King of Ends

by Sam Ryder

  Before my very eyes, the rock, which was far too heavy for even the strongest human to budge, shifted to the side to reveal a young man hefting a rifle. It was trained on us. The rock hadn’t been a rock at all, but some sort of cloth or tarp.

  “Are you Rising?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. I’m Cutter. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”

  He cursed under his breath, stepping forward, the gun still leveled on me. Then he dropped it to the ground and raised his right fist over his head. The landscape shifted. Large tarps painted to blend in with the desert lifted and a half dozen men and women emerged. These people must’ve been watching us from a mile away and we never knew they were there.

  “Impressive,” I said. “That’s quite an operation you’ve got here. Are you the Insurgence I’ve been hearing about?”

  The young man who could’ve shot my balls off approached. “What’s your game, Cutter?” he asked.

  “Game? No game. I think we want the same things, which makes us closer to friends than enemies.”

  The man laughed. “Friends? You think showing up like some vigilante after all these years makes you our friend? We’ve been plotting the overthrow of Atticus for five fucking years.”

  I didn’t like his tone of voice.

  I dropped one hand, letting it rest on my six-shooter. “Listen, I don’t want a fight,” I said. “That’s not why I—we—came here. But if you don’t call off your people and have them put their weapons down, I will draw on you. I will most likely die, but not before I take a few of you with me. Plus, Gehn here is a wildcat when you piss her off. You don’t want to do that.”

  Gehn hissed for effect, which I thought was a nice touch.

  The young man stared me down, as if trying to get me to look away. I was about to tell him to put a stop to his pointless pissing match when he finally looked away. With a wave of his hand, he signaled his people. They each dropped their weapons to their sides.

  “Thank you,” I said. “We come in peace. I swear it. I don’t know a damn thing about the Insurgence except what little I learned a few days ago. You’ve done a damn good job of keeping your existence a secret.”

  “That’s by design,” he said. “If Atticus ever caught wind of what we were up to, he would’ve torn the Rising apart just to kill us.”

  “And that would’ve been a bad thing?”

  “Ha. Maybe not. But we couldn’t let him undermine our operations, not if we were going to ever get to him.”

  “Get to him?”

  “Assassinate him,” he clarified.

  “See?” I said. “We are friends.”

  “Cutter, why are you here?”

  “To find you, of course. Give me five minutes of your time, that’s all I ask. If you don’t like what I have to say, then throw me out on my ass, or kill me. Whatever. Just don’t hurt Gehn.”

  “Cutter!” Gehn said.

  “She’s innocent in all this. She’s the best this world has to offer.”

  I could tell Gehn was looking at me, but I didn’t meet her eyes. I didn’t want to see the mix of pain and joy I knew would be there, surrounded by her usual aura of self-doubt.

  The man didn’t look convinced, but he hadn’t aimed his gun at me again. Not yet anyway. Finally, he seemed to let his guard down. “My name’s Simon,” he said. “Welcome to the Insurgence.”

  Chapter 25

  Insurgence

  The rock imposter had been hiding the entrance to an underground cave. Makeshift stone steps led downward, and I took them one at a time, careful not to turn an ankle. I could feel Gehn close behind me, though she made no sound. It could’ve been a trap, but it was unlikely. They hadn’t even bothered to disarm me, which would’ve been the smart move if they planned to kill us.

  All thoughts disappeared as the stairway tunnel spilled into a massive cavern just underneath the Earth’s surface. Dozens of people milled about, working and eating. Others slept on cots around the perimeter. It was clear from the giant stone columns that this cave was manmade, the earth hollowed out and supported. The hum of giant pieces of machinery filled my ears, gears turning, pistons pumping.

  What the actual fuck?

  Wait. Wait. It should’ve been dark down here. No, more than dark. It should’ve been void of all light considering our hosts weren’t even carrying torches. Instead, the place veritably blazed with light. The light shone from dozens of lightbulbs, actual real working lightbulbs strung up with electrical wires.

  The sight rendered me speechless. Simon laughed.

  “Been a while, eh?” he said. “The Rising has resources, but so do we.”

  Many of the men and women stopped to look at us as we stood on the bottom few steps, gawking at the sight before our eyes.

  “How...?” My voice trailed off.

  “Before you learn about us, we need to learn about you,” Simon said. “Follow me.”

  He walked ahead and we followed, heads on a swivel as we took everything in. First we approached a massive set of gears. Massive was more of an understatement. The gears were so large they would rival the size of the tallest structures in Paris. A series of ropes and pulleys were connected to the gears, reaching down to wheels with handles on them mounted to the far side of the cavern.

  “I have so many questions,” I said.

  “Well, so do we,” Simon replied. “And you’re on our turf now, so we get to go first.”

  “Fine, shoot,” I said.

  “Start at the beginning. Tell me everything.”

  So I did. I explained how I didn’t give a shit about Enders or the Rising or anyone really. How the bottle was my main friend, beside my dog, Chuck, who the Rising had killed. “They shouldn’t have killed my fucking dog,” I said.

  Simon, to his credit, didn’t patronize me. “No, they shouldn’t have. How did you end up allied with the Enders?”

  I continued, giving him the download on Gehn’s visions—Simon glanced at her curiously, but then looked back at me—her non-Ender sister, and what had transpired since we embarked on our journey. I didn’t need to tell him what had happened during our initial attack on Rome—he’d been watching.

  “You fucking saw us being slaughtered and you did nothing to help?”

  Simon didn’t blink at my tone. “Unlike you, we are playing the long game. We understand the need for secrecy. To take down Atticus, you need to do more than outmuscle him—you need to outthink him.

  I shook my head, still bitter. I didn’t understand how someone could sit by and watch innocents be killed without doing anything.

  Then again, it wasn’t my place to judge those working against the Rising. So I let it slide, barely. “A bartender in Paris told us about the Insurgents,” I finished. “So we took a chance and here we are.”

  “The Enders are aware of us?” Simon asked.

  “It’s not common knowledge, I don’t think. But word is spreading, as it does.”

  “Dammit. It’s true then. As a precaution, we pulled all our people out a few days ago. We’ve been lying low ever since.”

  “What happened?”

  “One of our operatives disappeared. Then another. They were some of our key people, those who’d risen the highest and gotten the closest to Atticus.”

  “Somehow they realized what was happening,” I said.

  Simon nodded. “It was inevitable. The larger our organization grew, the harder it was to keep it secret. Now, it appears, word is spreading like wildfire.”

  That wasn’t surprising, but it didn’t explain what I was seeing down here. “You have electricity.” I felt like a master of the obvious, but I was still in shock.

  “Sort of. Well, yes, but not on any major scale. The Rising has hundreds of light bulbs, but no way to use them yet, not until they manage to activate the Grid. They’ve been working on solar for a while now, and we managed to steal a prototype and reverse engineer it. The only problem is that it’s hard to keep something like that hidden so we only use it a few h
ours a day, to do repairs on our machinery.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Wait, so the Rising has a power grid, but they don’t know how to turn it on? That’s my understanding, but I thought that was because it wasn’t functional.”

  The woman behind me scoffed.

  “It would be functional if they knew what they were doing,” Simon said. “We hold that power. Vega here is actually the point woman on the whole project in Rome. But they don’t know that she could flip it on with a switch. She’s holding off as long as it takes, and we sabotage it in the meantime, creating delays on top of delays. Atticus isn’t an engineer, so we control the information. Or at least we did. By now he’ll know something is wrong. Vega hasn’t been into work in almost a week.”

  I turned to take in the woman who was the mastermind behind sabotaging the Grid. She was a knockout. She wore her fire-red hair in a tight braid behind her head. Her crystal-blue eyes were almost as bright as the light bulbs above our heads. Her tan tank top accentuated ample curves on her body. She wore gray pants and heavy boots—ready to get work done at the drop of a hat, it seemed. Brains and beauty, a thrilling combination. But I wasn’t here for that.

  “And what’s with the machines?” I asked, gesturing to the iron behemoths grinding nearby.

  “That is our main source of energy,” Simon said. “We don’t need a lot of it. After all, we’ve all lived without energy for years now. And the solar panel is just enough to power the lights for a few hours a day. With this gear, we can generate electricity twenty-four hours a day.”

  “This is amazing,” I said. “All the technological advances we have been waiting for...”

  “...are basically being developed right under your noses,” Simon said, nodding.

  “So why don’t you bail?” I asked. “Go off somewhere else and establish your own population. You could use this technology and be the new leader in the Ends or something, couldn’t you? At least you could outwardly challenge the Rising. Atticus couldn’t just obliterate you, because you’re humans. He couldn’t blame the Enders like he does with our group.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. He only uses the Enders as a political move. If anyone were to seriously challenge his rule, human or otherwise, he wouldn’t hesitate to use his resources to crush them.”

  “You say you’re playing ‘the long game,’ but from where I’m sitting you’re not in the game at all. People are dying while you hide out down here, enjoying the glow of electric lightbulbs. How does this help anything?”

  “We need to wait for the right moment to strike,” Simon insisted. “I’ve watched Atticus deal with problems in the past. He’s a very paranoid man. The only way he can function is if he has the confidence that he has complete control over his people. That’s why he banishes Enders. Enders are not controllable. They are impulsive, aggressive people. And they hold powers that he can’t match. So he kills as many as he can.”

  I heard Gehn suck in a breath.

  “Sorry,” Simon said. “But it’s true, isn’t it? Your males are volatile. And the women, you have abilities, don’t you?”

  Gehn said nothing, her breathing even and measured. “It’s a simplistic way of putting it,” I said. “But it’s not untrue. Are you against Enders?”

  Simon shook his head. “Not at all. But an Ender alliance doesn’t make sense for our endgame.”

  “Which is…”

  “A change in the power structure,” Simon said. “And I don’t mean electricity. I want to strengthen our people so that we can stand up to the Rising eventually. But this is a process that takes time. We bide our time by sabotaging them whenever we can while we work down here. We’re not as powerful as them, but we can outsmart them. It’s enough to keep doing what we’re doing now, but not enough to overcome them yet.”

  “What if I can move you to the front of the line?” I asked.

  “What do you mean by that?” he replied.

  “I have some manpower. We have strength. It’s a small army—and it’s been damaged by the recent battle. But we’re recovering. If the Insurgence will join up...”

  “...with Enders?” Simon asked in disbelief. “I doubt it.”

  “Cutter, I think we should go,” Gehn said. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

  I felt bad that Gehn had to be here for this. The man wasn’t exactly insulting Enders, but he also wasn’t showing them any kindness. He was as ignorant as the rest of the people the Rising had blinded to the truth.

  “Look, I’m not saying Enders are evil, but we also can’t trust them. If we could, we would have recruited them a long time ago.”

  I placed a hand in front of Gehn, sensing she was about to lose her cool. I met her eyes. Her fangs were just starting to emerge. I shook my head imperceptibly.

  “This is my point exactly,” Simon said, reading the situation perfectly. “Although the females are better at masking it, they are quick to violence too. Not as feral as the men, but bad enough. Our approach is more…tactful.”

  He was getting annoying, but I also needed their help. The enemy of our enemy is our friend and all that. “Maybe I can change your mind,” I said.

  “I doubt it, but you can try.”

  “The Enders may have violent tendencies, but only because their backs are against the wall. Gehn here has visions of the future and can sense danger before it strikes. Another female, Belenie, can heal wounds with her hands. I’d be dead or a vegetable several times over if not for her ability.

  This did not impress them.

  “That’s not natural,” Simon argued. “You’re talking about comics and we’re talking about reality.”

  “That’s where you’re not seeing reality. The abilities the Enders have are as real as the glow of your lightbulbs. If only I could show you.”

  “How do you propose doing that?”

  “Come back with us to Paris. Meet with the Ender leaders. The queen. Those that are helping me change things. There’s an ex-military strategist who just happens to be a male Ender. He’s not a violent man by nature. A thinker, like you. I want to show you all the shades of the Enders, that they’re not one-dimensional like you make them out to be.”

  Simon stared at me. “You really believe what you’re saying, don’t you?”

  “There’s something you need to know about me. I’m a straight-shooter, and I don’t just mean with my girls.” I tapped my holsters. “I tell things how it is. And I’m telling you, the Enders aren’t that different than humans and they can be a huge asset to whatever is coming. If we want to have any chance of taking down Atticus, that is.”

  Simon looked at the bulbs on the ceiling, then back at me. “Give us a minute.”

  I nodded, turning away so they could have some privacy. Gehn hissed, “We shouldn’t have come.”

  “Yes, we should have,” I said. “You need to meet them halfway. They don’t trust you, you don’t trust them.”

  “We shouldn’t have to work to convince them we’re not animals.”

  “I know, but Enders are still too new. The horns, the tails, the powers…I see them as different too, but have learned the beauty in those things. Others will take time. We need to give them the opportunity, that’s all.”

  “I will…try,” Gehn said, which I knew was the best I would get.

  “Cutter.” Simon and Vega and a few others were done conferring. I turned back to look at them. “The two of us will go with you. Vega and I will meet with the Ender people. But I cannot guarantee it will go anywhere, do you understand?”

  “I understand completely. And I have a guarantee for you. I will protect you with my life if necessary.” I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

  Chapter 27

  Outpost

  After partaking of some food and water, the four of us emerged from the manmade cave and set off for Paris. Another two-day journey stretched ahead of me. But with Gehn by my side, the miles always seemed to vanish beneath my feet with ease. The only problem was the narrow
glances she fired off like gunshots in the direction of our new companions.

  The Insurgence members—Simon and Vega—walked behind us for the first several hours. We weren’t “together” as much as we were “in the near vicinity of each other.” I could tell they were still sizing me up, their heads likely full of doubts.

  That didn’t bother me. It just meant things would be quiet for a bit. Eventually, however, they would warm up to us.

  Simon occasionally made an effort at conversation, but he didn’t attempt to broach any serious topics, content to pass the hours talking about the weather and the ever-changing landscape.

  Vega finally spoke after we’d dusted off about ten miles, leaving them shining in the sunlight behind us. “Did you make any stops on your initial journey?” Vega asked. I got the feeling she was ready for a break. I wondered whether she was used to traveling long distances—her physique told me she was in great shape—or if she’d spent her entire life in the area around Rome.

  I pointed to the northwest. “There’s an outpost about three miles yonder,” I said. “If we head there, we can stop for a drink and some R&R.”

  Everyone agreed, and we altered our course. Half an hour later we stood in front of an old, dilapidated building.

  “These outposts are such dumps,” Vega observed.

  “Yeah, but they hold such treasures inside,” I said, thinking of a nice scotch in my hand.

  I pushed open the creaky old door, and we bellied up to the bar. The place was dead empty, so the bartender quickly lined up our drinks, eager to serve some customers and make some coin.

  “This round’s on me,” I announced, tossing change onto the bar for the bartender. “Cheers, everybody.”

  With the comfort of a little alcohol, I also loosened up around our new companions.

  “So Vega, what’s your story?” I asked. “You’ve been quiet. You scared to see some Enders?”

  Vega took a deep breath and gulped down her drink. “Let’s just say Enders and I don’t get along.” She glanced at Gehn, who stared daggers at her. Thankfully, both Simon and I sat between the two women.