by David Estes
“That’s what I thought,” Aboud snarls. “We’ll take Lecter down, that’s for damn sure, but we’ll do it without the help of the traitors.”
“No,” I say calmly. “You won’t.” Aboud’s face turns red and he’s about to speak, but I step forward and cut him off. “You will follow my orders or be dismissed from your position.”
“I was appointed by your father for life,” he says. “We all were.”
“For his life,” I say. “Which is over. You remain generals only on my command now.”
He laughs, but there’s no joy in it. “Your command. You’re a child, regardless of whose son you are. We’ll run the army as we see fit.”
“Your choice,” I say. “Commit to fight against Lecter with a united Tri-Realms, or you can leave right now.”
The general’s smile is as ugly as a bat’s. “I’ll leave. But I’ll take the rest of the generals and our army with me.” He spits at my feet and stalks off. “Follow me,” he says to his comrades.
Three of the men follow immediately, then a fourth. A fifth turns halfway, and then turns back, looking at the remaining four generals, as if torn.
I meet his eyes. “Do what you have to do,” I say, “but I’ll show you no mercy on the battlefield.”
“And neither shall I,” he says, and then exits behind the others. Nearly two-thirds of my leaders are gone in the blink of an eye.
The four left look like they want to throw up. One of them is the man with the blue-plated glasses. General Marx. “What do you want us to do?” he asks.
“Prepare for war with the other generals,” I say. “We must defeat them tomorrow or there might be no one left to save by the time we get above.”
Through the speakers, Adele’s mother clears her throat. I look at her. Is that pride in her eyes? “I’ll get together with the leaders of the moon and star dweller armies. We’re coming to the Sun Realm.”
“Get here fast,” I say, motioning to Tawni.
She raises the controller and cuts the connection, and I’m left with two of my best friends and my four remaining generals.
~~~
The communications technician looks at me and nods. A red light blinks above the camera.
I look down at the script Roc and Tawni helped me compose over the course of an hour, after only managing to grab about two hours of sleep. I fight off the urge to yawn as I skim the fancy words and the calls to action and the “together we are strong” line that I liked so much at the time, but which now just sounds like a bunch of fake nonsense. Halfway through preparing the speech, the reports started coming in that large portions of the sun dweller army had abandoned their posts under the leadership of the six deserting generals. Good riddance, I think, lying to myself.
I know I should be saying something, because I’m live and the entirety of the Tri-Realms is watching me right now. But I don’t, I just stare at the paper for a few seconds, and then crumple it in my fist. When I look to the side, Roc’s there, barely out of the range of the camera, grinning that I-told-you-so look that’s so annoying but is so justified in this instance, because he’s the one who told me to just speak from my heart when I asked him to help me write something.
I chuck the balled-up speech at him and he ducks, letting it hit the wall behind him. That Roc: He’s a wily one, all right.
Turning back to the red blinking light and the glass circle that means millions of people are watching me, I place my hands on the table, trying to steady my nerves. “My—my father lied to you his whole life…” I can imagine the gasps from the sun dwellers, the nodding heads of the moon dwellers, the shouts of “No surprise there!” from the star dwellers. “He told you the earth’s surface continues to be uninhabitable, and in some ways it is, but”—I pause, knowing even the moon and star dwellers will be waiting in anticipation for my next words—“there are people living there.”
I wait for it to sink in, if that’s even possible. I remember the outraged cries of denial from my friends when I told them. Hell, I don’t think Trevor ever believed me. How could a secret so big be kept from everyone?
I go on to tell them about the New City, about the Tri-Tribes, about the good people I met who just want to live their lives in peace, like we all do. When I tell them about what I saw, about how the earth dwellers massacred the Icers, I hope their eyes are wet, that they feel something. If not, then the fight is already lost.
“And now I ask you…no, I implore you, to unite as one, to cast aside your differences for another day, to help me and the other leaders of the Tri-Realms build a new world. A better one.” I pause again, praying my words are more than just the dry rock dust I feel in my mouth. “There will be those who even now are plotting against us, who will tell you a disparate, separate world is a good world, but don’t listen to them. That was my father’s way and it only ever led us to rebellion and war. I can show you a new way. Be ready because it’s coming.”
The light blinks off and I slump back in my chair, sighing deeply. Roc comes over.
“Not bad,” he says. “Maybe you won’t be as crappy a president as I expected.”
I don’t even have the energy to punch him for that comment. Public speaking takes a lot out of you. Just another thing I’ll have to get used to. “Any word from the generals?”
“I got a note that said two more have left and taken their troops with them.”
“What?” I say, my fists clenching.
“Just kidding,” Roc says, chuckling to himself. Now I do find it in me to punch him in the gut, soft enough that he’ll keep his breath but hard enough to tell him what I thought of his joke. “Ow! Okay, okay, the note said they’ve briefed their soldiers and that they’re ready. It also said the other generals are marching their armies to the border tunnels. Looks like they’re going to try to stop the moon and star dweller armies before they can get here.”
In other words, everything’s a huge mess, and I’m the one who caused it.
~~~
The day is half gone and the anticipation is killing me. The non-military citizens are hiding inside their beautiful flats and apartments and homes, peeking out their windows as we pass through the streets.
I’m at the head of one of the platoons from the portion of the army that I still command, marching toward one of the border tunnels that leads to the Moon Realm. General Marx is by my side in the back of a truck. We received a comm from the moon dwellers that they’re transporting several of their own platoons through this tunnel.
Evidently the enemy generals intercepted that comm, because even before we reach the cavern wall, I can hear the whisper-roar of a large crowd. When we round a bend with our force of at least five thousand soldiers strong, we see an ocean of darkness, standing stock still and going silent when they spot us.
The deserters have cast off the red uniforms that the army behind me wears, and replaced them with black clothes, as dark as oil.
Presumably on a command from one of their generals, they raise their guns, pointing them right at us. All around me, not needing a command from Marx or me, our soldiers mirror the enemy’s movements, clicking and shouldering their weapons. Maybe I should’ve ridden in the back like Marx suggested. No, that’s what my father would’ve done; or worse, he would’ve stayed in his palace fortress, safe while his men and women died for him.
If anyone must die, I’ll die with them.
A voice bellows from the black swarm, amplified by a bullhorn. “President Nailin. Before we kill each other, may I have a word?”
Even distorted by the electronic ting of the amplification device, the voice is recognizable. General Aboud.
Marx hands me a bullhorn. I raise it to my lips. “The time for talking is past. You have abandoned your posts, committed treason against your own people, your own government. Stand down or face the consequences.”
Before Aboud can respond, there’s a shout from further back, somewhere near the cavern wall, where a massive inter-Realm shipping tunnel sinks into
the rock like a huge, black eye. “They’re coming!” More shouts, loud and wicked and almost excited, but even they’re not loud enough to drown out the echoes from the tunnel. Drumbeats. No, not drumbeats—feet marching in unison, spilling out of the tunnel mouth.
The Lower Realms have arrived.
~~~
There’s a flash of red fire and more screams. An explosion rocks the city, sending shards of black and red through the air amidst a thick fog of gray smoke.
A grenade. The moon and star dwellers are coming in firing.
Shots ring out and at first they’re distant, like Aboud’s soldiers are firing into the tunnel, but then they’re closer. A dozen soldiers cry out around us, the air spotted with tiny pink clouds. And then the cracks of weapons exploding are so loud it’s like they’re in my ears, as our force returns fire. Black-clothed soldiers fall, but are quickly replaced by the next line, illuminated by flashes of orange explosions from the muzzles of their weapons.
Marx pulls me off the truck, behind a shield of metal and rubber. My head is buzzing; I can’t hear properly. My heart is racing and I realize I’m clutching my own gun to my chest with two hands. I’ve fought plenty of times, but not like this. Not when I’m just one speck of dust in a mountain of dirt. Not when the enemy might kill me even if they’re not aiming at me.
I take a deep breath as Marx sticks his gun out the side of the vehicle and shoots. He doesn’t even look, just pulls the trigger, again and again and again, until his gun starts clicking. He withdraws his hand, pops out the spent cartridge, reloads.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he says. His voice sounds muffled, like he’s speaking underwater. He doesn’t wait for my response, just rolls to the side and starts shooting again, like it’s as simple as going out back to take a leak.
What am I doing? I’m no soldier. I know how to shoot, yeah, because my father made me spend hours on the range, but not when the enemy is a black wall, individual people as indiscernible from each other as a single ant atop an anthill.
This might not be what I wanted or what I expected—what did I expect, exactly?—but it’s what I made. So now I have to live with it, whether I like it or not.
Gritting my teeth, I roll to the side opposite from Marx and start shooting.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Adele
Every last instinct is urging me to run-run-run as far away from that voice as possible.
I run right at it, leaving my cart behind, and staying on my toes to ensure my approach is soundless. Down the hall past empty offices to the other side of the room, my feet carry me toward him.
Even as the voice gets louder, I wonder what I’m going to do when I reach him. Will I barge in, attack him, try to kill him on the spot? Presumably he has some form of security that will stop me. But I could try. Killing Lecter would end the war pretty quickly, and quickly is exactly what we need.
I slow my pace as the voice becomes softer and clearer, the sound slipping through a crack in a door to a corner conference room. There’s frosted glass on both inner sides so I can’t see a damn thing, but I can hear every word.
“We can’t find them, sir,” says a new voice. “It’s like they disappeared into the sand.”
“That’s the best excuse you have to offer me?” Lecter says, his voice rising once more. “That the desert dwellers have sunk into the sand?”
I creep close, right up to the door, stay to the left of the hinges, in case it opens. I might get lucky and have the chance to hide behind it.
“No, I’m just saying—”
“You’re just saying that you’ve failed to destroy the savages. Do you know what that means?” Lecter again, his tone once more full of the calmness he displayed during last evening’s announcement.
“Yes,” the man says.
“Do you?”
“It means they’re still out there?” the man says, like it’s a question.
“Wrong!” Lecter scoffs.
“They’re not still out there?”
“You idiot, of course they’re still out there, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that the people—my people—know that we’ve won, that we’ve done what we set out to do. Cleansed the earth so we can start over. What citizen of this good city is going to agree to ride out into the desert to be a part of the next city we construct if there are savages still running around somewhere?”
I’m pretty sure Lecter isn’t expecting an answer, but the man says, “No one.”
“You’re damn right no one. Look, we suffered the partnership with the Icers only because their king was…unstable…and because he provided us with a fair supply of wood and meat. But even had he survived their little rebellion, we still would have had to kill them all eventually anyway. For the good of the earth. His death was merely the perfect excuse.”
“I’ve heard Goff’s death wasn’t caused by a rebellion,” the man says, his voice filled with a little pride.
“Oh have you?” Lecter says, a sliver of sarcasm in his tone.
“I heard dark warriors came from the sea.”
“Dark warriors?” Lecter’s words are full of mockery now. “Sounds like you’ve been reading too many sun dweller novels, Gomez.”
“I’m just saying what I heard.”
“You think I don’t have all the same information as you? I’ve heard the same thing, only my sources called the eastern people savages, not dark warriors. Just more savages. Don’t give them more prestige than they deserve. One day our coastal cities will be built on the graves of these so-called dark warriors.”
A firm hand grabs the back of my shirt and I almost cry out.
“What do you want me to do?” I hear the man ask Lecter, even as I’m looking back at my attacker, preparing for a fight.
It’s my boss, her face like a red balloon. Uh oh. She doesn’t say anything, just points down the hall, to where I left my cart.
I walk away from the room, feeling her behind me the whole way.
Lecter’s final words hit me in the back. “Kill them. Kill them all.”
~~~
“What the hell were you doing?” boss lady says. I swear a wisp of steam escapes her ear. We’re down on the 50th floor, where I was meant to go in the first place.
“I got the floor wrong,” I say innocently. “I’m sorry.”
“Why’d you leave your cart?” Big hands on big hips.
“I was looking for you.”
“So when you didn’t find me you decided to crouch outside of a conference room?” she asks. She doesn’t say “President Lecter’s conference room,” but I can tell that’s what she means. It was a major offense.
“No, I…see, the thing is…I saw a smudge on the glass, so I went to inspect. And when I got closer, there were more smudges, LOTS of smudges, so I was contemplating what to do about those smudges when you snuck up behind me.”
“I didn’t sneak,” the boss says. “I don’t sneak.”
I don’t doubt that. I must’ve been pretty engrossed in what Lecter was saying to not notice her approach. Building new cities. Cleansing the earth. Killing the savages. The themes of the conversation were anything but comforting.
But my conversation with my boss is going nowhere. Time to play the card under my sleeve.
“Look, it’s my first day, I was just trying to figure things out. I promise, it won’t happen again.”
She smiles at me, which scares me a little. I wither under the scrutiny of her gaze and the strangeness of her unexpected smile. “Oh, you’re right about that,” she says, and I can tell she’s not in any way, shape or form agreeing with me. “It won’t happen again because your employment here is terminated, effective at the end of the day. Your rations will be cut off starting tomorrow, until you are assigned a new position.”
~~~
That could’ve gone better. Not only will I be unable to get close to Lecter again after today, but boss lady is watching me like a parent watches their trou
blemaker kid on the playground.
First we clean the long hallways on floors 50 to 54, using strange machines that evidently suck the dust off the fuzzy, soft floors that almost look like blankets have been sewn into them. I think they had them in Tristan’s palace in the Sun Realm, too—he called them carpets. We stop there, leaving 55 to clean itself, I guess. So much for the smudges on the conference room glass.
Next we clean every last window on those same five floors. It’s truly backbreaking work, and I have to constantly switch the hand that I use to scrub with so my arms don’t get too tired. What am I doing? I’m on a clandestine mission to help stop a ruthless dictator and I’m scrubbing windows until they’re so clear you can barely tell they’re windows. It’s quite a different experience to when we took out Tristan’s father.
The day can’t go fast enough, because under boss lady’s scrutiny there’s no hope of learning anything else. And even the stuff I already learned is of no real value; it just supports what I already knew about President Borg Lecter: that he’s a good candidate for a bullet to the head.
Finally, my back aching and my arms sore and my fingers ready to fall off, we’re dismissed for lunch.
On the way out, boss lady stops me. “You know what? Cancel the rest of the day. You’re fired now. You’ll be able to eat lunch but not dinner. Report to the employment office immediately if you want to eat tomorrow.”
I don’t respond, just walk away, my muscles tight from the cleaning and anger. And frustration. I was right there, a pane of glass and a cracked-open door the only things separating me from him! So freaking close! I screwed up. I should have barged in, taken my chances with any guards that might’ve been inside, gone for Lecter’s jugular with my teeth. I should have sacrificed my own life for the greater good. Tristan might disagree, but only because he cares about me. Now I’m back to square one, the weight of regret on my shoulders.
