The Elite

by K. Weikel

  “Maybe,” he says as she stops walking, her back still facing him. “But this time it’s not. I don’t care if they kill me. This time... this time it really is for them. This time I will die to save them all from the new Unnamed and from the government.”

  Runner Rose looks over her shoulder with a small, sad smile and nods, her hair whipping in the wind. “Congratulations, Daniel... You’ve finally opened your eyes.”

  9: Safe House

  “So the easiest place to get over is right here,” Rose the Runner explains, drawing a line with her finger to the top of the wall. They had circled around it to a place where the top has wires and spikes bent in strange angles, but Daniel can see a spot large enough to get through with no trouble. Aside from the climbing part, that is.

  “How are we supposed to scale it?” Daniel the Elite Runner asks, the rising sun making his nerves prickle with energy. The lighter it gets, the easier it is to be seen, that much he knows. “The walls are smooth.”

  Rose shakes her head, bringing her outstretched hand down to rest on her hip, mirroring the other one. “We use stick-soles. The Unnamed created them in secrecy, even from other parts of itself. Only the highest people knew, like One, Two, Three...” She swallows hard. “I only knew because I was one of the fastest Runners there was until you came in. Then things started taking off and they just kind of got lost in the rubble. I have an extra pair, actually.”

  Tugging something from her pockets that look like little triangles, she hands two pieces to Daniel. They’re blue and gooey-feeling. Warm too. Saying it grossed him out would be an understatement.

  He watches as she lifts them from her palm and stretches them over the toe of her shoe, reminding him of a balloon. Rose pulls another corner and pulls it over her heel. There’s a slight sucking sound as it forms to the shape of her shoe.

  Through the amazing invention before him, Daniel manages to make a disgusted face. She chuckles slightly at this as her eyes dart up to his, and shakes her head as she fixes the other stick-sole to her left shoe.

  “Your turn,” she laughs tightly. “Hurry. Quit being a baby.”

  He does as she had, cringing and trying to touch as little of the material as possible, taking twice as long as Rose. She rolls her eyes and then backs up.

  “You need a head-start,” she smiles.

  Her feet take her a little bit farther away, and then she begins to sprint as fast as she can towards the wall. Her right foot collides parallel with the cement and she begins to escalate up the wall at an angle. She’s not exactly perpendicular to the slab of stone nor parallel, but somewhere in between that.

  Rose the Runner begins to lose momentum and brings her body closer to the wall, reaching up with her arms. Her fingers wrap around the top edge and she pulls herself the rest of the way up, using the stick-soles to help get her higher.

  Swinging her body across the top, she looks down at Daniel and says, “Now you try. See you on the other side,” and disappears.

  The Runner stares in awe at the events that just played out. She literally just ran up a wall. With sticky stuff on the bottoms of her shoes. It hurt Daniel’s brain. But he needed to try now, and he knew it. The sun’s coming up and everyone will be awake soon.

  He backs up and readies himself, slowing his breathing. Daniel begins to pump his legs and arms, and then the wall is before him. His foot meets the cement and he’s moving upward before he knows it. And then, not realizing he’s perpendicular to the wall, he’s on the ground, gasping for air and receiving sand instead. He pushes himself up and tries again, focusing on his running. He’s always been clumsy.

  But this is running up a wall.

  Daniel takes off and meets the wall. His lower body and core muscles scream to relax as he struggles to stay at a thirty-ish degree angle, and he begins to lose momentum. He stretches out his arms and feels the corner brush past his fingers.

  And then he’s falling once more.

  Only this time, someone catches him around his wrist.

  Daniel looks up to see Rose’s face, pinched with strain. She’s having trouble holding him up.

  “Help,” she utters, the word coming out as an almost silent yelp. The Runner swings his free arm up and grips the corner, letting go of Rose and pulling himself up, watching Rose breathe heavily.

  “I thought you left,” Daniel says quietly, closing his eyes as he tries to control his own breathing.

  She shakes her head, swallowing dryly. “I wouldn’t let you fall to your death. It’s a long way to the sand.”

  They sit in silence for a moment, looking over the city. People are already beginning to move about down below.

  “We’d better get going,” she says, holding her hand out for the stick-soles. He snatches them off as they make a loud suction sound and plops them onto her palm. She stuffs them into her jacket pocket. “Okay. Make sure when you jump down, you kind of roll, or you’ll be hurting for a while. And keep your hood up when we get down there; you don’t know who all knows your face.”

  So he was right about that possibility.

  Daniel nods, Rose jumping first and rolling onto her side. He follows, almost summersaulting. Their hoods go up.

  “Follow me,” Rose whispers, tucking her hood closer to her face and looking at the ground. Daniel follows suit.

  They don’t walk very far before coming before a tall mansion. The deep green color gives away its Category: the Elite Gardener. Rose the Runner trudges up to the front door and knocks seven times, looking over her shoulder in paranoia, Daniel’s afraid to do the same, scared someone will recognize him.

  The door swings open, an older woman with thick white hair flowing around her face in the created wind stepping into view. Her blue eyes contrast to her deeply tanned skin as they soften seeing Rose’s face. And then they fill with confusion.

  “Rose, why are you here?” The Elite Gardener whispers to her, drawing near. “What has happened?”

  Rose leans in. “They’re getting worse.”

  The woman nods and peers past the two standing at her doorstep, searching for any prying eyes. “Come in you two,” she says, waving them inside. They obey, lowering their hoods. Several people from other categories bustle about, not paying any attention to Daniel nor Rose as they follow the woman up two flights of stairs. At the very top, she unlocks a yellow door and opens it, revealing a large greenhouse, as wide as the house itself. Several plants are rooted into soil layered upon the ground and cover nearly every inch of the room, aside from winding walkways made of stone and rock. Daniel and Rose walk forward as she shuts the door, Daniel feeling completely stricken with amazement for the second time that day, and rendered speechless.

  “Don’t worry, the windows are one-way seeing glasses. They do let light through, however.” The woman turns to them. “Now, what is it?”

  “Myra, this is Daniel the Elite Runner of the World. They want him dead because of his betrayal.”

  “Yes, you did stir up quite the controversy, didn’t you,” she nods, her eyes locking on the boys’. “It’s okay. We need some controversy every now and then. Without it we would never know where we stand as individuals: with the crowd or by yourself.”

  “We just need some shelter for a few days. Is there any way you can help with that?” Rose the Runner asks, lacing her fingers together.

  Myra the Elite Gardener ponders on what Rose the Runner had said for a moment, making Daniel worry for the first time that they had stepped in that door. How can they be sure she isn’t lying about being a Neutral?

  “I can. But you must stay in this room. And if they come for you and ask for you by name, I’m sorry, but they’ll want to search the house. I’ll give you a heads up though so you can get a running start. But be ready for it.”

  “What will it be?” Daniel asks, not sure where the words came from.

  The woman’s blue eyes circle around her garden and fall upon a small bunch of gray flowers growing reaching up from the ground. She moves
it back and forth between either of her hands, her eyes trailing the delicate pointed petals. They drift back up to the pair of stowaways.

  “You’ll smell tea.”

  The strange set of words confuses Daniel. How does tea have anything to do with the Unnamed?

  “I’ve got to go now. You’re free to eat any of the fruit in my garden, but stay away from this patch to the right of the door. It stops at the line of apple trees. These can make you seriously ill or dead even if you consume or touch some of them. Others I haven’t tested for side effects yet.” She opens the door and disappears before either of them can ask any questions.

  “What was that all about?” Daniel asks Rose.

  She shrugs. “She talks like that sometimes. I think her experimentation on plants has made her a little insane. But she’s all we have at a safe house, so might as well do as she says.” Rose begins to walk deeper into the greenery. “You hungry? There are some apples over here that look amazing.”

  “I think I want to just sit down,” Daniel the Elite Runner sighs, making a beeline for the left side of the greenhouse where a few rows of cabbage are growing. He leans against the warm glass, water dripping along its surface.

  “Careful for bugs,” Rose calls, darting over to a grapevine to pull some off and chew on them.

  The Runner rolls his eyes and shuts them, trying to get some sleep. His lack of it is beginning to catch up to him. He almost can’t drift off because of all the worries and questions flowing in his mind like a river, but he manages to.

  And the dreams come, a dream he’ll never forget for the rest of his life.

  One that scared him out of his mind.

  10: Explanation

  Pain erupts across his chest and his back hits the ground hard. Above him stands the new Unnamed Leader, the new One. Her eyes are almost on fire as she glares down at him, a machete in her left hand. Daniel’s blood begins to run over his bare chest as he attempts to back away from her.

  “I should never have let you leave Blaise’s mansion alive,” she hisses. “I knew something wasn’t right with you.”

  “At least you knew,” the Runner hears. Rose the Runner steps out from behind her, her arms crossed as she peers down the length of her slender nose at him. “I suspected, but he got the best of me. And no matter how much I tell him I’m over it, I’m not.”

  The blood begins to seep out faster and faster, making a large puddle around Daniel. One smirks and takes a in a sharp breath.

  “Runner Rose,” she says, her voice slithering out like a snakes’ tongue. “Will you do the honors?”

  Rose smiles. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  She reaches forward to take the machete and twirls it in one hand easily. Daniel loses all the feeling in his arms and legs and flops down into his own blood like a fish out of water.

  “Go ahead,” Daniel spits, blood spraying from his mouth now. “Just kill me.”

  Rose chuckles and lifts the blade up above her own head, holding it with both hands and ready to slice through his heart. She shakes her head just before bringing it down at full speed.

  The blade nicks his ear and he hears himself whimper once as he spits out blood. Rose the Runner leans in close to his face, her breath shaking from rage.

  “You’re too good for death,” she whispers.

  Daniel startles awake. Someone’s shaking his shoulder.

  He wrenches away, his breathing rapid as his eyes focus on a face. Rose looks at him, confused.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she says quietly. “Myra sent up food for us. I thought you’d be hungry.”

  The Runner grumbles something under his breath, touching his chest. He can still feel the sting from the dream. Smells of food hit his nose as the dream comes back to him, and his stomach growls. Rose the Runner stands up and walks over to the door they had entered through and picks up two trays as Daniel picks himself up. What had the dream meant, if it even meant anything?

  Runner Rose brings one over and hands it to him. It’s a tray with some kind of meat and five different kinds of vegetables. He picks up the fork placed on the right side of the food and begins to poke at it.

  “Relax,” Rose says as she stuffs a mouth full of green beans past her lips. “It’s safe. I know this woman.”

  Daniel pokes at it some more and decides that Rose hasn’t died yet, so he might as well eat it as well. And he’s glad he does. The food is amazing—the woman is a fantastic gardener. He’d have to tell her thank you if they made it out of here alive.

  They wordlessly scarf down the food, sitting down somewhere during the process. Once finished, Rose places her tray on the ground and looks around for a moment.

  “Jim would have loved this place,” she says quietly, staring at a distant apple tree.

  Daniel swallows his food wrong and chokes on it.

  “You all right there?” She chuckles, her eyes wide with concern. Does she maybe suspect the woman isn’t what she says she is? Is that why she’s looking at Daniel like that?

  He nods. “I’m sorry,” he tells her softly after clearing his throat. “I really am.”

  She sighs. “It’s okay.”

  She tucks her knees under her chin and watches Daniel carefully. “How could you do something like that?”

  Her whispers feel like shouts to Daniel as he finds her eyes with his. He watches as they fill with tears, something that hasn’t happened since the fire took Jim the Runner. Daniel has the urge to wrap his arms around her and make her feel okay. He hates seeing her this way.

  “Do what...?” He whispers back.

  “Betray us.” A sniffle breaks through the quietness. “I thought we were all friends...”

  Daniel sighs and puts his own nearly empty tray down, no longer hungry.

  “I told you.”

  She shakes her head, wiping a tear away. “No. You gave me excuses for why you didn’t want to do it and excuses for why you needed to do it. But you never told me why you decided to do it. You destroyed my home, Daniel, not to mention countless of other people’s. You destroyed our hopes and dreams, and out of that came revenge and hatred. It’s almost impossible to revert back to our old ways. How could you make the choice to destroy something like that?”

  “Rose.” His voice is soft as he reaches forward and touches her hand. Her eyes find his as he tries to organize the thoughts in his head. He had never thought about it that way.

  Suddenly Rose’s head snaps in the direction of the door, all pieces of sadness she had just presented disappearing, and she pulls her hand from his.

  “What?” He asks, confused.

  “I smell it,” she says quietly, growing stiff. “I smell the tea. They’re here.”

  11: Apple Trees

  She grabs him and pulls him over to an apple tree.

  “What are you doing?” Daniel asks, the sounds growing closer.

  “We won’t have time to get away,” she says as she begins to climb a tree. “Come on.”

  “I don’t know how,” he says, gawking at the tree. How will she know if it would even protect them from their prying eyes?

  “Use the stick-soles. They’ll help your feet with traction.”

  The Runner catches the globs as Rose drops them, his eyes almost never leaving the door. Slipping them on, he hears the footsteps grow even closer. He reaches up and grabs a branch within his reach and pulls himself up, using the stick-soles to help him with his leverage. He grips branch after branch and finds a spot to sit high up in the fully grown tree. Rose sits down below him, pressing a finger to her lips to command his silence.

  The door swings open and a handful of Unnamed guards burst through, not caring there used to be a door where they had barged through. Daniel’s body goes still, his breath shallow as he waits for them to see the two rebels sitting in the branches above them. It’d be a miracle if they didn’t.

  A few of them hold heavy guns up to their eyes, looking at the expanse in front of them across horiz
ontally. The rest hold sharp and blunt objects, ready to strike anything that moves. Daniel’s muscles cry out to move the slightest as they ache in all his stillness.

  The branch cracks underneath him. It doesn’t break, but the sound is enough to catch one of the Unnamed’s attention. He walks slowly over to the apple tree keeping Rose and Daniel covered, his steps deliberate. Daniel’s head starts feeling light as panic slips into his bloodstream.

  The gun the boy holds begins to shift its aim up the tree, the eyes of its possessor darting back and forth slowly, carefully.

  Daniel’s heart pounds in his chest and he swallows the saliva that had collected in his mouth. He closes his eyes and prays that somehow, someway the Unnamed boy looks over them.

  The boy’s gaze keeps drifting upward. Closer, closer...

  Screaming erupts from downstairs.

  The boy snaps around and plummets out the door with the rest of the Unnamed, going to see what’s the matter. They pour out of the room like water.

  Once the last one leaves, Rose begins to descend the tree, Daniel following her.

  “This way,” she waves to him, sidestepping over a row of cabbage. “One of the windows is loose.”

  They rush over to the window opposite of the door, chaos still occurring down the stairs, and Rose begins to push.

  “Help me,” she says, her hands slipping on the wet glass.

  Daniel pushes with her and it flings open, nearly throwing Daniel off the side of the building.

  It’s a long way down to the ground. The mansions in the Base, Planet, and World are at least three stories high. And this one in particular has steeper roofs than normal.