by Nirina Stone
I’ve got to get away. Then what? I don’t know, but I’ll run out of here, to the copta up the stairs. I can’t fly it of course, but surely I can figure out how to set up the autopilot? And fly where? my skeptic brain insists on knowing. I’ll figure it out when I get there, but first things first. How to get away?
We walk past what I know to be a door to the outside, my last chance at surviving this. I ram my shoulder into the officer to my right and slam my left leg into the other. I keep pushing him until I’m stopped by his body slamming into the wall beside the door. Then I turn to face the other officer, my palms raised to him, as if in supplication.
“Mason,” he pleads, his voice low, ready to negotiate.
“I’m sorry,” I say as I run into him and slam a fist into the side of his head—once, twice, more until he stops moving. I know it won’t kill him, but he’ll wake up with a helluva headache and a few choice swears, I’m sure.
I run towards the door but of course, it’s locked. Why would this be easy? Moving back until I’m flush against the wall, I take a running jump at it, then another, then another, until finally, the latch breaks and I’m out in the moonlight. I run up the flight of stairs on the side of the building, and stop only once the copta’s in my sights. No one’s around. Phew. I jump in and finally take a quick breath while I try to figure out my next step.
The buttons in front of me aren’t labelled of course. Wouldn’t it be nice to hit one big red button that would start the thing and make it fly and have it take me away from here?
Then I see movement from the side and duck but it’s too late.
Caught already. But I’m not going back.
Blair’s running toward me, his eyes large, and he’s yelling. “Get out of there! Come on!”
Oh he-ell no. I brace myself and slam an open fist into his nose just as he reaches me. He falls back and grunts, his hands up to stem the flow of blood from his nose.
Then I jump out of the copta and start running towards the stairs. I can run for a while before I need to stop. I can outrun him, I tell myself. He’ll be blinded by tears and pain for a few minutes—I definitely broke his nose.
Before I reach the top of the stairs though, he slams into my back and I bring my arms up just in time to cushion the fall. My forehead scrapes the ground, but I manage to pushup slightly just as my nose touches the rough gravel on the ground. Then Blair flips me over like I’m a rag doll and I think, This is it. He’s pissed enough to kill me now.
But I don’t die. I wipe a sliver of blood from my forehead and look up into his stark blue eyes, glaring at me from behind a bruised face.
I glare back.
“No—” I start to say, but he’s already grabbing me by the shoulders and dragging me to my feet.
“I’m trying to help you escape, you idiot. We have to go right now.”
Why would he help me? Wouldn’t he be keen to have me executed? And, besides—
“Go where?” I say, but he shushes me.
“We don’t have time for explanations right now,” he says. He turns his face to the side and blows out a wad of blood. Then he cracks his nose so loud, I’m certain he’s pushed it back in place. “You will know everything, I promise, but you need to go. Now. We have to go. Now!”
His voice rises and he hands me a backpack, exactly like the one strapped over his shoulder.
My mind is still foggy from the Truthser and panic. What in Odin is going on here?
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say. “Where’s Mother? Why are you here? What’s going on?”
“The general is fine,” he says. “She’s still downstairs, I knocked them out. But we need to go and we need to leave now.”
Is this a trap? When I’m still unsure and don’t move, he grabs my shoulders and peers into my eyes. “Listen, Rome. You can have your I’m-a-strong-woman-don’t-need-you existential moment of self-affirmation later. Let’s just get the hell outta here!”
He’s got a point, but what makes him think I’ll do as he says without any explanation from him? When I still don’t budge, he stands and takes two quick steps towards me. “You’re heading out of here with me now. You decide if you want to do so unconscious and over my shoulder or on your own two feet.”
Ugh. Some choice. I can fight him, I know I can, but on the off chance I lose—I’m still a bit groggy after all—I decide not to. I’d rather stop being stupid and stubborn and get out of here before they all wake. So I nod and turn to run down the stairs with him. I’ll fight him later if I must, but for now I’m more curious about what he knows, and about where we’re going.
We’re running on the outer edges of Haven before I finally take a breath. “When will you tell me what’s going on, Commander?”
“They’re coming for you, Rome,” he says. My head snaps back. Who? The Northies?
“They’re coming for you for starting the fires.” He means the Sorens, but I already know that.
“They already came for me,” I say. You’re about a day late. I still can’t believe what just happened, though. “The fires that nearly killed me in my own home?” I say. “I didn’t start those. Why in Odin would—” but before I finish, he says, “Look. You can fill me in, but we have to get out of Haven first. What’s it going to take for you to just shut up and follow me right now?”
Nothing short of an explanation, I think, but before I can throw him a witty remark, he says, “I know about the chatter in your head. Your father’s voice.”
“What?” How in Odin could he possibly know about that? The fact that I’m likely going crazy, as slow as it’s going.
“Where I’m taking you, it will be all be made clear, Rome. You will understand everything.”
I should have refused. I should have fought back and not left. I was more curious than anything to find out what was going on.
But I would have resisted, had I known that would be the last time I would see my old home.
A half hour past the outer edges, a still mute Blair and I run up into the hills before we finally stop to take a breath. He instructs me to take a long sip of water from my pack, then he stops and asks me to undress. He still has streaks of blood on his face, but doesn’t react otherwise to the nose.
I pause and raise an eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t look at me. He pulls out a long, plastic-looking suit and throws it in my direction as he pulls off his shirt and keeps moving.
Picking up the suit, I know that it’s very different from any wetsuits I’ve ever worn—it’s not built for the water.
“Commander—” I start, but he shushes me again. I turn away when moonlight illuminates his torso. Now’s not the time for me to sit and watch the man get naked, but I didn’t expect to ever see him in this state. I stumble and fumble with my suit until I get my bearings again. What in the world is going on?
“I’d like to speak with Mother, please,” I say, knowing that the commander will have some sort of Comm on him. If he’s helping me escape, she has to be in on his plans—he is her right-hand man after all. “If I can have one quick word with her—”
He turns to glare at me, his eyebrows furrowed. “What word would that be?”
I don’t expect the question, but answer anyway. “If I can hear her voice. She’ll believe me—” All that happened before was her being a general and following protocol. She must have believed me when I said I had nothing to do with the fires, despite my words on Truthser. She must.
All I want right now is reassurance from someone I trust that I should do as the commander says, before I go any further.
“Well—” he utters. “That’s not going to happen. I will tell you what’ll happen right now if you don’t do as I say.” His voice is deeper, more menacing. “I’ll knock you out and you’ll go the remaining way unconscious.”
Oh is that right? I humoured him this far when my curiosity won out. But more threats—?
I pull my feet apart and stand my ground, refusing to budge any further. My arms are by my sides, my hands
already in fists and I watch the commander through slits in my eyes.
A tiny voice in my head reminds me that he was my instructor Sanaa’s “best” student. He’d likely take me down faster than I can muster, but he’s got another thought coming if he thinks I’ll acquiesce to him the entire way.
I brace myself, waiting for him to move. Instead, the commander sighs and turns to look at me. His face is blank as he takes in my posture. His mouth tilts slightly to the right when his eyes move back to mine. “I don’t want to fight you, Romy,” he says. “I will if I have to, but I’m hoping you won’t make me have to.”
“Then let me speak with Mother,” I say.
He sighs again as he continues to undress. “I can’t,” he says, “and I won’t.”
Before he finishes the last word, I turn my body around and slam a flying kick into his chest.
Or, at least, that was the intent. Instead, I tip over as his arms wrap around my leg and pull. My left leg slides under me and slumps the same moment my face hits the ground.
“Don’t do this,” he says, “or I will hurt you.”
Oh will you? I think, as I fight off humiliation. Not without getting hurt yourself.
I pull my legs quickly under me and face him, my arms in front of my body. Sanaa’s best student or not, I don’t intend to go further until he gives me some answers. And if not, I’ll have to get away from him, from them. I have to run. Where? I’ll figure that out later.
I glare up at him, keeping my eyes from dropping below his torso. He doesn’t seem to have the same qualms I do about being naked in front of people. He steps forward and I raise my arms higher.
“Final warning,” Blair says. “Which limb do you want me to break?”
I rush at him, aiming for his throat, and I manage to jab his chest as he slams into me and twists me around in his arms. I turn to scratch at him but his arms are tight around me. “I’ll need your legs to work,” he reasons, “so your arm, it is.”
And that’s when he snaps my right forearm—feels like the radius.
I buckle forward with the pain and bite the inside of my cheek to stifle the scream. The last thing I want is to let the commander know that hurt, but of course it does. The pain is agonizing as I fall to my knees, holding my broken arm with my left hand.
“Sanaa taught you some things right,” he mutters. He turns to continue dressing himself.
She hasn’t taught me enough.
“Now, get dressed, or I’ll have to break the other arm too.”
I huff and lean forward, trying not to apply pressure on the broken arm. I know my nanobots are working already, but this will take some time. I sit hard on my butt and try to breathe, but it comes out as a loud sniff instead. Ugh—I touch my cheek with my good arm. So much for not showing this hurt, that I’m humiliated. I swiftly wipe a burning tear before Blair turns back to me.
“Are you getting changed or not?” he says. “Or do you want me to do the changing for you?” I see an evil glint in his eye but refuse to rise to the challenge.
Instead, I point down to my arm, and try to keep my voice steady. “I think it’s broken the wrong way,” I say. “I don’t want it healing like that. It will be—inconvenient.”
He smirks, then moves towards the woods where he comes back with a stick. “It will have to do,” he says, “It will keep your arm straight.” Not packed well, is he, for someone planning to travel tonight?
“But first,” he says, placing the stick on the ground beside us. “We need to get rid of this.” He points at my wrist Alto and reaches into his backpack. He pulls out something small, a black metal contraption that I don’t recognize. It’s a square but for a slight concave angle on one side.
“What is that?”
“It’s a D-I-D, a de-identifier,” he says. “Something I bought off the black market in Apex. Watch.”
Holding my wrist steady in his hand, he places the smooth black curve over my Alto and he depresses the other side of it and waits.
I thought the broken arm hurt—this is a new pain unlike anything I’ve felt, like the thing is scraping my skin with a million tiny razor blades. I hear a sharp intake of breath and, realizing it’s me, bite down on my tongue so hard, I taste blood.
“There,” he says, after what feels like hours. “You’re officially gone.”
“Gone?” I say. “What do you mean gone?”
“I mean no one can trace you anymore. You’ve been de-identified. You’re gone.”
The pain starts to dissipate and I look down at my wrist. Where my Alto once sat since I was born, there is now nothing but a patch of bright red skin and hundreds of tiny globules of blood. It’s already healing, the marks already fading with the pain. I have no Alto—so I can’t buy anything with any credits, and I can’t be identified or traced. Why?
“Why, Commander?” I ask. My wrist is naked, vulnerable without my Alto. I look over, noting that his wrist is bare as well.
“Where we’re going, we can’t have them follow us. Now, they can’t find us. With these suits on, we’ll also be invisible to any prying satellites.”
“Who?” I ask, looking in the direction we left, expecting drones to search us out, anyway.
“Everyone,” he says. He gestures to the black square. “This thing incinerates everything the Alto stores.”
Then he places the stick against my forearm and wraps cloth around it, over and over. I expect his fingers to be rough, but they’re soft, and he works fast at wrapping the sling—he barely touches my skin.
“There you go,” he says. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”
For what? For breaking my arm? But the last thing I need is another broken limb. So I say, “Thank you,” and stand up to get changed. I chew on my lip to stifle the groans that threaten to escape as my arm gets bumped.
He waits patiently as I change, stands to my side, staring towards the East, where the Iliad and the Elysium float.
“Are you about done?” he says, as I pull up the zipper, trying to ignore the radiating pain in my arm.
“Yes,” I answer, “let’s go.”
As he starts to walk, he turns to me. “Just do me a favour, okay?”
“What’s that?” I say, wondering what else he could possibly want.
“We’ll be travelling together, alone, for a while. Just don’t do something silly like—fall in love with me or try to get me naked or anything.” Then he laughs and hastens his pace.
The nerve. I glare at him, but the moment he turns away, I allow a smirk on my face.
He better not turn his back on me though. I’m following him now, but wait till my arm is better—
Nearly one week later and we’re still walking, and it’s all uphill. It doesn’t look to ease off or flatten any time soon. At least the suits he packed are comfortable—recycling suits that transform our expelled body fluids into water we can drink. Though, every now and then, we come across a freshwater spring which is far better—nice and cool with a fresh crisp taste unlike the sterile drips our suits dispense. At least we’re not walking the deserts around Apex, where even these efficient suits would not be enough to keep us alive for long.
At least my company’s entertaining. He knows so much about this side of the world. He tells me about ancient sports called skiing and skating where they’d move over frozen water, in ways that I can only imagine.
“But why did they do all that?” I ask, wondering what their motivation could be. Once they’d established roads and the ability to travel long-distances in vehicles, why in Odin would they revert to that sort of transportation? The ancients in the north were a strange bunch. Is it any wonder they managed to blow themselves into oblivion?
“Why do you think?” he says. “For fun, of course.”
Fun. Hmm. They had a lot of time to spare, I’m guessing. Still, I can’t imagine freezing and travelling over frozen water to be much ‘fun.’ I’d rather stick to warm weather activities like swimming, snorkelling. Not having to be
covered up under layers of clothes and then still freezing. What’s the point?
“Kids would make snowballs and throw them at each other,” he says.
Huh. I picture groups of kids playing in fluffy white snow—then I remember I’m pregnant and it feels like a kick in the gut. I try not to think about it, but I can’t deny it anymore. There’s a baby in my belly. My symptoms have been mild though, so it’s easy to think of other things. But still—my hand’s already on my belly before I can fight the urge to let it move there. It surprises me that I’m no longer having thoughts of getting rid of it, or not wanting it. What is this new feeling? Acceptance, I decide. Curiosity. Protection?
Then Blair tells me about activities where the ancients would pile up tons and tons of the precipitation they called snow, and build all sorts of things out of them.
“Even hotels,” he says as the word impossible runs across my mind. “Ice hotels, they were called. And people would travel from other countries just to stay there. They’d feast on frozen raw fish and all sorts of delicacies. Isn’t that fascinating?”
It is, I’ll have to agree.
“How do you know so much about the north, Blair?”
“I don’t know,” he says, “I’ve always found their world interesting, I guess. Other kids would learn about the History of Apex and everything to do with that, but I found the old Northern Hemisphere more—relatable.”
I can’t say that I’d agree. They were a dead world far before I was even born. Why would I care what they were up to before they destroyed themselves with the Great Omni?
Still, it’s clear in his voice that he’s in awe of that old world. It surprises me, because I only ever saw Blair as this stiff military figure who infuriated me from time to time. Who is he, really?
“Were you born on a ship?” I ask, remembering that most Sorens I’ve met are uncomfortable on land.
He laughs. “Oh, no. Can you believe I was a Prospo baby? Born of a Citizen surrogate of course.”
I can. Once upon a time, that would have been an impossibility to me. Now that I know so much more about our world in Apex, I can believe it.
