This time, Selena felt no urge to join in.
A group of skinny marcados bearing Todd’s sigil swept through the ring scooping up coins, after which Mary took the stage. Her contrast to Eleanor and Theodora in bearing and dress was stark. She wore loose-fitting pants of thick worsted cotton and a leather vest bound shut with rawhide ties. She proffered no glimpses of flesh below her neckline save for her bare arms, which bulged with utilitarian muscle. A brass gauntlet clung to her right wrist, morphing her arm into a kind of battering ram. She performed a few quick curls with it to limber up as her opponent entered the ring.
Calling him an opponent was, Selena felt, putting it charitably. He staggered into place with support from two burly guards, each of whom had locked an elbow beneath his shoulder. The so-called fighter’s feet wriggled in a crude approximation of locomotion, etching a meandering path of zigzags in the dirt. It was the sort of simulated walking one saw from marionettes in the hands of unskilled puppeteers. His right forearm ended in a wad of crudely-wrapped gauze, masking the stump where his hand had been recently severed. Purple veins bulged beneath raw, red skin. Sweat glazed his cheeks and forehead, and his dull green irises gazed out blearily from a thicket of bloodshot capillaries.
The guards let go of the man and gave him a quick shove in Mary’s direction. He took three lurching steps and somehow managed to find his feet. The crowd showered him in ironic praise.
Mary moved in a competent boxer’s stance, her right hand hanging slightly low from the gauntlet’s weight. Her opponent embraced no such formality. He swung wildly with his remaining hand, delivering a swat-cum-karate chop that Mary deflected effortlessly. She faked with the gauntlet, and her opponent crossed his arms instinctively over his face, freeing her to hurl a few quick, brutal jabs to his undefended solar plexus. He bent forward, spewing a mist of sour, bloody air from his evacuated lungs. Mary threw a right cross. The gauntlet struck his face with a hollow crack. He staggered, arms flapping, and only just managed to retain his balance. Mary shuffled forward, her boxer’s stance maintained despite its obvious lack of necessity.
Selena recalled Mary’s phrasing from when they’d first met, the division of Todd’s marcado into beauties and bruisers. She’d taken the categories as flippant or oversimplified, but they cut far closer to the truth’s ugly core than she’d realized. Was this her future now? A choice between being a seminude drool-catcher or a carnivalesque implement of corporal punishment? Not that she was likely to get even that much choice, considering her missing ear and less-than-buxom frame. She touched the spot on her cheek where Todd’s mark sank into her skin, an inky chain with endless slack that could be yoked tight in an instant.
Mary’s fight ended when she broke the prisoner’s jaw. She left amidst the applause, which seemed less for her than for the pain she’d inflicted on her opponent. The crowd jeered and hurled bits of garbage at his prostrate body as manacled servants dragged it from the ring. Two men entered, and the spectacle resumed its more traditional course. The fighters moved with the same savage grace as the men who’d preceded them, but Selena took no pleasure from the display. She shouldered her way along the row and clambered down to the underpass that allowed performers in and out of the arena floor. Mary and the girls spotted her just as they passed the archway where the tunnel met the stands. She waved.
“There you are. You catch the show?”
“Uh huh.”
“How was it?”
“Not what I expected.”
Mary shrugged. “There’s worse out there, believe me.” She motioned past the archway to the Iron Circle with a nod, where several men were erecting a wooden scaffold. A timber beam rose from the platform, supporting a braced L bend from which hung a pair of metal pulleys. A stout rope threaded the mechanism, ending at one end in a noose.
Two burly men stepped into the ring, lugging between them a thin and wretched marcado. Dark rings circled the prisoner’s eyes. Manacles bound his hands behind his back. His thin feet scraped reluctantly over the hardpan, half stepping and half dangling. The two guards carried him impassively along, indifferent to whether he walked or dragged. He gazed up at the crowd like a rabbit in an empty field, head snapping from side to side as he surveyed the convocation of eagles circling overhead. His skin blanched beneath the crosshatched yellow-black bars blotting his cheeks.
“You wanna know why marcados don’t run away?” Mary asked. “Just watch this guy.”
“He ran?”
“And killed one of the cazadores who tried to bring him in, to boot.” Mary shook her head, lips pursed in sympathy. “Poor bastard.”
An impresario in garish clothes addressed the crowd. Selena understood none of what he said, but it was clear from his gestures that he was detailing the marcado’s various transgressions. As he spoke, the two guards lowered the noose and fixed it around the marcado’s neck. The marcado struggled, but there seemed little fight left in him and a few smacks set him to whimpering acquiescence. The larger guard unhitched the rope from its metal cleat and pulled. The noose cinched tight, pulling the marcado to his tiptoes, where he struggled for balance. His pale face grew red and shiny with strain. He remained that way as the impresario finished his pronouncement, flourishing his hands like a stage magician. The second guard grabbed the rope, and the two of them hoisted the marcado aloft. His legs kicked wildly, probing in vain for purchase. His mouth flapped open and shut with the loose-lipped idiocy of a fish on dry land.
He remained like that, wheezing through a pinhole esophagus, while the impresario strolled to the Iron Circle’s border and collected a peculiar weapon from a pair of waiting attendants. It resembled a scythe, but with a stouter and more rounded blade. A tight wrapping of leather thongs formed a handle near its bottom. The impresario hefted the weapon, spun it a few times in his nimble fingers, and approached the choking marcado. He bowed ceremoniously, raised the weapon and in a single smooth motion drew the blade downward, carving a gash from solar plexus to groin. He added a second perpendicular cut above the hips, forming an inverted T shape, and stepped back as the loosed offal spilled from the marcado’s filleted belly.
The marcado’s wheezing took on a raspy, retching quality. His legs kicked more fiercely at first, then hardly at all. A stink of blood and ichor wafted through the auditorium, dampening the applause and driving the nearest spectators from their seats. The rest stayed to watch his spams before gradually growing bored and filtering out into the surrounding streets. Selena turned from the spectacle. Mary caught her eye with a slight bob of her head.
“You’re here for keeps, pal,” she said. “Best get used to it.”
Selena’s gaze remained fixed on the stage. She heard rather than saw Mary removing her brass gauntlet, marking the snap of clasps unfastening, the rustle-flutter of its leather strap unbuckling, the near-silent whine of its hinges swinging open. She turned from the Iron Circle and watched as Mary unwound a strip of maroon cotton padding from around her forearm.
“Okay, so it wasn’t that pretty. Neither is life. What’d you expect?”
“More or less what I saw, I guess,” Selena admitted.
“Exactly. It’s a tough old world out there. Faces are gonna get punched in no matter what you do about it. And personally, I’d rather be the one doing the punching than getting the pounding.”
Mary finished unwrapping the padding. She held it to her face and sniffed, her nose wrinkling at the sour smell of it—an odor Selena’s nose could catch from ten feet away. She threw it aside and began rubbing the feeling back into her forearm. Eleanor and Theodora appeared from a nearby alcove, their stage attire replaced with shapeless dresses that made them look almost childlike. They chatted with Mary in Mejise for a minute before remembering that Selena couldn’t understand them.
“Sorry,” Theodora said through an embarrassed smile. “I am at the Llanures not so good.”
“It’s okay,” Selena said. “Go on.” In truth, she didn’t feel much
like talking. She preferred to be alone with her thoughts, as unpleasant as they were. Now that she had a free moment to look beyond her immediate predicament, her mind turned once again to Simon. She feared for him far more than for herself, a position that was part selflessness and part arrogance. If it came down to it, she truly believed she’d trade her life for his, but she likewise believed that she handled hardship far better than he ever could, and so leaned into it with a bitter sort of pride. She preferred to ignore the latter fact, as it wasn’t terribly flattering, but she couldn’t erase it. It was an essential component of the equation that governed her actions.
A single sharp handclap brought her back from her thoughts and silenced the chatter between Mary and the other girls. Trejo stood in the doorway, his face exhibiting an impatience that Selena was beginning to think was simply his default expression.
“Enough nattering. Your work in the Circle is done for the day, and Mr. Todd is entertaining. He expects you to present yourself immediately. Wear your best things, and don’t dawdle. Our coach leaves in thirty minutes.” He repeated most of this in Mejise, as the first pass had clearly been for Selena’s benefit.
“What’s Selena supposed to wear?” Mary asked. “She ain’t gonna fit into Theodora or Eleanor’s stuff, and I’ve only got the one dress.”
“Have no fear,” Trejo said. “I have spoken with our tailor. He will take her measure in good time, but for now, he’s sorted something that will work just fine.” At this, he turned to Selena and smiled.
Somehow, good cheer made his ugly face even uglier.
14: A Touch of Intuition
The broth was well-seasoned and savory despite its leanness, but Simon couldn’t enjoy it. Guilt soured every bite. Could he really eat these people’s food while their crops failed and the desert closed around them? Without irrigation, not even the greenest of thumbs could coax crops from such blighted soil. They would need every scrap of pulse and grain to sustain them, and here was Simon, chipping away at those vital stores one spoonful at a time.
I’ll make it up to them, he assured himself. I’ll fix their irrigator. Once that’s running, they’ll have all the food they can eat.
Assuming he had correctly identified the problem.
Assuming Emily could find the parts he needed.
Assuming something else more irreparable hadn’t gone wrong.
Assuming the water table hadn’t receded beyond the machine’s intake.
Assuming the crops weren’t too desiccated to save.
Assuming the weather cooperated.
Around and around the thoughts swirled, a closed loop of anxiety feeding on itself, gathering speed. Simon shook his head briskly, knocking himself free of its tracks. He took a spoonful of soup from his bowl. His anguish must have shown on his face, for Otis smiled apologetically across the coals of the cooking fire.
“It ain’t much, I know. But it’ll keep you going.”
“What? No! It’s good.” Simon shoveled in a mouthful, wincing as the hot broth burned his tongue. “I was just thinking of something else.”
Otis nodded. “Wish I could say more to comfort you. Juarez is a hard place. Sounds like your sister’s a survivor, though. Could be she’ll make out alright.” His eyes dropped to the embers as he spoke.
“If anyone can, she will,” he agreed, expressing more confidence than he felt. He shifted his weight, and the data stick dug painfully into his thigh. The weight of his responsibility was an almost physical thing, a lead sinker chained to his innards. How could something of such incalculable importance be entrusted to him? Selena was its rightful bearer. Simon was an assistant at best; at worst, he was dead weight. He was utterly lost without her. He might as well toss the data stick in the nearest hole and be done with it. It’s not as if he could ever make it to the Far Sea on his own.
Otis’ eyes snapped to a fixed point on the horizon. His body stiffened. The bowl of his spoon hung inches from his lips. He set it back in the bowl uneaten and stood, skinny legs creaking on their hunger-stiff joints. Simon tried to follow his gaze but could see nothing for several seconds, until a tiny figure appeared over the lip of the canyon. How Otis had presaged her arrival, whether by subtle cues in the environment or the strange entanglement of father and child, Simon couldn’t say.
She clambered down the canyon’s steep cliff face, descending with light-footed hops despite the large sack she held over one shoulder. It gave a pendular lurch to either side with her every step. Watching her made Simon’s stomach lunge in sympathy, but though the weight looked considerable, Emily didn’t seem to notice it at all. She reached the canyon floor with a final jump and jogged over to Otis.
“I think I got everything,” she said.
“Really?” Simon asked. His list had been expansive and padded with wishful thinking. He’d really only counted on the wire and a couple of simple components she could scavenge from broken pre-War electronics, items he’d highlighted as essential.
“I think so. I mean, I didn’t know what the stuff was exactly, but your drawings helped a lot.” She opened the bag and held it out for inspection.
Simon rifled through the sack’s contents and gingerly removed a coil of copper wire. It was pristine, machine wrapped on its original spindle, its nonconductive jacket glossy and unbroken. Never before had he seen such fine material—even in New Canaan, where metallurgy had been rediscovered with modest competence, new wire was a rough and patchy product, its lengths warbling between gauges and looped around spindles by hand.
Emily studied Simon’s expression. “Is it okay?”
“Who made this?” Simon asked. “Where did you get it?”
Emily looked to Otis, who paused a moment before asking his own question. “Do you think it’ll do the job?”
“I’ll have to see what all is in here,” Simon said, taking the sack. “But it’s a good sign.”
He spread an old blanket out over the ground near the irrigator and set about itemizing the sack’s contents. He removed each piece, studied it, and placed it in its proper place on the blanket. His sorting was idiosyncratic, adhering to no one attribute but rather following the intuitions of his own emerging design. With the exception of a few smashed chips Emily had grabbed as insurance, all the components were pristine and machine-built. The precision of their crafting made them unmistakably pre-War, yet they bore no hint of oxidation, nor the desiccation or fading or brittleness that marred every other bit of salvage Simon had seen. A clear, sweet-smelling oil coated most the metal, but the parts were otherwise perfect.
He roughed out a schematic in the dirt using a three-inch bolt as a stylus, pausing occasionally to confirm the details of a part or compare the design against the irrigator’s components. Several times he had to change his approach to adapt to the existing structure, and a few of the more clandestine boards flummoxed him altogether. A manual would have made things far easier, but any such document had either been lost or rotted to dust long ago. He would have to make do with logic and intuition.
The lack of tools presented another challenge. He could neither weld nor solder anything in place, relying instead on bolts, twine, and the judicious wrapping of wire insulated from its neighbors by shims of wood or glass. He used a similarly jury-rigged system to measure potential difference and amperage—though “measure” was perhaps too lofty a term. Rather, he tested the presence of current in a circuit by shorting it with a bit of copper wire and waiting to see if the filament got hot. He dropped his makeshift voltmeter with a cry the first time its molten charge surged under its thin insulating coat, but afterward, the near-burn brought him some comfort, as it meant the panels were at least generating electricity. The question was whether or not he could harness it.
Finally, after several grimy, sweaty hours, he emerged from the chassis to find Emily and Otis standing over him. Anxiety played over their faces, jolts of it escaping with every nervous fidget of their fingers. Simon wished they would stop s
taring at him. The hope in their eyes was corrosive, eating away at the scaffolding of his confidence.
“Is it ready?” Otis asked.
“Well, I mean, I haven’t tested it yet…” Simon pondered his schematic, tidied a few lines that had been smudged by the wind. “I was thinking of trying it now, though.”
He inched toward the irrigator and knelt next to the access port where the exterior panel had been removed. The device had no manual power switch that he could see, designed as it was to run automatically, but Simon hadn’t liked the notion of working on a device that could switch itself on or off at the whims of some internal program, and so had wired a simple breaker into the main power line. He ran his thumb over the trigger that, if pressed, would complete the circuit.
“It might not work, though. I’ve never worked on this sort of motor before, and I couldn’t say for sure whether—”
Otis put a hand on Simon’s shoulder. It was a gentle gesture meant to soothe, but Simon could feel the strength slumbering in its work-thickened tendons. He swallowed audibly.
“Right. Here goes.”
He flicked the power on. The three of them stood, drowning in the flood of silence that followed. Simon wiggled the connectors.
“It could be just a loose wire. You never kno—”
A low thrumming rose from the earth. The motor whirred, and the compressor rattled with an alarming chorus of pops and thuds before settling into a steady chugging rhythm. Endless seconds passed as humid air pissed out the irrigator’s half-mile of perforated plastic hose. Simon chewed his lip. A gurgle sounded in its subterranean plumbing, and staccato jets of foam-flecked water hissed through the holes. The pressure abated, and the jets settled into a near-silent trickle. Simon stooped over a nearby stretch of hose, pressed his thumb over one of the tiny apertures.
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