by Ann Denton
He swiped some C-4 from The Dart’s storage compartment packing it down the front of his wetsuit until his stomach resembled a brick wall. He kicked hard for the underbelly of the first boat. The boat slowed for Bet’s body. Voices floated down to the water, but the words were chopped to bits by the motor.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the boat slowed down; Lowe had the time he needed to get over the adrenaline making his hands tremble. He shook them out.
Set charges. Pull self down rope. Get C-4. Swim up. Repeat. Lowe chanted instructions to himself as his body fought to shut down. Physical exhaustion pulled at his eyelids after the second boat. But he kept repeating his mantra. He had just gotten the C-4 set along the hull of the third boat when he saw the shadow of the fourth.
Damnit. It’s too close. The other hull was rapidly approaching. It wasn’t spaced like the others had been. Lowe pulled the rope and kicked hard down to the Dart. He didn’t hold out hope. But he wasn’t giving up. If I strap the C-4 to myself … I can press the detonator when I float under number four. That could work.
His mind rolled through options. He shoved down any emotion regarding his own death. There was only the mission. And completion.
The boats were headed for Senebal’s winter storage stronghold. He wouldn’t let them steal Senebal supplies. Starve Senebal kids. He wouldn’t allow these heathens to see another Senebal dawn. It’s our damn river.
The Erlenders were infiltrators. They called themselves refugees, but refugees didn’t go to war with their hosts. Try to steal their land. No mucking way. Lowe reached The Dart and grabbed the C-4.
The fourth boat passed him. Remote in his hand, he let go of The Dart and let the current carry his body downstream, trusting his tether. Lowe was seconds from the boat when garbled yelling from onboard reached his ears.
The fourth boat veered left. It headed for shore. Muck and shit. Unsure what was happening, Lowe untied the rope at his waist and kicked hard left, toward the shore. He reached the shallows. The river had forced him a little south of the boat, downstream, overshooting his target.
In the dark, Lowe walked against the current, head just above the water. The Erlenders had already tossed an anchor and were swarming across the sand like little blue-faced flies.
Lowe reached side of the boat and hovered behind it, listening.
“He has ‘em! I seen it! Jus’ now he was movin’ his shirt and it’s there. Red spots. Mark a’ tha’ curse,” a woman’s voice belted out accusations. General muttering followed.
“Take ‘is shirt,” a low male voice commanded.
Lowe heard general rustling.
“It’s just a rash. A rash!” Warbling, rather frantic, Lowe heard a man protesting as the crowd’s jabbering grew louder.
Phrases like, “Infected us all!” and “Don’ have no care,” and “Brought a damned curse on us!” and “Done for,” drifted out with the night breeze.
Erlenders and their magic. Lowe sighed. Some people can’t see past their own irrationality.
But part of him was grateful for their stupidity. It gave him the opportunity he needed. Lowe slipped his regulator back into his mouth. He slid below the water, oblivious to the screams above as the Erlenders flayed one of their own. He methodically set his charges and waited. When the thud of feet shook the shadow of the boat, Lowe dug himself as deep into the river mud as he could.
The boat rumbled overhead like a storm cloud. Lowe counted to a thousand. Then he dragged himself onto the shore. He flopped onto the sand. Fatigue threatened him, but he held it back. He refused to acknowledge it until he was ready.
Lowe forced his muscled to sit and he peered downstream. He couldn’t see the fourth boat anymore. But he couldn’t wait. They were farther than they ever should have gotten. He pressed the button. A brilliant orange cloud pierced the darkness, and for a minute, Lowe was dazzled by the sheer beauty of fire. The wind picked up and set it dancing.
Something touched Lowe’s ankle. He jumped, skittering back, his heart thudding like a rock, trying to break his ribs. The fear jolted him. He wasn’t expecting it. He lost control.
Lowe melted down. His stomach grew as hot as the flames raging downriver. His veins carried that heat throughout his body. And he transformed. Fear made him shift, melt; his body turned liquid, reforming as a different version of himself. He changed into a six-year-old, cheeks still round with the cherubic curve of childhood. His short black curls were still wet and plastered to his head.
Lowe peered down at his ankle to find the cause of his distress. A thread curled there, blown by the wind, caught by his damp skin. Damnit. Brought down by a mud-loving piece of string. He pulled at it and realized it left a dark trail on his ankle. Instead of tossing it away, he held it up to examine it. Is that blood?
His gaze drifted up the bank, trying to make sense of the shadows that danced in response to the inferno behind him. There. It looked like a boulder on the banks. But it was moving. They didn’t kill him.
Lowe summoned up the very last of his energy. He shed his air tanks and marched up the bank. He reached the beaten Erlender, whose back was stripped bare of flesh. The man was slumped, hardly able to move. His shredded shirt was the same material as the thread Lowe held between his fingers.
Lowe looked down at the man. The wounds weren’t enough to finish him. Infection would. Cruelty and stupidity—the best of friends. Lowe reached into a small zippered pocket on his wet suit and drew out a tiny vial. He tossed it at the quaking man.
“Engel powder,” he said. “It’ll end it.”
Tears stained the Erlender’s face as he nodded in thanks. His hand clasped the vial. He crawled backward. And suddenly his legs arched. His back spasmed, eyes wide, his limbs became stiff as boards. He fell back into the mud, dead.
What the mucking—? Lowe scrambled backward. The man hadn’t opened the vial. He hadn’t seemed close enough to death to just fall over. Lowe scanned the horizon. No one was there. But then he saw an orange ribbon, wrapped around a tree trunk five meters off.
Muck and shit. He stumbled back, tripping over his feet and his oversized wetsuit in his haste to get away. He turned and ran flat out, ignoring his exhaustion, ignoring the pain. Lowe ran away from the border, from the flag that warned of contamination, from the body that lay frozen in the dark, shadows and radiation caressing its face.
Chapter Three
Lowe slipped into the memorial room. The door echoed as he shut it. He sighed in relief. After hours of mission-accomplished paperwork and debriefing with Tier and the entire panel of Ancients, he could finally unwind.
He set the lantern down next to the door of the metal-walled dome and walked across the ash-covered floor. In the soft light of the lantern, the walls glowed golden as dawn. If he squinted, Lowe could imagine he was floating in the sunbeams, kicking at cloud-dust rather than ash. This was as close to a religious experience as one got at the Center. It was also as close to sunshine as most of the workers got, considering the military stronghold was hidden in a former underwater hotel in Lake Spiegel, high in the mountains. Though the hotel was lined with windows, fish and shadows were no replacement for clouds and sun.
Lowe invited a meltdown. Adrenaline flooded his veins. He entered the belly of the beast. Fear. He embraced the emotion, ready to shed his adult body and the adult responsibilities that went with it.
Tier’s questions still jabbed at him. “So, tell us how you managed to get the fourth boat?”
“Luck.” It wasn’t the answer his commanding Ancient had wanted. It chomped at him, enveloped him, broke his bones and re-formed him as a fifteen-year-old version of himself. His body transformed. His wetsuit suddenly became three sizes too big, a gelatinous grey blob swallowing him up. He ignored it and held onto the fear.
The heart-clenching dread of death. The first time he’d felt that way was the first time he’d run from them. Really run from them. Not as part of a group. But from a pack of Erlenders specifically hunting him.
He’d been fifteen. He’d stumbled into their lair, a cavelike storefront that was now only a source of kindling. He’d heard them planning a raid on his town. For food. For slaves. And like a newborn fool, he’d gasped. A dozen Blue Noses had turned at the sound. The striped tattoos on their noses marked the number of kills each Erlender had made. He’d stumbled into a group of very experienced savages. He could still recall the glittering promise of pain in their eyes, before he’d turned and run.
This mission had felt similar. The same lung-bursting gasp of desperation. Thinking he’d have to blow himself up to get to that fourth boat. He’d almost stumbled across the border into irradiated hell. Death had nearly kissed him this time.
“Aw, you started without me? Must have been a bad one,” Dez commented as she walked in, finger-combing her brown hair before twisting it into a knot on the top of her head. She stepped softly into the center of the room and moved a small table aside so she could take a seat.
She smiled at Lowe, and his fear dissipated a little. Dez was peace incarnate when she wasn’t in a fight. She sat, crossed her legs and put out her arms, waiting patiently for a hug.
Lowe focused on the brand on her forearm, a bright pink circle. The mark that identified her as Kreis, one of the elites, one of the mutated. Each Kreis soldier had that brand somewhere on their body. And Lowe tried to focus on how he’d been able to block out the pain the day he’d gotten his own mark, just below his collarbone.
But the memories flickered. Lowe breathed slowly, refocusing. He tried to slow his heartbeat enough to melt back to normal. He couldn’t. He tried again. He had to push back panic when he couldn’t melt back to his typical age on his second try. His eyes flickered to Dez.
“Calm,” Dez breathed. “Sit with me. Do what I do.” She began doing neck circles. Then back twists. Lowe followed suit. Slowly she led him into boat pose. They reached their arms and legs to the sky, tightening their abs. He followed Dez’s inhale and exhale through different stretches until his mind relaxed.
Dez moved into breath of fire, panting; Lowe shifted back to his linear age of twenty-five and fixed his suit. When he was himself again and seated in front of her, she stopped.
“Verrukter’s out hunting. He couldn’t make it,” she told him. “Let me know when you’re ready for the next meltdown.”
“After that? I might be okay without, thanks,” Lowe responded. It’s been what, a year since I got stuck?
Lowe followed Dez through several stretches. They had been coming together like this for years. The post-assignment meet ups had been Dez’s idea. She believed you had to release, and sometimes it was easier to do that with help. Emotions always were intense after a mission, either really good or really bad. But most Kreis tried to bottle them up, keep to themselves.
Kreis were a secret military branch of Senebal soldiers. Secret because they were mutants. No one knew exactly why or how Kreis were able to transform. Just that, since the bomb had destroyed the world, some people could change their age at will. Their body would become fluid and melt into a new shape. A grey-haired grandfather. A child. A man. Lowe had seen his face at every age.
Ein, the big-headed scientist who had created The Dart, had recently discovered that meltdowns were triggered by the amygdala. Base emotions. Things like fear. Anger. Lust. Lowe didn’t care about the details. He cared about his performance, as did most Kreis.
They were trained to be perfect, controlled. Punishments for unintended meltdowns ranged from a day in the stocks to a week in the brink. So, emotion had to be reined in, whipped, and dominated until it cowered in the corner like a bitch submitting to her master, logic. Memorial rooms were the exception. They were the one place in the Center where emotional meltdowns were allowed. But still, perfectionism was hard to unlearn. Weakness was hard to share. Most Kreis operated alone. They coped alone.
But Dez had tricked two guys into creating a post-mission meltdown routine with her. Lowe smiled fondly at the memories as he touched his toes. He and Verrukter, another Kreis, had followed Dez, each with the hope of getting in her pants. They’d both failed. But they had both stayed for the post-mission meet ups.
Lowe mirrored Dez as she did a final backbend. He carefully took stock of himself. He felt back in control. He was calm, detached, empty. Normal. One more round. Lowe returned to his cross-legged position and said one word: “Loneliness.”
Dez looked at him carefully, weighing her options and deciding how far to take this meltdown.
“Once, I sat in a tree outside the Erlender village Almana for like three weeks. Only got down if I was desperate. I was waiting for a mark. But there was something going around. Everybody in town was sick. I watched this old man—he was so skeletal he could have blown away—I watched him die. Alone. In front of me. He laid himself down in the grass, just waiting. Like he knew it was coming. I think he’d snuck away from his family. I thought he was sleeping until I smelled the shit. And all I could think then was, that’s probably a Better death than I could ever hope for. Alone. No torture. And I got kind of mad at him. Because, if you don’t have to, why would you die alone?”
Dez melted down, the memory became too much. She turned into a teenager, body bony and face greasy. When she was able to speak, she continued. “It’s every day. Knowing you have to go out there and no one’s got your back. No one will ever have your back. If I get captured, I don’t expect Tier or the Ancients to vote for a rescue party. Even you. Closest thing I have to a best friend. We know the score. The only thing standing between me and death is a heartbeat.”
Lowe felt the burn and embraced it. He melted into a fifteen-year-old. His parents flashed through his thoughts. When they’d been killed, he’d felt loneliness. Felt abandoned. Forced to move forward against his will. He compared it to Bet dying. He’d had to wade through that river current alone. He’d had to walk home through the darkness alone.
Lowe embraced the hole loneliness opened in his chest. He and Dez kept their younger bodies for a minute, reveling in the gluttony of feeling, even feeling something negative.
Then, slowly, Lowe pulled back his emotions, as if he were gathering tools and putting them back in their box. He shut the lid and melted back to his normal form. Muscled, mid-twenties, curly black hair, blue eyes. He tugged again at his wetsuit, which clung uncomfortably in several key spots.
Dez winked. “Need help?”
Lowe laughed. “If I ever thought you were serious ….”
Dez smiled. “Want any more or are you ready for the rugrat?”
Lowe raised an eyebrow.
“I can hear him scratching at the walls like a little mouse.”
A muffled protest came from behind the walls. “Not a mouse!” was clearly heard.
“Guess I better—” Lowe shrugged sheepishly. He turned to Dez. “Thank you.”
Dez brushed off his thanks. “Let me know if you need more. I know that was an intense mission. It seems like those are going around these days.”
Lowe raised an eyebrow. She smiled sheepishly. “I leave tomorrow. Triple hit. The Erlenders have been really aggressive lately. I mean, your mission? Geez. And there’ve been six raids. It’s weird. It’s high summer. Just weird. Tier’s ensuring we ‘put them in their place.’” She rolled her eyes with her air quotes.
“Good—” Lowe started, but Dez cut him off.
“Luck is for people without skill.”
“I was gonna say good riddance,” Lowe scoffed.
Dez cuffed him and then pulled him into a hug. “Be careful, soldier boy.” And with that warning, Dez disappeared through the door.
Chapter Four
Lowe walked to the far side of the room, where a bear had been painted in black onto the metal wall, a symbol for Sud’s guard. Lowe traced the bear’s snout and pushed a small button hidden there. A panel in the wall slid open. And then Lowe was knocked off his feet.
“You’re back!” Beza squeezed Lowe for all he was worth. His eight-year-old arms
barely fit around Lowe’s torso.
A soft smile lit Lowe’s face and then morphed into mischief as he flipped the boy upside down and looped the kid’s legs over his shoulder. Lowe stared down at a blond-haired, sticky-faced mess. “How’ve you been, trouble?” Lowe asked.
Beza giggled. “I’m not trouble.”
“Oh, I think you are. And I think trouble needs a little discipline.” He started to tickle Beza’s ribs until the boy shrieked.
“Hey, hey not so loud. I’m supposed to be remembering in here, right? Don’t give away our secret hideout.” Lowe waited until Beza nodded seriously, and then began the tickle torture again. “You’re gonna have to take it in silence. Like a man, trouble.”
Tickles continued until Beza was gasping, tears streaming from his eyes and tracking down his forehead.
“Alright,” Lowe relented. He set Beza upright, carefully holding the boy so that he could get his balance as the blood rushed out of his head. “Don’t want your mother to get after me for ruining those few brain cells you’ve got.”
“I’ve got more than you!” Beza punched his stomach.
Lowe grinned. “That’s true.”
He took Beza into a rough headlock for a second as he reached back through the door to grab the boy’s cane.
“Hey,” Beza struggled to free himself.
“Just trying to even out our brains,” Lowe snickered. He let go and handed Beza the wooden walking stick. Then he sat on the dusty floor. “So, how’s everything?”
“Fine.”
But Lowe knew from Beza’s tone that it wasn’t fine. “Who do I need to beat up?”
The kid rolled his eyes. He used the cane to lower himself to the floor across from Lowe. “If they’d put me back on dish duty I’d be fine. But Herri’s been making me man the outdoor bread ovens.”
Lowe bit his tongue. He knew better than to say anything against Beza’s boss. But he still had the urge to punch the man. I won’t. Only because that will make life harder. He changed the subject.
