“Well, if you know what I’m up to, then you know. No sense in talking about it here.”
When you’re ready.
“What about you? If you’re so quick to ask me questions, what if I ask you some?”
Go on.
“What’s under your Blinders?”
My eyes.
“Why do you wear it then?”
Because I am blind.
“Can I take it off?”
By all means.
When he’s within arm’s reach of Halo, Sterling again notices a slight tingling sensation coursing through his body.
“All right, I’m going to take it off.”
He unclips the Blinder at the back of her skull and unwraps it. Halo’s eyes are closed, her eyebrows the same blonde as her hair. The lower portion of her face – smeared in dried blood and dirty from their motocart ride – is at odds with the radiant white of her nose and upper cheeks. With her sharp bone structure and her short blonde hair, wisped at the ends and slightly compressed at the sides from her Blinders, Halo’s natural beauty is evident.
“Open your eyes,” Sterling whispers.
I won’t.
“Please, I want to see them.”
Bolt is here.
The sound of a motocart signals that once again, Halo is right.
“Should I put your Blinders back on?” he asks.
No, you’ll wash me now.
.3.
“You took her Blinders off?” Bolt quickly deposits a bag onto the ground.
“Easy with the supplies,” Sterling says. “And to answer your question, she asked me to.” He tries to sound as nonchalant as possible, but his recent interaction with the Southern Goddess has left him uncertain and disturbed.
No I didn’t.
“He doesn’t know that. Why can’t he communicate with you anyway?”
Some can’t.
“What’s she saying?”
“Nothing important.”
Bolt crouches and begins taking the items out of the cloth bag. He sets several R Boxes on the ground as well as two half gallon water packets. Next out of the bag are a series of wrappings – a full set of women’s clothing.
“You got all this?” Sterling asks.
“I didn’t get any of it – it was waiting for me in the bag.”
Sterling turns back to Halo. He can’t quite tell if she’s grinning, but her mouth has tightened a bit at the corners. With her eyes closed, and the way she breathes without really looking like she’s breathing, the Goddess of the South reminds Sterling of a drawing he saw as a child, distributed by an old woman outside one of the Northern churches attended by Uppers. The woman was gone by the time church was over.
I’m ready for you to wash my face and help me with my clothes.
“Um … ” He casts a tight grin at Bolt. “I’m going to help Halo with her clothes. You wait outside.”
Bolt leaves without protest, reminding Sterling that bigger forces are at work.
“Take off your clothes,” he tells Halo.
I can’t.
“You put them on, didn’t you?”
Someone always does it for me.
“Seriously?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Fine, um, lift your arms.”
She does, and Sterling unwraps the cloth that extends up her torso, over one shoulder and back around her body. A lighter colored binding pulled tightly across her chest catches his eyes.
“You bind them?”
Halo doesn’t respond and Sterling doesn’t pry. He sets her old cloth on the ground and works on the fabric covering her thighs. Soon, her legs are exposed, thin and long, as is her crotch, which is covered by more wrappings wound in a tight V-shape over her hip bones. His eyes naturally come to the spot between her legs and as soon as they lock on, Halo’s hand touches the bottom of his chin. She lifts his face up, stops it so that it’s looking directly at hers.
Stop staring.
“Got it, sorry.”
Naked aside from her chest binding, the Goddess stands, turns her back to him. Two small indentations directly above her ass are the only imperfections in her skin. There isn’t an ounce of excess fat on her.
He applies her body covering starting at her neck, giving her plenty to protect her lips from any sudden winds. Halo raises her arms in a way that reminds Sterling of a scorpion curling its tail. She swivels towards him. Again, his eyes narrow in on her sex and her small breasts. He swallows his animal instincts like they’re a jagged pill, moves the wrappings downwards, over her chest and sideways across her body. Once he’s finished, he clips the back with a large decorative pin. From there, he moves to her leg coverings, which sit at the waist and cascade into a long skirt.
She lowers her arms, adjusts the dark gray fabric around her waist as he ruffles out the bottom portion of her new wrappings. Sterling arrives at her feet, which are shielded by a pair of female R Boots. Seeing this seemingly normal piece of clothing reminds him that she’s human, regardless if she can read minds or not.
“Does it feel okay?”
You’ve done well for a man.
“Thanks?”
Sterling rips a piece off her old wrappings, folds it into a pad and moistens it sparingly with the water ration Bolt brought. He scrubs her arms and occasionally wrings the pad onto the floor. He’d prefer not to use so much water – any really – for something as non-essential as washing, but Halo will draw less attention clean than she would smeared with her own blood, and sometimes a man’s just gotta do what a man’s gotta do. He goes over the spot where his rock hit her shoulder; she flinches, relaxes.
“I just need to get your lips now,” he says.
Wiping the dried blood from her face creates a watercolor smear of redness from ear to ear. He dabs at it again, presses the wet cloth against her lips. “Almost done … ”
Wash my face too.
“You’re demanding.”
Once her face is as clean as it’s going to get, he wrings the blood out of the cloth and wets it again. Pressing the cloth against her face gives him a strange sense of euphoria. It’s as if an energy is being passed between the two, linking their life forces together. Sterling finishes before he can fully process the feeling.
“Better?” he asks, suddenly breathless.
My blinders.
“Ah, that thing … ” He wraps her blinder around her head and hooks the loose ends together at the back of her skull. Adjusting it over her nose, he notices that the bottom half of the blinders are dappled in a small amount of dried blood.
Don’t worry about that. Are you ready to go?
“As ready as …” Sterling feels his breath return to him as he steps away from her. “As ready as I’ll ever be. Should I carry you to the motocart?”
No, I’ll walk.
***
Dusk now a memory, the murkiness of another merciless night has settled over the denizens of the Canyon. Bolt leans against the motocart, nibbling on an R Box food bar. Sterling joins him, tears the wrapping off the bar and starts in on it. Both watch as Halo slowly makes her way out of the cave, glowing in her new wrappings.
“Hungry?” Sterling asks her.
I’ll eat in the motocart.
“What’d she say?”
“She’ll eat on the way.” Sterling turns to the Canyon proper, tries to gauge the distance between their current location and the Off Limits.
It will take two and a half hours if we go nonstop. Three if we stop.
“We’re three hours away. I’m driving; you’re in back with Halo.”
“I can sit next to … the Goddess?” Bolt mouths the last part.
“You sat next to her when we drove here, don’t you remember?”
“I did?”
“Is this your doing?” Sterling asks Halo.
I blanked out a part of his memory … by accident.
“By accident?”
Yes.
“Well … ” Sterling climbs onto th
e motocart instead. “Unikey,” he grunts with his hand over his shoulder. Sterling presses it in and starts the vehicle with the touch of the button on the unikey’s smooth surface. He jams the rest of the ration bar in his mouth. “Let’s go,” he says with his mouthful.
The motocart is similar to the cart he used to travel south, although the motocart that hauled the dead had an attached trailer, while this moto simply has a backward facing bench seat behind the driver.
Sterling heads them north, taking care to drive as though he has nothing to hide. The face cover over his nose and mouth filters out most of wind-blown dust and grit, but his unprotected eyes are dry and gritty and uncomfortable almost immediately. A pair of Leaks would be a genuine blessing, and he again wishes he’d brought a pair. He closes one eye and squints the other; it’s not great, but it’s all he’s got.
Not too fast.
Sterling increases his speed, just because. He slows down as they approach a bend, brakes halfway into it and then accelerates out. There’s just enough light coming from nearby dwellings to light his path, although the shadows painting the Canyon make driving a challenge.
A tap on his shoulder: “What do you want?” Sterling calls. He hears Bolt’s voice, but the wind carries the words away. A tap again.
He slows the motocart to a halt. “What is it?” Sterling swivels his body around to give Bolt and angry glare.
“The Goddess is asleep,” Bolt says.
“What?” he asks over the hum of the engine.
“She’s asleep!”
“Good. Maybe she’ll stay out of my head for a little while!”
.4.
Today has been a day of firsts for Sterling; in his most optimistic assessment of his chances, he never dreamed he’d make it this far. Indeed, he fully expected to die right there in The Church of the South. He expected to be relentlessly pursued, overtaken, captured and killed. He then expected to be discovered in the cave, captured and killed. He fully expects to be captured and killed right here and right now, and yet there are no barriers aside from the Great Demarcator that lies ahead. There is no one standing in their way, no one trailing behind him, no one trying to stop them.
He remembers a time in his youth when he’d walk along the wall and watch out for the OL Officers. When they weren’t observing him, he’d try to throw a rock up on top of the wall, a game many Northerners played to pass the time. He never did get a rock up on top, but he got one close once. This particular rock was still at his home, the home he shares with his mother and his sister.
Home. The concept evokes feelings that he can’t put words to, but he knows that he will do anything – anything – to protect what remains of his family. He had taken this assignment – was forced into this assignment – knowing he’d wind up dead. No one goes to the South and absconds with their Goddess. No one. The last person that tried hardly made it three vestas from the church and took days to die. Sterling’s fatalistic acceptance of the assignment’s non-viability and his own probable non-survival has somehow backfired into an unanticipated success. There never was a Plan B, and now that Plan A is moments away from achieving success, he has no idea what to do with the rest of his life once he delivers Halo.
Where most men gamble for small stakes, Zander Damien gambles for men’s lives. The North’s most powerful Upper had extended gambling credit to Sterling until he’d run up two lifetime’s worth of debt. Blame it on the loss of Delix, his best lizard, or a string of badly played rocks, or just sheer bad luck – there’s always something to blame.
Zander offered him a choice: two lives – his mother’s and sister’s – in payment for two lifetime’s worth of debt, or go South, grab their Goddess and bring her back.
Zander knew his weak spot – they had a history.
***
The wall separating the North and the South looms in the distance. Heavy smog sits at the top of the walls, masking their edges. Sterling can barely make out the moon, that lifeless globe that watches idly as the Stayed are born, eunuched, or die of Canyon-related illnesses. To be the moon or the sun and look down upon the Canyon from above – a view none will have the chance of savoring, a view he’d give anything to see just once.
Sterling comes to a stop a couple vestas away from the westernmost corner of the Off Limits. “This is where you get off, kid.”
Bolt swivels around. “I don’t want to get off!”
“Off.” Sterling kicks the motocart into park, and turns to get ahold of Bolt.
You can’t leave him.
“Ah, so you decide to join us,” he says as he dismounts. He’s in front of Bolt a few moments later, his fists on his hips. “You can’t come. It’s for your own good.”
“I don’t want to stay down here.”
“Yes you do … remember? You escaped from the North. They were going to trim you. Your aunt lives here.”
Tears well in Bolt’s eyes.
“Don’t … come on. No … no need for that.” He comes in close and places his hand on Bolt’s shoulder. “Get down from the motocart. Here, take the rest of the R Boxes with you, and the water that’s left too. That should be enough to tide you over for a few days.”
“I … ” Bolt gulps, sniffs. “I lied to you.”
“No harm done … wait, what do you mean?”
You both are liars.
Sterling shakes his head in Halo’s direction. She’s sitting with her hands on upper thighs, palms up, back in her rigid statue pose.
“Whatever,” he says through gritted teeth. “Look,” he hones back in on Bolt. “You’re getting off the motocart, now. And what’s this about lying?”
“I escaped to the South because I got caught stealing!” the kid blurts out. “I … they were going to send me to reeducation.”
“You what?”
“I don’t have an aunt in the South.”
Sterling nods and grimaces in sympathy. He spent a solid six months in reeducation. If he had known there was a way to escape to the South, he’d have tried it himself. “I can’t knock you for heading down,” he finally says, “but you’ll be better off down here than you will up there. Look, I’m not trying to be mean to you or anything like that.” He points his hand towards the Off Limits. “I don’t know what’s going to happen from here on out, but I didn’t expect to make it this far. This is still probably going to get me killed; it’d be stupid for you to get killed too.”
“I don’t want to stay here!”
“Halo, can you put him to sleep or make him do what I say or something?”
That would be ill-advised.
“Well, as the only adult here,” he says, clearing his throat in the Goddess’ direction, “I’m calling the shots. Bolt, welcome to your new home. Halo, stay right where you are and don’t do anything funny when we get to the gates.”
Sterling uses his hand on Bolt’s shoulder to persuade him to get off the motocart. Heartbroken, the kid stands there staring at the ground with his chin tucked to his chest and tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Here,” Sterling hands him the bag of R Boxes and the packet of water. “Figure things out. I taught you some of my best gambling tricks. That should help you get on your feet until you can do whatever it is you were put in this Canyon to do.”
“It’s not fair.”
Sterling weighs the first two responses that come to his head. He could go nice on the kid, make him feel better. Or he could give him a reason to want to stay in the South. Sterling chooses the latter when he says, “Look, I swear to the Goddess of the North,” he calls over his shoulder, “that if you come to the North, I’ll turn you in myself. Got that? You don’t want to go to reeducation again, trust me, but if you keep pestering me, that’s where you’re heading. By the Goddess Time, I’ll turn you in at the gate.”
Bolt takes a few steps backwards, shuffles his feet.
“That’s it, keep on going. You’ll realize one day that I just did you a favor.”
***
Ster
ling steers the moto towards the westernmost gate. Everything is dark aside from the beam of his headlamp and a few lights cutting through the gloomy fog that sits over the Canyon like a lazy cloud. If what Zander said is correct, he should see his contact flash a light at him – long, long, short, short. That’s his guy on the inside. Any other outcome will end poorly.
That was harsh.
“I don’t care what you think, and you know that.”
Bolt was a kind child.
“He was a criminal, you heard it yourself.”
He stole food for his family.
“And I’m stealing … ” he doesn’t finish the sentence. The agreed upon signal flashes up ahead, pauses for two heartbeats and repeats. You stole me for your family.
“Well,” Sterling says, coming to a stop. “You know the narrative, so there’s no point in me reiterating it. The kid will be fine; it’s us I’m worried about.”
What will you do with me?
He parks the motocart two hundred yards from the Off Limits and pockets the unikey. “Let’s go.”
What will you do with me?
Sterling is just about to take her off the motocart when he says, “You know exactly what I’m going to do with you. Let’s not pretend that you can’t tell what I’m thinking.”
You don’t have to.
“I don’t have a choice.”
The right side of Halo’s face is completely hidden in the shadows, the left illuminated by the lights in the distance. There’s just enough brightness for Sterling to see both of their shadows; one sitting, the other standing; one at ease, the other on edge. She’s beautiful, in the dark or in the light, tragic and majestic.
Still, only a fool would stop now.
You have a choice. The truth rests on the horizon.
“It’s not that simple.”
.HUNTER.
.1.
Horizon approach, moto moto. Fate encroach, lift the ropes and roast the Blasph. Laugh track mind attack smack whack wrack. Black fingers on death masks, blood seeping from bludgeoned pasts. Air through my knuckles, gripped and scarred. When on a roll discard the marred.
The Zero Patient Trilogy (Book One): (A Dystopian Sci-Fi Series) Page 9
