“You ask him if he’s entering?” Elissa’s hair bobbed on top of her head, tied up out of her face.
“Yeah. He ignored me.”
“Keeping busy back there?” shouted Laurene through the kitchen doors.
“We’re busy,” Elissa shouted back. And then to Calix; “We can talk later.” She rolled her eyes and went back to bussing.
He plunged his arms up to the elbows and began scrubbing. Over the far end of the kitchen, Celia, the cook, leaned against the unused cooker with a small portable radio in her hand, enjoying some show or other that blotted out the world. He had been that blotter for a short while, guesting on numerous shows; most late at night and hosted by men who had nothing better to do than talk, and his stories fascinated them, and their listeners. Particularly the bit about Linwood and Kirillion being in charge of Sanctum. They asked him questions and he answered as truthfully as he could – keeping Annora out of it – which wasn’t hard as he essentially just had to talk about himself. When the various shows ended, the questioning turned to “Just between you and me, how hard was the climb exactly?”
He told them all the same thing. It would kill them. Even should they somehow get over, there was no-one waiting on the other side to rescue them like he had been rescued. No leather queen on a speeding hoverbike. They nodded, finding it hard to hide their disappointment.
Already, he had heard talk of an underground movement set on building something to overcome the sand. Even Avery seemed interested, despite Calix reminding him over and over that the grass was definitely not greener the other side.
“But think of the possibilities,” Avery had said, looking up from his worktable. “We are adventurers by nature. The human being is inquisitive. Tell him he can’t go somewhere, and he will go there. Cut off a limb, and he will build a prosthesis. You cannot dangle this carrot before us and expect us not to chase it. And besides, think about your poor friends – how amazed would they be to learn of the city? Of us? Imagine, being able to move freely between here and there. How many would remain in your Sanctum if they could come here?”
He had to admit Avery was right. He felt a pang of sadness at the thought of his friends left behind, or no longer here, who would jump at the chance to leave Sanctum. He wondered only briefly what they were all up to right now, who had been put in charge, if anyone, and what sort of goal they were all working towards. He still found it hard to believe that wasn’t his world any more.
Scraps of food had begun to float on top of the grey water, so he pulled the plug. The water made him think of the underground river. There had never really been a shortage of water in Sanctum, and now he knew why. The dome’s condensers could only have provided so much.
As the water gurgled away he dried his hands and began to dry the plates, dishes and cutlery. Every day he fought against the itch in his feet to get moving. Everything he set himself to do seemed mundane in the greater scheme of things; to belittle his need to get to the city, but it was balanced by the fact that he could do nothing else, he had begun to practice daily on the hoverbike, and that he was helping Elissa out, who didn’t have to split her time between bussing and the kitchen because he was here.
Annora would like her. She was a lot like her in many ways, just a little rougher round the edges. And if she happened to win the trials, he hadn’t asked her yet, but she would for sure at least try and get a message to Annora for him.
He resolved to talk to all the racers and ask the same favour. Maybe some would take pity and let him win.
Elissa had already talked about pulling out, to give him more chance of winning.
He hated the thought of taking someone else’s spot. What choice did he have?
***
Finally, the hoverbikes were handed out. Calix and Elissa rode the plains, practicing and refining their sails: he liked the tail-style of Elissa’s Phoenix but decided against adopting it. He could see someone swiping him from behind and ripping it apart.
“You have to name her,” she said as they eased their way home. They weren’t moving too fast so her ponytail flew back only slightly. They each wore a white T-shirt and a white bandana over their head to protect from the sun’s cooking rays, and though Calix wished he wasn’t wearing hot denim jeans, he was grateful for their protection as he felt the heat of his thighs. His face felt a little numb from the wind but was hot when he touched it. Would his skin ever get used to it?
“I still haven’t thought of a name. Annora’s too obvious, and weird.”
In the distance, fellow racers hurtled and streaked, breaking through the waves of rising heat. In the opposite direction, racers who had entered and failed but retained their hoverbikes sped between checkpoints, setting markers on an all new racetrack for the Liberty Trials warm-up races, of which anyone could participate. His heart paced a little as he imagined joining in, only to collide and crash on the first corner, rendering his hoverbike and himself useless.
That won’t happen, Calix, said Annora. You got this.
“I got this,” he said.
“Don’t count me out just yet, buster.”
“No, ‘I got this’ – that’s the name of the hoverbike. And, really, don’t you want to save your turn for next time? I’d feel horrible if I won and you were just behind and I stopped you from going to the city.”
“Cal, you know, I’ve been thinking.”
The edge of town began to grow in stature ahead of them.
“What have you been thinking?”
“Well, at first, and I gave this a lot of thought, I thought maybe even if I was leading and you were right behind me, I’d let you go through. I thought I would do whatever I could to sabotage the others on the track, so you could win. But I don’t know. The past few days… maybe we’ll know more after some practice races, and you’ll get better…”
Calix laughed. “Are you saying I’m not good enough?”
“There’s a lot of us, and for most of us, we’ve been practicing half our lives.”
“Thanks for the encouragement. Hey,” he pointed. “Isn’t that where Rohen lives?”
“Yes, interesting,” Elissa replied. Outside his shack and resting on a kickstand was a gleaming hoverbike. “I guess he is entering after all.”
“That cane must be helping, keeping him off his leg.”
“What I was saying, Cal, before I change my mind, is I may be your best hope, especially now.”
“How do you mean? Can you nominate someone else to go in your place if you win?”
“No, but you can bring your family.”
He slowed down, unintentionally, letting Elissa roll out in front of him.
She turned to a stop and looked back at him. “Will you unite with me, Calix of the sand mountain, of Sanctum, of stranger worlds?”
***
“… of the bloodline Kali, will you take Calix into your family and cherish and care for him until the end comes?”
“I will.”
“And Calix, will you enter with Elissa, of the bloodline of Kali, into her family, accepting all rules and caring for her grace as though she was the immortal?”
He looked up to sundown; felt the warmth on the top of his head and the darkness beyond the rim of the spotlight that encircled them, Elissa’s friends bound by interlocked arms standing within it, and said “I will.”
“You may now kiss your man.”
He felt her lips brush his, quickly. And then they turned and smiled to the crowding mass, hand in hand.
Alarm
He’d had the hoverbike for three weeks. It remained unridden in front of his shack. When it arrived he let the sails out to charge it, and then left it. It held no interest to him. It worked, and that was all that mattered. The ion burst rang through the town, discharging it, so it sat inert, spending the day collecting desert dust blown in from the plains, getting cleaned again by the bursts, rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat. Just like him. Conditioning, pool, workshop, home. Vacancy, chlori
ne, bolts, sleep. Georg keeping him company. Even Gentle Joe living up to his name, telling him “Not to worry, I forgive you. You did what you had to do.”
They should never have let me leave the orphanage. Gentle Joe liked to stand for some reason, always in the corner. Whereas Georg liked to sit. “If I sit down,” said Gentle Joe, “they get me. They come and take all my blood away.”
Poor Gentle Joe. Poor Georg.
Poor Rohen. Don’t forget poor Rohen! Gentle Joe actually had the sweetest smile, now he thought about it.
“Go to sleep,” said Georg.
“Rest up,” said Joe.
“We’ll tell you when to wake up.”
***
The fingers of the ion burst alarm roused him, prodding at his shoulder. He turned over and it was no-one. When the alarm stopped and his shack went dark and silent, he stood and went straight outside. There was the hint of a limp, something that wouldn’t ever go away between now and the hour of his death. The sky, as clear as ever, was a darkening purple, and the heat extracted sweat from his pores. He could have bent over a jug, collected his sweat and let it evaporate in the sun, leaving behind personal salt crystals to enliven any meal. Instead he extended the sails to absorb as much charge as possible, and went back inside.
Everything was set. Georg there was putting the final touches on his basket, and Gentle Joe was carefully filling the cane. A few weeks ago and Rohen would never have trusted Joe with such a task, but he let him get on with it now. Kept him busy. Out of trouble.
He focused on dinner; placing a jacket potato in the solar oven and sitting contentedly beside it as it cooked, smelling the crisp skin as it singed to a crinkle. He ate it outside, so the taste wasn’t marred by the odour of unwashed bedsheets and clothes, and also because the plains were calling. He did miss them. The patchwork puzzle-pieces of parched land beneath his feet stretched away until the pieces merged. He liked that. He liked that the plains brought everything together. Brought everyone together.
He'd heard over the waves that the stranger and Elissa had been united. Just another example of the plains at work. Almost a shame it wouldn’t be for much longer.
***
He drank from his last bottle of water and threw it to the ground. Give it a few months and it’ll be buried at the edge of the sand mountain along with the rest of the town’s rubbish. He hiked his leg over the hoverbike, standing on his good one, and relaxed into the ‘saddle.’ The thrum of the thruster vibrated between his thighs, and he inched forward, the kickstand rising automatically beneath him.
“Be careful!” shouted Gentle Joe.
I will, thought Rohen. There’ll be no boulders in my way tonight.
The stars blew kisses across the sky, and Rohen imagined among them were the eyes of spectators watching him, as though the trials had come early and he was the only racer. There was even a camera drone following him; it coptered its way to head-height and matched his speed. “I’m with you,” it said, and he recognised Georg’s voice. “I can see again. I can see everything.”
That’s good, thought Rohen. I’m glad.
The drone rose back into the air and acted as a guide in the darkness.
***
At the orphanage entrance, he stepped up to the door and twisted the top of his cane, releasing the lockpick. Within seconds he was in, stepping through into the vast lobby and closing the door behind him. That old smell, he breathed, and smiled; that old smell, How I’ve missed you. It was quite vile, in truth – having been away from it for so long, he could now recognise the scent of boy-sweat mixed with copper and iron and a sort of salty undertang that burned at the back of his throat.
“I don’t like it here,” said Gentle Joe, suddenly at his side.
You’re not meant to be here, go back home, he thought. And Joe vanished.
Georg the drone also stayed outside, keeping watch.
He crossed to the far end, holding his cane horizontal after re-inserting the lockpick. It felt particularly heavy in his grasp. At the glass doors to the clinic, he looked inside and saw no-one, the lighting gentle, just like before. Towards the end of the corridor, just as he had hoped, the light was red. Gloriously red.
Carefully, he passed through, holding the door as it closed so it wouldn’t make a sound. There were the chairs and the needles and the bloodbags, sucked hollow. There was the screen, blacker than night. There were the windows, too small to climb out of. There were the bloodstains, droplets and jets, too inbred to clear (he had tried) and there were new ones his successor had missed. They spattered the floor like a train-girl’s abstract painting.
There was the vibration. Vibration?
He listened. Beyond the red walls, where the walls were still white, came a sound. The unmistakable sound of the tattooist’s needle. At this time of night?
No matter.
He was at the red now.
He opened the glass door using the key he hadn’t bothered to return. Even the blood storeroom needed cleaning.
It really was a sight; white scintillating light the casting canvas for all that was living red, tracing living life onto the walls and ceilings and reflecting back in an infinite regression of undiluted blood. Refrigerated behind glass doors. Hung on racks stretching back but visible all the way. You could not unsee this blood. Not see this blood. The paint of stolen flesh. How much of his had hung here? How much of his would hang here?
Or drip…
… and drop…
… and dribble.
He turned and turned, heart as still as death, the voices gone, the plains awaiting.
He held the cane aloft. Inside it, packed inside it, were bolts and screws and chlorine granules, bolts and screws and chlorine granules, bolts and screws and chlorine granules; layer upon layer. Vertical, he screwed the head tight until he felt it pressing against the shrapnel that was almost brimming out. Tight to induce the compression. And then he…
***
Whisper was right, she had heard something. The door to the blood storeroom hung open down the corridor. “I wonder who that could be,” she said aloud. She paused for a moment, wondering if she should investigate, and then did so. Eyes glued to gleaming red glass, the storeroom came gently into view. Bit by bit. Until she saw a man, with some kind of stick – not a man, but a brother, an older brother, one who shouldn’t be here.
“What are you doing?” she was about to ask, but she never had a chance. The brother brought the cane down on its end and the whole thing lit up in an instant, exploding just after impact in a flash of brilliance. In under a second the whole wall shattered, showering her with glass, and then a heat so forceful it knocked her off her feet. She slammed against the far wall and threw her forearms across her face, feeling sharp, stinging pains as the shrapnel struck. The heat subsided but the echo of the explosion remained, louder and more shrill than the alarm, a long, drawn-out ringing in her ears.
After a few seconds she realised she had her eyes closed. She opened them and screamed; her entire front was covered in blood, and of course this was her blood, her brain told her; could only be her blood. She had been cut across the arms, after all – they still stung. She screamed and screamed, kicking her feet in the pool of blood around her, trying to stand but sliding her hands in the blood she sat in, looking around for help but seeing only the paintwork. Ceiling, floor and walls; the orphanage bleeding out from the cracks in its plasterwork.
And in the middle the gored remains of the man, broken apart with his insides out, weirdly just about the only thing not drenched in blood. He was on fire though, clothes raging, sending flames high into air that lapped their tongues on the blood of the ceiling.
Over the ringing in her ears rang the fire alarm. She recognised it from the drill they had last week.
Something sighed with a spit, and a scht-scht-scht sound began. Overhead, the sprinklers kicked into action – too late now, she thought. Seeing this positive action calmed her though, and she stopped screaming.
Where was the fire meeting point?
No, no, she was a designated fire marshal. She had to get all the boys on her floor outside.
She shielded her eyes from the pouring sprinkler and tried to stand.
By Grace, do my arms sting.
Why do they sting so much?
She looked down at them. Her cuts were bad, but they shouldn’t have stung like that. She cleared the water cascading from above with her hand, and realised the stinging sensation was spreading. She sniffed, and smelled the distinct smell of the pool. Realised more than her forearm stung. She scratched her head, her neck, and felt a burning in her eyes, and before long she couldn’t see and the fumes from the sodium hypochlorate had engulfed her lungs and the water had melted the skin from her flesh. The flesh from the bone.
Panic
“I want numbers, damn it!” shouted Quintessa. As if it wasn’t bad enough that her sleep had been interrupted, she now had to deal with idiots.
A chorus of “We don’t knows” rang out from the babble of train-girls congregated on the floor of the chamber. One spoke up louder than the rest: “Anyone who knew is dead. They’re all dead!”
The girls were all losing any sense of decorum, screaming and crying – she could barely hear herself think! All of them, including her, dressed in bed clothes and lit by the lights circling around the chamber. Sundown was a repelling black hole – strange to see it in darkness. They were rarely in the chamber at night.
“Enough!” she stomped her sceptre as loudly as she could. It stopped the shouting, but the crying continued unabated.
The chamber doors opened and in stepped Frita, hair a mess and dressing gown tied loosely around her.
“Finally!” called Quintessa over the heads of the girls. “Nice of you to join us!” Now that you’re done fucking, she thought.
Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One Page 36