calm and serene as if he’s carrying no more than a small child on his back.