Wasteland (Wasteland - Trilogy)

by Kim, Susan

  Within seconds, her sneakered feet were scraping against the smooth wall, unable to find a purchase, and her fingers scrabbled in vain for the next handhold. Esther gave up and dropped back to the ground with a light thump.

  Even Skar could not scale a wall in the dark; it was virtually impossible to climb anything without being able to see where next to grab. Esther decided: If she could not see, then she would have to learn the wall by trial and error and memorize her route.

  Gritting her teeth, she tried again. And again.

  She got higher her fifth time, and even higher her sixth. As she hoped, she was also getting a better feel for the wall, remembering where the best cracks and irregularities lay.

  On her eleventh try, she was able to reach the ceiling, which she judged to be a little more than twice her height. As she released one hand to explore the area around her, she grazed the edge of something built into the wall before she lost her grip and dropped to the ground.

  But Esther, who had explored countless old buildings with Skar and knew their odd construction well, had found what she was looking for.

  Within moments, she took one step to her right and began again the laborious process of teaching herself to climb a new surface. After more than a dozen tries, she reached her goal.

  It was a rectangular metal grid embedded high in the wall, just below the ceiling. The square openings were thick with dust and just big enough for the tips of her fingers to fit through. This allowed Esther to not only hang on, but to walk her feet up the wall so they were on either side of the metal plate.

  She cautiously pulled backward, then with more force. As she did, the grating started to shift in her hands and the ancient mortar crumbled away, freeing rusty screws that pinged to the ground below. She steeled herself, then with one violent motion, yanked back as hard as she could while pushing off with her legs. The grid wrenched out of the wall and Esther went flying backward.

  She managed to land standing up while still holding onto the grid, staggering back under its weight. Then she dropped it and clambered back up the wall, to the rectangular hole that now gaped open in the dark.

  Esther found herself in a narrow chute made of flimsy metal. Wriggling forward on her belly, she found that even moving slowly made it contort. The joins were especially fragile; as she pulled herself over them, she noted that several of them were on the verge of giving way. Esther could only pray that the structure held up under her weight; she did not care to imagine what would happen if it didn’t.

  Since she could not see where she was going, Esther touched the walls around and in front of her to check if they branched out. The first time she found a new passageway, she noticed a dim light glowing at the end of it. When she pulled herself closer, she found herself peering through a filthy grating, looking out onto a small room lit by an overhead glass coil. Below her, one of Levi’s guards was seated with his back to her. He was at a table crowded with strange glowing boxes, flickering screens with moving images.

  Esther was moving as carefully as she could; but her meager weight caused the metal beneath her to buckle, making a loud noise. The guard swiveled around in his chair, his hand on the club at his waist; and she froze.

  There was silence.

  “Damn rats,” he said. Then he returned to the bank of monitors.

  Esther eased her way back to the central passageway. She thought of her promise to Caleb and was filled with despair. Precious time was slipping away and yet she could not go any faster, trapped as she was in the dark. All she could do was keep going. She was not even sure what she was looking for: an empty basement room, she supposed, with an unguarded door so she could again make her way to the main floor, where Kai was kept.

  Another passageway branched off to the left and when Esther turned onto it, she saw that it too ended in a dimly lit grating. She assumed it would also be a room with a guard and was about to continue on, when something made her hesitate.

  Look with new eyes. To assume anything is foolish.

  She turned to the left, making certain to distribute her weight over the flimsy metal. When she was close enough, she glanced through the grating.

  What she saw made her heart skip a beat.

  Below her was the baby.

  He was sleeping on a purple blanket surrounded by a small wooden pen. There was a jumble of toys scattered around him, obviously new; their bright colors and childish designs clashed with the industrial setting, the gray cement floor and painted brick walls.

  Kai had been moved here recently. If there was a guard, he was most likely posted outside the room.

  Esther grabbed the metal grating with both hands and attempted to shove it. It didn’t budge. She tried again, to no avail. She would need to work it loose, although it was a risky process; with each movement, she could feel the thin passageway sway and bend beneath her.

  Esther began to rock the grid back and forth, again and again. At first, it was as if she was trying to tease a full-grown tree out of the earth with her bare hands. But soon she felt it starting to give way. Bits of ancient brick began to crumble from the constant friction of metal screws; she could hear them raining down on the ground below.

  Esther was able to push out, as hard as she could. The grid gave way, just as part of the passageway collapsed beneath her legs.

  When she landed on her feet, still clutching the grating, she saw that the child was now awake. He stood clinging to the side of his pen, two of his fingers in his mouth, staring at her.

  Esther reached over the side of his pen and lifted him. She had only seen a few babies in her life and had never held one before; Kai was soft and warm and surprisingly heavy, so much so that she nearly dropped him. She tried to carry him face up, across her arms, but he didn’t seem to like that; he began to fuss and struggled to sit upright. Finally, she found a position that suited them both, with him perched on her hip, his face close to hers.

  “Garrrh,” he said, reaching out to grab her chin.

  Esther knew she must get him out of the Source, and yet she could not help herself. She closed her eyes for a moment to better feel the touch of his tiny, soft hands as they explored her filthy face. She found she was enchanted by this mysterious little being, this baby.

  The boy looked like Caleb: He had the same dark hair and the same hazel eyes. And yet, there were subtle differences: his rounded chin. His forehead. He probably took after his mother as well, Esther thought with a pang. Yet instead of being jealous of her, she was surprised by the pity she felt for the dead girl, as well as a strange sense of connection.

  In the meanwhile, Kai had seized the string to her hood and was attempting to suck on it.

  “Don’t do that,” admonished Esther; “it’s dirty.”

  Then it occurred to her that he might be hungry. It would be too risky trying to escape with a fretful child, she reasoned; his cries would alert the guards. Looking around, she noticed an untouched bowl of rice in his pen. As she stooped to pick it up, he was already reaching for it, grabbing at the cereal with both fists and pasting it onto his face.

  “Slow down,” Esther whispered. Then she made a decision.

  Feeding him would only take a minute or two. Once they were on their way, she would give him more food from the meager supplies she had remembered to pack in her bag.

  She had thought of all things, except one.

  The security camera in the corner of the room.

  There was a loud bang, and Michal screamed.

  But it was only the sound of a bottle being opened, a bottle of rare and special wine that fizzed and bubbled when exposed to the air. Levi had read once that champagne was traditionally used by kings and generals for centuries to celebrate important victories; and he had long saved several bottles unearthed during a Gleaning for a moment such as this. For he had never felt more like a king than he did today.

  Levi had won everything he wanted.

  He had conquered his despised brother while visiting revenge on the ghost
s of their parents. He had found an heir, a healthy boy tied to him by blood, whom he would raise to succeed him as ruler of all he had created. The townspeople were out of the way, for good. Levi was only seventeen; he had at least two good years left. Maybe he could live even longer now that he had found clean, drinkable water in Prin, where none had existed for decades. Who knew what he would be able to accomplish in that time?

  And it was all due to his singular vision, his perseverance, his strength; you might say it was because of his genius. Such an occasion called for a momentous celebration, one he had thought hard about and planned accordingly.

  There was only one detail left to attend to.

  As Michal carried the champagne away from his office to pour it into special glasses, Levi watched her go. Earlier, he had ordered her to apply her makeup with extra care and selected which clothing she should wear: tight, colorful clothing that accentuated her figure. She had never looked better, he thought to himself.

  It was almost a pity.

  When she returned with the drinks on a silver tray (Danish sterling, from a Gleaning), she looked flushed and expectant. She offered him a heavy glass goblet that sparkled with rainbow facets (Austrian lead crystal), then set the tray down on his desk.

  “To the future,” he said, raising his goblet.

  “To the future,” she replied, her eyes lowered.

  They clinked glasses, and he knocked back his drink in one swallow. He had never tasted champagne before; the bubbles gave the wine a remarkable airiness, a tingling sweetness, that made him shiver.

  “I could get a taste for this,” he remarked.

  Michal giggled. She was about to raise her own glass when Levi stared at her.

  “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,” he said. “I have a little present I’d like to give you.”

  He reached into a drawer. Without taking his eyes off her, he pulled out something that he tossed onto the desk between them.

  It was a filthy piece of cloth. Michal leaned forward, smiling if puzzled, to examine it. Levi was amused to watch her jerk back in terror when she realized what it was.

  It was Caleb’s shirt—stiff and blackened with his blood, and torn in two places where the arrow had broken his skin.

  “I can explain,” she stammered. All of the color had drained from her face. But Levi ignored her.

  “I searched your room,” he said. “You weren’t there, of course.” He was watching her, studying with almost clinical interest the open expressions of terror, denial, and helpless defiance that played across her pretty features. “This was stuffed under a corner of your mattress.”

  “I . . . I don’t know how it got there,” she mumbled.

  Levi smiled. “I suppose you were waiting for an opportune moment to dispose of it,” he suggested. “Unless you were keeping it as a souvenir of your good deed?”

  Two dots of red appeared in Michal’s pale cheeks; and she flashed a look at him that was strangely confrontational.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked in a low voice.

  Levi rocked back in his chair. “I’ve given that quite a bit of thought,” he said, as he drew on first one, then a second leather glove. He sounded as if he was talking about the weather or what to order for dinner. “I could, of course, have you banished, or killed. But those are too general, too common. No, I wanted a punishment that would really suit you.”

  He bent down to pick something up from the ground beside him. It was a square metal canister with an open spout. Before Michal had a moment to react, he hurled its contents into her face.

  She let out a high-pitched shriek and jumped to her feet as clear liquid dripped down her front and splattered her clothing. Wherever it landed, the bright colors instantly dissolved and started to run in long streaks.

  Levi made a gesture and two guards materialized on either side of Michal. She was clawing at her face, screaming in a voice that seemed more animal than human.

  “Industrial-strength lye,” Levi remarked. “The label says it dissolves fatty acids, which makes it wonderfully effective for cleaning a place as big as the Source. But it’s a little hard on human skin.”

  He followed as Michal was dragged, shrieking, through the halls of the Source. He watched as one of the guards activated the machinery that raised the giant metal door. The girl was shoved outside into the glaring heat of the day. She fell to the dusty ground and crouched there, still clutching her face, rocking back and forth in agony.

  With a nod, Levi dismissed his guards. Even he had the desire to keep some things private.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “It may burn for a while, but you’ll almost certainly survive. As for your pretty face . . . well, I’m afraid that’s another matter. I’m not sure who’s going to want to look at you very closely again.”

  He turned to go but was unexpectedly stopped.

  “At least I’ll be in better shape than you,” Michal said.

  Her voice sounded hoarse and ravaged, either from the lye or her screams; it was hard to tell. Levi looked back down at her.

  “How’s that?”

  “Your drink,” she said. “I put rainwater in it.”

  Levi froze. Then he attempted to laugh it off.

  “Did you hear me?” she said, raising her voice. “I been saving it up. I put it in when I poured the drinks. That’s why I didn’t have any. I put rainwater in your wine, Levi. You’re a dead man.”

  Levi was walking away from her, walking fast, before breaking into a run. Behind him, her voice rose to an unholy shriek.

  “You’re dead!”

  But he was already inside the Source, stumbling to get to the controls to lower the door, to shut out her voice. He could not accept what she had said. After all he had accomplished and what he looked forward to doing in the next few years, it could not be true.

  It must not.

  And in fact, it wasn’t.

  Driven by shock and pain and on the spur of the moment, Michal had blurted out the one thing that she knew would hurt him the most. More than anyone, she was aware of Levi’s terror of both water and the sun. Now she could only hope that her lie would spread unchecked throughout his body and mind, weakening both almost as effectively as the poison he so feared.

  It was not much, but it was her last and only way to retaliate.

  Michal got to her feet and stood, swaying, her hands still pressed to her face. Every movement was sheer torture. She realized she had nothing left in the world: no home or shelter, not one possession or a single friend. She had no idea where to go, but one thing was certain.

  It would be far from the town of Prin.

  Inside, as the door of the Source rumbled to the ground, a guard ran up to Levi. “There’s been another security violation,” he said. “The camera caught the thief with the baby.”

  Levi felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

  “Are they still on the premises?” he asked. For the second time in his life, he found himself trembling violently.

  The guard nodded. “They’re still down there,” he said.

  Levi nodded. Without a word, he took off at a run.

  He had received a death sentence. That he understood abstractly, as if it were happening to someone else. Yet even while the full truth had yet to sink in, he felt more alive than ever, his nerve endings and his mind surging as they responded to this latest threat.

  All he knew was that there was only one thing left in the world with any value, and it was about to be taken away from him.

  Levi could not trust the others to do his work for him. He could not depend on anyone who was not his equal; they were full of envy and would only look for ways to cheat and betray him. He was foolish to have taken in Michal, he understood that now, to have shown her any sort of kindness or generosity; for she repaid him like the animal she was. And now, he had to take matters into his own hands if he was to protect his new son and heir and only legacy.

  He must save the child. />
  When Esther heard the door burst open behind her, she whirled around with Kai still in her arms. Levi stood in the open doorway, staring at the two of them.

  For a fleeting moment, she could see the resemblance to his younger brother. But unlike Caleb, Levi had hair that was swept back from his paper-white forehead, and his eyes glittered like black stars. Right now, he was cooing, saying strange things as he approached.

  “Don’t be frightened,” he said. “Everything is going to be all right.”

  Esther realized with a sickening lurch that he was talking to Kai and she tightened her hold on him. She tried to dart past Levi to the open door, but he slashed out at her. She had not noticed the knife he carried and the blade barely missed her arm.

  “Esther,” he said, recognizing her.

  He sounded pleased, as if he had just run into a familiar face at a boring gathering, and his smile seemed genuine. “It’s been such a long time. You were just a little girl when I knew your sister, Sarah. You’ve grown up very nicely. But you’ll have to hand him over to me. You know that, don’t you?”

  Esther shook her head and backed up. She needed to stay free of his reach without allowing herself to get cornered. But Kai was restless and growing heavy in her arms. As Levi drew closer to them, she stumbled on a toy, nearly falling.

  “I had some good news today,” continued Levi, in a strange, absent tone. “Exceptional news, in fact. I discovered water. Fresh, drinkable water, bubbling up from the ground. But I need my son.” He sounded so plaintive, so reasonable. “I need him to help me celebrate. What good is it when you have good news and no one to celebrate with?”

  With a start, Esther realized that she must do more than merely react to Levi, backing away from his advances. At the moment, he was behaving in an odd and distracted fashion, but it would be foolish to underestimate him. The open door lay at an equal distance between the two of them. If she could engage with him, she could perhaps distract him enough so she could escape with Kai.

  “Don’t you have friends?” she managed to say.

  Levi chuckled. “You mean my employees?”