by Kevin George
“Sally no hurt Love,” a voice said.
An Aviary turned the corner of the hallway, followed by several others, friendly faces with sharp mouths turned up into smiles.
“Sally good,” another said.
Those that couldn’t speak chirped their agreement, nodding. More and more Swarmers arrived until the entire hallway was filled. One particular Aviary acted so wildly—gnashing his beak-ish mouth, squawking louder than the others, flapping his misshapen wings so forcefully that he lost his balance and fell over—that other Aviaries began to push within the crowd, creating a frenzy among the entire Swarm. Sally hadn’t seen them so upset since they’d attacked and slaughtered the Mountainer that had nearly killed her.
Still, Sally didn’t hesitate to rush toward them, offering calm words to anyone who’d listen. She headed straight for the wildest Aviary, who continued to flap his wings as he tried—and failed—to stand back up. She took his arm and was nearly pulled down in the process as he flailed. Sally’s soothing words did little to calm him, but she didn’t give up and eventually helped him up, the sight of which eased much of the tension in the group. That was when the Aviary pulled his arm free from Sally and snapped at her, his sharp mouth coming inches short of her face, causing Sally to yipe and recoil so suddenly that she bumped into a few others.
Pushing and shoving started anew, with a few of Sally’s closest allies taking aim for the one who’d pushed her. Sally jumped between them to settle the situation and watched her assailant join Quinn’s side. She felt hurt. An unspoken division existed among certain members of the Swarm, but this was the first time she saw actual sides being drawn. Several other Aviaries distanced themselves from Sally, while others wandered the opposite way down the hallway, disappearing around the bend. Sally felt the presence of a few Swarmers standing behind her, but she was far more interested in those who’d walked away.
Quinn crossed his arms, puffing out his chest as he was flanked by followers. A few squawked or snapped aggressively in Sally’s general direction. Quinn shook his head and they backed off, but the grin on his face told Sally that he enjoyed every moment of this interaction.
“Please,” Sally said, looking at those who stood opposite of her. “I’d never do anything to hurt Love. He saved my life, the same way he saved all of yours. . . well, not exactly the same. But I would’ve died in the middle of the White Nothingness, like all of you would’ve died being tossed off The Mountain, if Love hadn’t interceded.”
Swarmers on both sides whispered the word ‘Love’ with great reverence and a hint of sadness. Quinn’s head snapped to the side, instantly silencing those standing behind him. He stepped closer to Sally—his followers shadowing his every movement—until he loomed tall over her and the few Aviaries standing beside her. Sally couldn’t help thinking of the way the Swarm had once descended on Moretti, a sight that didn’t look altogether dissimilar from what they were doing to her now. . .
“All of you know me,” Sally pleaded, looking from Swarmer to Swarmer. “I’ve talked to each and every one of you. I only want what’s best for all of you. . . for all of us.”
“Yet you insist on keeping alive the man in that room,” Quinn said, nodding toward James’s closet. “The man just like the leaders of The Mountain.” Light, nervous squawking turned wild and fearful, the Swarm on both sides whipping into a frenzy. “The man that wants to use those talking machines to contact his Mountain friends.”
“Sally wants no such thing,” said a tiny voice that somehow cut through the frantic squawking and wing flapping. “Yet fear is what you want to bring.”
BabyDoll turned the corner of the hallway, her presence soothing the Swarmers most riled up. She hobbled slowly, carefully, followed by a few others. Quinn’s group immediately parted to let her through. Quinn did not hide his sneer.
“And the man in that room means us no harm,” BabyDoll said, each word spoken with slow precision.
Several of Quinn’s followers began to backtrack down the hallway, distancing themselves from him. Quinn dared not loom over BabyDoll, but his face turned bright red, the feathers on his neck stood on end and his next words seethed between his teeth.
“How could you possibly know that?” Quinn asked.
BabyDoll turned slowly to him, a genuine smile splayed across her tiny face. The same couldn’t be said for the Aviaries with her, each of whom snapped their sharpened mouths in Quinn’s direction. Quinn backed up a few steps. BabyDoll kept her eyes on him even as she stepped closer to Sally. BabyDoll reached a hand back and found Sally’s, the two of them taking a step toward Quinn.
“I’ve talked to her, and I know she’s not bad,” BabyDoll said. “I’ve listened to her, and I’ve never been sad.”
BabyDoll placed her small, frail hand on Sally’s chest just above her heart, leaving it there for several minutes. Sally felt her own heart beating harder while the child touched her. Tension melted from Sally’s body, and the same seemed to happen to Quinn, the anger melting from his face, replaced with the slightest frown.
“And if she’s lying to you?” Quinn asked.
BabyDoll finally turned away from him and looked up at Sally. The two smiled at each other.
“I don’t know if she’s lying, I don’t know if she’s not,” BabyDoll said. “But trust in her kindness is all that we’ve got.”
“And the bad man she brought from The Mountain?” Quinn asked, no longer mustering the same level of anger or accusation. “The bad man that made all of us fly? She brought him back into our lives.”
“He tried to hurt Sally, like he tried to hurt me,” BabyDoll said. “Like he tried to hurt you, but Love wouldn’t let that be. She brought the bad man to us, so he could see we were strong. He could see we survived, he could see he was wrong. He could feel the same fear that he made us all feel, but our lives were not his, they weren’t things he could steal. We survived. . . and we thrived. . . and in the end, he just died.” Chirps of agreement filled the hallway with delight. “She brought the bad man to us, whether wrong, whether right. And we killed him, we were strong, now we sleep better at night.”
BabyDoll gave a nod of finality and pulled Sally down the hallway, the others following a few feet behind them. Sally went with her, glad to be gone from Quinn. She glanced back to see him standing in place, as if lost about what to do next.
“Thank you,” Sally whispered when they rounded the corner.
BabyDoll nodded, keeping her eyes forward. They approached a familiar door, one that looked like many others in the hallway. But Sally’s eyes lingered on the door, especially when the rest of the Swarm stepped to the opposite side of the hallway as they passed it, each Aviary bowing his or her head. Sally stared at the doorknob, so lost in thought that she didn’t realize she’d stopped and that BabyDoll’s tiny hand had pulled away from her own.
“Don’t let Quinn see you staring too long,” BabyDoll whispered, snapping Sally out of her trance. “He speaks of Love being forever gone, but going into Love’s room would be seen as just wrong.”
Sally nodded, shuffling away from the door, receiving a few curious glances from other Aviaries. She leaned in closer so the others couldn’t hear.
“You aren’t curious what’s inside of his room?”
BabyDoll smiled and nodded. “Curiosity, of course, but the time is not right. Going into that room would just end in a fight.”
Sally couldn’t figure out if BabyDoll was threatening her to stay away from the room or offering to work with her to sneak in. Either way, Sally knew better than to continue with the subject. They approached the main radio room moments later and James’ pleas echoed in her mind. She glanced into the door’s small window and saw only darkness. She forced herself to turn away. Still, she couldn’t stop her eyes from glancing at the room again, wondering if the radio was her only chance to avoid spending the rest of her life in this building.
“Tell me more stories about your world,” BabyDoll asked, taking Sally’s hand wh
ile leading her away from potential danger.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
King Edmond told himself he wasn’t afraid of the echoes in the tunnel, he told himself that his footsteps—and his footsteps alone—caused the noise that seemed to surround him. But fear gripped his chest, whether he wanted to admit it or not, though he’d traveled this tunnel several times before.
But you were escorted through the tunnel every other time, said a nagging voice in the back of his mind. They summoned you.
“Nobody summons the Lord and Jonas,” Edmond said aloud, his echoing voice causing him to become more nervous instead of less so. He cleared his throat and spoke the next word with greater force. “Nobody.”
He continued forward, refusing to allow himself a single glance back. He thought about his royal guardsmen; more specifically, he thought about Aytyn, about how he was the one and only person he could’ve trusted to have by his side at this moment. Not for the first time, he regretted what had become of his former lead guardsman.
Now’s not the time to have those thoughts. . . now’s not the time to feel weakness of any kind. . .
The narrow tunnel had no end in sight. Edmond held his lava torch tightly, constantly worried that dropping it would thrust him into a darkness from which he’d never emerge. Tension made his shoulders ache and the tunnel was hotter than he remembered. Sweat dripped beneath his robes. He didn’t need a mirror to know he was red in the face, that his appearance was far from kingly. His feet grew tired and begged for him to stop. Edmond yawned long and deep but was afraid that resting would lead to him nodding off.
“The tunnel never seemed this far,” he told himself.
He considered calling out to the family of scientists to come and pick him up. Their strange, wheeled vehicle normally made this trip in a few minutes. But the old scientist had always seemed on edge, and his children seemed to hold little regard for Edmond’s power. He’d been waiting months for a knock at the other door in the Lord’s room, where he’d been spending more time recently. The king had finally pried the door open on his own, hoping the odd family would understand. They had a lot to talk about—a lot of plans to finalize—and Edmond decided he could no longer operate on their schedule alone.
I am the king, he thought, though the proclamation made him feel no stronger, especially since he dared not say it loud enough for anyone to hear.
Edmond’s heart pounded harder the farther he walked. He tried convincing himself it was caused by the stress of exercise, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d have to tell the scientists. He’d promised their loyalty would be rewarded with The Fourth, but he was no closer to opening the blast door than he’d ever been. The scientists would undoubtedly ask if he’d tried to have his guards pry it open, but Edmond hadn’t even ordered an attempt due to—
He stopped and shook his head. They don’t need all the details. They’ll figure it out once they emerge from their hidden lair, he thought with a sigh. Besides, they might not want The Fourth in the future, especially if I’m forced to relocate the beast population into that section once I move to The Fifth. Maybe they’d want to oversee that operation, but probably not. Maybe they’ll find The Third more to their liking. . .
King Edmond was prepared to offer them whatever they wanted—except, of course, The Fifth—for their continued support, but he had a feeling they wouldn’t respond well to the change of plans. He told himself that the scientists needed him—that they needed refuge farther from the volcano—as much as the City Below needed them, but he doubted the stubborn family would see things his way. Still, more Blast was needed, more updates on the volcano were needed, more help would be needed to build another Lord’s room once he relocated to The Fifth.
Our unexpected visitor, Edmond suddenly thought with a smile, his mind wandering to the guarded room on the lowest level of the palace. He’ll certainly pique their curiosity, especially his. . . physical enhancement. They’ll certainly want to poke and prod him, to study him, to do. . . whatever it is they might want to do to him. If that’s what I need to give them in order to—
The tunnel suddenly widened up ahead. Edmond hurried forward, his legs so fatigued that he nearly tripped over his own feet. He slowed down, taking a deep breath to wipe the sweat from his brow, straightening his robes as best as he could. He tried to summon an air of authority as he continued walking. He approached the huge glass enclosure of the scientists’ lab. Though Edmond wanted to be the one dictating terms of their future plans, he raised his hands as he approached, wanting to ensure a peaceful reaction to his sudden appearance (especially since his lone threat on the scientists had always been an attack if they chose not to follow orders).
As he neared the lab, he rubbed his eyes, unable to see clearly into the glass. The glass was heavily fogged, not surprising since temperatures had risen steadily after he’d stepped out of the Lord’s room. But when he glanced toward the end of the lab and saw the entrance door wide open, panic began to creep into his mind. He lowered his hands and hurried toward the door. Upon entering, he saw that the lab looked just like it had last time, except not a single member of the scientist family was to be found.
They’re gone, he knew right away, though he had no guess about what could’ve happened to them.
“Hello?” Edmond called out.
He was met with silence, and realized any other response would’ve been bad news for him. Edmond proceeded to the holographic table at center of the room. During the king’s last visit, the patriarch of the family had shown him an image of the volcano’s crumbling infrastructure. When Edmond tried to raise the holographic image, it flickered momentarily before shutting off for good. He looked around the rest of the lab for more information, but the equipment and how to use it was completely foreign to him.
On the opposite side of the large glass wall was a single doorway leading to the living quarters beyond the lab. King Edmond had never set foot inside of it—and he had no desire to do so now—but he had a feeling that his future—and the future of his city—was predicated on what had happened to the scientists. Edmond proceeded slowly to the door, pushing it open to a hallway on the other side, a single light flickering, casting the area in shadow. Edmond opened the first door to empty living quarters; he didn’t bother to ask if anyone was there (mostly because he was afraid of hearing a response).
Nearly a dozen rooms connected to the hallway, showing larger, nicer living spaces than what was had by most citizens in the City Below. Edmond didn’t know how his distant ancestors decided to split up this facility and the city, but he wondered what his life would’ve been like had he not faced the constant stress and pressure of leadership. His hands shook for the first time in months. Would these. . . urges. . . have inflicted me if I lived a simpler existence?
A rush of heat caused his head to swirl. He leaned a hand against the wall for nearly a minute, taking that time to settle his breathing. The door at the end of the hallway opened to the largest room yet, this one lined with bright lights and pipes that continued to fill the room with mist. Edmond may have spent little time in The Second, but he recognized a grow room when he saw one. What little dirt remained on the floor had turned to mud, outlining the streaks where grow boxes had apparently been dragged out. There wasn’t a plant or vegetable to be found and when he hurried out of the hallway and through the lab, he found that the vehicles in the tunnel were also gone.
If they took all their plants, this wasn’t a spur of the moment evacuation, Edmond knew. The tunnel continued beyond the lab’s outer glass wall and Edmond walked toward it, stopping to peer into the darkness, uncertain where it led. He found his lava torch and took several steps into the tunnel, waving the torch from side to side, finding nothing but empty walls and darkness ahead. He thought about the Tunnelers, and Above, and the maze of tunnels he’d heard about but ignored in the name of the Lord and Jonas.
King Edmond backpedaled so quickly that he stumbled. He rushed past the lab’s glass wall
and headed back toward the Lord’s room, no longer bothered by fatigue or heat. His mind raced faster than his feet could. Though the scientists’ disappearance raised countless questions, he knew one answer for certain, and knew it meant bad news.
The scientists never would’ve left if we weren’t in immediate danger. . .
Edmond had a very pregnant wife to think about, but it was his other child that came to mind first. He’d allowed Oliver plenty of leeway since the prince had taken charge of The Third and Fifth; he’d allowed Oliver to rule as he saw fit, to lead as he saw fit, to oversee expansion efforts as he saw fit. Edmond had spent countless hours watching those two sections, angry and annoyed and frustrated by his son’s behavior and decision-making. His son had continued his penchant for self-destructive behavior and had just about forsaken the Jonas name and the entire Jonas way of life, but he’d managed to maintain peace between the two sections and even kept The Fifth’s expansion moving right along. Still, Oliver’s nonsense—and the Weller girl’s nonsense—needed to end.
Edmond wanted to march straight to The Fifth to tell Oliver of the scientists’ disappearance and the trouble it meant for the future of One, but he had to consider his ultimate plans to swap the two sections. Whatever the prince is up to now, I can’t trust him to avoid screwing this up for all of us.
The return trip felt quicker than the trip to the lab. Edmond burst into the Lord’s room and immediately felt like he could breathe again, though residual heat from the tunnel remained. Edmond hurried to the center of the room, taking his place on the platform. He began to speak the Lord’s words—desperate to see holograms from his city and feel a bit of normalcy—but he barely finished speaking when he was interrupted by knocking.
