by Lan Chan
How long has it been since the Seeders chemical squad has swept this area? Then it occurs to me. Do they even bother with the land around the Citadel? I’ll bet another region dweller hasn’t set foot here in years. Decades, even.
“The land is healing itself,” I say aloud in wonder. I hear a sharp bark in response. My hand immediately drops to the gun that I’ve shoved between my shirt and belt. The metal is warm from constant contact with my body heat. Footsteps pelt in my direction. I hoist myself up the closest tree and take the safety off the gun. It’s disconcerting how quickly I’ve settled into using the weapon.
The footsteps come closer. Twigs snap and branches are pushed aside.
“Get her!” The voice is familiar but distorted by the echo of the forest.
The animal barks again, and I almost pull the trigger by accident. It can’t be.
“Stop running, you mangy animal!” I hear Gage shout, though I can see nothing but movement in the bushes.
Sully shoots out from between the prickles of a holly bush, not caring one iota about the gun pointed in her direction. Instead, she runs laps around my tree, stopping every once in a while to bark and leap at me.
Moments later, Gage and Leura appear, their chests heaving with exhaustion. Unaware of my presence, Gage tackles Sully, only to fall flat on his stomach when she feigns the other way. I can’t help the amusement that bubbles up inside me, and soon I’m laughing aloud. Gage and Leura look up, and the shock on their faces brings tears to my eyes. It’s not all that funny and I bet I seem like a mad woman, but I am so relieved to see them it hurts.
When I’ve wiped away the tears of laughter from my eyes, I slide down the tree, and Leura and Sully all but attack me. Leura hugs me so tight I think I’m going to faint.
Over her shoulder, Gage smirks at me. The smirk has lost its challenging undertone, and I realise that maybe, just maybe, his hatred of me has lost its bite.
Over a meal of foraged wild greens, I fill them in on what happened and they tell me they woke with the same bitter taste in their mouths. It took them a day to realise Sully was able to track me, and by then, I was already a few days ahead.
“How could Cora do this?” Leura asks.
“Desperation,” I say. “She really thought the Seeders would make everything go back to normal. She was happy in the Landing.” That’s the only explanation I can come up with, and it’s the one I choose to define Cora’s actions. Anything else would mean she was a monster, and though I can’t forgive her for what she did, a little part of me understands why she did it.
“I should have seen it coming,” Gage says. I watch a myriad of emotions sweep over his face. Mostly anger but something else as well, something I can’t quite place. Not guilt but relief, perhaps? Was Cora really that persistent in her affection that he would be relieved she’s gone? The emotion passes in an instant and I let it go. He can feel whatever he wants.
“No one could have seen it coming,” Leura says, giving his hand a squeeze.
He gets up hastily. “We’ve got to keep moving.” Neither Leura nor I argue. “Which way?” This is directed at me.
“Water,” I say. “We need water.”
The swoosh of wind overlapping waves drifts between the trees, bringing with it the scent of damp leaves and sodden banks. I realise now that the roaring sound that I had mistaken for a waterfall is in fact a mighty river.
As we get closer, the trees begin to thin until they stop completely and we’re standing on a stretch of grass barely two metres wide that separates the land from the water. This river that expands beyond eyesight is a giant amongst the fixtures of the landscape. Its unnatural uniformity practically screams Seeder made. I can barely see anything across the water besides the line of trees on the other bank. At a guess, I would say the breadth of the river is at least three hundred meters wide. Thankfully, someone has thought to build a bridge overarching the water. I don’t relish the thought of making it this far only to die because I could never get the hang of swimming.
It’s clear the river was created to act like a moat because within its perimeter, the iron walls and spires of the Citadel rise up like a castle. If I reach out, it feels almost as if I can touch the smooth surface of the dome encasing the Forgotten Garden. We’re no more than half a day’s hard walk away. Somewhere in that expanse of a metropolis, the Seeders have managed to squirrel away the seed heritage of the entire planet. Overwhelming though it seems, I know the Citadel only holds a fraction of the population, and my anger returns. All that food and technology used to keep a small number of people in luxury, while the rest of the population counts each grain divided between them.
I read Gage and Leura’s awed expressions and find I can’t condemn their reactions. The Landing is an inland region, and Gage and Leura have probably never seen this much water in one place at a time.
Sully sniffs at the water’s edge and gets splashed by river spray. She growls and turns tail, no longer interested. Tentatively, Leura scrambles down the bank, takes off one of her boots, and dips a toe in the water.
“Ah, it’s freezing!” she promptly shrieks.
I make a face at her delighted laughter but can’t stop my lips from curving into a smile. Her glee turns into screams of protests as Gage scoops her up and pretends to dump her in the water. I’m backing away as he attempts to do the same to me when the whirring of a propeller dampens the sound of the river. As one, we look up to see a helicopter emerge over the treetops surrounding the Citadel and move off in the other direction.
I can see from the corncob logo on the chopper’s side that it’s on a supply run. It’s definitely not going to the Landing, though. How many days has it been now since we left? Too many.
“Let’s get a move on,” I say. We fill up our water bladders and start running towards the suspension bridge. With every step, my trepidation increases. I can’t see the Seeders using so pedestrian an entrance to the Citadel’s perimeter. Any self-respecting Seeder would arrange a flight over the city’s walls. Yet here the bridge stands, wholly accessible and completely unguarded. The bridge itself is sturdily made, with two sets of towers at even intervals over the water. Silver wires crisscross between the wooden base and the handholds, creating intricate latticework sides.
Sharing none of my unease, Leura places her hand on one of the railings and proceeds to cross it. The bridge is wide enough for one very large person, but not two abreast, so we take it single file. Leura, me, Gage, and then Sully, who sniffs all over the place in suspicion. My own apprehension increases the farther we go, but I can’t see any other way to make the crossing.
Bitter cold wind batters at us from either side whilst the river indiscriminately spits freezing mist at our faces. My teeth start to chatter and I curse loudly, causing Gage and Leura to laugh. Their mirth and our footsteps shake the bridge like crazy, and I fight hard to keep down what little food is still in my stomach.
I look down and immediately regret the absence of firm ground. As a weak swimmer, I would rather be flying any day. I’m not sure whether the bridge is really swaying so haphazardly or if the movement of the water creates that illusion. The water is so murky that I can’t see anything besides shadow and foam. My boot snatches on a splinter in the wooden slats that make up the bridge’s walkway. I stumble forward and my hands come out automatically to break my fall.
“You okay?” Gage asks. He grabs the back of my jacket and lifts me up like I weigh nothing.
“Yeah. Thanks.” I go to wipe the dampness from my hands on the rail and see that it’s not just water I’ve touched. The liquid is dark and smells fishy and metallic. When the wind rails again, I hold out my palms to catch a few stray drops of water. The diluted liquid that runs down my wrist is tinged crimson.
“Blood,” I yell to the others. Everywhere I look on the bridge I see the same dark splotches are present. Gage inspects my hand and Leura pivots around. A gust of wind tosses her hair in a hundred directions. The strands frame her delicate
features like a halo. She breaks out into a grin like this is the most fun thing she’s ever experienced.
In my peripheral, the river seems to lurch for a moment, and then a dull silver and brown form leaps up from the water. Panic seizes me. Leura’s doe eyes go wide in response to my shock, and then six rows of jagged teeth, attached to the biggest fish I’ve ever seen, puncture her throat and push her over the left rail. I know these fish. They’re giant piranha. The Seeders have them in the tanks at the Citadel aquarium.
“Leura!” I shout, trying to reach for her even as the giant piranha pulls her under. I want to get at my gun, but Gage still has hold of my wrist. He pulls me back tight against his chest just as another piranha makes a leap over the railing. A second later and I could have been overboard.
Gage lets me go and we both stupidly look towards the water where Leura fell, but other piranha have now converged on her body, their thrashing and infighting sending up more watery mist and creating ripples in all directions. In less than twenty seconds, she’s been torn apart. I can’t process what’s happening and my feet remain glued to the spot. Sully barks incessantly and runs ahead. She turns when she doesn’t feel me follow, but my limbs have become dead weights.
“Go!” Gage shouts at me.
I don’t go. I want time to rewind, to go back to that moment when Leura was smiling at me just now. The river begins to undulate as dozens, if not hundreds, of piranhas swarm the area, attracted by the scent of fresh blood. Gage shoves me and screams. His face is pressed so close I feel his breath on my lashes. It’s the haunted expression in his eyes that finally snaps me back into action. A silvery blur shoots up behind Gage, and without thinking, I point the gun and blow the piranha’s head off.
They begin to leap at us in earnest, each one bigger than a dog and heavy enough to push us over the edge and drag us to oblivion. Gage and I share a glance of absolute terror, and then our steps pelt the wooden slats as we run for our lives. The distance is negligible and I would normally be over it in seconds, but each moment on this bridge feels like a lifetime.
Our progress is hampered as we keep one eye on the roll of the waves, trying to gauge where and when the piranhas will leap. Despite being incredibly surefooted amongst the trees, I’m clumsy in the face of the swaying bridge. My mind is too occupied by the proximity of the piranhas and their ability to leap higher than I could climb if I had to. More than once, Gage has to steady me after I narrowly dodge an attack.
Ahead of me, Sully races over the last slate and then does a U-turn. She comes spiriting back just as another silver body flashes in front of me. I can’t shoot for fear of hitting her. The piranha turns in my direction midair with incredible speed. Its razor teeth flash at me as its mouth gapes open, ready to take a chunk out of my face. I sidestep to the left as its jaw clamps. The piranha’s scaly body scrapes against my chest, pushing me against the metal railing. A huge screw digs into my rib, and then sharp pain radiates from the spot of impact. The piranha has sacrificed its advantage to get at me, and it flops on the bridge, its body bending in crescent-moon shapes as it attempts to push itself back off into the water. Before I can shoot it, an arrow pierces its side. Gage leaps over the piranha’s bleeding body and we keep running.
Twenty metres from the safety of the bank, Sully swings to the right as a piranha leaps from the water. Canine fangs clash with serrated bone, drawing blood and producing a spine-jarring screech. Sully has the advantage of four limbs, and she uses her front paws to swat the piranha in place as she clamps and decapitates it. A second piranha erupts from the water at Sully’s exposed back, and I put two bullets into its left eye. The force of the hit pushes the fish off course, and it slams heavily into the right handrail before flailing about and falling back into the water.
Behind me, I hear Gage gasp.
“Keep going!” he shouts when I turn to his aid in time to see him dispatch a piranha with a hunting knife through the head. Just another couple metres and the wooden bridge gives way to soft grass. I’ve made it to the bank and collapse on my knees, clutching my heart like it’s going to burst. Gage thuds down beside me and swears. I turn and gasp at the good chunk of his bicep that’s missing.
“Take off your jacket!” I say to him. “But be careful around the wound.” He gives me a look that says I’m daft if I think he’ll do otherwise. The colour has drained from his face and his lips are starting to turn blue. One glance at the lacerated flesh of Gage’s arm and I can tell we’ve got nothing that will make any difference. Not even Micah’s Rose will fix this. The exposed flesh has begun to swell, and blood as well as pus weeps from the edges. Where the piranha’s teeth have actually touched his skin, blackened flesh is left behind. The piranha’s bite is cytotoxic. Of course, why wouldn’t it be? They are Citadel created after all.
Trying desperately not to be sick, I strip off lengths of material from his shirt and use them to make a tourniquet. “Gage, can you feel any of this?” I ask, fearful of his lack of reaction so far. Either he’s stoic to the point of insanity or something strange is happening. In answer, he pitches forward and falls flat on the grass.
Eighteen
“Gage? Gage!” It’s no use. He’s out cold. What do I do? There’s nothing I can do for him. Fear injects into my heart. He can’t die. They can’t all die. How can I fix this? As if summoned by my thoughts, another chopper takes off and flies over the river.
I need to get to the Citadel. The Seeders will be able to save Gage. I do the best I can to get him away from the edge of the river, but he’s so heavy, and I don’t dare aggravate his wound with too much movement. Sully latches onto the collar of Gage’s jacket and together we deposit him under the protective branches of a pine tree. The dropped needles act as a makeshift bed, and I drape his sleeping bag over him.
“Come, Sully!” I say. Except I don’t go. I sink to the floor and wrap my arms around myself because I can’t look away from Gage’s immobile form. Can’t get rid of the image of the second the piranha tore Leura apart. Tears sting the corners of my eyes and I shake involuntarily. My thoughts go to the night my mother died and Leura put herself in danger to try and save me. Would I have done the same for her if our positions had been switched? The tears spill over because I know my guilt will do nothing for her now. Gage groans, but when I peer over, he’s still unconscious. I realise then there is something I can do for both of them. I can be strong and keep going. I can finish this walkabout and keep alive their hopes of saving their families.
Getting up is difficult because all I want to do is lie down on the pine needles and go to sleep for a long time. Instead, I tell myself to take one step at a time. With each step, I quicken my pace until Sully and I are running through the trees. I go as long as I can until every breath is a struggle. Even Sully is panting heavily.
“Five minutes,” I say to her. I give her water and she hunts around for her own food. I can’t eat. All I can do is sit and wait for the black splotches in front of my eyes to disappear. Five minutes turn into ten, and Sully’s still not back. I call to her and hear howling in response. This is followed by a chorus of others. The howling resonates in the closed canopy, and I turn frantically, trying to determine its true direction of origin.
“Sully!” I scream, unable to locate her. I blow a long whistle and then another. I keep going until I spot her ducking through the forest, coming back at me. Behind her, the trees shudder and ripple as though they are being shaken, and a spike of fear pierces my heart. I realise too late that I’ve made a big mistake. I should have let her run, because without me, she would have had a chance to lose the sabres hot on her tail. I try to whistle again, but my mouth is too dry. Instead, I climb the closest tree and use its upper limbs to propel myself as far away from the site as possible. Even with my acrobatic skills, Sully and the wolves overtake me quickly. Through the gaps in the branches, I see Sully’s head turn upwards, searching for me where she knows I will likely be.
“Go!” I scream at the top of my lun
gs, no longer caring if the wolves find me. I am safer in the treetops than Sully is on the ground. My voice draws Sully’s attention and I see her nostrils flare in relief. Then the sound of a single gunshot reverberates in the forest and my whole world disintegrates. I brace my feet against the branch I’d been about to use as a springboard and stare in horror as Sully’s feet give way beneath her.
Without thinking, I drop out of my tree entirely and run towards her. Now that I’m on the ground, I can see the other wolves circling her as they would any other prey. All thoughts leave me except the drive to get to her. A few metres away, the wolves turn on me. The gun is in my hands instantly as they rear to attack. I shoot one straight through its left eye. The beast drops dead in front of its pack, and behind its ear I see the blinking red light that designates the wolf as a creature of the Citadel.
The other wolves turn wary and begin to snap at me, but they don’t advance. A moment later, I hear the unmistakable click of rifles being readied, and I know the wolves’ masters are upon me. A party of sabrewolf pilots materialize from the protection of the trees. There are four of them in their camouflage uniforms, with their own glowing chips blinking away behind their ears.
I drop my gun and raise my arms in a gesture of surrender. “Please,” I say. “My wolf, I need to get to her.” I hope their affinity for their animals translates into pity for me.
“Stay where you are!” says the female pilot closest to me.
I freeze mid-step and turn so I’m facing them head-on.
“My name is Aurora Gray,” I say. “I’ve come on a walkabout from Gideon’s Landing. I’ll do anything you ask, just please let me see if she’s okay.” I don’t wait for a response because I haven’t seen Sully move an inch since she went down, but instead, I start running for her. A gun cracks and then searing heat blooms at my side. I gasp as pain erupts on the left side of my ribcage. I look down and see blood seeping through my jumper. My head turns back to the pilots, and the female who spoke lowers her gun slowly, the barrel still smoking. I grimace as I place pressure on my wound and feel the slick blood on my fingers. Then I turn back and keep walking towards Sully.
