Once I get down to the floor, I teeter my way through the knots of people. Some are sipping at bowls of watery soup, others talking softly. There are couples huddled together beneath a single rotted blanket, children whining for attention, and far too many people sitting alone staring at the graffiti on the pillars. Nobody pays attention to me. Though they sometimes move aside so I can pass, they don’t look up. The only way to maintain privacy in these close quarters is simply to ignore everyone.
Mardy will be to the left, beneath the stairs. There are fewer people here. It’s darker and smells of urine. I have to breathe through my mouth to avoid gagging. Once I find our space, I see that Mardy isn’t here. We’re lucky no one has crossed the wadded-up blanket on the floor that reserves our spot against the wall. There’s a small mosaic on the floor, made up of little bits of glass and plastic that twinkle in the wan light. I can't make out what it is this time, but I know Mardy will explain it later.
I step over the blanket line and squat down on the floor. The tools at my belt clink against the concrete. They’re all cobbled together from broken handles and rusted metal—a kitchen knife, a wrench nearly rusted through, a thin file I use as a screwdriver. There’s nothing valuable. I traded any of that long ago.
I let my head roll back against the wall. The cold seeps through my skull, eases my headache enough that I can handle it again. Lincoln Shelter has been our home for nearly a year now. Before that, we moved around from place to place, never staying anywhere more than a couple of months at a time. The best shelter was Dupont, where Papa placed us when we were first shut out of the Undercity right after the explosion. They had real beds there, and I actually went to school. I’ve heard a big gang controls Dupont now, one no lowly scav would mess with.
When I see Mardy making her way through the crowd, I sit up a little straighter and pull off my gloves. She is taller than I am, though her frame is skinnier inside the folds of her overgrown sweater. She has a round face with big eyes that make her seem even younger than her twelve years. Her long hair is woven back into a single braid. It would be strawberry blonde if not for the dirt caking it. I’ve told her several times how impractical long hair is, that it attracts rats, but she won’t let me cut it. She says she doesn’t want it to look like an axe chopped it off at the shoulders, like mine.
She’s carrying two steaming bowls. My stomach rumbles as though waking up from a long slumber. The movement brings on the nausea. I get control quickly, but Mardy sees.
She narrows her almond eyes, ringed with blonde lashes that are only visible close up, and squats next to me to hand me a bowl. “You're sick again?”
I hesitate. The soup smells good, but eating means I’ll have something to throw up. “It's nothing. Probably just malnourishment. Everybody deals with that.” Even as I speak, I hear someone else retching nearby. Sickness is ever-present among the scavs who huddle together for shelter in the AM.
A hairline fracture running down the middle of my bowl lets liquid out, making the ceramic slick. I remind myself that I will soon have to find a replacement. But the soup is warm. It brings feeling back into my fingers. I blow on the surface enough that I can gulp it without burning my tongue. My stomach starts to rebel. I fight down the nausea until the food quells it.
“I'm sorry I'm late,” Mardy says. “The line was long today, and there was trouble. Some guy complained about the soup, said he couldn't recognize the vegetables.”
“What does he think this is, the Undercity?”
Mardy frowns. “Maybe he was just expelled.”
“Welcome to the life the rest of us live. What do you think the mystery meat is today?”
She fishes a dark object out of her soup and looks at it critically. “I saw some beetles earlier during class.”
I chew thoughtfully on a rubbery bit of meat. The thought of eating bugs would have made me squeamish years ago, but that was before days and nights of aching hunger. “No. They’re not crunchy enough. My money’s on worms.”
“Where would they find worms? There’s no open dirt down here.”
“They bring in the food from other shelters, ones with kitchens. There’s probably dirt floors there.”
Mardy makes a face at the meat between her fingers, but pops it reluctantly into her mouth. As she chews, she peers at my face. “Did you get into a fight today?”
I shrug. “It’s nothing.”
She scowls at me. “If you’d let me go out with you, maybe you wouldn’t get beat up so much.”
My anger sparks. “No way! Do you think I’m going to let my sister get roughed up by other scavs?”
“Caelin, I don't see why I have to stay here with the little kids all PM! I want to help you scavenge.”
“You are not becoming a scav while I am still alive to take care of you. You are staying safe, down here, where the radiation can't get to you, where you can learn something in school and maybe get into the Undercity someday.”
“I think I have the book memorized, I’ve read it so many times! Other kids my age—” She snorts. “In fact, kids two years younger than me are already out scavenging, helping their families. Why won't you let me help you?”
“We’re not having this conversation again, Mardy. You're staying down here, and that's that.” My heart thuds around the possibility that I might not find enough scavenge to keep her here after all.
Mardy draws her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them with one hand still holding her empty bowl. She buries her head in her arms. “I hate being in the dark all the time. I never get to go out and breathe the fresh air.”
I wrinkle my nose at the acrid smell of urine in our little corner. “It’s not all that fresh. Besides, it’s dark everywhere, even topside. At least here you have the electric lights.”
My bowl is half empty. Though I still feel hollow, I force myself to set it on the floor between us. “You want the rest?” I ask casually. “I'm full.”
Mardy shakes her head without looking up.
I fish around in my pocket and pull out bits of junk—torn fabric, pebbles, colored glass, pieces of plastic. I pile them all on the floor. “I found some green glass, like you asked for.”
She glances at the pile, then buries her head again. “You treat me like a baby.”
I push the pile toward her. “You're not a baby. I know that. I just want you to be safe. Come on, you can finish your picture.”
After a moment, she reluctantly looks up again, her eyes moving from the pile of brightly colored pieces to the picture against the wall that she started. After a moment, she moves to take a piece from my pile and adds it to the mosaic. Mardy's pictures have been destroyed more than once, but she never seems to care. She just starts a new one.
“What is it this time?” I ask.
Mardy is still grumpy. “A tree.”
I look at it, tilt my head one way, then another. I can't see it. Of course, I barely remember living trees. Mardy's picture has a lot of green in it, but the trees I see topside are dead spikes of wood pointing accusing fingers at the sky. The colors create a longing inside me for a lost world.
“You have a talent, Mardy,” I say quietly. “You create beauty the rest of us have forgotten.”
She glances up, and a smile touches her lips. “Building pictures makes me happy.”
“It makes me happy too.”
She throws her arms impulsively around me.
“You’re the only reason I have to keep going, you know that?” I whisper into her musty hair.
“We might have lost everything else, but we still have each other.” She pats my cheek affectionately as she goes back to working on her mosaic.
After a few moments, she reaches out absently and takes my leftover soup. I knew she wouldn’t let it go to waste.
I lean back against the wall and pull one edge of the blanket up over my body, wrapping my arms around myself. My eyes droop. I’m dimly aware when the electric lights turn off, indicating that it’s time to s
leep. Mardy sighs. She can’t finish her picture in the dark, so she curls up at my feet in what remains of the blanket, and I drift off to sleep.
CHAPTER 3
It can't be more than an hour later when I wake, my stomach cramping painfully around the soup. I know I am going to throw up, and this time it won't be dry. I stand, keeping my hand against my tools to stop them from clattering and waking Mardy. Stumbling over people in the utter darkness is a different matter. I get more than a few curses groggily aimed at me. But it will be worse if I throw up on someone. I breathe shallowly, fighting against my body.
When I finally get to the foot of the stairs, I rush headlong up them, two at a time, until I burst out the door into the old museum. I make it to the restroom and into a stall just in time. It lasts longer than usual and leaves me weak, sitting on the floor hanging onto the toilet. The bathroom is lit with an oil lamp, a blessing of light for those relieving themselves in the AM, and a smoke screen that soon covers the stench of my vomit.
I am just starting to think I’m strong enough to return to my corner of the shelter when the door of the restroom opens. Panic spikes through me. Even Wemberly won’t be able to help if the sentries find out I’m sick. Illness isn’t tolerated. In the early days, whole shelters were decimated by the flu and even cold viruses. I know what’s wrong, and I’m not contagious, but the sentries won’t believe that.
I scramble up onto the toilet seat, getting my legs off the floor. With any luck, the person coming in won't check each stall. As it turns out, I am the least of this person's worries.
“You thought you could trick me, did you?” I realize with surprise that there are two people out there, one of them a man. It’s more important than ever that I stay hidden.
“What do you mean? I gave you everything I found.” Another man's voice.
“Don't lie to me,” the first man growls. “I saw you give the sentry a can of food! You thought you could sneak in just before the doors closed, and I wouldn’t notice?”
“No! No, it wasn't like that. I found it last PM—”
There is the sound of a knife being pulled from a sheath.
“What are you going to do with that?” The second man’s voice quivers.
My mouth goes dry. Will the first man kill the second right on the other side of the stall door? I can't let that happen. But they can't find me either, or we’ll both be dead. I start looking around for something I can use as a distraction, something that will drive the men away.
“I can’t bring you more scavenge if you hurt me,” the second man points out.
“Tell me where your stash is, and maybe I’ll let you live through the AM.”
“But I don’t have any more!”
“Liar!”
There’s a scuffle and a muffled shout.
I yank my jacket off and stuff it down into the toilet. Their fight drowns out the splashes of water. My hands are shaking, my heart beating faster. My head feels like it might explode. I get the jacket down into the opening, then flush the toilet. As the water fills the bowl, I yank the wrench from its loop on my belt and use it to break the handle so the water will keep coming. I have to step down off the seat to avoid slipping, and water seeps around my boots.
The struggle stops as the two outside begin to step in water. The first man curses.
“The sentries will come,” the second man gasps. His observation is accompanied by a yell outside. “They’ll throw us both out.”
“You mean, they’ll throw you out!”
The door slams as the first man flees.
I huddle in my stall waiting for the second man to run too. Then the stall door bangs open, and I am exposed.
A straggly man stands in the opening, his hair hanging down in stringy bands beside his long thin face and beard. He is missing several teeth, a normal condition in older scavs.
“Come on,” says the man, holding out a grimy hand toward me. “You don’t want the sentries to catch you.”
I don’t need any more encouragement to move. I grab his hand, and he pulls me out of the stall. As we scramble from the bathroom, I notice that he is limping. There’s a jagged slice in his right pant leg behind the knee. Blood streams off his foot, leaving a trail that washes away in the pooling water creeping across the floor. The water beats us to the shelter and slips under the door. As we race down the metal stairs, shouts of dismay come from below. Before we get to the bottom, the shouts are turning to screams, and people leap up, rushing the stairs. The man and I are soon caught up in it, pushed back up to the door.
Rockland and Wimberly round the corner from the other direction, coming from the sentry’s post farther back in the museum.
“Now folks,” says Wimberly, putting up his hands to coax the crowd back to the door. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”
I hear someone yell “acid rain.” Several others shout something about “basement flooding,” and the screams and curses rise to a roar.
“Back inside!” Rockland yells, brandishing his weapon. “Or I’ll blast you with a sonic stun right here and now!”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Wimberly growls, grabbing the rifle. “You want to bring the whole monument shaking down on our heads?”
The press of people eases as they rush into the museum, spreading out.
“Where you going?” Rockland taunts. “It’s still AM. The doors are locked, but if you want out, be my guest.”
“Shut up, Rockland.” Wimberly splashes to the bathroom door and pushes it open, cursing. “Don’t just stand there like an imbecile,” he snaps. “Get me a wrench!”
Rockland scowls, but moves to obey. The crowd is calming now, realizing the source of the water is a leak in the bathroom. As Rockland returns and the two sentries argue, the man and I melt farther into the crowd, squeezing our way down the stairs.
The lights are back on, and most people are standing, quizzing each other about what happened. The hum of voices fills the shelter. Almost no one is left under the stairs. Wimberly seems to have stopped the flow of water from above. Mardy sits on the floor, looking down at the scattered bits of glass and plastic that were once the mosaic of a tree.
“I'm sorry, Mardy,” I say quietly.
Mardy shrugs. “All the pieces are still here. I’ll just start over.” She begins gathering up the pieces into a pile and arranges them again. “What happened? Did a pipe break?”
“Don't worry about a flood,” I say. “It was just a clogged toilet.”
“What were you thinking?” the man hisses in a low voice. “We could've been caught.”
When he speaks, Mardy seems to notice the man for the first time.
“I was only trying to help,” I stammer.
“Well, next time, don't meddle in my business.”
“You're hurt,” Mardy says.
I follow Mardy’s eyes to the man's pant leg, now soaked with blood around a jagged cut. I wince as Mardy rips a couple of strips from our blanket. “I can tie these around your wound. It should stop the bleeding.”
The man sits down so Mardy can tie the rags around his leg. “I'll probably get a disease from your filthy blanket,” he says under his breath.
His remark makes me dislike him even more. I hope that he will go away after Mardy nurses him.
“What happened?” Mardy asks as she binds the wound. She ties off the links of cloth tightly, and I am gratified to see the man wince.
He doesn't seem to want to answer, so I supply as little information as I can. “Somebody wanted his stash.”
“I don’t have a stash.” The man gives me a scowl. With missing teeth, thin stringy hair, and wrinkles cutting across his forehead, he looks much older than me. But scavs age fast. He’s probably only twenty-five. I hope that he’ll go find his own corner for the AM, but Mardy is more generous.
“Why don't you stay here with us?” Mardy asks as she finishes wrapping the second strip of cloth around his leg. “Under the stairs usually isn't as crowded because of the smell.”<
br />
“So I noticed,” the man grumbles.
But he doesn't seem inclined to leave. I give Mardy a look of irritation, and she shrugs her shoulders. Suddenly, I’m ashamed. I think about how I’d feel if I were hurt and someone showed me a little kindness. Mardy is a better person than I am.
The man scoots back against the wall. He wraps his arms around himself and leans his head back with his eyes closed.
The water has stopped dripping now. I hear the sentries shouting for everyone to get back to sleep. People come tromping down the stairs, making the metal ring with their heavy steps, and settle back in around us. It may not be as crowded under the stairs, but it’s still crowded enough. The lights go out before Mardy can get very far on her mosaic.
“I’m too tired anyway,” she whispers.
She curls up on the floor, but I sit awake for a long time, watching the stranger in the dark. He doesn't move except to mumble a little in his sleep. Finally, I can’t keep my own eyes open any longer.
CHAPTER 4
I dream of the sun. It blooms with light and heat in my middle. The heat gets more and more intense until I wake to find myself throwing up bile laced with blood. It’s getting worse. But there’s nothing I can do about it. Once I catch my breath, I realize that the electric lights are on again. It must be PM, and I’ve overslept. I smear the mess into the mud on the floor to hide it. Then I realize I’m being watched.
Looking up, I see the stranger leaning against the wall nearby. He's awake, but not moving. He simply stares down at the mosaic Mardy has created on the floor. She must have finished it not long ago. When the lights went out, she only had a few pieces in place.
“It's a tree, ain’t it?” the stranger asks.
I don't know how Mardy can remember what a tree looks like. She's lived underground more than I have. When we were kids, we only went topside a couple of times to change shelters. In the last five years, I’ve insisted that Mardy stay below as much as possible during my scavenges. She’s been in Lincoln Shelter for nearly a year, not even emerging for PM. I'm terrified that she’ll get radiation sickness.
Rebel Bound Page 2
