Most people began to flee. But others charged at the Earthlings, swinging fists, hurling stones, lashing knives.
An Earthling fell. Another Earthling opened fire. More people screamed and died.
What have I done? Maria thought, staring in frozen horror.
More and more people were running, fleeing the marketplace. The crowd swept over Maria. They began pulling her along like a river, and Maria remembered the storm a few months ago, how the floodwaters had carried her through the city. The flood of humanity was just as potent a force, as raging as a river, as unstoppable as the flow of history. She tried to fight it, but she was too weak.
"Stop, let me go!" She tried to reach the embattled Earthlings, to bring peace. "Earthlings and Bahayans, lay down your arms! The war must end."
But an Earthling was still firing. And Bahayans were still dying, fleeing, surging, attacking. Maria reached up, tried to wave, to call for help, but the crowd kept carrying her along. It had become a rout.
She made another attempt to reach the battle, elbowing her way against the flow. A man knocked into her. Then another. They were bleeding, shouting in fear. Maria fell and banged her knees on the asphalt.
More people slammed into her. She fell onto her side, cried out, and wrapped her arms around her belly, trying to protect her baby. Everyone was stampeding. A knee banged into her back. Somebody stepped on her hair, ripping out strands, and she screamed. She tried to push herself up, and somebody stepped on her hand.
A foot stepped on her back.
She lay flat on the ground. Somebody trampled her leg.
My child is going to die.
A boot hit her head.
She gritted her teeth.
I will not let my child die!
She shoved herself up. Everything hurt. She howled in pain. But she managed to stand. And the crowd caught her again, pulling her like a raging river.
A few blocks away, she finally managed to free herself. She spilled out from the stampede into an alleyway. For long moments, she leaned against a concrete wall, breathing raggedly. She placed a hand on her belly, feeling her baby kick. The child had survived. But danger still flowed across the city.
I need to reach the Bargirl Bureau, she thought.
This entire city was about to burn. If Maria was going to fight, it would be with her fellow bargirls.
She ran down the alleyway, arms wrapped around her belly. Her child was growing quickly. Running was hard, but she forced herself onward. Her eyes burned with tears. She reached into her pocket and felt a warm, round friend.
"I just wanted to end the war, Crisanto," she whispered. "I wanted to save lives. But now people are dying across the city. Maybe across the world. Because of me."
She made her way through the alleyways of Mindao. She had only been living here for a year, but she knew every twist and turn in the labyrinth. And she knew every urchin and stray who lived here, from feral cats to refugee orphans.
"Summon the bargirls," she told them. "But stay off the main roads! Travel the Shanty Road."
The orphans nodded, climbed plywood walls, and began hopped across roofs of rusty, corrugated steel. This was the Shanty Road—a road in the sky, leaping roof to roof, scattering rust like footsteps scattering sand on a beach. Maria used to take that road often, but with her belly growing, she now traveled the shadowy alleyways.
Crowds were spilling over from the wider roads. People were shouting, weeping. A woman bled from a gash to her head. A man carried his bleeding son. Rats raced underfoot, fleeing the stampede. In the distance, gunfire rattled. When Maria ran by a wide street, she glimpsed crowds overturning a jeepney, setting fire to a shop, and hurling bricks. An Earthling opened fire. People fell.
Maria ran onward. She had to reach the cemetery. She had to be with her girls. She had to save this city.
By the time she reached the cemetery, the sun was setting, painting the sarcophagi red. Maria ran between the stone coffins, heading to the cemetery center. A few gravedwellers emerged from their coffins, blinking groggily.
"It's still early, Maria!" said an old man, covered in ashes, his beard white. "The moons do not yet shine."
"Blood spills across the city," Maria said.
"Then we're safe," responded another gravedweller, a wispy old woman with sunken eyes. "We're only half alive. No angels of death can harm us."
Finally Maria reached her coffin, the stone sanctuary where she slept every night.
She was the first bargirl here. But she did not have to wait long. Only moments later, Charlie teetered into the cemetery, high heels clacking. Her leopard print miniskirt was riding up her thighs, resisting her repeated efforts to push it down. She finally gave up on the skirt and focused on brushing dust out of her hair.
"Maria, did you know that the entire city is falling apart?" Charlie lit a cigarette and waved it at Maria. "Let me guess—you're responsible."
Maria nodded. "Yes, and I need your help to end the bloodshed."
"How can we—" Charlie began.
Singing interrupted her. Pippi came skipping between the coffins, belting out "Pinoy Princess," a love song by Joey Rivera, Bahay's pop sensation. The radio had been playing for weeks now. Stockings with red and white stripes covered Pippi's legs, tattered in places. Her pigtails swayed as she skipped, and she paused from singing to blow a bubblegum.
"Hello, friends!" Pippi waved. "Did you know that Maria set the city on fire?"
"We know!" Charlie said.
A few more bargirls entered the cemetery, heels clacking. Grace was here, her arms withered from the poison, no larger than a baby's arms. Kim came with her, holding her mestizo son, the child of rape. Joyce was here too, only fifteen, youngest among them, her parents and sisters slain in the war. And soon others joined them. As the Bargirl Bureau gathered among the sarcophagi, the sun kept setting. The red light became darker and darker, the color of old blood.
"Girls, we must calm this city," Maria began. "How?"
Pippi raised an eyebrow. "You summoned us here, and you don't even know? Aren't you our leader, here to give orders?"
"I need help thinking!" Maria said. "Some extra brainpower would be appreciated."
"Well, that rules Pippi out," Charlie said.
The pigtailed bargirl flipped her off. "Oh, be quiet. Who helped you fix your minicom when you broke it taking a selfie?"
Charlie bristled. "If you had given me a working minicom—"
"It worked fine, I stole it myself!" Pippi said. "You only worry about your appearance all day. How big is my puwit? How big are my dibdibs? If you ever spent time learning from me, you—"
"Girls!" Maria said. "Listen to me! We need to calm down the Earthlings. Maybe if we open the bars early, announce a free round of drinks, and free lap dances, we can end the violence. Most soldiers will put down a gun for a free beer."
They all nodded.
"Works for me," Charlie said. "But what about all the Bahayans going crazy, stoning the putes and getting them all angry?"
Maria thought for a moment. "A strip show. In the middle of every marketplace. We'll distract them."
"Finally a use for your giant dibdibs!" Pippi said, pointing at Charlie.
The older bargirl pushed her breasts up in her bra. "I knew they'd come in handy."
The sunlight was nearly gone. Shadows spread across the cemetery. Distant gunfire rattled, and screams rose.
"We must move fast before more people die," Maria said. "Pips, bring your girls with me, and we'll hit the bars. Charlie, you take your girls to the street, spread out, and do your magic. We can end this before—"
"Maria!"
The voice rang across the cemetery.
Several tall shadows fell.
Figures in black stepped into the cemetery, their straw hats hiding their faces.
One man approached Maria, tall and rawboned. He raised his head, revealing one dark eye, the other as pale as Pilak Mata, the silver moon.
"Ernesto," Maria whis
pered.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Piano's Last Note
Kaelyn was sleeping when Etty shook her awake.
"Kaelyn. Kaelyn! You have to see this!"
She moaned, sleep clinging to her like cobwebs. "Huh? Wuh?"
She blinked and checked her clock. It was three in the morning. But light streamed through the window. Kaelyn rose from bed, groggy, and looked outside. She had to blink a few more times and rub the sleep from her eyes. The apartment blocks were normally dark at this hour. Right now, windows shone with light across the towering concrete buildings. More lights were turning on every moment. Everyone was watching their holofeeds.
Etty pulled her hand. "Hurry!"
Kaelyn stumbled after her, and they entered the living room. It was a small apartment, barely four hundred square feet. A little bedroom with a bunk bed. A little living room with a kitchenette along one wall. The bathroom was down the hallway, shared with five other apartments. A humble home.
The apartment had belonged to the Pascal family, a little piece of precious real estate in New York City. After the army, Lizzy had lived here for a while. The veteran had taken Kaelyn in.
And in her will, Lizzy had left everything to Kaelyn.
A small amount of money. A record collection. A comfortable leather jacket. And this humble little apartment on the tenth floor.
Without Lizzy's final gift, I'd be homeless, Kaelyn thought. And so would Etty, my new roommate.
Going back to Lindenville was not an option. Kaelyn never wanted to see her father again. He had called her a traitor. Shouted. Disowned her. So ashamed that she campaigned to end the war. His treacherous little daughter—a blight on his family name.
No. Her childhood home in Lindenville, that sad little house among the trees—that part of her life was over.
So here she was, a little girl in the big city. The owner of a tiny apartment worth more than her father's house in the suburbs. Every day that Kaelyn had a roof over her head, she thanked her fallen friend.
You're still looking after me, Lizzy.
But now all those thoughts faded.
Now lights shone across the night.
Something was going on.
Etty turned on the apartment's holofeed, which was mounted on the wall. A flickering hologram emerged. Kaelyn stared in silent shock.
The news had just come in. Every channel was talking about it.
General Ward's confession.
This is an unwinnable war.
"With three days to the elections," said the broadcaster, "President Hale's poll numbers have dropped from sixty-seven percent to only fifty percent. For the first time since Hale announced he is running for reelection, his victory no longer seems certain."
Kaelyn and Etty watched, eyes moist.
"It was Maria," Etty whispered. "Maria de la Cruz. The girl in the confession video. I know her. She's my friend. And she's the bravest woman I know."
People began pouring into the streets. Even this late at night, thousands emerged from their buildings. Across the streets of New York City, they were shouting, chanting, honking horns.
Kaelyn and Etty pulled on their coats, raced downstairs, and burst onto the street.
The crowd was unorganized at first. People were just talking to their neighbors. A few chants began and died down. Somebody was remote-controlling a drone, projecting the news feed onto a building's wall. The general's confession repeated again and again, fifty feet tall.
A few people turned toward Kaelyn. They pointed.
"It's her!"
"The face of the resistance."
"The siren."
"The singer!"
Kaelyn walked among them as they whispered, reached out to touch her. Millions around the world had heard Kaelyn sing at Lizzy's funeral, at prisons, and outside Hale's palace in Central Park. Maybe billions. As a younger singer, Kaelyn had hoped to find fame with Symphonica. She had never imagined she would use her voice to fight a war. That with the songs Jon had written, she would become the voice of the resistance. That she would take the movement Lizzy had built, would grow it into something bigger, stronger, a tide she could barely control. That she would sing for the world.
A few drones came to hover around her, filming her. The people stepped back, giving her room. And Kaelyn sang "Broken Things," the song Jon had written for her to sing. The song of their youth and dreams and fears, now the dreams and fears of a world.
Bedtime stories told
Songs sung in the cold
Of knights and heroes bold
And quests through forests
To steal a dragon's gold
They shatter like waves on the shore
And music boxes that play no more
Like marionettes with cut strings
Like childhood dreams
And many other broken things
When boys and girls come home
Hearses row by row
Along the last road
A tale they were never told
Falling like the rain
We're falling like the rain
The drones kept hovering. The videos kept broadcasting on the sides of buildings. General Ward's confession was being played around the world. President Hale's ratings kept sinking.
Then Jon's face appeared on the news streams.
Kaelyn gasped, her song dying on her lips.
Jon!
Etty gasped too and clasped her hand.
"He's a suspect," Etty whispered. "For the leak."
Kaelyn smiled through her tears. Jon. Jon was part of this. And she had never loved him more.
She looked into a hovering drone's camera. "You can shoot us, President Hale. You can keep killing us. But you cannot silence us. Your end is here."
* * * * *
At dawn, Kaelyn walked back toward her building. After so many years of horror, hope filled her. Hope that this war could someday end.
It was not a joyous hope. Not an optimism that made one celebrate or laugh. Even should the war end today, Paul would still be dead. Lizzy would still be dead. The millions would still be dead. And even those who survived would forever be haunted, forever carry the scars, those on the body and those on the soul.
Yet hope shone nonetheless.
Kaelyn spoke softly in the dawn. "There is no darkness so great that light cannot shine. There is no despair so deep that hope cannot soar."
Etty smiled. "You and Jon. Two poets."
Kaelyn unlocked the door to their apartment. She stepped inside and found a man waiting for her.
A man in a black suit, wearing black sunglasses, holding a black gun.
The gun fired.
Light blazed. Pain exploded through Kaelyn's torso.
In the distance, so far away, Etty screamed. But Kaelyn could barely hear her. She was falling. Falling to the floor. Falling into a bottomless pit. Falling away from all light. Falling like the rain. A last piano note played, and then all was silent.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Dry Bones
The men entered the cemetery.
Seven of them. All with wide straw hats and sunburst tattoos.
A full Kalayaan squadron. And Ernesto walked at their lead.
Maria took a step back, bumping into a sarcophagus.
"Leave this place!" she said. "The Kalayaan is forbidden from entering the city."
But the men kept advancing, and their long shadows fell upon Maria like black daggers. They raised blades and guns.
"For so long, you hid from me, my beloved," Ernesto said. "You hid behind the walls with the pute general. But he's gone now. And you will be mine!"
Charlie stepped forward, chest thrust out, chin raised. "Like hell! If you want her, you'll have to get through us."
"Damn straight!" Pippi hopped forward, pigtails flying, and raised her fists like a boxer. "I'll pound ya to pieces!"
The Kalayaan raised their weapons. Butterfly knives. A machete. A scythe. A few rusty pistols. The
y were only a peasant uprising, skinny, hungry, poorly armed. But their fierceness terrified even the mighty Earthlings. Across the Human Commonwealth, people feared the ruthless Kalayaan, perhaps the toughest warriors in the galaxy.
But the Bargirl Bureau stood their ground. Only Kim fled, for she was holding her baby. The other girls stayed by Maria. This was not their fight. But from young Joyce, who was only fifteen, to Charlie, the matriarch of the group—they stood their ground. They stood by their friend. Some drew knives from their purses. Others just raised their fists. But they all stood around Maria, always at her side.
She had never loved them more.
Stacks of sarcophagi rose behind them. They had their backs to the wall. They would fight hard. They would never surrender.
"Stand back, Ernesto!" Maria said. "I'm no longer that little, frightened girl you can intimidate. I've killed men. Men tougher than you. Leave this place!"
Ernesto grinned. A savage grin that revealed his golden tooth and rippled his scars. "Oh, but you are mine, Maria. You've always been mine. We became betrothed as youths, and that is a sacred bond. You hurt me. You tempt me. You fill my dreams and nightmares. You can no longer hide."
She raised her chin. "I'm not yours, and I never will be! I love another man. I love Jon."
Rage twisted Ernesto's face. "The pute! The banyaga! The man who deformed me!" He pulled off his hat, revealing the iron plate bolted into his skull. "He will die, Maria. I'll kill him myself. I'll bring you his severed head. You can kiss it." He tossed back his head and laughed.
Maria took a step closer to him. She balled her fists. "If you touch Jon, I will kill you!"
Ernesto kept laughing. "You'll learn manners when you're my wife, when you're mother to my children, when…"
And then his gaze fell upon her belly.
His laughter died.
He took a step back, eyes widening.
"Yes, Ernesto." Maria nodded. "I'm pregnant. With Jon's child." Her voice softened. "You have to let me go, Ernesto. You have to move on."
He tossed back his head and howled in fury.
Earthling's War (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 3) Page 30