The Other Side

  She is sleeping again, human. . . . It is strange, human. When the Greens were attacking, she was awake, I am certain of that. It was as if she knew I was speaking, but she could not hear my words. I do not understand what is happening.

  Grackel’s confusion terrifies me, but it also provides me clarity.

  I look at myself in the rearview mirror, my new ordinary. I hold on to the image of the hideous train wreck that is Melissa Callahan, Twenty-Five, the queen of fucking spades, and make a decision.

  I’m done running.

  I’m done hiding.

  I’m going to save Allie.

  I’m going to join the Diocletians.

  PART II

  KISSING DRAGONS

  22

  At a middle-of-nowhere motel that evening, while James is showering, Colin sits me down on the bed, where he re-dresses the bandage around my ribs and applies antiseptic to various abrasions across my body. Another dose of painkillers helps keep the pain in the background.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asks.

  He means the torture. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” I chew at my lip, wishing the room’s mini-fridge held something other than water bottles.

  He takes my hand. “What is it?”

  “Allie . . . Oren’s done something to her.” I recount my conversation with Grackel.

  “It’s probably a bad coincidence.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t know what to believe. At least we know she’s alive.”

  “And nothing else.” I shake my head. I’m only stalling. I have to tell him. I know what his response will be, but I have to tell him. I look at him, pull my hand free. “You have to let me go, Colin.”

  His eyes widen with comprehension. “Melissa, you’re not thinking straight.”

  “I’m thinking straighter than I have in a long time,” I say. “I can’t sit around and hope that things work out okay, because they won’t. If I infiltrate them—”

  “Say you somehow do infiltrate them. They’ll make you do things, horrible, horrible things.”

  “What was that secretary’s name?” I ask. It’s a cruel shot, but it doesn’t faze him.

  “You’re only going to get yourself killed,” he says, almost pleading. “Oren’s not an idiot. He’ll know what you’re doing.”

  “Not if James vouches for me.”

  “The Diocletians work in isolated cells, Melissa. James wouldn’t be able to get you—”

  A clatter of metal sounds in the bathroom. Colin bursts through the door, reaching for his gun. I’m two steps behind.

  James lies in the tub, shower curtain draped over him, plastic rings strewn everywhere. The rod to which Colin cuffed him dangles over the edge.

  Chin to his chest, he glares at us through matted black hair. “Get out!”

  Colin holsters his gun. He grabs me by the elbow, but I shake him off. “He needs help.”

  “He didn’t want my help earlier.” He lowers his voice. “And I promise you that he doesn’t want yours.”

  “Doesn’t matter what he wants.” I retreat from the bathroom, return a few seconds later with Colin’s medical supply bag. “Give me the handcuff keys.”

  “No.”

  “He’s not going anywhere,” I say.

  “No.”

  “Sit on the toilet and point that gun at us if you want, but take off those goddamn handcuffs.”

  He retrieves the keys from a pocket and presses them into my palm. “He’s dangerous, Melissa,” he whispers to me, then leaves.

  “Get out,” James says when I uncuff him. I reach over him and shut off the water. “Get out, Melissa.”

  I dig through the bag until I find a syringe of that Dilaudid stuff and an antiseptic towelette. I lower the curtain enough to expose his torso. Vicious scars, fresh and enflamed, undulate along his back and chest. He grunts a curse, flails limply, the shower rod clattering against the acrylic. I push him down. He’s too weak to resist.

  I use the towelette to clean an undamaged patch of skin along his left shoulder, just above the tattoo that encircles his bicep. Drink the Wild Air.

  “What happened to our salubrity?” I jam the syringe into his shoulder.

  “Get out. Please,” he says through clenched teeth. A tear slips free from his right eye. “Please.”

  “Shhh. Save your breath, farmboy.”

  I pat him dry as gently as possible, though he grimaces with every touch. He passes out. I check his pulse. It beats strong, angry almost. Dragon exposure? I push the hair from his eyes. Even asleep, he appears tormented.

  In our two-hour car ride, I spoke no more than a few words to him. But now . . . I cannot bring myself to update him on the awesomeness of my life since we went our separate ways, and it hurts too much to discuss Allie. I decide to tell him about Baby, hoping my voice filters into the darkness, provides him some flicker of light.

  “She’s one of the few good things in this entire mess,” I whisper as I dab at his chest with antiseptic. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s turning into a real pain in the ass.”

  I move to his stomach, smearing ointment everywhere. “She’s so incredibly stubborn. She’s grown enormous. Keeping her in line was difficult enough before, but now she’s a damn flying brontosaurus. I don’t think she realizes how strong she is. One time she got so mad. Nearly caused a cave-in. Grackel was livid. And a little bit terrified. And you know Grackel. That’s saying something.

  “She’d hate me for telling you this, but she misses you. Allie misses you. I—” My hands ball into fists. “They’re just children!”

  I bite hard into my lip until the desire to hit him passes. It takes a while. I wipe an arm across my eyes to clear them and continue treating him in silence.

  After applying bandages, I call Colin, who helps me dress him in mismatched Walmart clothes. We carry him to the bed.

  I’m checking his pulse again when, out of my peripheral vision, I see Colin coming around to my side, a pair of needles in his hand.

  “What are those?” I ask.

  “Sedatives. I’m sorry,” Colin says, and drives one into my arm.

  I slap him. “You asshole.”

  “I need to go grab some things to get us through the checkpoint. I can’t risk you doing something stupid.”

  My eyelids grow heavy. He kisses my forehead, lays me down. His footsteps echo into emptiness. From across the universe, I hear a door open and shut, a car engine rumble to life.

  I fight the urge to sleep. Opening my eyes requires effort. Sitting up proves a struggle. Unzipping his backpack is damn near impossible. I fumble through it with clumsy fingers, not sure what I’m looking for. Tablet, needles, underwear, gun clips. No gun.

  In a pocket, I find a pair of metallic flash drives. There’s something familiar about them. A couple of groggy blinks later, I remember where I’ve seen them before. Preston procured several drives like these from Georgetown; he used them to make his RedJediGrunt vids.

  Repeating my mantras does nothing to quell the shaking in my hands as I struggle to stick the first drive into Colin’s tablet. A file folder opens. It contains a dozen videos, ranging in date from a week ago to yesterday. My trembling subsides. This isn’t Georgetown.

  I load the first video. Via infrared cameras, it shows me hanging from a chain, jets of blood rain assaulting me until I wake. I tug out the drive, swap it for the other one, load the last file in the folder.

  James dangles from a chain similar to mine. He’s soaked in blood rain.

  Blink.

  He’s screaming.

  Blink.

  “Where’s the next attack, Twenty-Six?”

  My eyes snap open at Interrogator’s voice. A woman’s in the room with James now, a whip coiled in her hand. She steps in front of him. It’s the pretty lady from the hallway, the one Colin shot between the eyes.

  “Oren doesn’t operate like that,” James says.

  The woman strikes in a flash, th
e whip slicing into James’s back. He cries out.

  Blink.

  “. . . he gave us . . . orders . . .” James is saying between heavy breaths. “Two days before the attack . . . didn’t know before.”

  The woman removes a bottle from her pocket, dips latex-gloved fingers into it, and rubs a substance into a fresh laceration. James writhes and wails.

  “Twenty-Six, you expect me to believe that you’re just a common soldier in the Diocletian army?”

  Blink.

  “. . . telling the truth.” James clenches his jaw. “Check my CENSIR.”

  “You’ve managed to fool us before, Twenty-Six.”

  “I don’t know!”

  The screen in front of James bursts to life. There I am, spotlighted in my cell, soaked with blood rain, screaming.

  Blink.

  “I don’t know!”

  On the screen, my CENSIR jolts me several times in rapid succession, and the geysers of blood rain open fire. They feed the audio from my cell into his.

  “Stop lying,” Interrogator says. “Where were the other riders?”

  “Others?”

  I get shocked again. James attempts to shut his eyes, but they shock them open via his CENSIR.

  “In your trio, you were the only rider on your dragon,” Interrogator says.

  “Huh?” James says. Sounds drugged.

  They shock me. They shock him. We scream.

  Blink.

  “. . . this makes any sense. What’s this have to do with the girl?” Interrogator asks.

  “I don’t know why Oren wants Allie,” James says. “Please stop.”

  “Tell me something new, Twenty-Six, and I’ll end Twenty-Five’s suffering.”

  “Okay . . . okay . . . I’ve got a theory. . . .”

  Blink.

  23

  The thrum of highway beneath tires lulls me awake. Something’s itching at my eyes. The car’s unfamiliar. And for a few seconds, so is its driver. A wig of shoulder-length black hair covers Colin’s head; tinted glasses hide his eyes.

  “How you feeling?” he asks.

  Asshole. “Where are we?”

  “Almost to Iowa. Your name’s Jill,” Colin says. “I’m Mike. He’s Justin. We’re on a weekend excursion to the Badlands.”

  I check my reflection in the rearview mirror. I’ve got blue eyes and a blond wig that’s nothing like the one I wore for Kissing Dragons but reminds me of it nonetheless. I look more like that dragon queen than the girl I used to be. Will I ever get to be Melissa again?

  I look away. A seat over, “Justin” wears an Ohio State University cap, tugged low to hide his CENSIR. No handcuffs anymore. Makeup conceals bruises on his face. Brown-colored contacts do not conceal the rage. He catches me watching him and shuts his eyes.

  Rows of corn blur past my window; the memory of the torture video comes into focus. I want to ask James about his theory on Allie, but I don’t know how to broach the subject without arousing his suspicion about my intentions. I don’t know how to talk to him at all.

  Colin turns on the radio. The silence intensifies.

  I contact Grackel and Baby in spurts, but the distraction of their conversation only serves to remind me how empty it feels in the car. I do not know these people anymore. Colin with his secrets, James with his darkness.

  We reach our first checkpoint a mile before the Illinois-Iowa border. No less than fifty All-Blacks monitor the highway control gates. Several patrol the queue of vehicles with bomb-sniffing dogs; the rest lurk in sandbag fortifications with enough weaponry to annihilate a mountain.

  When it’s our turn, an A-B sergeant orders us out. I cross my arms over my chest to control my trembles and lift my eyes skyward, praying he thinks me annoyed and not ready-to-pee-myself terrified.

  While he scans our fake licenses into his tablet, another soldier searches the car. Nothing in the glove compartment or center console except for some wadded-up receipts and loose change. From the trunk, he removes a pair of oversized backpacks. He lets the dog sniff at them, opens them up, inspects the contents. Colin’s tablet, some MREs, a couple of canteens, three blankets that appear to be made out of aluminum, a set of binoculars, a bundle of rope. No ammo, needles, or flash drives.

  “What are your intentions?” the sergeant asks.

  “Headed for the Badlands, man,” Colin says. He’s affected a dopey-eyed look. “Heard there are some killer dragon skeletons to check out.”

  The sergeant scowls. “That’s near the drone zone. That’s off-limits.”

  “No way, man. They’re closing the frontier?”

  “It is closed. You stay on this side of it. And no souvenir hunting.”

  “We look like we want to do any dragon dancing, man?”

  The scowl intensifies. “You know what I mean. Don’t bring back any . . . mementos.”

  “Only pictures and good times, man.”

  “Stay alert, obey curfew, follow signs, and keep out of trouble.” He returns our IDs, we get back in the car, and I start to breathe again, though it’s another ten minutes before my heart rate settles to anywhere close to normal.

  On the outskirts of Des Moines, traffic slows to a crawl again. Signs along the highway indicate that all civilian traffic must take the next exit. Except for a herd of semis, most of the vehicles are already military. Drones crisscross the cloudless sky.

  The semi in front of us switches lanes, giving me a view of the highway ahead. Hundreds of troop transports form a convoy that plods west, toward the evac territories. Beyond the trucks, I see tanks. Beyond that, I cannot distinguish, but the snake of vehicular blackness stretches to the horizon. I think of Sam, tell myself he’s in some film studio somewhere.

  “It’ll be Armageddon,” James says.

  “Isn’t that what you want?” Colin says.

  “The dragons never had a choice in the matter.”

  “You did.”

  James doesn’t answer, his gaze returning to his window.

  We drive on. North and west, muddling our way through checkpoint after checkpoint. Traffic thins until only that strained silence accompanies us. We reach Badlands National Park around sunset and pull off to a scenic overlook. Prairie dogs bark at us from afar.

  “Pretend like you’re tourists,” Colin says. He indicates the drone that circles overhead. It’s the only one in our vicinity, but there’s little else to observe other than us. “The frontier checkpoint’s a ten-minute walk from here. We wait for nightfall, then we go.”

  “Won’t it still be able to track us?” I say.

  “The boy scout’s got it all figured out,” James says, flipping his fake driver’s license around in one hand. “That’s what the Mylar blankets are for, right?”

  “It’ll block the thermal imaging for a short while.” Colin pops the trunk. “Long enough for us to put some distance between us and its cameras.”

  James rolls down his window, flicks the license away. “You know, for a fugitive, you sure seem well connected.”

  Similar thoughts have crossed my mind too many times.

  I trudge to a railing that overlooks a canyon bulging with hills made of red-striped rock. I spot no dragon skeletons, though. On a nearby information placard decorated with a frontiersman (the nineteenth-century version) and a couple of prairie dogs, somebody’s added a ravenous-looking Red to the mountainous backdrop.

  James limps up beside me, sneers at the image. “They’ll always be monsters. Better to play the part than to die a coward.”

  There’s no courage in what the Diocletians have done, I want to say, but I need his alliance. Colin stands a dozen feet from us, binoculars raised to his eyes. I lean closer to James. “I don’t trust him.”

  “Neither did Keith at first,” James says after a long silence. He stares off toward the horizon. “Thought maybe he was working covert ops. But he told us the location of another talker facility. This place called Banks Island. Polar bear territory. There were only three talkers there, dead, of co
urse, but we recovered design schematics on a new CENSIR.

  “Thing was,” he continues, “Oren already had those design schematics. Stole them two months before. Maybe the army already knew about the breach. Whatever. Keith believed him. Didn’t hurt that Georgetown Claire was his sister.”

  “That not enough?” I ask.

  “Maybe. Blood doesn’t necessarily mean allegiance.”

  “Sam,” I whisper, his name out of my mouth before I can stop it. I glance at James, hoping he didn’t hear, but he’s looking at me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just another thing they’ve taken from me.”

  He nods. “There was one thing about Sarge’s story that never really worked for me. He was supposedly a grunt in the U.S. Army, so how’d he know about that facility? He claimed to have served there, one of the pro-military talkers, but they send the scale-chasing talkers to more hospitable locations.”

  I think of Colin’s note. There are things I want to tell you, but I’m not sure how without making you hate me.

  “There’s been something bothering me,” I say. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “What?”

  “There was only one way in and out of that BoDA detention center.”

  James nods. “The elevator.”

  “Right. So he had to come in that way. But he didn’t kill that secretary or that agent until we tried to leave.”

  “Huh?”

  I explain Colin’s and my first trip up the elevator. “And there’s something else. Colin was in Interrogator’s control room before he rescued me. But I don’t remember hearing any gunshots before that.”

  James smirks. “They knew him. Or knew of him. They trusted him.”

  I trusted him. “He told me that Keith didn’t remove the tracer from my arm. He told me that’s how he found us.”

  “Of course he removed it,” James says. “I was there. I watched.” It was the day after we escaped Georgetown. The medics had performed the impromptu surgery in a cave somewhere in Argentina.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. Keith was worried they’d figure out the tracking frequency.”