The Other Side

by Joshua McCune

  Oren tosses me the silver dragon brooch. “The key to the manacles is on the nightstand. Get her to walk around every once in a while.” He and Elise leave.

  Allie stares at me. “Arabelle?”

  I want nothing more than to give her the silver dragon, hoping it might somehow fix a small part of her, but she used the brooch to kill Major Alderson in Georgetown. I shove it in my pocket. “Not today.”

  She slumps against the wall and tears at her bandages.

  I intervene.

  I talk to her about Arabelle and Grackel, recount our experiences on Saint Matthew Island. Laugh and cry as I relive her feigned suicide attempt.

  Nothing.

  I talk to her about the make-believe island we had in Georgetown, remind her about the jazz monkeys and the Kremlin circus and the graffiti waterfall.

  Nothing.

  My arms weary from fighting her constant efforts to slash her wrists. As I shift my grip, I talk to her about our cheesecake escapade in Dillingham.

  Nothing.

  I hum “Over the Rainbow.”

  Her blink pattern slows, but I think it’s just because she’s getting tired. I wait for her to fall asleep, then put her in chains.

  I test the door, am surprised to find that it’s unlocked. I wedge it open with a bottle of cleaner I find in the closet. I investigate the hallway. At one end is the elevator. The bioprint scanner doesn’t recognize my hand. Two hundred and twenty-three steps later, passing twenty-five doors on either side, I reach the other end. An exit sign points at a door that’s also protected by a scanner. I test it with my shoulder. It’s made of metal and doesn’t budge.

  I check the other doors in the hallway. They’re unlocked. Beyond each, I find replicas of the room in which Allie and I are imprisoned, except unlived in. I don’t think anybody’s ever lived in them.

  Every floor is spotless, every bed is made. Every closet and dresser is empty. Every nightstand drawer contains a neatly positioned brochure titled “Rationing Protocols,” with water and MRE allowances dependent on some color-code system. At the bottom, there’s a four-digit emergency contact number.

  Every nightstand has a phone. None of them work. I try them all again.

  “Where am I?” I ask near the end of my second go-around. I wait for an answer, but none comes.

  The only thing worse than the silence is the hollow echo of my footsteps as I return to my room. I’ve never felt so alone.

  I check on Allie—still asleep—then head to the adjacent room, where I try out the thinscreen. It works. I find a news station, flinch when I see video of James’s and my attack on the convoy. They loop through it as pundits analyze our monstrosity. The part where I diverted Praxus from eating that All-Black has been edited out (I assume by Oren); the faces of the soldiers have been blurred (I assume by the news).

  Not real. I’m not a monster.

  Am I?

  39

  James and Colin fish on a flooded street from atop a missile launcher. James reels in a Green talon. Colin hooks a shrunken Red head. Praxus alights atop a hotel, a necklace of blurred All-Black heads draped around his neck. He opens his mouth and unleashes a hurricane of fire.

  I lurch awake in a sweat. The stench of feces hits me. I stumble from my cot, feel my way to the nightstand, and crank the lamp.

  Allie’s a mess. Her arms strain against her chains, but otherwise she appears asleep.

  I remove her soiled sheets and her soiled scrubs and throw them down the room’s laundry chute. I uncuff her, carry her to the bathroom, clean her off in the shower. I talk as I apply rose-scented shampoo. I glide my finger along her nose to her chin. She opens her eyes, stares ahead blankly.

  We return to the bedroom. The dresser contains several pairs of white scrubs and spare sheets. After changing her, I reshackle her to the bed. I work my way around her and fit the sheets into place.

  I retrieve a pair of MREs from the closet and prep breakfast. I feed her pastries and wheat bread and applesauce. She chews and swallows everything without issue, as efficient and mechanical as a trash compacter. I talk and hum nursery rhymes and it doesn’t matter.

  Elise visits that afternoon to check on Allie. I ask if there are any drugs that might help her.

  “He needs her lucid,” she says.

  “Extremely lucid,” I say. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know?”

  Her bird eyes narrow on me. “That you’re lucky he didn’t kill you.”

  After she leaves, I head next door. I watch the news for a bit. It’s not me on there anymore, so it’s manageable. They’ve captured other insurgents here and there. Not James, fortunately. Not Evelyn, unfortunately. The generals and politicians they interview seem to think things are dying down, that the recent attacks were last-ditch efforts. I don’t think they believe that, but I don’t think they know how bad it is.

  By the third day, I’m desperate. Allie isn’t any better. Nothing I do gets through to her. She reminds me of Claire.

  The only thing that ever broke Colin’s sister from her robotic stupor in any good way was watching Kissing Dragons. Probably because he was on the show, but I can’t think of anything else. I unshackle her, hug her close, and turn on the thinscreen.

  It’s on an entertainment station.

  “Is Hollywood their next target?” A glitzed-up reporter is interviewing an even glitzier guy as celebrities stroll in for some black-tie affair. A-Bs line the black carpet on either side.

  “Man, B and C, they got themselves a vendetta, wouldn’t be no surprise to me.”

  “B and C?” the reporter asks.

  “Bonnie and Clyde. They straight aiming, and I wouldn’t wanna be in their hairs.”

  “You never know when the great mother’s going to call your name,” the next interviewee says when questioned. “When it’s time, it’s time.”

  The reporter beelines it toward the outskirts of the carpet. She plants herself in front of Cosmo Kim, the fashion stylist who transformed me from a raggedy prisoner into a glamorous traitor for my interview on Kissing Dragons: The Other Side. If not for her skills, I probably wouldn’t be so famous. Notorious. Kim’s pink suit belongs to a flamingo, her hair and glaring face to an ostrich.

  “You worked with her, C.K. What was Melissa Callahan like?”

  “You want to know what she was like, do you?” Sounds like she’s been drinking. She rolls her eyes. “She wasn’t half as pretty as I made her, and she wasn’t half as crazy as they say.”

  “You afraid of what she’s going to do?”

  “That’s what they want,” she says gruffly. “*Bleep* them.”

  “Anything else you can tell us?”

  “You need a new stylist,” she says, and stomps on.

  I laugh. Allie remains limp in my arms.

  I flip through channels—a soap opera, a talk show with doctors discussing the effects of dragon exposure on adolescents (James and I are exhibits one and one-A), a news station discussing the recent arrest of three Diocletian terrorists in Los Alamos—until I find the Kissing Dragons network.

  The fab four are hog-tying a Red in an enormous arena surrounded by walls of rubble—

  Allie goes from catatonic to psychotic in an instant. She lurches free. “Malovo, Malovo, Malovo . . .”

  She jumps to her feet. I dive for her, but she’s too fast. She hurls herself at the thinscreen. I pull her away, spin her around, hug her to me. She knees me in the groin, slashes me across the face. I stagger, lose my hold on her.

  She presses her face to the thinscreen so that her eyes are lined up with the dragon’s. “Malovo, Malovo, Malovo . . .”

  Frank drives the sword through the Red’s skull. Its eyes shut, its glow vanishes.

  Allie screams. She falls to her knees and digs into her wrists. “Malovo, Malovo, Malovo . . .”

  I get kicked and punched a few times but manage to put her back in shackles. I turn off the thinscreen. I pin her d
own until she stops writhing. It takes a while.

  I look back to the thinscreen. Malovo? On the show, they called him Big Nero. The Destroyer of Rome. How did Allie know his real name? Was he one of her call-center captures?

  A terrible thought occurs to me.

  “Vestia,” I say loudly. She was James’s former dragon mount, a Red I helped kill in the Georgetown ER. Allie remains motionless. I lower my voice. “Malovo.”

  She goes into crazy tornado mode again. Shackled and undoubtedly tired from her previous episode, it doesn’t take as long for me to subdue her. She will, however, need another change of sheets and scrubs.

  I think of the way she reacted to the dragons when we were on the train, shouting out their names as we sped by . . . think of Thog, that dragon that chased me in Chicago, how upset she got when she saw that empty cage . . . his empty cage . . .

  Where are you? Talk to me, you treacherous human!

  Was he talking to her?

  Now he’s gone and she can’t talk to him anymore, and she blames herself. Just like she blames herself for Malovo. She feels responsible for them, responsible for all those dragons down in the terminal. Still alive.

  That’s why she’s trying to kill herself. I thought it was because she couldn’t talk to them or feel them with the CENSIR on, but it’s not that at all. It’s guilt. She’s trying to kill herself so she doesn’t kill more of them.

  The tears come too fast for me to stop. I wipe them away, kiss her on the forehead. “In nae, right?”

  It takes me some time, and a few more breakdowns, but I finally think of an idea that might help her.

  “I need to take her outside,” I say to Elise when she visits for Allie’s afternoon health check.

  “That’s not allowed.”

  “I need to show her the stars.” I grab her wrist. “Please. I know you want to help her, too.”

  She pulls free. “I’ll do what I can.”

  That evening, there’s a knock at the door. I bound from the bed, as if it’s Santa Claus come to visit. Instead, I get Satan’s concubine and a squadron of armed white cloaks.

  Evelyn. Prettier and faker than normal. She’s covered in stage makeup and is dressed in a blue, green, and red sequined dress. The only real thing about her is the victorious grin.

  “Hey, Twenty-Five. Didn’t think to see you again, but very happy that you’re okay.”

  I clench my fists. My CENSIR shocks me. Her grin widens. “Actions have consequences, Twenty-Five.”

  “Yes they do,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

  “I brought somebody to see you. Heard you two were friends. John!”

  “Step aside, step aside,” O.J. says, squirming his way forward. He’s unCENSIRed, but his entire body twitches as if he’s experiencing constant shocks. “You and me, Ms. Dandelion, we’re right like rain. I made a mistake, and I apologize.” He nods rapidly at me. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  He scowls and goes extra twitchy, then laughs and puckers his lips at me. “Kissing humans.” He draws his gold-plated Beretta from his holster and conducts to some unheard song for a few beats. “I’m the director! Congratulate me.”

  “Congratulations,” I say, just to shut him up. “Why are you here, Evelyn?”

  “Special rehearsal for the special finale!” O.J. says.

  She glances at him, annoyance flickering in her eyes, before she looks back at me. “We gotta borrow zombie girl for a little bit.”

  Two soldiers enter the room for Allie.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll bring her back, Twenty-Five,” Evelyn says. “No worse for wear. I promise.”

  “Hate me all you want, Evelyn, but she’s just a child.”

  Her grin fades to something a little less spiteful. “Weren’t we all?”

  40

  I turn on the thinscreen once they’re gone, brace myself. Chicago was thirty dragons. Oren has enough firepower down in those cages to wipe out a continent. Any continent.

  An hour passes. Two. Stories about the continued success of war efforts in the evacuated territories and terrorist readiness protocols that have been instituted across the country cycle constantly, but that’s it.

  Either the government’s imposed a media blackout, or Oren’s special rehearsal is somehow flying under the radar.

  Not just under the radar.

  Underground. All those tunnels. He could attack anywhere he wants.

  Everywhere.

  Sam, Dad, Colin, Uncle T, Aunt Sue . . . they could all be in danger. And there’s nothing I can do about it except watch and hope. . . .

  Breaking news.

  Does the world end at 8:14 EST?

  But the world’s not on fire yet.

  It’s a Diocletian propaganda video. Oren’s in a cave, wearing his white cloak and his typical draconian expression. He’s lit by a string of flickering incandescents that dangles from a stalactite.

  “You think you know the truth about dragons, the truth that’s been fed you by a government that imprisons children and forces them to participate in its attempted genocide of an entire species. . . .”

  Silent clips of insurgents wreaking havoc—including a couple of me—intersperse his homily, though I’m not sure whether he added them in or if the media did.

  “. . . We will show you once and for all that everything you’ve been led to believe is a lie,” he finishes. The screen fades. An image pixellates against the blackness. James and Evelyn. He’s in a black jumpsuit; she’s in a sequined dress. Outfits that mirror the ones he and I wore for our stint on Kissing Dragons.

  Here they’re not holding swords over dragons, but over shadowed outlines of strapped-down humans. The sword tips end in digital question marks.

  In the space between James and Evelyn, glowing letters sharpen into focus.

  Kissing Humans

  The Finale

  8/7 Central, Tuesday

  Live

  Within seconds, talking heads are analyzing the “dilapidated” setting, the lack of dragons in the video, Oren’s “weathered” features, even the frayed threads in his cloak. They unanimously deem him a desperate and disturbed man stuck in the “abyss of insanity created by dragon exposure.”

  I’m sure that’s what Oren wants them to believe. Over the past couple of days, I think I’ve figured out what he’s doing. All the various terrorist missions he sent us on were diversions. Few that I’ve seen covered on the news involved dragons, and those that did were small operations in the evacuated territories, like our attack on that supply convoy.

  Spread them thin.

  Then strike en masse.

  “Live,” I whisper.

  One day until the finale.

  One day until Armageddon.

  Maybe I can stop it.

  I’ve thought about it before, hoped for a miracle, but there are no miracles.

  There’s only me.

  If I’m brave enough, if I’m strong enough, maybe I can do what needs to be done.

  I have to kill Allie.

  I shut off the thinscreen, lie back on the bed, shut my eyes, and tell myself that is what I’m going to do. That is what I must do. For the greater good. She’s not getting better. She won’t suffer anymore. It’s for her good.

  It’s the right thing to do.

  It’s the right thing to do!

  It’s the right thing to do?

  I pull a pillow to my face and scream into it.

  “Hello?”

  I peek out from the pillow. James is looking at me, smiling that sad smile. “I heard you wanted to go outside.”

  41

  “What are you doing here, James?” I ask as I follow him to the elevator.

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  That’s not what I meant by my question, and I think he knows that, but maybe he doesn’t know the answer. You just end up in the middle of the suck and you don’t know quite how you got there, or quite how to get out.

&nb
sp; Allie and a couple of white cloaks are waiting for us in the elevator. They’re each holding a hand, like they’re parents taking a kid out for a stroll. A giant rag-doll, dead-eyed kid. My heart hurts.

  “You think showing her some stars’ll actually work?” a white cloak asks me on the ride up.

  “Hopefully,” I say, though a part of me hopes not. The other part hopes to give her one last smile. “You a talker?”

  “Nah. No offense, but y’all are nuts.”

  “A little,” I say. “When the dragon’s in your head, reality’s amped up several clicks. When you lose the connection, you crash hard.”

  “Yeah, we heard. Herb, may his deranged soul rest in peace, said it’s like cocaine.”

  “Sure.”

  “So you think showing her some stars will remind her that reality’s not so bad?”

  “No, reality sucks,” I say, which gets the two white cloaks laughing. “You don’t look at the stars to think about reality.”

  And their laughter ceases.

  The elevator stops at the fourth floor. James guides us with a flashlight down a dark hallway into a darker tunnel. The faint aroma of salt mixes with stuffy air. The air thins, the smell intensifies.

  Numerous twists and turns later, the tunnel ends in an enormous explosion crater. The steep slopes sparkle white in the moonlight. Almost like sand, but more granular.

  Salt.

  The stars twinkle overhead. I tip Allie’s chin upward and point out constellations, sweeping from west to east like Mom taught me, and recount the limited mythology I recall, most of which involves Zeus putting creatures and people in the sky to prevent patricide, escape an angry lover, or honor a fallen hero.

  “There’s Orion. He was a great hunter. He’s got a team of hunters with him,” I say. I force her gaze in the direction of Rigel, the brightest star in the constellation. She blinks without seeing. “That star there, that’s the great hunter Thog.”

  Allie awakens with a lurch, wrenching her head free of my grip. She writhes in the guards’ grasp, kicks at them. She looks around frantically. “Thog? Thog? Thog?”

  I grab hold of her chin. She fights me, but I finally tilt her gaze skyward. “He’s up there.”