The Earth Dwellers

by David Estes

  My heart sinks. There are too many, but if there’s any chance Adele’s mother is still alive, I have to get to her before the enemy does.

  I steel my resolve and prepare to charge into the open.

  That’s when I hear the chorus of shouts, not from the New City, but from the south. I crane my neck, my breath hitching when I see them. The rest of the Tri-Realm soldiers, come from the remaining subchapters. Five thousand strong and already shooting at the enemy, which suddenly doesn’t look like too many.

  With renewed vigor, the soldiers around me are popping up and pushing forward, the weaker side of a pincer attack. I dart out, shooting at anything that moves, killing one earth dweller, then another, as they try to decide which direction to look.

  One of the new trucks explodes, presumably from a hit to the gas tank.

  The earth dwellers are dying in waves and some of them are losing their resolve and fleeing back toward the city, only to be cut down by the force from the south. We’re winning. No, we’ve won.

  I let the soldiers clean up the remaining enemies, veering off toward the upside down truck. Toss my gun aside. Dive to the dirt. Anna’s slumped inside, covered in glass, the windshield having shattered inward. Her arm is contorted awkwardly against the steering wheel. But she’s looking at me with blinking eyes.

  “I’m gonna get you out of there,” I say.

  “That’d be good,” she says.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think my arm’s broken,” she says, whistling out a sharp breath through her teeth. “Other than that, I’m fine.”

  “This is gonna hurt,” I say, getting a firm grip on the arm that looks okay.

  “Just do it quick.”

  With everything I have, I pull her from the vehicle. Her mouth opens like she wants to cry out, but she doesn’t, just screws up her face. She slumps over when she’s free of the carnage. “Tristan,” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Find my daughter.”

  Adele

  I could shoot—I could. But I’m not the best shot in the world, and if I miss or don’t kill Lecter with the first bullet, then I’ll be dead and so might the fire country natives. Tristan, too.

  So I do it. I drop the gun, hating the dull thud it makes at my feet, and hoping I’ll get another opportunity to kill Lecter.

  I want to ask Jocelyn why she’s doing this, but I don’t, because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t understand the answer anyway. Her head is all screwed up, brainwashed by the very person she hates and loves.

  My mission has failed because of the very person who started everything when she paid an unexpected visit to my mother.

  “Bravo,” Lecter says, clapping slowly. He walks across the room, which is full of screens with colored dots, and blinking lights on shining metal panels. The room where he controls the world he’s created, where tracks the implanted chips of his people. “I’m glad I don’t have to use this,” he adds, holding out a gun I didn’t even notice.

  “Of course not, darling,” Jocelyn says, her eyes narrowed. “I told you I’d do it.”

  “And you did,” Lecter says. “You’ve come so far from the skeptical, questioning person you were a few years ago. I’m most impressed.”

  “You’re sick,” I say. “Both of you.”

  Jocelyn gives me a surprised look. “Don’t you see, Adele? Borg has created everything that my former husband refused to. An equal world, where everyone gets the same amount of food, the same living conditions. There are no Realms. There is no poverty, no crime. It’s a perfect world…one that deserves to grow.”

  “You’re delusional,” I say.

  She shakes her head. “One day you’ll understand,” she says.

  “No,” I say. “I’ll never understand either of you. Tristan would say the same thing.”

  Hearing her son’s name, she jerks slightly, just in her face, her gun remaining firm against my temple. “You may be right,” she says. “But I’m willing to try to explain to him too. To teach him, like I always did.”

  This woman can’t be reasoned with, can’t be talked out of the disease that’s consumed her. I can’t be a prisoner in this world. Even though it’ll only take the slightest squeeze of her finger to end me, I have to try to do what I came here to do.

  I don’t tense my muscles in preparation. I can’t give any indication of what I’m about to do.

  “You’re the crazed soldier,” Lecter says. “Why are you doing this? Who sent you? Was it Nailin?”

  “Nailin is dead,” I say, trying to keep the conversation going, waiting for the perfect opportunity to make my move.

  Lecter tries to cover his surprise, but I see it in his eyes. I’ve shocked him. “How?” he says.

  “I killed him.”

  More surprise. “But why?”

  “Because he was evil, like you.”

  “You’re an assassin.”

  I’ve never been called that before, never thought of myself that way, but I guess it’s not that far from the truth. I shrug.

  “Kill her,” Lecter says to Jocelyn.

  I’m running of time. I’ve got to do something or Jocelyn might actually…

  Jocelyn grabs my wrist with her other hand just before I start to bring it up to attack. “Don’t,” she says. There’s something in her eyes, something different…

  She pulls the gun from my head and aims it at Lecter, who doesn’t even have his own weapon raised. “Die,” she says and pulls the trigger.

  A puff of red plumes above his scalp a split-second before he falls back, blood oozing from the hole in his forehead.

  My eyes are bulging and my mouth is open in shock, but every instinct in my body is telling me to act, to seize the opportunity to gain control of the situation. I lash out, chop at Jocelyn’s arm to dislodge her weapon, but the gun is already slipping from her grasp, falling to the floor. She collapses on top of it.

  I just stand there, gasping, my heart bouncing around wildly. What just happened?

  Lecter’s not moving. There’s no way he could survive a direct headshot.

  Below me, Jocelyn’s weeping, caved in, her knees to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. A broken woman. The savior of the world inside a damaged, abused shell of a person.

  Kneeling down next to her, I rub her back with the palm of my hand. “It’s okay,” I murmur. “You did it. You’re okay now.”

  It was all an act. Her words, her icy cold voice, the gun to my head. It was the only way she could make Lecter trust her, lower his guard, get him close enough to do what she had to do.

  She fooled me and she obviously fooled him.

  Beneath my hand, her body continues to shake with emotion.

  “Tristan will be so proud.”

  Only at the mention of her son does her trembling cease. She opens her moisture-filled eyes.

  “Where?” she says.

  “Outside the city,” I guess. “Attacking with the natives.”

  She grabs my arm and I pull her up.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Siena

  Sadie’s alive, her horse too. She walks beside Gard and his son, Remy. Scant few Stormers survived the battle. Not that different’n the Tri-Tribes. Devastated by the Glassies.

  There’re many more Soakers, on account of how late they arrived, but all that matters is that they came. None of us’d be standing here if not for ’em.

  I’m still setting next to Circ when I see him. Huck. The Soaker boy who captured the attention of my younger sister, when she was a slave on one of his father’s ships.

  I leap up, not ’cause I’m all excited to see him, though in some ways I am, but ’cause of Skye’s words earlier when she found out what he’d done to Jade, how he’d beaten her with a whip.

  I’ll destroy him.

  But I’m too slow, too late, ’cause Skye’s already spotted him and she’s running right at him. Still, I try to get in front of her, but a couple burly Soakers beat me to it. “Git outta my way
,” Skye says.

  “Skye,” I say, grabbing her arm. “Don’t.”

  She pulls away from me, her eyes boring into mine for a moment ’fore darting back to the Soakers.

  “It’s okay,” Huck says to his guards. “Let her through.”

  Although they don’t look like they want to, the guards step aside, creating a gap. Huck pushes a wave of blond hair off his forehead. “Skye, Siena,” he says.

  But Skye’s already pushing through the gap, bumping the guards as she passes by. She don’t hesitate, just pulls her fist back and cracks Huck in the jaw, rocking him back. The guards are on her, but she elbows one in the face and kicks t’other in the midsection.

  “That’s for hurting my sister,” she says to Huck.

  On the ground, Huck’s massaging his jaw. Skye extends a hand and he looks at it for a second before taking it. She pulls him to his feet. He stares at her, his arms sort of extended in front of him, as if they could ever protect him from the force that is my big sister. But she doesn’t hit him again. Instead, to my surprise, she grabs him ’round the back and hugs him tightly.

  “And that’s for saving her, for saving us,” Skye says.

  Tristan

  With no one left upright to stop them, the Tri-Realm army has managed to drive two trucks through the gates, parking one between each set of double doors, leaving an open path into the city. The toxic air is surely spilling through, but I’m hoping a few hours won’t do any lasting damage.

  “President,” a soldier says at the gate. “What are your orders?” he asks. I realize then that he’s a general from the Moon Realm.

  “Get the word out to all the other generals. Sweep the city, but do not fire unless fired upon. Disarm and bind any soldiers who surrender. No more killing unless necessary.”

  “Yessir.” He turns to go.

  “Can I have a few of your soldiers?” I ask, stopping him.

  “Shoe, Mags, Tilda,” he barks. Two women and a man step forward from the crowd of soldiers manning the gates.

  “Come with me,” I say.

  We climb over the trucks and into the city, the Dome arcing high above us. It’s just as bright inside as out, one of the benefits of using glass, I suppose. We’re on some kind of an army base. There’s what appears to be a medical building in front of us, barracks to the left. Several unused trucks parked to the right. But not a single soldier. The place is deserted; every last soldier was sent into battle.

  But where’s their ultimate leader? Where’s Lecter?

  I stride across the stone courtyard, my protection unit flanking me. A high metal fence surrounds the complex, a closed gate at the center. Together we push it open.

  Buildings grow like trees around us, glass running up their sides. Like the military base, the streets are empty. I remember the alarm. Warning everyone to get and stay inside. Thank God for that, I think. At least the innocents are safe.

  Nothing here is new to me, because of when my father brought my family on a tour of the New City, but the three soldiers’ heads are roving like searchlights, taking it all in.

  The city is spotless, just like I remember it.

  Is she here? Is Adele here?

  Then I see her. I gasp, because it’s not her, not really. Just her face, stone cold and unsmiling on a screen on the outside of one of the buildings. “Wanted,” it says in big block letters above her head. “Reward for information.”

  Lecter’s discovered her. He’s got the whole city on the lookout. The only comfort I have is that if she’s still on the screen then perhaps they haven’t found her yet.

  We march down a street, scan the vacant cross streets at the intersection, continue on.

  I can’t stop, have to keep looking.

  I won’t stop until I find her.

  Adele

  We exit Lecter’s home through the shattered windows along the curving hallway. I’ve got three guns tucked in my waistband. Mine, Jocelyn’s, and Lecter’s.

  Jocelyn’s holding my hand, like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go.

  Neither of us speaks. There’s nothing left to say.

  We walk past the vacated guard station. The city is quiet for this time of day. The alarms did their job well. The citizens of this city know how to follow orders.

  I can only see the parts of the Dome that rise above the buildings; the edges are lost behind the hundreds of structures lining the streets. Somewhere out there is a battle. Did Lecter’s final order result in another massacre, the end of another tribe? The end of him, the son of the woman whose hand is gripping mine so tightly it’s starting to hurt?

  Without discussing it, we both head in the same direction, down a lettered street, making our way to whatever numbered one will take us to the main gates. Where, soldiers or no soldiers, we both know we have to go. We’ll shoot our way out if we have to. I don’t think either of us can take one more minute in this damned spotless city…

  We both stop at the same time when we see people. Crossing an intersection two blocks up. Stopping in the middle. Turning away from us, then back toward us. And when they do…

  Jocelyn sighs, making a high-pitched sound from the back of her throat. And I realize I’m making a similar sound, because…

  It’s him.

  It’s Tristan.

  Tristan

  I turn and my chest fills with air when I see Adele. But no, it’s not just her—there’s a woman too. No.

  No.

  Impossible.

  My skin tingles and warmth roars through me and my feet are so fast, far faster than those around me.

  I run toward my mother, blinking furiously at the tears in my eyes.

  Adele

  I just watch them run at each other, though I desperately want to run too. But I can’t be selfish. My time is later and nothing in the world can trump a reunion of a lost mother and son.

  They smash into each other and Tristan whirls her around and I’d bet anything he wasn’t big enough to do that the last time they saw each other. Jocelyn is crying and planting kisses on his face and Tristan’s face is peeking around her, his eyes full of shock and joy.

  And he’s crying the happiest, most wonderful tears.

  When they finally pull apart, Tristan leads her over to me, hand in hand.

  His smile is as beautiful and bright as the first time I saw him. At the parade. From behind the prison’s electrified fence. But this time it’s real. So real.

  He puts an arm around my head, tugging my face toward his. And his lips part and meet mine, warm and full and comforting.

  “She saved me,” I gasp when our lips unlock. “She saved us all.”

  Tristan looks at his mother with admiration, and I won’t tell him anything else. Jocelyn can tell him as much as she wants to when the time is right.

  Epilogue

  Somewhere beyond…

  Dazz

  The Earth is unfolded before me like a map, crisp and sharp and vibrant. It’s strange, I can see everything so clearly, almost like I’m still there, and yet it feels distant, worlds away, impossible to touch.

  I’m ripped in half.

  One part of me is curling the biggest icin’ smile across my lips, so wide and filled with giddiness that I almost feel ready to explode with happiness.

  But the other part of me is squeezing my heart, filling me with the ache of desperate longing, sending rivers of sadness down my cheeks.

  When I died, I lost more than my life.

  I can’t be sad, though. Not really. It would be too selfish. Because they did it. They freezin’ did it, and though I wasn’t there to be a part of it, I know I was with them in different ways, living in the place it mattered the most: their hearts. And Jolie and Mother and Buff were there too. Even good ol’ Abe and Hightower were rooting for them to defeat the Glassies, standing next to me, watching from…well, from wherever we are. Somewhere beyond.

  Somewhere beyond the pain and the hopelessness and the despair of a world torn into li
ttle bits so small and bent that I was starting to wonder whether there was any possibility of putting them back together again.

  But when Lecter (the Yag!) fell and his army collapsed, a cheer went up, so loud that the misty haze surrounding us turned blue for just a moment, before returning to its normal color, a white so pure it’s like snow. Familiar. That’s the word for it. Although it’s not cold anymore, this place feels like home, in a strange way. A good way.

  Even as I stare down at Skye, who’s safe and alive and as beautiful as ever, I know it’s better this way. I get to be with my family, and she with hers. And I know that one day—hopefully not anytime soon though—I’ll get to be with her again.

  I finally turn away from the Earth and a hand reaches out to wipe away my tears. “Thank you, Brother,” I say. “But don’t let Buff see you coddling me like that, he’ll never let us live it down.”

  Wes laughs and it’s the most brilliant sound I’ve ever heard, because I’ll never have to miss my brother’s laugh again. “Then quit crying,” he says. “There’s nothing left to cry about.”

  And though I know he’s right, the tears keep falling, spilling from eyes overflowing, even as Jolie emerges from the mist holding Wilde’s hand on one side and Mother’s on the other. Her smile is as bright and welcoming as the sun over fire country. She’s happy, so happy.

  I never imagined I’d find so much life in death.

  Buff and Feve appear next, laughing and telling stories. I have a feeling they’re going to become good friends.

  “Come. Look,” I say, gesturing at the world that’s no longer ours.