Hardin's War

by A.S. Morrison

XIX

  We were back outside. I followed the path to the church with my eyes. It was deserted as always. We made it down the mountain. I helped Mama. Once down we started. It was such a sudden departure that I wasn’t quite sure how to react to it all.

  “Hardin,” Dala said, “I would follow you anywhere . . . now, but what are we doing?”

  I hadn’t realized that they had followed me blindly. I suppose I didn’t tell Stud to tell them anything except that I was headed to the wall again. “Sorry, I had a very short time to get out. We are going to Azureland. That’s the country I was in. The most important part is to get my mother there. She is going to feel much better there. And how about these guns, they might help.”

  “What about making peace with the Cityers?” Morome asked.

  “They don’t deserve it.” I said simply. “Not if they are going to keep ambushing us, besides the only reason I wanted to do that was so we wouldn’t get killed hunting. But now that we don’t have to worry about it . . .”

  “How are we going to get through the wall?” Lace asked.

  “I have more bracelets. That’s why I was gone for so long, because they wouldn’t let me in until they were done, and I needed more than one anyway. What I’m really surprised about is that Peter came.”

  Peter had been quietly walking along. He turned toward me at the sound of his name. “After being outside, the inside just wasn’t cutting it anymore.” He said with a laugh.

  “It’s so amazing out here.” Mama said.

  In the rush out I had almost forgotten that Mama was there. I wasn’t used to her walking around, and so forgot about her actually being there with us. “Oh, you’ve never been outside have you?”

  “I have once, my father took me hunting but that was a really long time ago.”

  My grandfather died before I was born. I heard stories my whole life about how great of a hunter he was. “It hasn’t changed much has it?”

  “From what I remember; not a bit.”

  “It will though, soon.” I couldn’t wait for her to see Azureland.

  I cautiously walked in front of Mama. We passed the church and I pointed it out to her as the place where Milton died. We didn’t stay long; I wanted to get as far as possible before night. The more we walked the more I realized just how tired I was. I couldn’t stop to rest, every step counted.

  When I felt safe I would tell stories about Azurland. I wanted to hype it up as much as possible, to make sure that nobody would try and go back. “They have snow there.” I said an hour after we passed the church.

  “What is snow?” Dala asked.

  “Don’t you read?”

  “I’ve been forced to recently. That’s all we do since they put all the hunters in the library.”

  “Well snow happens when it’s really cold. It falls from the sky like rain, only it’s solid and white.”

  They all sounded amazed.

  “What else is out there?” Morome asked.

  “All kinds of great things. They have trains, which are like these big –”

  “We know what trains are.” Dala interrupted.

  “Right. Well they have these extra big ones that people take vacation on.”

  “Vacations,” Mama said dreamily, “that sounds great.”

  Lace didn’t sound as astounded. “How do they have vacations on a train?”

  “They have train cars that have almost anything imaginable, even one for making cakes.”

  “That’s wild.” Peter said.

  “It sure is.” I agreed.

  “Are they different than us? Do they talk weird?” Peter asked.

  “Not at all, they look and sound just like us.”

  Peter raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Any differences?”

  “Living conditions.”

  This was met with grunts of assent.

  “Personally, I think that it has something to do with our people trying to preserve us in some way. So every leader made sure that we would not change. At least that’s how Matilik made it sound before he trapped me in a dark tunnel.” I probably should have waited to tell them that after we made it through the wall. Though I guess the grime on my clothes would have come up eventually.

  “He did what?” Lace said. Mama looked equally concerned.

  “It’s no big deal, I got out.”

  “It is a big deal.” Mama said.

  “Not really. What is a big deal is what I found down there. Six nuclear bombs, at least I think they were nuclear.”

  “What does that mean?” Lace asked.

  “Those are the bombs that caused this.” I gestured all around. “At least I thought they did. There were only six made, and I found six. So what does that tell you?” I waited for a response. None of them seemed to know what it meant. “It means that something else destroyed this place.”

  Peter threw his arms in the air. “So what did?”

  I thought they would be more concerned about what happened to their country. “I don’t know, but I bet it had something to do with the Cityers.”

  The day passed unremarkably. By night we arrived at the burned town. I no longer trusted Matilik at all, but there was some honesty that I picked up on when he said he had nothing to do with it. I had never seen anybody leave or come in except for hunters, and there was no way they could get all the way out there and back in that amount of time. But the town burned in the middle of the night, after we left. Knowing Matilik’s true nature, I had to believe that there was still a chance that he was involved somehow. I explained the importance of the town to Mama. She assured me that Matilik wouldn’t do such a thing.

  We ate a small dinner of what bread was left and then went to sleep for the night. Morome took the first watch. All we had to eat now was a small bit of chocolate. I suspected that we would make it to the wall by the next night. About an hour before dawn Mama began to feel bad again. I gave her the next pill. My back started to ache, but I had to save what was left for her.

  Nothing happened for most of the next day. I had time to think over my harshness towards the Cityers. My predisposed hatred had subsided somewhat, but I still did not want them to get to Azureland if they were going to attack us. Something stirred within me. There was some part of all of this that wasn’t piecing together. Perhaps it never would. The Cityers were mysterious, and that’s the way I planned on leaving them.

  As evening on the second day approached we had our first sighting of the forest. Hunger was taking over, but it did not dampen our spirits about almost being at our destination. The idea of a new and glorious world was beginning to excite the team. They talked louder as it seemed our way was clear. They must have forgotten that the dangerous areas were still ahead.

  I recognized the place immediately; it was my third time there. We were right around the small squares that the Cityers jumped out of. I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and stopped. The others did as well. About a hundred yards away to our left I saw movement in the tall grass.

  “Did you see that?” I whispered.

  “I’ll check it out.” Morome whispered back.

  Dala went with him, guns raised. They crept slowly over in the direction that I pointed out. Morome suddenly started running up to something, yelling “stop”. I positioned myself in front of Mama just in case. Morome and Dala fought with something in the grass, and then pulled a boy up and carried him over to me. He wore a dirty blue uniform that was similar to ours. He struggled with his captors, with a look of terror on his face.

  I was startled by this turn of events. I had spent so much time thinking about what I would do if I was caught by a Cityer that I was at a loss for what to do if we caught one.

  “Who are you?” I asked, trying to sound intimidating.

  “My name is Orin.” He said quickly. “I promise not to tell that you’re here.”

  “Who would you tell?”

&nb
sp; “No one.”

  “He means who would care that we’re here?” Morome growled.

  “The other Bozlins.” Orin cowered under the grips of Morome and Dala.

  “So you still call yourselves that.” I mused. “I prefer Cityers.”

  “I promise I won’t tell; I’ll stay right here.”

  “What do you think we came to do?” I felt like I would finally get some answers.

  “It’s no business of mine.”

  Morome raised his gun. “Tell us!”

  “I think you’re here to kill us.”

  “What?” Lace said in disbelief.

  “Why would you think that?” I asked softly.

  “The Hums have killed so many before.”

  “So that’s what you call us. Your people keep killing us.”

  He looked confused. “No, you’re the ones doing the killing; our people are just trying to survive.”

  Peter joined in. “No, our people are just trying to survive.”

  I could see that this argument wasn’t going anywhere. “We have conflicting stories here. Is it at all possible you’ve been lied to?”

  He shrugged. “It is, but I work as Security. I’m out to check what happened to one of our towns, we haven’t heard from it.”

  “It was burned, but it wasn’t us. Or at least I am pretty sure it wasn’t us.”

  Orin nodded slowly, the realization coming to him. “All those people gone. Who else could it have been?”

  “It couldn’t have been the Bozlins?” I asked.

  “No, we are only here to survive. Unless it was an accident.”

  So they were only trying to survive as well. It was such a simple prospect, but had evaded my reasoning. “It wasn’t an accident. We heard people going towards it right before it burned.”

  Mama came out from behind me. “Why do you live outside?”

  “We always have. One hundred years ago a group left the bunker and settled outside.”

  “What about the radiation.” I asked.

  “There wasn’t any, they were surprised.”

  I pursued the subject. “You mean no nuclear bombs went off.”

  “Apparently not, but something obviously did.”

  “What about the wall?”

  “What about it?” Orin did not sound at all surprised that he was trapped inside the wall.

  “If the Bozlins made something to get out, then why haven’t you?” This was my last hope on the subject. Orin would know better than anybody if the Cityers really were the ones who created the bracelets.

  “We don’t know how to get out.”

  My heart sank. “But you have to. I found these bracelets.” I held out my wrist so he could see it.

  “I’ve never seen that. But I guess you also think that we made those guns.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No.” He said casually.

  I could not believe what I was hearing. It had to be them. “I got the case with these guns myself, there was somebody who had them; we knocked him out and took them.”

  Orin seemed surprised at this. “I am in the know about a lot of things; my father is in charge of security. I see everything that comes in and out, and I have never seen any guns like these.”

  I scratched my head, completely out of ideas. If the Cityers did not create the guns then who did? Maybe Calrus was right about the Cityers not being able to create the bracelets. I still thought that there was a chance that Orin could be telling lies. He was awfully compliant with us considering we had two guns to his head.

  “I don’t get this at all.” I groaned.

  “Neither do I.” Orin admitted.

  “Where is your bunker?”

  “Right up there, it’s underground.”

  “Alright, you’re coming with us to the wall. Make sure nobody sees us. We’ll figure out what’s going on along the way.” I figured if Orin was with us than nobody would attack.

  Orin agreed and led the way into the forest. I had a feeling that Orin was excited about the idea of leaving Bozlin. Morome walked closed behind, his gun at the ready. Come to think of it I don’t think any of the team actually knew how to shoot it.

  The trees were silent. I could see that Orin was nervous about leading, as if there was something in the forest that he didn’t want to tell us about.

  Mama came up beside me as we walked. “What are you going to do with him?”

  “Keep him with us. I’m afraid that if we let him go than he’ll bring trouble for us. We’ll let him go when we get to the wall.”

  “What if he’s telling the truth?” Despite everything that Mama had been through, she still believed that everything and everyone had good intentions.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” I wanted to believe that the Cityers were behind everything. I wouldn’t feel bad about leaving them behind when we went through the wall.

  We arrived at the cage.

  “Do you know what this is?” Morome asked Orin.

  “No, but I’ve seen it before. I thought it was a trap set by the Hums.”

  “So who set it?” I asked to no one in particular. I really hated all these mysteries.

  “If what you’re saying is true,” Orin said, “Then there’s a lot we don’t know about this place. What’s on the other side of the wall?”

  “It’s actually a dome. Azureland is on the other side. It is a giant country that is really amazing and safe.”

  “And you’re going there?”

  “Yes.” I said cautiously, not wanting to give him any ideas.

  “That sounds great. Everyone should come.”

  “That would be great if your people stopped trying to kill us.”

  “I promise you they’re not the ones.”

  “Whatever, the important thing is to get to the wall.” I wasn’t in the mood to argue.

  “Shh!” Dala suddenly stopped.

  “What is it?” Morome asked.

  “Listen”

  A bright flash ends all hope of a peaceful end to our journey. A loud explosion rocked the ground. I threw my hands over Mama and ran. More flashes and explosions went off all around. Orin ran beside me, helping to cover Mama. For the next few seconds all I saw was a blur of green and spots from the flashes. We took cover in the same thicket that I found the bracelet in. I set Mama down, told Orin to stay with her, and went out to see what was happening.

  I hid behind a tree and stole glances when I thought it was safe. There were several bodies on the ground. I couldn’t tell who was who. I slowly went towards the place. Guns were firing and flash bombs were going off, but I had to know if anyone needed my help. I had to redeem myself for the last time we got attacked, when I almost killed everyone by freezing up.

  As I got closer I saw that Morome was on the ground. There was blood on his face and seeping through his clothes. Dala came up at that moment. She too had blood on her. Without a word she picked up his feet while I positioned my arms under his shoulders and we carried him away. He groaned. I was relieved to know he was still alive.

  Loud buzzing rang through the air. Strange flying machines dipped below the canopy. They sped by shooting everything in sight. We dropped Morome off with Orin and Mama and ran back. I picked Morome’s gun off the ground and began shooting wildly around at the flying things. I hit one; it crashed in a fiery explosion only fifty yards away. A person went flying from it. The trees shattered when hit. The whole forest was filled with wood shards whizzing about.

  The people on the ground disappeared. The flying machines picked up their intensity. There was no way to defeat them all. Our best bet would be to make a run for the wall. I ran back to the thicket and crammed myself in with the others. Peter and Dala came up behind me. We tried to come up with a plan, but it was no use. Morome couldn’t walk, I did not want Mama to be in the open, and we had no idea where Lace was. Dala and I left to find her.

&n
bsp; She was in a clearing made by the explosions. She was covered with blood, sweat, and dirt. Her face was contorted in rage. She positioned her gun and shot straight at us. Had she lost her mind? No. She shot above us. A flying machine had been barreling towards us and we hadn’t even noticed. Lace’s shot hit it square on. It flew over our heads and smashed into a tree. Its fiery demise lit up the whole forest. Trees burned and cracked in all directions. Besides that there was silence in the skies. We breathed easy and felt like we got the victory.

  When we got back to the thicket everyone was out. Peter put Morome on his back. We slowly started towards the wall. No one spoke. There was a sense of finality to it all. All we had to do was get to Azureland and it would all be over. I handed out the bracelets. There was not enough for everyone. Dala and Orin were the only ones without one.

  Through one of the openings in the trees I saw the rainbow squiggles of the wall. There was laughter and sighs from the team. We stepped out into the opening, only feet away. And then all of our happiness was taken away. The buzzing sliced through the air and we all took defensive stances. The flying machines were coming and there were a lot more this time. At least twenty could be seen.

  “What do we do?” Peter cried.

  “Get to the wall.” I ordered. “Peter, you have to take two bracelets and bring them back in for Dala and Orin.”

  “Yes, sir.” Peter lifted Morome’s arm up and they both disappeared through the wall, followed by Mama and Lace.

  The shots started from the flying machines. We ran back into the forest and ran in circles trying to confuse them. Gun shots rang out and we saw that people were on the ground. I took my bracelet off and throw it to Dala. She ran to the wall. Orin and I sprinted off through the trees. We stopped a good distance away and listened. Orin vomited and rested against a tree. It didn’t look like he could take much more.

  “Who are these people?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You said you were going to help us.”

  “They attack us just as much. We always thought they were you, you always thought they were us. We must both be wrong.”

  Dala came up to us.

  “I thought you were going through.”

  “I did, now I’m back.”

  She handed us bracelets and we made a run for the wall. Gun shots followed us, narrowly missing. Orin and Dala disappear through. I took one last look back and saw a line of people coming into the clearing and the flying machines getting closer. I put my wrist up to the wall and suddenly found myself blinking in the Azureland sun.