*
True to Flynn’s speculation, night on Oma proved inexhaustible. Enough time had passed for two evening’s rests, and even after the sun rose, it was hours more before it got high enough to brighten Bolni’s roads. He set out alone, leaving the others to recuperate and in Chari’s case, practice, for she was already setting up more targets when he left.
There were exit passages all around Bolni, and Flynn spent most of the day exploring routes that wrapped along the city’s circumference to find them. Previously, Flynn had thought some barrier had been breached, and that the wildlife now occupying the city had come in that way. He found, as far as he was willing to spelunk, that there were no gates or checkpoints and that the creatures within the city limits could come and go as they pleased from any direction.
From Bolni’s streets, even with the poor sunlight, Flynn had a better sense of the stone net they had traversed. Contrary to his expectations, there were no fixtures binding it to the planet’s surface other than the terrain itself, and it seemed that it was a natural phenomenon, and not something manmade. The towering stairway they had descended proved valuable as an anchoring point, allowing Flynn to keep his bearings in a vast city whose buildings often looked so much alike.
Were he back on Earth, the day would have been more than half spent by the time he crossed the city. Oma’s sun hung in the slow creep of early morning when he reached the far wall and felt the faintest tug. A nearby passage seemed at first to go in the right direction, but quickly began to wrap away from the sensation, and was just one of many tunnels that warped in unexpected directions.
In the time it took for noon to pass, Flynn had paused his search to hunt and rest. Unwilling to chance being caught on the streets when night fell, he began his return when a sign captured his attention. Though the words inscribed upon it made no more sense than anything he’d seen since leaving Earth, the accompanying pictographs told of a subterranean passage.
Satisfied, Flynn began the walk to reconvene with his companions. The passage had led to a subway station, whose purposeful tunnels offered more certainty than Oma’s subterranean formations. The walk back was more tedious than the departure had been; he hadn’t spent so much time alone—truly alone—in so long. Without the commotion and company he’d become used to, his mind wandered.
For a moment, he saw Rebecca Saul by his side. She wasn’t really there, of course. She wasn’t dressed for the cold; she wasn’t breathing out steam like he was. She was a memory, one that crept in without invitation, the same as the voices he’d heard in the Inquisitor’s chambers. Even so, Rebecca walked with Flynn, keeping pace, waiting for something to say.
He hadn’t meant to let her in, and Flynn quickly shook her off and doubled his pace. He returned before nightfall to friends who were still living and firm and informed them of his findings. It was not quite morning when they agreed to move on, filling their supplies and taking a bundle of makeshift torches cut from tightly wrapped vines. They were rested, and none wanted to wait any longer.
Feral beasts followed them, eyes alight with silver in the thickest shade. Still, none came near, perhaps wary of the greenish flame flickering from the torch Flynn held aloft, perhaps wary of Flynn himself. At the other edge of town, they found places colder still, where the fog from their own breath momentarily blinded with each exhale.
Flynn led his allies to the subterranean station, whose last train rested alone on the tracks, forgotten after some form of mechanical failure. It showed no sign of being lived in, and the metal doors had been pried open. They passed through the train cars in single file, exiting out the front and hopping down to the tracks, which served to guide them on their way. At times, the ceiling opened and they could see the night sky above, where the only discernable difference from their home planets was the placement of the stars. Most of the falling snow stuck to the walls or wafted aside into small passages above them. Chari paused for a moment, to wipe a flake that had landed just beneath her eye.
“I’ve begun to realize,” she shared, “that the distance from my home is measured in more than months or miles. I was never prepared for any life but that which I knew … even now, I find this imposing.”
“Yer gonna get used to it,” Mack said, patting her on the back. “Just give it time.”
“The sentiment, though heartfelt, falls flat from one who adapts so easily.”
“I adapt?” If their trek above was any indication, Mack alone was untroubled by this chilling climate. Yet he dismissed the claim with, “Naw. I don’t do that.”
“Give ‘im some slack, okay?” Jean cut in, as politely as she could.
Flynn and Chari both looked to Mack for an explanation. Sighing, Mack absentmindedly slid up his own sleeve, massaging one of the nerve clusters on his arm.
“Anyone here gots an older brother?” No one responded. “None of ya? Nope? Hmm …” Mack seemed amused, as if his analogy was about to fall flat. But he went on. “Okay, so stick with me then, ‘cause funny enough, I’m also an only child, but it’s also kinda like I do—the older brother thing, I mean. Before the going even gets tough, the guy steps in. Makes me strong, keeps me warm, keeps the hurt away.”
“I’m envious,” Chari said with a shiver.
“Oh, no! No, no, no,” Mack shook his head and hands in rejection. Bunching up his sleeve and exposing his arm, he pulled tightly at the skin from below. There was barely any muscle to speak of, making his rare feats of strength all the more astounding. “You see this? 98 pounds of grade-A American skin and bones! And that’s all I’ve got! I can’t get anymore!”
Flynn caught on. “I think I get it. At any time, you can be strong. Or fast. Or sturdy. But you can never be strong and fast and sturdy.”
“That’s it! You can—if you try. I can’t.”
“Oh.” Chari considered this, then shied away beneath her shawl. “I’ve embarrassed myself.”
After this, Mack tried to cheer her up and let her know there were no bad feelings, but it took a while to pull her back from her shell. Flynn pondered their unique and valuable talents, considering the physical toll that each of them paid. Chari could close wounds, but her pain had to be internalized—and it was something any of her people could do. Traits like those that Jean, Mack, and Flynn possessed had made them all pariahs.
The journey went on, and at times the road began to veer too far off course and Flynn would make them pause, sometimes doubling back alone and at others rerouting the whole group.
“D’ya even know where you’re going?” Jean asked, huffing uphill back along an icy path they had just come down.
“Not really,” Flynn said. “We’ve never been here, I don’t know the routes and the way from Oma is still too distant to be certain. All I can do is follow it like the North Star and get closer, little by little.”
*
Two Omati days passed. The only life they saw was wild, traveling most often in packs, thundering through the tunnels without fear of what lay ahead of them. Though these creatures were not hunting, they would not hesitate to rip apart and feed on anything that had the misfortune of being in their pathway—so the bloody streaks frozen in the icy walk indicated.
Lesser creatures appeared along the way—among them woolen, herbivorous mammals with stubby legs and long bodies that allowed them to keep steady on the ice while their flexible necks nipped at the green blossoming from the cracks and vents. Water was still being funneled through pipes here, hot and fresh from somewhere unknown to an equally mysterious destination. It was the first sign that human life persisted.
The creatures spooked easily, knowing well the predators that charged through the tunnels. On their second day, Chari shot one in the leg, but it still managed to run, hobbling quickly away. Flynn broke from the group, hunting it for nearly ten minutes and taking another thirty to haul it back.
Unused to these cycles of day and night, the party moved at their own pace. Where the cavernous passages gave way to sky, the way was co
ldest. During the day, at least, these ways sometimes helped conserve torches. Yet when night fell, these same places could be hell to cross, for the cold and wind never let up. By the time they came to an intersection where working lights ran in both directions, they had lost all sense of orientation to where they’d started. This was the most concrete proof of life yet found, for while electric lamps had occasionally cropped up along the way, most were dead or flickering and had obviously not been maintained for some time.
Upon seeing the lit tunnel, it was Jean and Mack who ran in first, where Flynn played caution and Chari’s curiosity kept her at bay—she had not yet seen a properly working lamp, and a whole row was almost too much. When the four came together again, the road split in two rigid and opposing ways, both lit. Flynn looked to the left, where the path sloped low before straightening again. Whatever was beyond lay out of sight.
“So, which way, fearless leader?” Mack asked.
“Right.” Flynn said, turning away from the sloping path. The pull was stronger that way, which happened to be clear and lit for some distance, and he prepared to take the first step—
Crunch. Crunch.
“Flynn?”
It wasn’t loud, but someone’s boots traipsed through distant snow. Downhill, on the path he’d rejected—
“What in the—?!”
Slick, black, and segmented a hundred times over, something massive slipped through the dark recesses beneath the pipes that lined the cavern wall, catching Flynn unaware. It reared up quickly, heaving all its weight upon him. Hundreds of suckers tried to clamp onto him as an orifice in the center convulsed in preparation.
Sacrificing the strength of one arm and allowing the thing closer still, Flynn felt it clasp at his forearm, desperate to suck more skin. Shoving the lips of its orifice away, he shunted to one side as best he could, as something acidic belched forth, a few drops burning through his shirt and into his skin.
“GET OFFA HIM, FUCKER!”
Jean began bludgeoning it with her mace. Whether the thing was hurting, Flynn didn’t know, but Jean’s strikes seemed to pass right through to his arm, which would end up bruised, if not broken. The black curtain was falling. Mack’s feet leapt from Flynn’s line of vision, and his gangly weight was upon the creature, causing Flynn’s arm to nearly buckle from the strain. In small mercy, Mack was thrown aside by the attacker’s rubbery flesh, rolling to one side before giving Flynn a small wave.
“How’s it goin’?”
Flynn punched against his foe to little effect and, amidst all the chaos, he saw Chari preparing to open fire and struggled to shout, “Don’t shoot it!” Her limited skill and the leech’s pliable flesh made it more likely that her bullets would strike Flynn himself than cause any real damage to the predator upon him.
Turning his attention once more to creature, it had at least exhausted the bile it had spewed atop him. The heat of it still burned beneath his arm, which now fought not only the creature above, but also the burning pool on the floor below. A few suckers had clasped on already and he could feel his blood being drawn through them. His claws were out—that had been the easy part. But he had no opportunity, lacking the purchase to deliver the strike that might drive it back, or even the room to twist his hand and plunge his talons deep. Well-meaning friends beat the leech to no effect, only pushing it deeper onto him. Mack tried to tug it aside, but found nothing to grip.
“No more helping! Back up!” Flynn ordered, as its flesh continued to weigh him down, conforming against his body.
“The fuck you say?!” Jean was clearly offended at being bossed around by someone she was trying to save.
An order sounded out from a new voice. “Out of the way! Now!”
The footsteps he’d heard before no longer shuffled. They were running. Quickly. Toward them. On his other side appeared a pair of shiny black boots hurrying closer, and Jean and Mack both dodged out of the way.
“Hey!” Jean was both offended and ignored.
“And you,” the rescuer—a teenage girl—shouted, “GET OFF!” She grunted, cracking a whip in the air.
To his right, Flynn saw the end of a leather cord wrapping around his assaulter’s massive body. Sadistic brambles were woven into the weapon’s length. The leech merely twitched when the weapon lay into it. It convulsed, however, recoiling from Flynn just a little when she pulled back on her lash, raking the brambles across its width, ravaging its flesh as she went.
Flynn found his chance. Convulsing, the monster found some residual bile, but its victim had already moved, had already grabbed at its side and sunk claws deep into its pliant flesh, then pulled free and rolled out of the way as the thing flopped to the ground with the loud smack of flesh against stone. Tumbling into a crouched position, Flynn’s rescuer did not let up.
“Get out of here! Go away!” she ordered, whipping the creature again and again, lacerating its flesh. Mack was a bit wide-eyed at the display, while Jean gave a sort of sickly smirk of approval. Chari, standing behind Flynn, might have been horrified, if not for the scenes she’d witnessed in Cordom’s execution square. Six more times the girl lashed, until the creature had finally gotten the hint that it was not welcome and began snaking back into the hole it had crawled from.
“Go! Out of here!” she demanded repeatedly. One final lash came down with an exhausted utterance of, “Get.”
Flynn stood up with that. Slowly, beaten. Chari touched his shoulder, ready to treat his hand, but there was little to do for lost blood and punctured flesh other than let it come back its own way. He was more concerned with his rescuer.
“I owe you,” he said, approaching the girl.
She was hunched over, panting heavily. Clad as she was, he could make out almost nothing about her. She was bundled in a heavy coat and pants, and Flynn was impressed that she moved as well as she did. Her gloves were thick, her boots thicker, and she’d wrapped her head in a fur scarf over a cap. There was little doubt she had traveled far, as evidenced by the satchel of belongings on her back, which she deliberately slipped off and let fall to the ground.
“Water,” was her solitary, winded order.
“Would … would that be your name?” Chari asked dumbly, but Flynn had caught her meaning. Kneeling, he rifled through her belongings, which were not so different from theirs. A warm bottle was mixed in, and he drew it out and handed it up to her. The rich magenta eyes that looked back at him showed her thanks, even as her breath began to slow in relief. But there was more, and he saw it all over her face even before he and she both stood up. The scarf wrapped around her head unraveled and fell to the ground, the cap dropping next.
“Hey, Flynn-o? She’s—”
“You’re blue,” he told her, as surprised as his friends.
She was younger than any of them, her face a little round, and cute. Her hair was a darker blue than her skin, which was nearest to the color of the sky, or at least the sky that any of them knew. Unscrewing the bottle cap, a cloud of steam erupted from the bottle as the girl drank deeply. Her hair, which she wore in a short bob cut, was ruffled, and she brushed it back with her free hand.
Winded, but calming, she replied. “I’m … I’m always blue.” Flynn felt from her look that it was he who was colored strangely. “So why aren’t you?”
Chapter Eleven: Useless Persons
Flynn wasted no time crafting lies regarding who they were or where they were from. In truth, there were none readily at hand, the visible differences between the girl’s vibrantly blue skin and their fairer tones too great to plug with a few cunning words. The fact stood that neither side seemed comfortable approaching the issue. An awkward silence and a shuffling of feet passed between the lot—save Mack, who looked at the others as if wondering what was so strange about all this.
But it was strange.
It was strange to Flynn, to look at this girl and see her as something so alien, knowing she saw him the same way too. It was as strange for her, though something deep in her magenta eyes to
ld him that she recognized an innate humanity in them all, even knowing just the same that they stood apart.
“Sooo … okay then,” the blue girl turned to the ascending path. “Good luck.” She refastened her scarf tightly around her face and went on, as though the encounter had never happened.
“Aren’t we—?” Jean asked Flynn, confused and gesturing in the direction the girl had gone.
“We are.” He nodded. Their rescuer had only gained a little ground when they set off in the same direction as she. The thin layer of snow crunched under their feet, and the girl ahead stopped and turned back.
“Are you following me?” she asked, suddenly intimidated.
“Far from it,” Chari told her. “Rather, your destination is en route to ours.” Uncertain, she looked to Flynn, “Or is it counterwise?”
“I’m headed to Kana,” the blue girl replied. “It’s a mining city, roughly a day’s travel from—well, where I started. Where did you come from, and … where are you going?”
“Well—!” Mack began. Jean, thinking fast, covered his mouth before we’re visitors, from the planet Earth! or some variation thereof could escape. Their situation sounded absurd enough without hearing it described like that.
“We’ve come from far away,” Flynn told the girl, “and we’re just passing through. To another place, as far from here.”
Left with that, the girl contemplated and nodded, seeming to understand. “I’ll thank you then, for not patronizing me with some obvious fib.” Though most of her face was covered, the shifting of her cheeks, the look of her eyes—all told that she was smiling. Reaching out, she placed her hand on his upper arm, rubbing it for warmth. “I’m Zaja. Zaja DeSarah.”
Imitating her gesture, Flynn introduced himself and the others in kind. With names and a few more words exchanged, Zaja became more at ease, pulling her scarf down and showing a gray-toothed grin. The ease she displayed faded as she looked to the long road ahead. The tunnel’s vanishing point was a great distance away, and though Flynn could not see the path’s end, he knew the route departing Oma was somewhere beyond it.
Outcasts of the Worlds Page 24
