by Hugh Howey
He had little doubt this was taking place, that his friendship with Dani—formed out of mutual respect and a fondness for philosophical musings—was nothing but a ploy. He even wondered, with every topic they covered, if the data gathered would one day be used to invade Earth, kill and maim his fellow humans, or just turn the tide of a major battle.
If such were the case, he would be devastated, but he would be surprised. Something about the red bands, the ability to share thoughts directly, overcame all else. There was a level of trust, of connecting, that Cole would never have imagined he’d enjoy so much. One night, alone in bed, he imagined sharing the experience with Molly, of hearing her thoughts over the red bands.
But then, knowing what she might hear in return, it gave him pause…
Four days went by. The exercise and the conversations with Dani the only variables. Everything else remained the same.
Until Anlyn woke up.
The first sign was a slap on the stone door during Cole’s morning bath. The break in the routine startled him; he reached for a towel and dried himself hurriedly, expecting guards to barge right in.
Instead, there was another bout of insistent slapping. He fought the urge to yell, “Coming!” in English and hurried to the door, twisting the edges of his towel together to hold it in place.
The first thing he noticed as he pulled the door slowly toward him was the gold bars. They were still in place.
Then he saw his next surprise:
Molly.
The bars didn’t stop them; the cold metal just became a part of their embrace. For days, Cole had been holding back a dam of emotions, knowing that worry would not do her any good even as it eroded his own strength away. He could feel that all break, spilling through the gaps in the barrier.
Molly started crying, her head resting on his arm. He reached through the bars, encircled her, rubbed her back, and pressed a corner of his forehead against hers. Tears of joy streaked down his cheeks.
When she said his name, it sounded like honey tastes. And it was great to hear English spoken in someone else’s voice. Especially hers. She started rambling and Cole let the sound of it wash over him:
“Anlyn’s gonna be okay,” she said. “She woke up yesterday, verified our story. They told me last night and said I could be the one to tell you. Oh, gods, how I’ve missed you—” She sniffled and tried to calm herself down. Cole glanced down the hall at her silent Drenard escorts, lances in hand.
Molly broke off and snuck one hand back to wipe at her face. She smiled up at Cole, flush with embarrassment. “I’m a mess,” she said.
“You look great,” he assured her.
She laughed once and looked away. “I have to go,” she said sadly. “They want to talk with each of us over one more meal. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”
Cole could just grin and nod. He watched her pad away, her shapeless Drenard tunic somehow riveting—her long limbs moving with ease and the whites of her bare feet winking back at him as they flew up from the carpet. He could have bent the solid bars and walked right through, he was sure of it. He could feel it welling up in his chest, his arms, his cheeks.
He finally shut his door, went back to the bathroom and finished drying off. Then he got dressed and sat on his bed, staring at the soft artificial light glowing through the window, waiting for it to get brighter, willing the false day along as fast as it could go.
••••
When the Drenards came for him that evening, Dani was not among them. Two guards led Cole down to the interrogation room and waved him through the door. He was the last to arrive.
Molly jumped out of her chair and wrapped him up in a tight squeeze. Edison sauntered over and slapped at his shoulder hard enough to knock Molly out of the embrace. Walter, of course, stayed in his chair, his mouth already full of food. His only greeting was to wave a large piece of meat back and forth.
“Where’s Anlyn?” Cole asked.
“Alert, but unwell,” Edison grumbled. “A personal visit is currently under some degree of consideration.”
Cole rested his hand on his friend’s back. “It might’ve been my fault,” he said. “The alterations to Walter’s old suit and all. I’m really sorry. I’m just… I’m glad she’s okay.”
Edison swiped at his cheeks, too choked up to say anything.
Molly waved Cole into the empty seat on her side of the table; she kept one hand on his arm as they ate, as if terrified of losing contact with him. They dug into the usual fare, but Cole couldn’t believe how much better it all tasted with his friends around. They traded snippets and stories. Edison had some singed fur on his chest that everyone had to see, and they all agreed with Walter that the beds slept extraordinarily well. Molly went on for a solid ten minutes on the bathtubs, how ingenious the plumbing system was, how hot she could stand the water, and the fact that she’d practically been living in the thing.
Nobody mentioned the rooftop and its perpetual sunrise, so Cole didn’t either. Still, each of them seemed to know much that the others didn’t. Their individual personalities had steered the sessions along unique paths. Walter could tell them more about the gold bars, the doorknobs, and marble than the rest of them combined. Through large and rapid bites of food, he told his friends about how the planet used to spin and be full of trees and life, but that over billions of years it had wound down like a clock due to the pull of the two stars, and how all the trees were petrified and that massive machines quarried them out of the dark side of Drenard.
“It’ss jusst rock,” he said, “yet it’ss pricselesss!” He hissed this last word through his teeth, one of the few English words with such a construction that Palans repeated with relish.
As Walter tore into another plate of food, Cole noticed Edison picking at his plate, his eyes level but focused on something in the distance.
“Cuisine not up to your standards?” Cole asked. “Miss the dehydrated stuff from the ship already?”
Edison shook his head quickly and returned to eating.
Molly set down her fork. “What’s up?” she asked him. “Is it Anlyn?”
He nodded.
“She’s gonna be okay, right? Isn’t that what you heard?”
Edison shrugged his massive shoulders, his reluctance to speak uncharacteristic and troubling. Molly wiped her mouth with her napkin and reached a hand across the table. “Is it something else? Do you want to talk about it?”
The Glemot remained still a moment, looked up at her, then to Cole. “Unsound reasoning to transport Anlyn to this destination,” he finally said.
“Why?” Cole asked. “Isn’t this where she wanted to come?”
Edison remained silent.
“I wouldn’t have if I were her,” Molly said, picking up her fork. “Not after learning about Drenard culture from Dani.”
“What are you talking about?” Cole asked. “They practically worship women here. They put them on pedestals, for Pete’s sake.”
“They aren’t raised up on platforms, darling, they’re hoisted in cages. Gods, no wonder I feel so connected to her, she’s dealt with the same stuff I have. Except, here, the males are even more disproportionately large, so the women aren’t allowed to do anything for themselves—”
“Good idea,” Walter said.
“It sounds like hell, to me,” Molly countered.
“Too much like the Academy?” Cole asked.
She turned back to him. “It was more than the Academy.” She looked away, the mood of the feast shattered. “You wouldn’t know what it feels like,” she muttered.
“What what feels like? Being small? Defenseless? Scared?” Cole pushed his plate away from him and lowered his voice. “The next time you ask me about my childhood, I promise I won’t dodge it, okay?”
Molly nodded as the table fell silent, save for Walter’s smacking sounds as he inhaled another plate of food.
“Sso, you guyss hear about the Wadiss?” he asked between shovelfuls.
Cole looke
d across the table and noticed Edison’s strong reaction to the word, his fur bristling.
“Highly adapted to the calefactōrius hemisphere,” the Glemot said excitedly. “And symbolic trinkets of entry to Drenardian racehood. Female Wadis—”
Edison went on, his voice droning like the roar of distant thunder, coming in never-ending rolls. Cole picked at his food and zoned out as Edison and Walter compared notes on the little critters, which he best understood to be some sort of desert lizard.
He daydreamed while the others gabbed about the creatures. After Walter finally had his fill of food, Drenard guards entered to clear the plates. Dani arrived soon after, accompanied by another large Drenard wearing one red band and holding another. The Drenard with the band crossed to Edison, who bristled with recognition and leaned forward to have the device put into place. It was the first time Cole had seen one of the silent conversations from the outside, and it was a bit eerie: two beings looking at each other in silence, nodding, moving their arms, making faces.
Whatever they were thinking, it didn’t take long. The band was removed from Edison’s head, and he rose from his chair, turning to his friends: “The large delta of positional coordinates X and Y; X being Anlyn and Y being—”
“Whoa, buddy. Deep breath,” Cole said.
The poor cub tried again, concentrating, “The distance separating Anlyn and I is to be decreased immediately.”
“That’s wonderful!” Molly squealed, jumping up to embrace him.
Cole rose as well and touched paws with his friend. Walter pressed his finger into a smear on the table, and then placed it in his mouth, sucking at it idly and staring at the far wall.
After Edison followed the Drenards out the door, the three original Parsona crew members were left alone as the last of the dishes were removed.
“The bedss are nicse here,” Walter said. Again.
Molly nodded. “Yeah, so what’s our plan, guys?”
“Plan?” Cole asked. “Our plan was to find someplace safe where people would stop shooting at us—”
“They shot us,” she reminded him, pointing at the open door.
“Okay, but it must’ve looked pretty bad, the way we barged in. Besides—” Cole eyed her suspiciously. “Wait a minute—are you planning another jailbreak?”
Walter nearly stood up in his chair at this. “No jailbreak,” he said, waving his arms level with the ground. “No way.” He pointed straight down at the table. “Walter stayss here. Forever. Eatss and ssleepss.”
Molly held out a hand to calm him down. “I agree with you. Both of you. It is nice and safe here. And comfortable.” She turned to Cole and narrowed her eyes. “But there are certain things I need to do. Important things.”
Her father, Cole thought. And Lucin’s hints of a war-stopping secret. She would never be happy here, he realized. Pampered and comfortable weren’t viable options for her. He could see it on her face: dire things screamed at her from within, things that needed doing.
He felt sick to his stomach thinking about his plan to keep her here. To protect her. He’d planned on putting up a fight when this conversation came up. To employ the same paranoia that had saved them several times since they’d left Earth. Now he felt miserable for even considering it. He should’ve been thinking about what Molly wants, not focusing on his own selfish desire to keep her safe. His mistake, it dawned on him in that moment, was in assuming Molly shared his primary concern: her safety. But she was just like him, thinking about other people’s well-being more than her own.
He reached under the table and found her hand. Gave it a gentle squeeze. He felt more connected to her right then than he ever had in their hundreds of hours in the simulator.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Of course. You’re right. But no more mention of it until I bring it up, okay?” He glanced up at the chandelier dangling over the table.
Molly nodded as if she understood. Walter hissed, confused. It reminded Cole that the last time they’d escaped a prison, it had been with help.
Only, he wasn’t sure they had that luxury this time.
He gave Molly’s hand one last squeeze and rose from the table; he strolled out to the guards in the hallway, insisting he think with Dani.
••••
The view from the roof was just as amazing the second time, if not quite as startling. Cole looked out at the colors with a twinge of sadness. Maybe Dani was right. After many years, the alien sight might become familiar, then normal. Perhaps it could eventually become banal.
Cole concentrated on the view, and on the sensations it stirred. He noted how the waving colors made him feel right then. He tried to store the memory away, preserving it against the erosion of time.
While he corralled the experience, Dani considered his plea.
“I cannot help you,” the Drenard finally thought back. “However, I do understand that you would not be perfectly happy here. Most Drenards choose contented lives elsewhere and only come on vacation or for official matters. I am one of the few natives that never considers leaving. And non-Drenards? They’re not allowed to leave. Ever.”
“What about the other human, the one you brought up here. Did he die on Drenard?”
Dani hesitated. “I’m not allowed to say.”
“Is he still here? Still alive?”
“I cannot say. I’m sorry.”
Cole turned toward the hot side of Drenard, squinting his eyes into the bright display, working to temper himself—to remain cool. He took a deep breath from the moving air wafting in from above and felt his tensions melt away.
Dani reached out and placed his hand on Cole’s shoulder in a rare moment of contact. “Non-Drenards are never allowed to leave,” he repeated.
It was fortuitous Cole had steadied his nerves.
Otherwise, he would never have noticed the subtle inflection of “non” in his own voice.
10
“I know how to get out of here, but it won’t be easy,” Cole said.
Molly leaned back on a wall of pillows while he sat cross-legged on the foot of her bed, his hands in his lap. The gold bars were in place and her door had been shut, but Cole knew his words were probably traveling out to someone, somewhere. The good thing about his planned escape was that technically—it was legal.
“How?” Molly asked.
“We have to become Drenards.”
Molly grabbed one of the pillows beside her and swung it at Cole, nearly knocking him off the bed.
“Don’t mess with me like that,” she said.
He righted himself, not laughing at all. Molly’s indignation turned to shock, mixed with something else. “Gods! You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m serious,” Cole said. “And if you’d stop assaulting me and listen, I’ll explain.”
“Alright,” Molly said, placing her stuffed weapon in her lap and resting her elbows on it. “Tell me.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t think we would be the first to do it. I’m pretty sure other species have. Maybe even another human. And get this, every kid born here isn’t really considered a Drenard until they capture a Wadi Thooo—”
“A whati who?”
“The lizards Edison and Walter were going on and on about.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand half of what Edison was saying, only that he was excited. Did you follow any of it?”
“Not an ounce, but I got a little information from… someone else. And I think I know why Edison is fascinated with them.”
“Why?” Molly asked, leaning forward.
“I think he already had plans on becoming a Drenard. Maybe for Anlyn.”
Molly fell silent, looking down at the comforter as if reading the words there, trying to make sense of them. Cole held up his arm in case it was a feint on her part, setting up another blow from the pillow.
“For Anlyn?” She looked up at Cole. “Why? Does he love her? Does she love him?”
“How would I know? I h
ate that kinda talk, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Molly agreed. “It’s silly, especially after such a short period of time. Right?”
Cole nodded slowly. “I guess. Still, I’ve seen them together and I know there’s something there, something that formed between them while we were on Earth. It’s the only reason I can think of for why he’d be so interested in the creatures.”
“Maybe he’s just looking for a way out of here.”
“Then why not tell us? No, I think it’s something else. I think he’s trying to impress a girl. And either way, even if I’m wrong, we need to do this if we want to get out of here. The Drenards were never gonna tell us about the rite. I’m sure they’d feed us twice a day and give us all the bubble-baths we want, but that would be the rest of our lives.”
“So how do we become Drenards?”
Molly smirked as she said it, either not convinced or still finding the concept amusing.
“It’s pretty simple, actually. Each of us goes beyond the terminator—the line between sunlight and darkness—”
“I know what a terminator is,” Molly interrupted. “I was in the same class.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. So you travel beyond the terminator and through the canyons on the light side, you catch one of these Wadis—which is some sort of lizard—and you bring it back here. A council or something will judge the size and quality of the thing and determine what sort of Drenard you’ll be. It’s just a ritual, really.”
Molly frowned. “I guess that means the females here aren’t ever considered Drenards, because Dani’s told me enough about their society to know there’s no way they would let their precious little girls go out and risk their lives to hunt whati whatevers.”
“Well, you might not like this, but it’s actually really good news for us. A loophole, if you will.”
“Oh, gods. What is it?” Molly droned.
“Wadi Thooo eggs. They count. And the eggs are laid close to the terminator, where the rock is coolest. It is a technicality, but if we go to the canyons, grab an egg each, and bring them back here—we’re free to go. They know from Anlyn that we haven’t done anything wrong, and Dani will vouch for us. I think he has a soft spot for humans.”