by K A Riley
“You think I can read minds?”
“Can you?”
“No.”
“Then what can you do?”
“I can’t do anything.”
With her three friends tense-faced around her almost like they’re suppressing smiles, Rosalind raises an eyebrow. “There’s plenty of dead here. Let’s not add ‘Honesty’ to the list.”
Stretching against his restraints, Matholook manages to nudge me with his elbow.
“Fine,” I say. “I can communicate with a bird. A white raven.”
Our four captors exchange smug, very unsurprised looks before Simmons leans forward.
He rubs his bruised and blood-stained hand along his jaw and says, “If what you’re claiming about trying to help is true…well, you’re an unknown commodity, so don’t expect any thanks just yet. But know this: We’ve lived here among the Unsettled for years. They pass by from time to time. Every few months or so. We don’t bother them, and they don’t bother us. The Devoted, on the other hand…” Simmons pauses for a long time, and I think he might be about to cry, but he runs his tongue over his teeth and tells us he knows we think we know what’s going on in the world, but we really don’t. “The story of the world you think you know…well that’s a whole different conversation. Instead, I’m going to tell you a smaller story. If you’ll be so kind as to indulge me. You tell me if any of it sounds familiar. Everyone comfy?” He smiles and says, “Good” before any of us has a chance to answer.
Simmons unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt and rolls the sleeves up past his elbows. There’s the faintest trace of dried blood on the backs of his hands and up his forearms, and I wonder how many of his friends he tried to save before we showed up.
Clearing his throat and cracking his knuckles, Simmons begins his story:
“Once upon a time, a group of scientists left their settlement and went out into the desert on a geographical exploratory mission. There’d been some curious pyroseismic thermal activity—possibly related to other strange, bio-magnetic energy signatures at or around the 40th parallel north—so they set out to investigate. They knew the area was a hostile place. Not unlike how the rest of world had become. Ungoverned. Lawless. Dangerous. So in addition to their research equipment, they took all the necessary precautions for such a mission: weapons, radiation detection gear, motion sensors, communications devices. These were smart people, and they were prepared for anything. Anything except for a man and a woman, unarmed, standing in the middle of an open field of desert grass and creosote bush, kind of like they were waiting for them. With all the appropriate caution and concern, the four scientists approached the perfectly pleasant-looking couple and asked who they were, what they were doing out there alone in the middle of the desert, and if they needed help. That in itself was an act of altruism and bravery. Stragglers like that tended to be sick and discarded, insane, chasing someone down, or else running from someone…or something. But this man and woman were clean, kind-eyed, and, well dressed for two desert stragglers. So…walking toward them instead of running away was a risk. But nothing untoward happened. Instead, there were friendly introductions and a brief conversation. They said they were from Denver. They said they didn’t qualify for residence in the Goldsmith Arcology and that the rest of the city—with its distressed and dangerous communities of Cysters, Plaguers, and Survivalists—was too dangerous for people like them. The four scientists took pity on the couple and brought them back to their compound. They brought them right in through the security door even though there were a million protocols in place to prevent anyone from coming in without being properly vetted. After all, the world was a hostile and dangerous place, right? Drones. The Eastern Order. Cyst Plague. You never knew who might look like a friend but wind up an enemy.”
Simmons scrunches up his face and asks if we’re still with him. We answer with silent, icy stares.
“Excellent,” he continues. “So…the two strangers are charming. Maybe too charming. Who can tell? The gap between kindness and killing is an easy one to bridge. The two strangers convinced the scientists to let a few more of their people into the compound. ‘We appreciate any help you can offer,’ they said. ‘We’re harmless,’ they promised. Before you knew it, the compound was overrun with more strangers. Things didn’t feel right to the four scientists. It was like the world had shifted. Just a little, mind you. Barely enough for them to notice. They were mostly themselves. Mostly. But there was another voice inside their heads. A voice that made it a little harder for them to doubt their well-dressed, well-mannered guests and a lot easier for them to doubt themselves. The four original scientists—the ones who first found the strangers and welcomed them in—were strong. They shook off the hypnosis. And let’s face it. That’s what it was. They helped the other scientists shake off theirs. Together, they fought. They were pacifists…in theory.”
Simmons laughs to himself. “But they weren’t stupid or without a sense of self-preservation. They knew when it was time to fight for their lives. So they did. They fought and fought, but the enemy just kept pouring into their compound. It was like they had an infinite supply of soldiers. And it turns out, they kind of did. You see, every time one of the invaders was killed, they’d magically come back to life and keep fighting. Get killed. Pop back up. Keep fighting.” Simmons laughs again, but it’s not a happy laugh, and his eyes are wet and red. “So the scientists fought,” he continues. “And the scientists lost. How could they hope to win against an immortal army, a giant, a sharp-toothed savage, and one magical little girl?”
Simmons finishes his story, and we’re all sitting there stunned.
He stands up and gives his mag-chair a little push. It glides across the room and settles into a gentle hover over its mag-pad docking station against the curved wall.
“‘Once upon a time’ started two days ago and ended this morning,” Simmons says. “The people who swarmed in here were dressed in their red, white, and blues. We’d had dealings with them before. A long time ago. Back when they promised to leave us in peace to do our research. I assure you, it was the Devoted—not the Unsettled—who wormed their way in, slaughtered nearly everyone in the settlement, and left. They didn’t even bother to raid our food rations. But they depleted our weapons supply. And they went out of their way to try and slaughter every last one of us…like it was their duty to kill us. An obligation. The only four people they left alive were the four original scientists who met them in the desert and invited them in.” Simmons’ finger does a slow point at each of his three friends before landing back on himself. “So. I’ll ask again. Not rhetorically. Not hypothetically. Does any of that sound familiar?”
I don’t mean to nod, but I do. I know the hazy feeling, I know the man and the woman, and I know the immortal army he’s talking about and the sharp-toothed savage. I know the giant and the magical little girl. And I know Matholook knows it all, too.
Bendegatefran: the impossibly gigantic warrior from the Vindicator Guild of the Devoted.
Efnisien: his fanged, wolf-clawed half-brother.
Gwernna: the little Emergent girl with the power to bring the dead back to life.
Justin and Treva: the well-mannered, well-dressed, disarmingly persuasive leaders of the Cult of the Devoted.
Glancing over at Matholook out of the corner of my eye, I have to wonder: If the Devoted infiltrated this place as Simmons claims, could Matholook have been doing the same by getting himself invited into the Emergents Academy? Is that what the Devoted do? Offer friendship with one hand while the other one gets primed to stab you in the back? And if that’s the case, could Matholook have been using the same trick to get himself invited into this friendship he’s formed with me?
Simmons said the gap between kindness and killing is a narrow one. The Devoted stepped over it. Is Matholook getting ready to do the same?
Just outside of this building, there’s a courtyard full of dozens of dead people, people who—if there’s any truth to what Simmons is telling us—paid the p
rice for inviting the Devoted into their compound. Is that what’s in store for the Emergents Academy if we fail in this mission?
If we manage to survive this, is a school full of slaughtered bodies what we’re going to come home to?
10
Zero Sum
With clamp-jawed defiance Matholook restores my faith in him and his people.
Sort of.
“It’s not possible,” he snarls, his head on a swivel, his green eyes bouncing between our four captors—the two men in front of us and the two women behind us. “We defend ourselves. We protect our own. We don’t stir up trouble. We don’t initiate attacks or violence.” Like the rest of us, his hair is a disheveled quilt of dirt and sweat, with some of the longer strands toward the front sticking to his forehead or hanging limply over his eyes. Flexing the muscles in his shoulders and leaning in his chair, he gestures with his chin toward the door. His words are as solid and evenly spaced as railroad ties. “And…we…don’t…do…that.”
Simmons and Vander, their arms crossed in identical poses, exchange a shrugged-shoulder look of disbelief. Walking around to stand on either side of them, Rosalind and Fatima drop their eyes, but I don’t know if they’re also in disbelief or if they’re annoyed by the men’s silent, dismissive exchange.
Simmons seems angry at first, but Rosalind—her long, pinkish-red hair in a pair of thick, frizzy braids—rests her hand on his shoulder, and the tension seeps from his face. He smiles up a “Thanks” to her before turning back to us, his eyes drifting from one of us to the other until they land with the weight of an avalanche back on Matholook. “Maybe you just don’t know how little you know about your people, young man. Or maybe you’re lying to me. Or to them. Or to yourself. Either way, your ignorance is fertile ground for the same violent declaration of war your people just subjected us to.”
“We don’t start wars,” Matholook objects, the tendons in his neck tightening up and jutting out.
The other man, Vander, claps his hands together and laughs. His oversized Adam’s Apple rises and falls in a rolling pulse. “Of course you start wars. The True Blues out east…we know about them. We know they’re part of the Devoted. We know they nearly took down Washington, D.C. a few years ago. And today? We know about their plans to ‘unite’ the country by becoming its newest, post-Krug tyrants. We’re here because we don’t want any part of your war. Don’t let this little situation we have here fool you.” I can tell he wants to sound cold and brave, but the quiver in his voice and the glossiness at the corners of his eyes give away the searing freshness of his pain. He points toward the door, his hand in the shape of a gun. “Yes. We fought back against invaders. Yes. We killed. Or, at least we tried to. But we were just trying to survive. It’s all we’ve ever wanted: to survive and to live in peace.”
“So…you’re cowards,” Sara says, her lip curled into a canine snarl.
Shut up, Sara!
The cheeks of both men and both women flush through with matching splashes of strawberry red, but it’s Vander, his gulping Adam’s Apple now throbbing in a rage, who snaps around to face Sara. “That’s one way to put it, little girl. Another way to put it is that we’re sane, decent people who don’t see the point of millions dying on the word of the very few who’ll sit back laughing and raking in the resources while we’re all busy killing each other.”
Like Simmons did a minute ago, Vander rolls up the sleeves of his lime-green linen shirt and cuffs them above the elbow, exposing twin tattoos of a DNA double-helix on the inside of each forearm.
The tattoos make me think of Kress and how she’s probably out there in the world somewhere right now, successfully completing her mission with her Conspiracy while my friends and I sit here, defeated, disheartened, and bound prisoners of our own failure.
Her voice cotton soft and flute-high despite her thick-shouldered, muscular build, the woman called Fatima holds up a finger and says, “Wait.” She plunges her hands into her pockets and stares at me for a second. “You said the Unsettled killed one of you?”
“Mattea,” I tell her. “Our friend.”
“And you honestly think it was the Unsettled?”
“One hundred percent. She dressed and talked weird like them and everything.”
Fatima takes off her rectangular, blue-tinted glasses and wipes the lenses with the bottom edge of her shirt. “Things aren’t always what they seem. Neither are people.”
“Sometimes, things and people are exactly what they seem,” I fire back.
“I’ll grant you that,” she chuckles. “But the Devoted are tricky. Trickier than you might realize. They’ve spent years now on their newest strategy.”
“Strategy?”
Fatima brushes her dark hair over her shoulder and jabs an accusing finger at Matholook. “He knows.”
Controlling the frustration and fury I know must be boiling up inside of him, Matholook clenches his teeth. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He sounds sincere, like any good friend. And like every good liar, right? So how am I supposed to tell the difference?
Simmons raises a skeptical eyebrow and pins his gaze to Matholook’s. “You don’t know about the infiltrations?”
When Matholook doesn’t answer, Simmons’ other eyebrow goes up.
What the bloody hell is going on? Does Matholook seriously not know what his own people have been up to? Or even what they’re capable of? If he doesn’t know, he’s oblivious. If he does know…Well, if he knows that, then I sure as frack don’t know him.
Neither one of the possibilities—that he’s ignorant or else he’s masterfully deceptive—is an especially appealing character trait, and I can feel a little part of my internal self taking a step back from the boy who’s spent a long time drawing me forward.
Rosalind chuckles enough to send a blush through her pale cheeks and spreads her arms wide. “We’re people of science. People of the mind. We don’t value weapons.”
“Those little black sticks of yours say otherwise,” Arlo reminds her.
“Ah. Our stun-sticks,” Vander cuts in with a proud smile. “We’ve got a whole arsenal of non-lethal weapons. Most of them of our very own design. Stun-sticks, gas pellets with a mild neurotoxin. Flash grenades. Tranquilizers.”
“Forgive my friend,” Simmons says. “He’s our weapons master. And he takes his role seriously.”
“You mean his role of coming up with ways of killing people?” Libra barks, her bold challenge brimming with snark.
“No,” Fatima says with a finger wag. “The opposite. You see, we got sick of how the war had become zero-sum.”
“Zero-sum?” Matholook asks, his eyes skipping from Fatima’s to mine and back again.
“It’s a term from Game Theory,” Fatima explains.
“We know what Game Theory is,” Ignacio protests.
Libra sighs and rolls her eyes, but I know she’s happy to take over from Ignacio and show off her knowledge. “Zero-sum,” she sighs, as if it pains her to have to share this information, “refers to an all or nothing theoretical proposition. It means one side has to win, and one side has to lose.”
“Exactly!” Fatima exclaims, slapping her fist into her open palm. “But shouldn’t there be another option? Why is it ‘kill or be killed’? How about disarming your opponent so you’re not drawn into that zero-sum scenario in the first place?”
“So you invented a different kind of weapon,” I say.
“Exactly. Instead of Krug’s drones that either sat idle or else exterminated entire populations, we came up with less deadly solutions to seemingly irresolvable problems.”
“Sure. That’s great in theory,” Arlo points out. “But when they attacked, according to your own story, you killed the Devoted.”
“No!” Simmons interrupts, clearly offended. “We tried to kill the Devoted. I’m sorry to say, but we really did try…”
“And we really did fail,” Fatima finishes for him, her head and shoulders slumping in defea
t.
Simmons draws the black baton from a loop on his belt. He slaps the glossy weapon three times in his palm. “We can set these to their maximum power range. Overload a person’s neural synapses. It doesn’t kill them, but it zaps their brains in spectacular fashion. Yesterday was the first time we ever did that. The first time we needed to do that. And it wasn’t enough. Most of us have been in this outpost for nearly twenty years. For the first time, we were forced to open up our other arsenal.”
“Other arsenal?” I ask.
“The one with the guns. The one we said we’d never use.” He points to the wall behind us where the floor-to-ceiling doors of an empty cabinet hang open. The empty racks, hooks, and tiers of shelves are an ominous reminder of how many weapons they must have deployed only to be slaughtered nearly to the last person, anyway.
“You should let us go,” Sara says, a smirky grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, and pale nearly to the point of ghostly, she’s giving off some pretty devilish vibes, and I’m about to tell her to keep her mouth shut before she gets us all killed. But it’s my own mouth that stays shut, and I’m suddenly and inexplicably at a loss for what to say or of any actual way to say it.
I literally can’t gather enough air in my lungs or make my mouth move enough to say a word.
“We have a mission to complete,” Sara continues, her voice distant and hollow. “And based on what you’ve told us, I don’t figure you’re the kind of people who go around kidnapping a bunch of lost kids, are you? Besides, you’ve suffered enough for one day.” She looks over at the door and gives our four captors a sad shake of her head, even though she’s still smiling. “Keeping us here won’t do you any good.”
After a pause, Simmons nods and tells the woman named Rosalind to let us go. Her eyes darting from one of us to the other, she edges around behind us, and there’s an overlapping sizzle as she releases our zip-cuffs.
Scowling, we all rub our wrists, except for Arlo who I know doesn’t experience pain the same way as the rest of us.
