by K A Riley
Beaming and snapping to full attention, Angel Fire springs to life. He pumps his fist to the delight of the crowds. Dropping his microphone to the deck and letting it clatter with a clunk and a blizzard of jarring feedback, he charges across the length of the flatbed.
Sliding to a stop in front of us, he throws his arms around us, hugging us one at a time and telling us how happy he is to have us on his side.
We’re not on your side, and we’re keeping our guard up until we’re a long way away from here.
“Come on!” he beams, his warlord aura giving way to the hyper, happy boy underneath, eager to impress his new friends. “I’ll show you around on our way to the Security Garrison.”
A changed man—well, boy—Angel Fire promises to escort us through their expansive caravan.
Could Sara be right? Is this our chance to do real recon behind enemy lines? Will Kress think we’re heroes or a band of complete ninnies? Or, worse, will she think we’ve legit lost our minds?
It’s hard to think. I try to remember the lessons Rain taught us about how to strategize under pressure. She compared it to chess (her go-to metaphor in our Puzzles, Codes, and Game Theory class). “Cultivate small advantages. In most cases, acting is better than reacting. Play your game. Breathe. Focus. And don’t do what your opponent wants you to do.”
It all made sense at the time. At the moment, however, all I can see is the chaos of the chessboard, the haze of infinite possibilities, and the tempting clarity of all the wrong moves.
Make a move, Branwynne. Even a wrong move is better than standing here like a bloody tosser.
“Okay,” I tell my Asylum. “We’ll go with him. But just to get our weapons back. After that, we’ll slip away if we can, or else we’ll fight our way out of here if it comes to that.”
And I have a bad feeling it’s going to come to that.
24
Escort
One at a time, we hop down from the back end of the moving Trial Barge.
On either side of us, the two flatbeds containing the Arbiters, the audiences, and the bare-chested guards start to empty out. Laughing and jostling now, the Unsettled hop down from the moving trailers and begin to disappear, along with the deep crowd of pedestrian spectators, into the low-hanging clouds of dust between the rows of churning, chugging vehicles.
Angel Fire strides right through my bunched-up Asylum, marching along the pockmarked ground with the towering vehicles of the Unsettled rolling along at walking speed next to him.
“Come on! Come on!” he insists, the enthusiasm of youth beaming from his wide grin and twinkling eyes.
He has the same gleeful tone this small boy had back in London when he came across me while I was checking the perimeter sensors outside the Tower of London when I was nine years old. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven, himself. It was rare to see someone so young out there alone and even more rare to see someone like that out there alive. He begged me to follow him to a nearby building where he said he and his puppy had been hiding from the drones. Even though I knew my mum and dad would knock me arse over elbow, I couldn’t resist. I was used to being around the ravens but was always fascinated by the idea of dogs. (Thanks to drone strikes, leftover toxic radiation from the Atomic Wars, and being a last-ditch source of food, the dogs in London were all dead, dying, or feral, and I could never get my mind around the idea that people used to let these wild, sharp-toothed predators live right in their flats with them.) I followed that small boy to a fifteen-foot-high pile of wood beams and broken bricks that had once been a pub. I suspected a trap, but the surprise I got when I let him lead me inside was way worse. The puppy was real. It was also dead. But the boy cradled it in his arms and kissed its brittle, gray nose, beaming at me about how cute it was.
Angel Fire has the same look as the boy with the dead dog: Misplaced pride. Irrational happiness. Sort of like he’s bragging about the oh-so important role he has in this bombed and blitzed-out world because…well, it’s all he has.
We’ve already seen some of the Army. There was more to it than I ever suspected.
And now that we’re being guided on a tour instead of being marched to our deaths, we’re discovering that what we saw before was only the tip of a very large, very loud, and unexpectedly metropolitan iceberg.
I can’t speak for the others, but personally, I’m dazzled.
In the space of less than five minutes of walking, we pass rows of shops—including clothing stores and small, mobile cafés. There’s a huge camper with a red cross and the word “Clinic” painted in crisp, stenciled capital letters on its side. A small cube van with no glass in its windows chugs along with a polished metal sign on top advertising eyeglasses for sale. A comically large pair of glasses—made from two bicycle tire rims connected by a wooden broom handle—hangs over the van’s sliding door. Right next to the van and moving at the exact same speed, a man in the back of a forest green pickup truck sits in a chair while another man stands behind him, cutting his hair with a flashing pair of silver scissors. (I’m sure there are plenty of things I’d get a thrill out of doing in a state of constant, slow, but jarring motion. Getting my hair cut isn’t one of them.)
Next to me, trying to keep her voice quiet but failing, Libra has morphed into an overstimulated little girl and keeps pointing out, well, everything.
“They’ve got restaurants! Look! A shoe store! Over there—gardening supplies! And a water purifier truck!” Shrieking about a nearby city bus with one wall missing and rows of steel shelves filled with pillows, sheets, quilts, and blankets, she grabs my arm hard enough to nearly knock me over. “That bus has bedding!”
I pat her arm and give her my best, maternal, “Yes, Libra. I know. I see it.”
“Bedding!” She jogs a couple steps ahead to get a closer look before turning back to the rest of us and squealing about how they’ve got a whole bin full of stuffed animals, too.
I think she might be about to cry.
Matholook leans in and says he think she might have lost her mind.
“That happened a long time ago,” I assure him with a snicker. “This is just Libra finally getting a chance to express her true, inner crazy.”
“Sometimes, I don’t know how you deal with her.”
“I grew up mostly alone in a thousand-year-old prison castle. I go to a hidden school run by a bunch of techno-genetically enhanced heroes who want to save the world. And I share a mental bond with a bird. I’m not exactly normal, myself.”
Grinning along with me, Matholook throws an arm around my shoulders and plants a warm kiss on my cheek.
“What was that for?”
“For not being normal.”
He combs his fingers through his hair and beams me his perfect, pretty smile. I want him to kiss me again. Or possibly let me leap into his arms. But now’s not the right time or place.
But the second we get to the right time and place…
Breaking my train of thought (or is it a train of heart?), Libra turns to pester Ignacio and Arlo, who—pointing and wide-eyed, themselves—seem to be catching her fever of unbridled excitement.
As overenthusiastic as always, she is right about one thing: This place isn’t what we thought it was. What I always assumed was a collection of random, roving, pollution-belching vehicles, is actually a…city?
“You seem a little puzzled,” Angel Fire says to me as we walk on.
“Not puzzled,” I assure him. “Mostly surprised.”
“This…,” Angel Fire says with a casual flick of his hand. “Is nothing. Just the outer rim of the Commercial Garrison. And not a very exciting part. But down this way,” he says, pointing to the side and cutting sharply into a laneway between two long lines of chugging front loaders, “Is the Leisure Garrison. A good place to relax and have some fun before getting on with the business of not dying.”
“I feel like we’re always about two seconds from getting run over,” I confess, leaning in close so he can hear me and gesturing to
the array of moving vehicles surrounding us on all four sides.
“That’s because we always are. Which is also why we pedestrians have to stay in constant motion. It’s the only way to stay alive. And don’t worry,” he adds, catching my unsatisfied frown, “all the primary vehicles go at a carefully calibrated walking speed.” He waves a hand in the general direction of the lumbering front loaders. “You’d have to be pretty dumb, clumsy, or unlucky to get run over.”
Great. In the past few hours, I’ve been all three.
“What about our weapons?” Ignacio asks, leaning past me to get Angel Fire’s attention.
He sounds a little snide. Not that I blame him. Less than an hour ago, Angel Fire had pretty much condemned us all to death. But I don’t want to start pressing this kid’s buttons just yet. As far as him returning our weapons to us, I’m willing to take him at his word. Until he gives me reason not to.
“It’s okay,” I assure Ignacio, reaching up to plant a reassuring hand on his muscular shoulder. “I’m sure our host will honor his word.”
“Spoken like a true warrior,” Angel Fire laughs.
“Thanks.”
“But be careful,” he advises, holding up his finger. “Honor is subjective, words can be misinterpreted, and warriors often end up dead.”
Matholook and I exchange a glance of panic, which Angel Fire interrupts with a high-pitched, red-cheeked laugh.
“I’m kidding!” he squeals. “Come on. Let’s go get your weapons.”
Pressing past me, Sara says she wants to see more of this so-called Leisure Garrison first. She rubs her hands together like she’s warming them over a fire and pins her eyes to each of ours in turn. “We might as well relax and have some fun while we can!” she declares with a broad grin and a loud clap of her hands.
Around me, my friends belt out their hearty agreement.
“You’re all sure?” I ask.
As if she’s secretly confessing something intimate to me, Sara leans in close enough for me to feel her breath in my ear. “We’re supposed to be gathering intel, right? Imagine how impressed Kress will be when you come back to the Academy knowing every inch of this place and every bit of inside information about Angel Fire and the Army of the Unsettled.”
“I don’t—”
“Have any objections? Good.” Her voice is weirdly warm and soothing, even after she’s pulled back and announced our intention to take Angel Fire up on his offer to do some more touring.
Angel Fire cries out, “Great! Let’s go!”
Matholook brushes his hair back and squints like he does when he’s nervous or worried, and a small crease forms between his eyes. The rest of my Asylum, on the other hand, is all smiles and cheers.
I’m conflicted, but I’m also outnumbered. Letting out an exaggerated sigh, I tell everyone, “Okay, okay” and continue to follow Angel Fire along the rocky path between all the thrumming and trundling rigs.
In the meantime, I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out how to leave while also trying to figure out why my friends suddenly seem so eager to stay.
25
Leisure
Before I have a chance to consider this in more detail or plot out our next move, I’m washed through with an interior wave of warmth.
The mental fizzle I’ve been feeling for the past hour or two evens out to a dull thrum and then morphs into the familiar, protective voice I’ve been hearing in my head since I was a little girl.
Haida!
~ I’ve been scouting.
Where?
~ Not a place. I’ve been scouting a time.
Her voice is much clearer now, but it’s also hollow and strained, and it’s as if her mind is out of breath.
I don’t understand.
~ I don’t totally understand, either. But I’m afraid.
Afraid? Of what?
~ Our bond. It may be changing you.
I sensed that.
~ It’s changing me, too.
For the better, I hope.
~ Not if “for the better” means the ability…no…the curse to see things at their possible worst.
You sense danger, don’t you?
~ Not yet. Now now. But somewhere…no, some when up ahead.
Some…when? Something’s wrong. My head…it hurts. Why does it hurt?
At that second, my knees hit the ground, and someone grabs the sleeve of my jacket, hauls me back to my feet, and drags me to the side. I snap myself back into focus to find Matholook peering into my “Galaxy Eyes” while guiding me forward and asking if I’m okay.
As if I’ve been jarred from a deep sleep, it takes me half a second to shake off the fog. The inside of my head is swirling with flashing, overlapping images and pulses of strange, unfamiliar sensations and a spate of unnamable emotions. “What?” I stammer. “Oh. I was just talking with Haida.”
Matholook points ahead to where a band of four girls on dirt bikes are zipping off into the distance, leaving four funnel-shaped clouds of spinning desert dust and debris in their wake. “They almost ran you over,” he says through a wheezing cough.
“Is Branwynne okay?” Angel Fire calls back to us from up ahead where he’s still walking along with the rest of my Asylum.
Matholook coughs again and gives him a thumbs up through the fading haze before turning back to me. “You are okay, aren’t you?” He bends at the waist in front of me and leans in. “You know, it’s impossible to read your eyes.”
“Part of the mystery of me,” I laugh.
“And you’re really okay?”
“Just a little dizzy,” I promise. I blink hard, massage my temples for a second, and then brush the film of powdery sand from the sleeves of my red leather jacket. “It’s like Haida had to use all her strength just to connect us.”
I let myself lose focus on Matholook while I search around in my head for Haida. It takes a second, but I find her.
Nearly getting run over…is that the danger you were talking about? I ask her.
~ No. In fact, that might be about the least dangerous thing that’s going to happen to you today.
I can’t tell if she’s joking or if I misheard her, so I settle on conveying a single, simple truth: It’s good to have you with me.
Our connection fades again before I can hear her answer, so I turn to Matholook and thank him for saving my life.
“Hardly,” he chortles with a modest shrug as he plunges his hands into the hip pockets of his cargo pants. “I don’t think any of those little dirt bikes of theirs could have done much damage. At best, I might have saved you from a few bumps and bruises and maybe some facial tire-tread marks.”
“Well, thanks for saving me from that.”
“Any time.”
“Don’t forget,” Angel Fire shouts back to me, “The big rigs move at walking speed! The scouts and couriers, well, as you just found out, that’s a whole different story!”
I thank him with a wave while I cough out bits of dust and spit grains of sand from my mouth.
Re-focused on the present and with a weird, crystal-clear, hyper-detailed impression of our surroundings (the colors, sounds, and scents seem more varied and vibrant than before), I can’t help but gush to Matholook. “I can’t believe what a city this place turned out to be.”
“Come on,” he urges, tugging the sleeve of my jacket again. (Only gently this time and not like he’s trying to yank me out of a crocodile-filled river.) “Let’s catch up with the others.”
We follow Angel Fire and our Asylum around the front fender of a moving neon-green, pink-trimmed garbage truck, and Matholook says, “Whoa!” as a rolling line of double-decker, forty-five-foot-long buses rises up on either side of us. The churning wheels on each of these gargantuan rigs—ten on the cab and another set of six pairs under their bodies—are spray painted bright blue and are studded with jagged rows of triangular white spikes like the teeth of a prehistoric shark.
The windows along both floors of the massive, golden buses are scra
tched up and smoky, but we can still make out the silhouettes of dozens of people inside—on both the first and second floors—all of them jumping and dancing around to bass-heavy music thumping out through the vibrating glass.
Who’d have thought we’d find a dance club in the middle of a city-sized army on wheels?
“This is Leisure Garrison,” Angel Fire calls out over the thunderous music that’s loud enough to drown out the grind of engines and the hum of mag-transports all around us.
“You guys actually have leisure time?” Arlo shouts over the din of rumbling wheels and the thumping, window-shuddering music.
“Our lives don’t revolve around war,” Angel Fire snorts through a hand cupped around his mouth. “Unlike some people.”
He looks right at Matholook when he says this. Matholook squints back at Angel Fire, his fists balled, before averting his eyes and uncurling his tense fingers. It’s not a concession. I know Matholook will defend the motives of the Devoted to the death. But as a guest and a recently exonerated enemy combatant, he’s being extra careful with how he reacts to our young host’s in-your-face challenges. Plus, as a Caretaker, he’s especially sensitive to the ways of others and all the things they’re forced to be and all the things they’re forced to do in order to survive in a land of countless dangers, few resources, and less hope.
“Our lives don’t revolve around anything,” Angel Fire clarifies, giving what I think is an approving nod to Matholook for refusing to escalate. “That’s on purpose. It’s why we’re always on the move.”
“A rolling stone…,” I begin.
“Gathers no moss,” he finishes with an impressed smile.
Gazing up at the nearest bus, Libra points back and forth between its first and second-floor windows, which are rattling hard enough to make me think they might explode at any second and shower us with shards of glass. “They’re…they’re really dancing in there?”
