by Natasha Ngan
Silver glared at him. ‘Why shouldn’t I feel this way?’ she said, her voice rising. She rubbed a hand across her eyes, wiping away the tears and the rain that were falling down her face. ‘It’s the way I’ve been made to feel since I was born. Red this, Red that, all the time. Even your own mother doesn’t want you loving a Red. Why should I expect you to feel any different?’
Butterfly half growled, half laughed. She felt as though she hated him right then – How can he laugh? How dare he? – and she went to turn away, but then he said, ‘Because of this!’ and grabbed her face and kissed her.
For a second, Silver stared at his face all of a sudden so close to hers. Shock locked her body rigid. Then a warm, relaxed feeling flushed through her, and she closed her eyes and kissed him back.
It felt so natural, so normal, it seemed ridiculous they hadn’t done it sooner. That they were doing it for the first time now, here in the forest under the rushing rain that wetted their faces and filled their mouths with a pure, clean taste. As they kissed, Silver could feel a new world blossoming between their lips. She sighed into Butterfly, holding him in her arms as if he were the whole world. In that moment, he was.
Butterfly’s kiss, its pressure, its heat, felt like a promise being burned into her skin. A promise of the word he had whispered last night. A word Silver never knew she had been yearning for before now –
Love.
They drew apart. They were both smiling.
Butterfly blinked away the raindrops running down his face. He lowered his hands, trailing them down Silver’s shoulders and arms, and taking her hands in his.
The world shivered. There was a flash of light behind Butterfly’s head. Silver jumped, pulling apart from him. Just a heartbeat moment of nothingness. Then –
The sky in front of them exploded in a terrible burst of noise and colour. They dropped to the ground, shielding their faces as they felt the whip-crack of an angry wind rush at them, and the smell of smoke riding the air. There was a long, drawn-out moment of silence. Then the sounds of screaming and crying, piercing and horrible in the shattered air.
Silver couldn’t make sense of the noises. She felt mud beneath her hands and wondered dimly why she was on the ground. She could still taste Butterfly on her lips, fresh rainwater filling her mouth. The last thing she knew she’d been looking into his fierce blue eyes, his face so close to hers she could feel the electricity shivering in the drenched air between them. Then she’d seen a flash, felt a deep shudder through the ground. Now here she was, on the forest floor, her body tensed and her heart thumping.
Something glowed in the forest beyond, lighting the sky from underneath. Thoughts and images – scarred, broken – fell through Silver’s mind like shattered glass. Oh, she thought, realising with a sudden rush of clarity what had happened. There’s been an explosion.
It took a moment for it to hit her.
An explosion!
She jumped up. Butterfly was already sprinting towards the burning in the distance where a roiling, red-black cloud hung low in the sky. For a second, Silver hesitated. A thought flickered across her mind: The village. And then she was running, running after Butterfly, running towards the bruised, rain-churned sky, running towards the village, towards Yasir and Emeli and Leanor, towards the screams and cries that shivered in the air like a nightmare refusing to break.
22
The Exploded World
Water and fire; the world seemed to have dissolved into those two elements. As Silver stumbled into the clearing, the village opening up before her, she saw that fire had claimed everything, latching onto the buildings, the trees. The people. And still the rain poured, as though the gods above were trying to put out the flames that had licked suddenly across the world, eating it alive.
She stood at the lip of the clearing, dragging breath into her lungs, unable to make sense of what she was seeing. Bits of burning things floated down through the air, blurring the clearing into a smear of grey and green and orange and black. They brought with them the acrid stench of ash and melted metal, and when Silver licked her lips she found them sour on her tongue. The taste was strong, like a punch to the gut, and she knew then with absolute certainty that this was what Yasir had been talking about.
This was the masked men with guns and bombs and other unspeakable weapons. This was the soldiers from Neo burning whole settlements to the ground. This was the killing of all who lived there. This was the Council –
Her Council.
Silver couldn’t see any soldiers in the village yet. She was about to go look for them when she spotted Butterfly, running straight for Leanor and Emeli’s house. Half of it had collapsed.
No, she thought. Not Leanor and Emeli. Not again.
In an instant she forgot about looking for the soldiers and ran after Butterfly. Things snatched at her attention as she went. Screams like fingernails dragging across metal. Shadows blossoming across the burnt ground. She tried to close her ears, and she wanted to close her eyes too, but it was just too horrible, there were too many terrible things. Though her brain tried to block them out her eyes demanded to see them, the images crowding and blotting out everything else, and she was so full of death but still it kept creeping, crawling into her skin and clogging up her veins until her entire being was filled with the horror of it all.
Outside Leanor and Emeli’s house, Silver slowed to a walk. Ahead, Butterfly picked his way through the churned-up wood and broken, jagged slashes of metal, sticking up into the air like animal teeth. She followed him, an uncontrollable shaking rattling through her body now. All around her, the air was filled with sounds. Screams, shouts, cries, and, underneath it all, the rain, still pouring down, making the fires rear up and hiss at it. But above the noise rose an animal cry, so close she felt a shiver dance across her skin.
Leanor or Emeli, she thought. It has to be.
Butterfly had already disappeared into the half of the house that was still standing. As Silver followed, darkness closed round her. Smoke clung to the air, biting her eyes, but she could make out shapes in the grey, and as she moved, objects started to materialise. There was a bedframe. A table lying on its side.
A body.
Silver stepped closer. The white of Butterfly’s shirt came into focus. He was kneeling on the floor, cradling something. She saw the scene in pieces; a tumble of red hair, the delicate curve of a wrist hanging limp.
The wailing grew louder.
Who? she wanted to ask. Emeli? Leanor? But she couldn’t speak. She stood there, staring at Butterfly’s back, her mouth hanging open.
After what seemed like hours, Butterfly looked round. His face was expressionless. His lips moved.
Silver didn’t understand what he’d said.
He said it again, slowly. ‘Shut the hell up.’
And all of a sudden, she realised the horrible wailing sound was coming from her. Silver slammed a hand across her mouth. Staggered back, crashed into the upturned table. Pulled herself to her feet. Butterfly had turned back round to the body in his arms and she suddenly felt like this was all wrong, her being here in this horrible, private moment, in this burnt-out broken house with its broken bodies and broken hearts and broken lives that had only just been put together again. The white of the back of Butterfly’s shirt seemed to hiss at her, Go.
So she went. Scrambling and stumbling out into the village, into rain that still fell in driving sheets. Dazed and deadened by what she’d just seen – It happened again to Butterfly, gods it happened again – Silver moved through the fiery cloudscape that was the village. She passed more houses, more fire, more bodies. Bits of bodies too. They looked ridiculous, like scraps of a toy that had been ripped apart by a petulant child. Luckily, the horror of it washed over her. She couldn’t feel it properly. Not yet.
After a few minutes, Silver’s Elite instincts took over. She knew she had to find Yasir to make sure he was safe. She began to run in the direction of his house. When she passed villagers stumbling out o
f their houses or crawling along the floor, she stopped quickly to help where she could. Too often it was too late to help.
Yasir’s house was at the other end of the village, but Silver felt like she’d only been running a few seconds before it came into view, a burning husk on the horizon.
‘Yasir!’ she shouted. She knew he wouldn’t be able to hear her but it made her feel better. Hearing his name leave her mouth made him real.
Made him alive.
The house was ablaze. Heat rolled off it, flames licking across its walls and roof, reaching flickering red fingers into the sky. Silver ran round the house once. There was no sign of him. She glanced about, not looking for anything in particular, then nodded to herself.
I’m going in.
She ran up the porch and into the house, dancing between flames. She ducked into the first room on the left, looking around for anything man-shaped. Nothing. There was no sign of Yasir in the next room either. All the time, the flames licked closer. Silver was coughing now, her lungs filling with smoke, and she knew the fumes would overcome her. She had to get out. She stumbled back into the house’s main corridor. All she could see were flames. Behind her, something crashed down and a rush of heat and ash charged forward. She backed away, staggering blindly, feeling for a way out, and just as she thought she’d be trapped in these burning walls forever –
A voice out of the fire and shadows.
‘Help!’
It was Yasir.
Silver darted towards his voice and found another room wreathed in flames. A beam had fallen from the ceiling, pinning Yasir to the floor, but she almost laughed with joy at the sight of him. She ran over, grabbing his head and wiping the grit out of his eyes.
His eyes widened. Recognition, relief flashed in them. He coughed, struggling to speak. ‘What …’
‘Shhh.’
Silver laid his head back down. She grabbed the beam and pushed. It didn’t move at first, but then she felt its weight start to roll away, and she kept pushing until it fell to the floor and Yasir’s body was free. Her hands rushed across it, searching for broken bones. Everything felt intact. Carefully, she helped him to his feet, curling an arm round his waist, and then they were stumbling out of the burning room, out of the burning house.
Air had never tasted so good to Silver, even if it was still filled with smoke and ash. They half fell, half ran down the porch, not stopping until the heat of the flames was behind them. Yasir was holding onto her. He stood completely still, staring at the village, shaking his head slowly.
Silver peeled apart from him. ‘Will you be all right on your own for a while?’ she asked.
‘I … I have to help.’ Yasir blinked, and seemed to regain his composure. ‘I have to help my friends,’ he said, more firmly this time.
She nodded. ‘I’ll come back and help too, but right now there’s something I need to do.’
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and ran back into the village. As she ran through it this time her mind was clearer. She was in control. She felt years of Elites’ training rushing through her blood, and moved with accuracy, purpose, and with a clear, hard objective, just as Senior Surrey had taught her that time in the shooting range. Then, her objective had been to find her parents.
This time, it was revenge.
You’re going to pay for this, Silver thought, anger surging through her veins
She hadn’t believed Yasir at first. She’d not wanted it to be true. But seeing the village destroyed like this confirmed everything. Whatever she’d thought about the Council had been wrong. They weren’t her family. They weren’t her friends. They were murderers. And she was going to stop them.
Her hatred for the Council flared in her chest again.
You’re going to pay for this.
She was almost at Leanor and Emeli’s house when the group of masked men emerged from the woods. They held guns in their hands. Neo-Babel’s flag was emblazoned across their uniforms.
Silver hissed.
You’re going to pay for this.
The swarm broke as they entered the village. The soldiers ran in different directions, some heading into the burning buildings, others moving towards wounded villagers where they stood or lay on the wet ground. For a moment nothing happened, and a horrible thought flashed through Silver’s mind; that she had got it wrong, that they were actually here to help.
Then sharp studs of gunfire cracked the air. The soldiers that had approached the villagers moved away from them, leaving the bodies lying on the floor where they’d been shot.
Something snapped inside Silver. Hard and painful, it broke, and she was suddenly so angry, so full of a red, blinding rage, that without thinking she ran straight for the nearest soldier, hurling a cry from her lips.
23
The Birthchip Charm
Cobe lay on the chaise lounge in his bedroom in the Stacks, staring out through the glass wall at the city. He’d just got back from an assignment. He hadn’t undressed yet from his Elite uniform, and as the late morning sun shone through the window, the amber light glittered on the waxy material of his jumpsuit, warming the skin underneath. Yet still he felt cold, unable to shake the feeling of slow dread that had crept under his skin over the last two days.
From the moment he’d said goodbye to Butterfly at the door of their bedroom the morning of Tanaka’s funeral, time had stretched out. Every minute since he’d felt Butterfly’s absence like a pulse. Especially here, in the bedroom they’d shared for ten years. Butterfly had moved in with his Elite senior earlier than was usual after his family’s death in the explosion, and it felt wrong to Cobe to be lying on the chaise lounge without Butterfly sprawled in the chair next to it, or to walk past the empty bedpod beside his own.
Even outside their bedroom, he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that some part of him had been carved out, lost forever. Cobe had carried a charm that tracked Butterfly’s birthchip for so many years he barely noticed it, but now it weighed him down, the light nestled inside it constantly reminding him that Butterfly was gone.
He could see the birthchip on the table in front of him now, its steady red light an unbeating heart. Hurry up, Akhezo, he thought, scowling at it. Hurry up, you little Limpets rat.
As Butterfly’s senior, Cobe had been held accountable for his and Silver’s disappearance. Somehow, Ember had got off lightly, but Cobe had spent hours with Senior Surrey answering question after question; what had happened in the days leading up to their disappearance, what possible reasons they could have had for being in the Limpets that time when the scouting party had found them. Then, when Senior Surrey had grown frustrated with his unhelpful suggestions, he’d given Cobe so many assignments Cobe barely had time to sleep.
Unfortunately, this had included the assignment on the shisha boat. Cobe had no choice but to tell Senior Surrey that Silver and Butterfly had left the city. He couldn’t risk lying about it any more, not now others in the city knew about their whereabouts. If word got back somehow to the Council that Cobe had known and hadn’t told them … He shuddered to think what would happen. Still, he hadn’t minded being busy. It had taken his mind off the vacant bedpod in his room, the feeling of emptiness his life now had without his Elite junior in it.
But two days ago, everything changed.
When Cobe had been called to the Head of the Elites’ office, he’d been expecting another interrogation surrounding Butterfly and Silver’s disappearance. So when Senior Surrey began the meeting by discussing his opinions on birthchip laws, Cobe sat up straighter in his chair, surprised.
‘To tell you the truth,’ said Senior Surrey, ‘I sometimes find the whole system ridiculous.’
Senior Surrey was sat behind his desk in his usual seat. He wore a grey silk tunic with dyed red sleeves that looked to Cobe like blood running down his arms. An amused expression played on his face. He leant back in his chair, gazing at the small tree in the corner of his room.
‘I’ve never understood why we ha
ve laws preventing us from freely tracking our citizens’ birthchips,’ he said. ‘After all, we have the technology, and the records are just waiting to be looked at. It seems a waste, to not use them freely.’ He leant forward and placed his hands on the desk. ‘It’s not that I disapprove of the current legalities surrounding birthchip tracking. But I do think in certain circumstances it is a hindrance. After all, we wasted hours speculating about Silver and Butterfly’s whereabouts before we had to find out from an anti-birthchip activist they had left Neo-Babel. It seems absurd that someone like that can use birthchip trackers freely, whereas we are bound by laws.’
Cobe nodded. Though the hooded man on board the Temple of the Fat Wives claimed to be a Limpets’ gang-leader, the Council had long suspected him of being involved with the powerful anti-birthchip group the Pigeons. The Council had only approved the reward of explosives to the informant because it would allow them to track the delivery and discover where the Pigeons were based.
‘Well,’ said Senior Surrey, his dark eyes smooth and hard like stones. ‘I thought that since we now know Butterfly and Silver are out of the city, what harm could it do to break one little law and use their birthchip trackers to find out exactly where they are in the Outside. Do not worry. The Council approved my infringement in light of the circumstances.’
Cobe flinched as though he’d been punched. He’s tracking them! He felt sick at the thought. He reached a hand to brush over his head, then forced himself to lower it as soon as he realised what he was doing.
Senior Surrey cocked his head. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘No, sir,’ Cobe lied.
The polite smile on Senior Surrey’s face had vanished. ‘I thought finding out where Silver and Butterfly are would be your utmost concern. Butterfly is your junior, after all, and I understand you and Silver are friends.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Senior Surrey smiled, but his expression was still cold. ‘Good. I’m glad we are of similar minds.’ He stood up suddenly and walked to the glass door at the back of the room. He slid it open. A warm wind brushed into the room, bringing with it a trill of birdsong, distant city noises. ‘Do you know why Butterfly and Silver might have left the city?’ he asked, turning back to Cobe.
