The Recusant

by Greg Hanks

  “This one’s the first track!” Farin said, climbing upon the table. “My favorite.”

  Number 1 was called “Best of My Love” by a band called “The Emotions.” V’delle raised her head, and her eyes went wide.

  Farin was moving with the beat. The plucky bass line led her along the table’s surface, her hips dipping and jibbing with each end of the count. Her legs did most of the work. She was sloppy, amateurish, but purposefully exaggerated. She pivoted to V’delle on the start of a new verse, then started walking backward to the beat.

  “Come on! Jump up!”

  V’delle scoffed and put the CD case on the table. “Oh, no. This view is much better.”

  Farin had her hands moving now, slowly raising them as she slid backward, her shoulders bobbing with the snare. She started mouthing the words, exaggerating the high notes with an open mouth and a neck twitch.

  V’delle couldn’t help but smile a little. “Okay, I get it. Looks like you have too much fun here.”

  “V’delle,” Farin said, dancing toward the edge of the table and offering her hand, “if you don’t get up here, I’m going to kick your ass. Stop being such a twig.”

  “A twig? What the hell is a—”

  “Come on!”

  V’delle looked around, even though she knew there was no one else watching. “This is so stupid.”

  “Don’t you want to move? When are you ever going to have this chance again?”

  V’delle swished her mouth. She placed her hands on the edge of the table, savoring the hesitation. She gave Farin a look of begrudging annoyance. “I’m not doing whatever it is that you’re doing.”

  “Good enough for me! Hurry, the song doesn’t last forever!” Farin grabbed a shy V’delle and pulled her upon the table.

  Farin twirled and jumped, enjoying each slam of the beat with a smile. V’delle’s bored face betrayed her barely-moving shoulders. As the song progressed, V’delle started to feel an excitement and a freedom in the music. She moved a little more, with a little more effort. Soon, she was laughing hard at her clumsy movements. Farin caught the laughter, offering to show V’delle some pointers. They moved in unison, laughing at how ridiculous they both looked.

  Farin jumped to another table. V’delle followed. The beat carried them down each of the tables. V’delle kicked a stack of fabric from one edge. It collided with a vase full of decorative sticks, and they all crashed into the floor. V’delle turned with excitement to Farin, who returned the gesture by grabbing a nearby lamp and chucking it down one aisle. It shattered, pieces flying everywhere. The women jumped down to the floor and started flying down the aisles, knocking contents onto the floor, breaking porcelain fixtures, throwing rolled up rugs. V’delle climbed an entire shelf and ran across the top, kicking boxes into the aisles below, waiting for the colossal explosion below.

  The songs continued as did their traversal of the store. They worked together to set up a baseball station. V’delle lobbed a wicker decoration ball into Farin’s direction, and Farin swung hard with her plunger, sending the wicker ball toward a row of vases. Each miss was guaranteed a jeer from the other woman, while each strike warranted a high-five and a little dance before switching off.

  They both climbed the second-to-last shelf at the far end of the building and used their weight to tilt it. As it started to fall, they jumped to the last shelf, then into a pile of pillows near the wall before both shelves came crashing down.

  They found shopping carts and organized races down the back aisle, then when that got old, they played chicken with each other, wearing taped-on pillows and rolled up blankets as armor.

  Their domination of the department store was angelic, childish, and the most freeing experience of V’delle’s short life. She sprinted down one aisle with a roll of bubble wrap above her head, creating a massive tail behind her. Farin jumped from the top of a shelf into eight stacked mattresses, then avalanched with three of them. Where was fear? Where was anticipation? They threw their trials onto the floor with each item they destroyed.

  When the final track ended, and their laughter was met with the deafening echoes of an empty store, they stopped playing “who can throw the toilet the farthest.” Porcelain chunks of their attempts lay a few feet from the line of tape at the end of an aisle. Farin had her hands on her hips, smiling at the destruction. V’delle’s face hurt from laughing, her lungs bitter and white cold. They stared into the aisle, not wanting to accept that the songs were over, that it was late, that they had responsibilities tomorrow. V’delle felt a heavy bowling ball settle at the base of her stomach.

  They found themselves at the tables, near the boombox. Farin was putting the CD back in its case. They hadn’t spoken since the music stopped. V’delle lay on a mattress.

  “I’m so glad,” V’delle said, her eyes staring into the rafters.

  “Huh?” Farin asked.

  “Thanks for bringing me up here.”

  Farin sighed and hopped onto the table, legs dangling. “I know you hate that Rain and I are together. It’s really not that big of a deal. We hardly have time with each other.”

  V’delle propped herself from the mattress. “I don’t hate that. Why would you—”

  “It was a stupid thought.”

  “No, what I hate is being separated again.”

  “Yeah . . . I know. It’s been really good so far.”

  “How am I supposed to trust someone else out there?”

  “Wait, what do you mean?”

  V’delle lay back. “We spent all evening working it out. Balien’s coming with me.”

  “What?” Farin tried to say something else, but she just repeated her surprise.

  “I know, it’s crazy. But he volunteered once Piers thought of the plan. We’re going to Urholm as a Preen’ch and Khor’Zon officer.”

  “Seriously? How’s that gonna work?”

  “Bazek’s working out the details. He thinks he can get us fake identification. Something about using deceased soldiers. I don’t know. But knowing Bazek, he can make it happen.”

  “Urholm . . .” Farin said, her fingers curling around the table’s edge. “That’s over seven hundred miles away . . .”

  “I know.”

  “Why can’t we just do this every day?” Farin said loudly. “God, I’m so sick of this war.”

  “I know.”

  “We searched this entire place and we still don’t know how we’re related!”

  “Who gives a shit about that?” V’delle said, leaning toward Farin on an elbow. “We don’t need some picture telling us anything. You taught me that at the cottage. We don’t need things or people telling us who we are. All we need is a vase to throw and—”

  “A person to kill?”

  V’delle pondered. “You’re not coming because you want to train kids, huh?”

  “I’m still struggling with killing Preen’ch. I know. I just need some more time with my own thoughts. Besides, staying here I can keep an eye on Ketterhagan, and Breckenridge . . . and Peavey.”

  V’delle nodded solemnly. “And Penelope.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now that I think about it, it’s probably good you’re staying.” Her voice wasn’t convincing.

  “Ugh,” Farin said, a disgusted groan. “I’m just now starting to realize this is happening.”

  And it hit V’delle, too. She tried to embrace her fears with the optimism Piers mentioned. Why the hell did being Unborn mean losing her ability to contain her fear of loss? Some ruthless soldier she was.

  They stayed for another fifteen minutes in silence. Farin with her legs swinging, her head aloft, V’delle in repose, every ventilation angle a new train of thought. Both surrounded by the destruction of the department store.

  NAON’S LADDER

  A stench of rotten food, sweating feces, and old vinegar. Strong enough to melt your nose. Acrid vapors and malignant auras swirled around Naon as she descended the wrought-iron ladder to the depths of Sanction’s sewer
s. Though her mouth and nose were filtered by a transparent hazard mask, the odor prevailed in small wafts—the suit’s malfunction surely a cruel intention of her punishers. Boots landed in dark green sludge that stuck to the soles. The trail of filth ran down the giant brick tube, glistening with globs of new arrivals and old accretion. A hatred as strong as the fumes filled her suit.

  A few yards away, two men shoveled heaps of cess into an ancient wheelbarrow. Their duty lay before them, a mound of chunky degradation that piled to the ceiling. Her Taskmaster, the red-haired man-child named Tilliers who spoke like a squished sponge, led her to the mound once again.

  “Here,” he said, pushing a shovel into Naon’s chest. One could power a turbine with the amount of saliva in his mouth. “Get busy. I want that alabaster skin as dirty as this flow before you come back up tonight.” He stared at her with hazy, demented eyes, then hacked and spat phlegm into the sludge.

  The black of her sclera glistened under the heat lamp dangling from the cistern’s ceiling, her yellow pupils bright as neon. She smiled. “I understand.”

  “Good.”

  “Hauter, Egrid,” Tilliers commanded, “this is your new companion, Naon. Show her what must be done. Don’t think that you’ve got more time to slack off now that there’s three of you. I’ll be back in five hours to see what progress you’ve made. Don’t disappoint me or I’ll make you all clean up my own shit for a week.” He started to guffaw and turned to walk the long tunnel toward the lighted exit.

  Naon looked at Hauter and Egrid.

  “‘Ello,” Hauter said. Thin as a pole. Tall as a Khor’Zon. A face riddled with scars, crisscrossing like woven linen. Dark eyes overshadowed by a drooping brow.

  “Nice to meet you, Khor’Zon,” Egrid said, offering his hand. Shorter, but visibly active. Always a jitter in his legs, a preparation. His smile never left the right side of his face. Eyes glancing at Hauter every other second.

  Naon waited until Tilliers had reached the ladder.

  “He seems well good, does he not?” she said, sarcastically.

  “Bit heady now that ‘e got ‘imself promoted,” Hauter said. “That’s all that was.”

  They watched Naon carefully. She walked toward the mound and her boots hit metal. A grate covered a hole that led to more sludge below, oozing out through the little squares.

  “This is the grate then?” she asked.

  “Yes ma’am,” Egrid said. “See, we gotta take all this shit and put it in the ‘barrow. Then we hauls it off. We take turns. He hauls it. I hauls it. Then we both hauls it. Now you’ll hauls it.”

  “And how do we take what is below?”

  “You’re ‘olding the tool,” Hauter said.

  “So we take this mound first,” Naon started, pointing to the one behind them, “then dig down?”

  “Smart,” Egrid said honestly, hitting his partner softly for recognition then folding his arms.

  “Well, we should not make our beloved Taskmaster upset then, should we?” Naon said, her voice dainty and determined. She stuck her spade into the muck and cleared a swath.

  “Why you so eager?” Hauter asked. “A Khor’Zon, ‘ere? You musta done somefin’ bad.”

  Naon hesitated. “It is all relative, is it not? Now shovel.”

  “It takes us all day and night to clear out the top mound,” Egrid said with a sense of pride, a warning. “We shovels it, slops it in the ‘barrow, then hauls it off. Back n’ forth. Back n’ forth. Takes all day and all night it does.”

  Naon dropped off her load into the wheelbarrow. “That was before me.”

  She didn’t let them take breaks. Their shovels moved rapidly. A system was borne out of the muck, a caravan of feces. She commissioned a second wheelbarrow through her cunning, and when she returned through the ladder hole with two of them, her partners didn’t know how to respond. The hours turned mounds of filth into clear sewer. The glittering brick free from detritus. And the grate stared them back, fetid shallow water below. They dug until the light from the ladder faded and their generator ceased powering the heat lamp.

  Naon stood at her locker at the end of the night, her muscles completely torn, ready for rest. Skin still damp from her shower as she reached for fresh clothes within the locker. Bland linen undergarments and a thin synthetic jumpsuit. The clothing felt like straw in her fingers. She sat on the wooden bench between the lockers and let her shoulders fall. She ran her hand along her crownbone, feeling the smooth skin.

  What was it that Seen’ai had told her all those years ago? Before Earth? Before the Chalis took off, they sat amongst the reeds of the launch pad outskirts. She picked a reed and was about to put it into her suit’s back shell.

  “It will not last,” he said, his deep voice like two voices intertwined with dark, hollow brass. “The fiber will shrivel, and the bulb will shatter, and you will try to find water and it will not be given to you.”

  She looked at his rigid face. Then to her curled, bony fingers enclosed around the reed, as if holding the last remnant of Khorsha.

  “But there will be another,” he said quietly, stepping to her side. “And another. And it will be ours. Just like the one you hold now.”

  An alarm sounded across the city.

  Naon looked back to her reed.

  “It will be ours,” he repeated.

  Voices trickled down the locker room. Naon jolted from her memory, back to dim light and salty musk. Back to cracked mosaic tile and disrepair. Tilliers and a group of other Preen’ch Taskmasters convened outside the locker room in a common area.

  “Don’t worry,” Tilliers said, “I’m on the fast track to get outta this place. After my quarterly interview this weekend, I’ll be showing you guys my ass as I walk out that door.”

  “Bullshit,” said one of the taskmasters, a young woman. “You told me last week you had a terrible relationship with the Head Task; you’ll be back to scraping shit off the grates. Won’t stand a chance against that kutt.”

  “Probably be here the rest of your pathetic little life,” chimed in another.

  There was a light chuckle throughout the common area, and cans of alcohol snapped open.

  “Nah,” Tilliers said, “not this time.” He took a slurpy swig.

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  He belched. “Because I’ve got a new sub to train.” He let the information boil. “A Khor’Zon.”

  “So what? We’ve had plenty of those before. None of us got special treatment.”

  “Yeah,” Tilliers said, “you’ve had degenerates. Amputees. Handicapped. PTSD freaks. No . . . this one was a Warlord.”

  A sparkler of exclamations filled the room.

  Naon heard someone swipe the can from Tilliers’ hand and say: “How’d you line that up?”

  “Geez, bitch. I told you. You’ll see me walkin’ out that door. Gimme that.”

  Naon snatched her clothes and walked the other direction to her dormitory.

  The next day was humid, and despite being underground, the heat seemed to seep through the brick walls of the sewer tunnel, baking everything inside. Naon hadn’t sweat this much since she was a soldier working under Ghare back on Khorsha. Every day he had her sparring under heavier weights, fighting longer bouts, taking more damage. Thinking of the old days made her more nauseated than shoveling shit.

  They began three-quarters of the way down the drainage hole. As they started chiseling at the blockage, footsteps clunked down the manhole ladder at the end of the exit tunnel. Naon kept her posture straight as she heaved a large helping of sludge into the wheelbarrow, which now had to be hoisted out of the drainage hole when filled.

  “How’s it coming then?” Tilliers called down to them.

  Hauter sunk his spade into the muck and leaned on the handle. “Everyfin’s normal, boss.”

  “How’s our fallen Lord doing?” Tilliers said to Naon, hands in his pockets.

  “We are making good progress as you can see,” she said.

  Tilliers no
dded, pushing out his bottom lip. “Good, good.” He paced the area, watching them work for a few minutes. Finally, he spat on the ground and said: “Hauter, why don’t you and Egrid go relieve this barrow, eh? I’ll pick up the slack while you’re gone.”

  Egrid exchanged looks with everyone, brows skewed. “Y’sure boss?” He scratched his head over the hazard suit.

  “You got it, boss,” Hauter answered quickly. “We’ll get to it. We’ll get it done. C’mon Eggy.”

  “We’ll hauls it off,” Egrid announced to Tilliers.

  “Great . . .” Tilliers said, watching them lift the barrow of shit upon the upper pipe where he stood.

  Naon acted innocent. She continued shoveling as proficiently as she could.

  Tilliers descended the pipe ladder and grabbed a shovel. He started hacking away at a piece of black plastic material. “Naon, is it?”

  “Yes.” Naon lifted her smiling yellow eyes. When they locked-on, it was like a being stung by a bee.

  “Y’know I was thinking. You must have had quite the experience being a Warlord. Yeah?”

  “It was quite riveting, yes.” Her tone bordered a cuteness that could have betrayed her.

  “What sorts of things would you do?”

  She cupped her hands over the top of the shovel handle. “Well, you are a Preen’ch, are you not?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve been in this shitty city since my Departure; we don’t see many actual Warlords. No Outposts for miles.”

  “Being a Warlord is just like any other position we hold. The only difference is the responsibilities become riskier, more stuffed with consequence. I maintained many Outposts and a few Cities. Warlords handle the front lines. We are dangerous, some say.” She let her glance linger on his hesitant eyes. Then she smiled. “Dangerous to our enemies.”

  “Yeah, thought it might be something like that.” Tilliers gauged the situation, trying to be as organic as possible. He hacked another phlegm wad. “You see, Naon, I’ve got a little . . . thing I’m working on. And I think you and I could both benefit from it.”