by Lynda Engler
Luke barely knew how the underground city functioned, much less how a group of young people could help the entire population of mutants. It did not seem possible. It didn’t even seem plausible. These kids had everything! They had a perfect world; the safest and most secure existence anywhere on Earth. Why would they care about those left Outside? “What can you do to help them?”
“We… release… them…” said Roan slowly and quietly, at precisely the same volume as the scrambler’s white noise and recorded chatter.
Luke’s eyes widened. “How?”
Mathias chimed in, at a slow, measured pace, which the scrambler machine mixed in with its own sounds. “One of the advantages of having a brother at West Point is that he’s able to find out things. Useful things. Codes. Passwords. Guard duty shift change times. If you get my drift.”
“So, you sneak into the cells and let them go? Don’t you get caught?” Luke was awestruck. These kids really were doing something to save the mutants. Until he met Teagan and her friends, he had not even suspected that an underground movement like this within the shelter folk could exist. That people with attitudes completely opposite of those he had known his entire life could exist. Then to find out that it was people his own age organizing it dumbfounded him.
“Sometimes, but we are good at what we do. We are also trying to raise the awareness of the general public, at least here at Mt. Weather, about the mutant issue and get them to change their minds. Change their cultural attitudes. Get them to see that the mutants are people too, even if they are misshapen,” said Roan. His chest puffed out as he spoke.
“Hence the band,” stated Luke flatly.
“Hence the band,” confirmed Roan, leaning further back in his chair, his hands behind his head and his feet up on the table. “My idea, by the way.”
Roan’s every movement exuded confidence, a confidence in himself that Luke had taken for arrogance at first, but that he now saw was at least somewhat justified.
“I still don’t understand why the mutants are being forced to clean up the cities. Aren’t there enough empty places in the world we can live in without going near the Yellow Zones?”
“Yellow zones?” Teagan’s eyebrows flashed.
Luke nodded. “The areas on the maps marked in yellow, where the radiation is.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed and rolled her eyes. “Wow, they really don’t teach you shelter kids much do they? No wonder y’all come to Mt. Weather for higher schooling. The ‘yellow zones’ on the maps merely indicate areas of dense population. You know: cities. Well, before the Final War they had dense populations anyway. Some were nuked, others were hit with chemicals. Either way, you are right. There isn’t anything more hazardous than a city these days, but that’s not why they are marked in yellow. That’s pure coincidence. They were in yellow long before the Final War.”
Seeing the look of embarrassment in Luke’s eyes, Teagan added, “But I can see why you would think yellow meant danger. The population centers are dangerous. Every one of them, in one way or another contains horrific dangers. Radiation. Chemicals. Bio poisons. Even zombies.”
Luke would have thought she was pulling his leg if he had not seen the gray beasts for himself. “The mutants call them Eaters,” he said, and a shiver ran down his spine. He had only seen the dead ones, but he heard the stories. If they caught you, they ate you alive.
Teagan echoed his words. “Eaters. Yeah, that’s something I would sure call dangerous. Maybe the map makers before the war were smarter than we thought.”
“Prescient even,” mumble Luke.
* * *
Malcolm
Malcolm lay on the floor, almost catatonic, staring at the chipped paint on the concrete walls that other prisoners had gouged over time. He did not even have the energy to climb up to the top bunk he had claimed. What was the point? He could not help his daughters even though he heard their cries just down the hall. Andra was in a cell off to his left, with a bunch of strangers, and Shia and Kalla off to his right, both just children. He had no idea where they had taken Isabella, and her screams still echoed in his head.
He whimpered like a child and tears finally rolled silently down his face. He lay that way for untold number of hours, not sure if it was day or night, and no longer caring.
Malcolm felt the weight of his current situation threaten to crush the life out of him, his lungs desperately trying to suck in air and his heart palpitating in unfamiliar ways. He rubbed the heel of his palm against his chest but the sadness could not be massaged away.
Chapter Eight
Luke
“I have the codes for the elevator key for level ten and the outer cell door to the mutant holding center on that level,” said Mathias quietly, leaning conspiratorially closer to the scrambler.
Luke said, “All thanks to that older brother of yours that you make so much fun of, I presume? Mathias, your brother isn’t such a bad character. He thinks mutants are a circus freak show, but deep inside he seems to have a heart. He told me where they were taking my sister, after all, and now it seems he’s Social Dissonance’s inside man as well. Plus, he saved the cat. So why do you make fun of him?”
Mathias laughed, then said in a low, conspiratorial voice. “Luke, you’ve got me all wrong. My brother was one of the founding members of our group. He went to West Point as an ROTC cadet just so he could funnel us information. The ‘rotcy geek’ stuff is just a smoke screen. He is as committed to saving the mutants as the rest of us. I have to protect him,” admitted Mathias.
Luke had never learned Schmidt’s first name when they met at West Point less than a week ago. With a name like Lester, Luke understood why the cadet was content to just go by his last name.
The door chimed again. Teagan hastily shut off the scrambler and shoved it in her pocket while Luke moved to open the door.
A female soldier stood in the threshold with a teenage girl. Dirty, her clothes ripped and torn, and her hair matted, it took Luke a second to recognize his cousin-sister, Isabella. As recognition dawned, he grabbed her to his chest and tried to hug her to death. Even though he knew from Lester Schmidt that she was on her way to Mt. Weather and that she had not caught TB from the girl in the woods, he was still so relieved to see her that he was amazed at his own emotions.
A few tears rolled down her dirty face as she returned the embrace. “Luke, you’re here,” she sighed and rested her head against his chest. He was a few inches taller than she was now. Her words were almost lost in his chest. “How? Why?”
“To rescue you, stupid,” but he hugged her harder and would not let go. Luke and Isabella had never been close and no one in the Bellardini family was particularly demonstrative with their emotions, but at this moment, Luke felt like he could hug his sister for the rest of forever.
When Isabella finally broke away from Luke’s embrace, she turned to the door. “What about my family?” she asked the soldier. Isabella held herself tall and straight, even though Luke knew she must be exhausted.
The young soldier looked appraisingly at Luke and replied, “This is your family, isn’t it? Your brother?”
“Yes. No. I mean, yes, Luke is my sib. I meant, what about my husband and daughters? And my friends? You’re going to get them out too, right, Daphne?” Isabella’s eyes shone expectantly at the young soldier. The girl could not have been more than a few years older than Luke and Isabella were. Her nametag read “Noble,” and Luke had no idea what rank she held, unfamiliar with military insignia. His sister called her by her first name, so Luke thought they must be friends.
Isabella’s look of relief and joy at being reunited with her brother vanished when she saw Daphne’s face.
“I can’t… I mean, It wouldn’t be… um, look, Isabella, I’d like to help you but…” Daphne Noble’s face looked anything but noble, and she turned to Luke. “Can she stay with you until I find her quarters?”
“She can stay for good. She can have my room and I’ll sleep on Doc’s floor,” Luk
e replied and took Isabella’s hand to lead her into the living room.
Daphne insisted she would get a cot sent down and quickly left.
Teagan cleared her throat behind Luke and Isabella, and the two shelter kids turned to face the Mt. Weather group. “Mind introducing us, Luke?”
“Of course! Isabella, these are my friends, Teagan, Mathias, and Roan. Mathias’ brother is a cadet I met at West Point, and Roan is the manager of a band here at Mt. Weather. Teagan waits tables at the bar where Roan’s band plays.” Luke took his tired sister to the couch and made her sit down.
“How long have you been here?” asked Isabella, scanning the large room, her eyes wide.
“I got here yesterday.”
“You’ve been here a day and already have friends?” Isabella narrowed her eyes and smiled at Luke the way only a sister could. “I don’t know whether to be proud of you or annoyed. I didn’t figure you for a social butterfly, shelter boy.” Luke could tell from her face that she wasn’t the least bit annoyed at him, perhaps for the first time in their lives and he leaned toward her on the couch and wrapped an arm around her should to give her a squeeze.
Mathias sat across from her on an overstuffed chair and said with a laugh, “We were actually planning a rescue operation to get you out, but you saved us the trouble.”
“You were? Can you get into those cells? Can you get my husband and girls out?” Her eyes begged as her voice pleaded.
Mathias looked confused and asked, “How old are you?”
“Everyone keeps asking that! I’m sixteen and the girls aren’t really mine, but they are my daughters now. I married the man I fell in love with Outside and now I need to get him out of those cells… and my other friends too. They herded us into prison cells like animals! How can they do that?” Isabella had been holding back most of her tears since she arrived at the apartment but now finally let them go. She wept openly, as her sib sat next to her on the couch, holding her.
Teagan moved next to Isabella on her other side and pulled the crying girl’s chin up to look into her eyes. “They cage them like animals because that’s what they are – to our government.”
Isabella jumped to a stand, digging her knuckles into her hips. “They aren’t animals! They are living, intelligent beings, who don’t have a voice in what you are doing to them! They don’t want to clean the cities that humanity destroyed!”
“It’s not our idea,” replied Teagan quietly, calmly remaining on the couch but pulling the scrambler back out of her pocket. She switched it on and set it in the middle of the table.
Roan interjected from across the room. “Not all of us think the mutants should be treated this way.” The index finger of his right hand pointed to the scrambler while his left made a “sshhh” sign on his lips.
Isabella let her hands drop to her sides and unclenched her fists. Falling silent, she looked uncomprehendingly at the object on the table, and Luke empathized with her confusion.
“Some of us have been doing something about it,” said Mathias quietly. “We’ve been rescuing them a few at a time.” Like Luke and Isabella, Mathias was sixteen, making him the youngest of the revolutionaries. Even though he was young, he had been involved with them for many years because of his older brother.
“Can you get them out?” asked Isabella, her intense eyes boring into Mathias’. She asked quietly enough. Luke knew she understood the secrecy of this conversation, even if she had not understood the concept of government spying as he did from reading their grandfather’s pre-war novels.
“Some, yes,” replied Mathias, tentatively, his dark gray eyes revealing his uncertainty. “We have the lock codes. We go in and bring out small groups, disguised as humans. Then we sneak them out the airlocks at night so they can be free.”
“Can you get my family out, please?” pleaded Isabella, too loudly to be covered up by the scrambler and Roan immediately shushed her.
“Can they pass as human – blend in – long enough to get through the city and get Outside?”
Isabella thought for a moment before replying. “Some, maybe, but not all of them. My husband, Malcolm, has ebony skin and mismatched number of fingers. Even with his hands in his pockets and a hat covering his straw-colored hair, his skin color would stand out in a crowd. I doubt many humans in Mt. Weather have his midnight coloring. As for my daughters, Andra’s disproportionately long legs would not blend in easily, but dressed in a long skirt, she might pass. Shia’s crooked gait is noticeable, though her chocolate skin would mingle effortlessly here, and a scarf could conceal her missing ear, along with her shocking red hair. My friends Kalla and Clay could pass as human as long as you don’t look too closely. So, maybe some would pass. But not all of them.”
“Well, isn’t some better than none?” asked Luke.
Isabella rounded angrily on her sib. “Some? What if someone asked you to pick which one of our family at home in the shelter would live and who would die? Who would you save? Mark? Abby? Your mother? Go ahead, pick one to die!”
Luke looked sheepishly at Isabella and stuttered out a response. “I, uh, that’s not what I meant.”
“Well think before you speak!” she shouted over the scrambler again. “We get ALL of them out.”
“Exactly,” said Mathias. “We need a better plan.” Though the youngest of the group, he was clearly the leader of Social Dissonance – the cause, not the band.
* * *
Malcolm
Military boots pounded the concrete floor and muffled voices announced the arrival of soldiers entering the prison block. Malcolm and Clay heard shouts from down the hall.
“Come on, you freaks,” the voice laughed, nearer and louder now. “You are today’s lucky winners! You get the pleasure of being test subjects. Aren’t you fortunate?”
Malcolm and his cellmates could hear them taking someone away from a cell just a few doors down from their own. An older prisoner, Jarrick, was especially tense. He had family in those cells too.
Malcolm stared at Clay. “Test subjects? Just like Oberon said at Telemark. So they do use mutants for experiments!” His worst nightmare since leaving Ewr had become real.
“And you doubted that why?” Clay asked rhetorically. Sitting on the floor next to Malcolm, his arms wrapped protectively around his knees and pulled tight to his chest, the boy showed his young age. He looked fourteen and usually acted it, but right now, Malcolm thought he looked small and helpless, like the eleven-year-old child he really was.
Chapter Nine
Luke
The walls at Mt. Weather were thick enough that it was almost impossible to hear the shower running in the bathroom next door. While Isabella cleaned up, and Teagan was out picking up appropriate clothing for his cousin-sister, Mathias, Roan, and Luke plotted an assortment of methods to help Isabella’s friends.
One by one, they shot down every idea as either too dangerous or too unlikely to succeed.
“What about hiding the little girls in a wagon or something?” suggested Luke. He had no idea what equipment was even available in the underground city and knew as soon as the words left his mouth that it was a stupid idea.
“Nope – no way to wheel it around without attracting attention, especially on level ten,” replied Roan with a wretched grin. He had obviously run out of his own ideas and was hoping the shelter boy had some fresh ones. Too bad Luke did not.
Isabella returned to the living room, her hair wrapped in a towel, wearing a robe and having scrubbed her new ruddy complexion clean of a week’s worth of dirt. She was still wobbly and slumped into a chair across from Roan as the door chimed.
Luke assumed it was Teagan returning with the clothes. He leaped to answer it, but instead Daphne Noble stood in the hall, a rollaway cot by her side.
“Thanks,” said Luke, as he took the folding bed and pushed it into the living room.
When Isabella saw the soldier in the doorway, she jumped up so quickly that she had to force the front of her robe together. “
Corporal Noble. Daphne. Please,” she pleaded to the young soldier. “You have to help us. You know the mutant captives. You know that we have been lied to all our lives! You know they aren’t dim-witted sub-humans!”
Daphne hung her head. “Isabella, you’re right. And you know I want to help, but…”
“But what?” shrieked Isabella in frustration. She grabbed the soldier by the arm, pulled her into the apartment, and closed the door behind her. Luke knew that even if the apartment was monitored, it might not be at every moment, and there was no sense arguing in the hallway and possibly arousing suspicion from any nosey neighbors.
Isabella finally broke Daphne’s resolve and the soldier shouted, “I’d be court marshaled!”
“You’d what?” asked Isabella, still clinging to her robe. Her hands trembled as she held the thick fabric.
Quieter and calmer now, Daphne Noble replied, “They’d kick me out of the military.”
The apartment door chimed again and Isabella opened it. Luke knew her well enough to see in her eyes how happy she was for any distraction right now. She was furious at Daphne and could quite possibly strangle the girl simply for being an obedient soldier.
Teagan entered carrying a canvas bag. She handed it to Isabella silently, but her eyes asked, What did I miss?
“Thanks,” said Isabella and clutched the sack to her chest.
She turned to Daphne and asked, “Will you stay while I go get dressed? I’ll only be two minutes. Please?”
The soldier nodded and marched to the far side of the room where she waited patiently, in a military at-ease stance. No one said a word while they waited, although Teagan gave Luke an alarmed look, one that silently screamed to him, What’s she doing here? Teagan distrusted all the military, and for good reason. She had been working for years to subvert them and help the mutants, only having turned a few to their cause. Clearly, having a soldier in his apartment did not sit well with her at all.