by K A Riley
With the Unsettled closing in fast, we don’t have time to consider any of that or worry about what happened here.
Jumping through the narrow opening between the door and the wall, Ignacio grabs the dead body by the lapels of its jacket and hauls it the rest of the way into the settlement.
In a crush, we scramble through the gap after Ignacio, and the door, completing its security program, shuts with a heavy clang and a relieved whoosh behind us.
With the Unsettled outside and a mysterious dead man lying at our feet, it’s both a relief and a terror to be on this side of the wall.
5
Outpost
With the door closed, I slap my palm to a fat, ruby-red button under an input panel attached to the interior of the massive, thirty-foot high wall.
In a fraction of a second that feels like a chunk of a year, I feel my pulse ease as we hear the clank of gears and the hiss of interior pistons slowly sealing the door shut. After one final thunk of what sounds like a magnetic lock, my friends and I find ourselves safely on one side of the wall with the Unsettled at bay on the other.
With their hands on their knees, my Asylum gushes relieved breaths while I check on Matholook to make sure he’s okay. He’s a guest, after all. And a Typic. And a teammate. But most important, he’s a friend, a friend who probably didn’t expect a small scouting mission like ours to morph so suddenly and so darkly into a mission plagued by death and mortal danger. He knew he had a solid chance of being reunited with the Devoted after this mission. But now, that chance seems to have thinned out considerably.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to…” His voice trails off behind his sparkling-eyed smile.
Wait? He was going to ask me if I’m okay? I admit it: this mission has gone to bloody shambles. But I’m a trained Emergent who’s survived an apocalypse, escaped a Processor, and fought alongside Kress and her Conspiracy. Plus, I can talk to a raven, and I’m close to perfecting the art of walking through walls!
Before today, I might’ve been offended at the idea of Matholook being worried about me. Instead, I’m flattered. Something is missing in me, and his presence alone seems almost enough to fill the gap. I’m also feeling like a daft cow for the way my heart flutters, knowing that after all we’ve just been through, he’s got me on his mind.
I tell myself to shake it off. I’d rather leave the gushy princess stuff to Libra.
I may be in distress, but I’m sure as frack no damsel.
His chest still heaving and with a crescent of sweat darkening the back of his shirt, Matholook plants a hand to the wall. “This will keep them out?”
Gazing up at the imposing wall—thick, tall, and curved inward at the top—I assure him it will. I’ve seen walls like this in other parts of the country. I saw one just like it five years ago when I accompanied Kress and her Conspiracy on their road trip from Washington, D.C. to the mountains of Colorado where we worked together to finish building the Academy. That wall was around a city called Pittsburgh. The barricade there was bigger than this one and was polished to a mirror shine. It was the dividing line between the Wealthies inside and the Hell they worked so hard to let happen on the outside.
Keeping people out is what those walls are built for. This one may not have the drone patrols, perimeter pylons, high-tech detection systems, or an array of laser-wire barriers like the one around Pittsburgh, but it should do the trick. At thirty-feet tall, the polished silver wall is too strong for their weapons. There’s no way the Unsettled can follow us. If it was Epic chasing us, I’d be worried. He has drones.
“Um…What if they have climbing equipment?” Matholook asks.
The rest of us freeze at the question and then, like a bunch of wary prairie dogs watching a golden eagle swooping overhead, we all turn in unison to stare up at the top edge of the wall. It’s a possibility, after all. Without proper security in place like they have in the bigger, walled cities back east, what’s to stop the Unsettled from throwing up a rope ladder or something?
“Maybe there’s a proximity sensor at the top?” I suggest. “Or laser-wire? We had them back in the Tower of London.”
Matholook says, “We can only hope,” and then he tilts his head up, his hand pressed to his forehead as a visor.
Blinking up into the light, myself, I’m expecting to see grappling hooks clinking to the parapet, followed by a few dozen of the Unsettled clambering over the top edge of the wall and dropping down on this side to kill us.
Instead, on the outside of the wall, the sounds of vehicles grinding to a stop, the shouts of our pursuers, and the crack of their weapons are all muffled and feel a million miles away.
In my mind, Haida assures me we’re safe.
Her assurance comes with a warning, though. When I try to ask her about it, her voice dissolves into little echo-y whispers in my head and then vanishes completely. I can see her flying over the middle of the compound, but I can’t connect with her.
“I think we’re okay,” I assure my friends after a very lengthy sigh following an even longer span of holding my breath. “If they could get over the wall, they’d have done it by now.”
“So we’re safe?” Libra asks.
Although I’m not nearly as poised inside as I’m sure I sound, I promise her we are.
We’re safe from the people outside the wall, anyway. But what about the ones who might be inside of it?
Ignoring the shouts and banging of the Unsettled, which are dwindling away to nothing anyway, we turn our attention to the settlement.
It isn’t a makeshift town like the four other places we’ve seen. In fact, in many ways, it couldn’t be much different. First of all, it’s surrounded by a giant wall. And, instead of rustic, hastily assembled shacks and sheds, it’s more of a collection of prefabricated, nearly spherical structures. Flat-bottomed and smoothly domed, the buildings have small round windows like portals on a ship and are each painted in a single color of pastel pink, blue, yellow, or green.
Combined with the steep curved wall running around the perimeter of the compound, it looks like we just stumbled into a nest of the world’s most enormous Easter eggs.
I take a few steps toward the cluster of buildings before I realize my team isn’t following me. I stop and turn around to see Ignacio with his shoulders pressed to the wall, his head lolling down.
“We left her,” he mutters. “We left Mattea.”
“We had to,” Sara insists, her hand on his arm.
I walk back and put what I hope is a comforting hand on his other arm. “We didn’t have a choice,” I remind him in a rare moment of agreement with Sara. “If we would have stayed a second longer, we’d be just as dead.”
It’s a cold thing to say. The fact that it’s true doesn’t stop the lump from rising in my throat.
Kicking the toe of his black combat boot into the ground, Ignacio says he knows I’m right. “But being right doesn’t bring Mattea back, does it?” He pushes himself away from the wall, only to turn back around and slam the side of his fist into it. The wall absorbs the impact and the sound, leaving us with a muted, unsatisfying thud. “We grew up together,” he says, turning around, his eyes riveted to mine, his voice barely loud enough for me to hear. “Even before Libra, Sara, and Arlo got brought into the Processor. Even before them, there was me and her.”
I know about many of the experiences my friends had in the Processor they were held captive in and experimented on over five years ago in Spain. But there are dynamics between them and the things they endured that I’m still only finding out about in bits and pieces. We’ve talked a million times over the past few months. Mostly we talk about our classes, our teachers, and Libra is always quick to lead us in a round of Academy gossip. But we rarely discuss our status as Emergents, and most of the kids shy away from spending too much time dwelling on their time as captive lab rats.
One thing for sure about
growing up under such traumatic circumstances: you become a master of changing the subject.
I may not have grown up like most of my fellow Emergents, but that doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with the rough ride a lot of them have had.
“It’s like losing a sister, isn’t it?” I ask quietly. “Like losing a part of yourself.”
Ignacio nods, but he seems frozen, and I suddenly understand what people mean after a loss when they say they feel like they can’t go on. There’s something about having a connection get broken that guts you and immobilizes you beyond any type of restraint or confinement you thought possible.
We can’t go on. And yet, we have to. Is that what Wisp meant when she gave us our mission of using our abilities to save a world that may be a million miles past hope?
“What now?” Arlo asks. He looks strange without his signature hoodie. His scarred face is open and unshaded. His white shirt is stained down one side and the blue Academy crest is blurred with blood, but he doesn’t seem to be in terrible pain. I know he can heal fast—I’ve seen him recover from deep cuts that would’ve probably killed a Typic, or me, for that matter—but I don’t know if he’s ever been shot before. He rubs his shoulder like he’s massaging a sore muscle instead of what should be a near-fatal wound. “We don’t have our Grip-bikes,” he grumbles. “And there’s no way we can get back to the Academy on foot from here.”
“Not without getting killed by the Unsettled,” Libra adds. She’s wringing her hands and toggling her gaze between the Easter egg-shaped buildings of the settlement and the towering wall.
Matholook runs his fingers through his straw and sand-colored hair. Fidgeting with the sleeves of his Academy-issued compression top, he passes an odd glance from one of us to the other, and it’s like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands or where to settle his eyes. When I ask him what’s bugging him, he starts to say something but then shakes his head and clams up.
“What is it?” I press.
As if it’s taking all his effort to creak his jaw open, he finally stammers, “You’re Emergents.”
“So what?” Sara asks through a defensive scowl.
“Can’t you…I don’t know…use your abilities? Like you did back at that ski lodge.”
In a flash, I recall the time that Arlo and Ignacio saved us from a bunch of Epic’s soldiers and a sky full of predatory drones. Arlo’s ability to slow the enemy down combined with Ignacio’s ability to tap into nearby electrical signals made them the heroes of the day. If they had hesitated, wavered, or if their Emergent abilities had gone glitchy, we’d have all died on that snow-covered field.
“I tried,” Arlo snaps. He rounds so suddenly on Matholook I don’t have time to stop him. Usually pretty easy-going, Arlo, snarling out of the corner of his scarred mouth like an enraged pit bull, has one hand on Matholook’s throat and the other cocked and ready to swing. “I tried back there…twice…and it didn’t work.”
“It doesn’t work like that!” Libra shouts at Matholook as she latches onto one of Arlo’s arms while I grab the other.
Matholook wrenches free of Arlo’s grip and stumbles backward but doesn’t fall. Looking lost somewhere between fear and anger, he stammers out, “I-I don’t understand.”
“We’re not magical superheroes or wizards or machines you can just turn on and off,” Sara growls. Her cheeks flush red, and her pale blue eyes seem to bore into him. He takes a step back, and I think for a second that he might fall down just under the weight of her stare alone.
“It’s like a muscle,” Ignacio explains. “There’s only so much we can do. There’s limits.”
“And we’re not trained like Kress and the other teachers,” Libra admits.
“Which means sometimes we can’t do anything to stop our friends from dying,” Arlo barks.
Matholook’s eyes finally find a spot on the ground, and his head droops low. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Ignacio crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s because you never thought to ask.”
“Leave him alone,” I say evenly from behind the menacing semi-circle my friends have formed around Matholook. And then, doing my best to reign in my anger, I push past them and repeat it. “Leave him alone.”
Libra tilts her head forward and shoots me a steely glare. She’s got a completely foreign-looking frown on her usually perfect and perky face. But the tightness loosens, and she turns away from me again to sigh an apology to Matholook. “It’s not your fault, Math. It’s ours. We failed to tell you, and we failed to save Mattea.” The name of our friend sounds heavy as a stone in Libra’s mouth.
Overhead, Haida gurgle-clacks before making a descending, corkscrew loop and lands with a flutter of her white feathers on my outstretched arm. She’s not as big as Render, but she’s still an imposing sight. I think of her as a white bird, but up close like this, she’s an entire palette of shades and degrees of whites, faded yellows, and the tiniest bits of speckled gold. Her pink beak gives her the illusion of soft lips, which most of the kids back at the Academy find strange, but to me, it makes her that much more expressive and articulate.
After the last few weeks of dealing with fuzzy connections and then losing our bond completely a few minutes ago, it’s refreshing to hear her motherly voice ringing again so clearly in my head.
~ You need to keep moving.
In my mind, I ask her if it’s safe.
~ No.
In here or out there?
~ There’s no safety anymore.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard her sound quite so sad. And scared.
I try to press deeper into our connection, but it’s slipping in and out again in a grainy shambles, so the questions I want to ask fizzle away into nothing. Which is just as well because—with the known threat of the Unsettled on one side of the wall, the totally unknown on this side, and me and my friends caught in between—I’m not so sure I want to know the answers.
6
Move
The decision about whether or not to explore the settlement is made for us.
Barely audible moans and what sounds like calls for help loft out from somewhere deep in the middle of the cluster of colorful domes.
Sara asks, “Did you hear that?”
“This place isn’t abandoned like the last ones,” Libra says.
“That could be great…” Arlo begins.
“Or terrible,” I finish.
“Listen,” Ignacio whispers, his hand cupped around his ear.
We pause, holding our collective breath as we lean toward the center of the settlement, trying to determine if what we’re hearing is real, imaginary, wishful thinking, or a shared, group delusion.
“There it is again!” Matholook cries out, pointing toward the colorful domes. The cries are distant and muffled, wafting out in uneven waves, but the ghostly anguish in them is close and crystal clear. “There are people here. And it sounds like they might be hurt.”
With steel in his voice, he sounds practically super heroic, and I half expect him to rip off his shirt, throw on a cape, and go flying into the compound to find someone to save.
Before I can weigh the pros and cons, I’m already stepping away from the wall and following him across a field of trampled vegetation and smooth, blood-spattered stones in the direction of the wails of agony.
For some people, cries like this are a stay-the-frack-away warning, a signal to run as fast as possible in the opposite direction. For Matholook, I think it’s a siren song. Not because he craves adventure. And it’s not that he’s suicidal, an adrenaline-junkie, or lacking a sense of self-preservation. He’s a Caretaker, by definition. That’s his role in the Cult of the Devoted. He’s pulled toward those who need help, which is noble. But it also means he’s been conditioned to get sucked in by the deadly but alluring whispers of war. Which is terrifying.
I used to think I was destined to be someone like that, someone drawn heroically into battle. A warrior. More often, these days, I feel like
I was meant to be something else. What, exactly, that might be, I honestly don’t know. Epic seems to think I’m some sort of skeleton key that can unlock whatever door leads to the mystery of the Emergents. Kress thinks I’m destined to stop him and to save millions of people from the horrors of war and all the suffering it leaves in its wake.
Whatever I’m supposed to be, I’m not going to find it standing here.
I jog a little faster to keep up with Matholook, who is striding purposefully, shoulders back, his hair dancing in the light wind, and with way more confidence than anyone in this situation should ever have.
Rushing up from behind me, Libra clamps a hand to the crook of my arm. Her dark eyes are flared up with an agony of their own. Her thick, dusky mane of hair has fallen out of its loose ponytail and is framing her face in looping tangles. “Branwynne!”
She stomps her foot and balls up her hands like she’s a two-year-old chabbie gearing up to throw a full-on tantrum.
“We can’t go back,” I remind her as gently as possible, my hand on hers as I start to move on. “And we can’t just stay here.” Pushing up the sleeves of my red leather jacket, I catch up to Matholook as we pass over the uneven ground toward the colorful domed buildings. Pointing in the general direction of the mournful cries that continue to tumble and limp along through the dry desert air, Matholook tells Libra over his shoulder, “Someone in there needs help.”
“He’s right,” I call back to her.
She sprints after me and grabs my arm again. Turning me around, she points to the dead man on the ground back by the wall. “He probably needed someone to save him, too. Whatever he needed to get saved from could still be in there.”
I unholster my twin Serpent Blades. “Then we’ll be careful.”
The truth is, I’m not being heroic, impulsive, or even curious. I just need to put as much distance as possible between me and the pain of losing Mattea. If that means charging headlong into danger side-by-side with Matholook, so be it. I feel like if I stay still another second longer—pinned between the Unsettled and the wall behind us and the fear of what might be in front of us—the weight of grief will become my new worst enemy, catching up to me and crushing me worse than all the pain of loss I’ve already suffered.
