Botanicaust

by Linsey, Tam

  Tula paused, looking up and down the river. “Levi, you heal. Next teach me swim?”

  His chest clogged. He hoped to reach the Fosselites within days, where he prayed to find a home for Tula. People she would be comfortable with, who would accept her without moral judgment. There would be no time to teach her to swim.

  But he couldn’t tell her no. “It would be an honor, Tula.”

  She smiled until her blue eyes disappeared into crescents, and he felt sick to his stomach. They’d been through so much together. But he couldn’t take her to the Holdout. No matter what he owed her, he could not repay his debt by bringing her home. She would be much happier with the Fosselites.

  The rationalization didn’t make his stomach feel any better.

  Resolved to find joy in his remaining time with her, he brazenly clasped her hand and led her across the bridge, allowing her to look through the interior of a car on the way. In the city, they explored an old building together, and she translated the dedication on an ancient cornerstone.

  Before evening fell, they were both exhausted, and set up camp against a half tumbled-down brick wall. The nights were cold, and Tula had taken to sleeping with him while he was ill, sharing body heat. Tonight he spread his blanket for himself, and Tula shook out the robe for her bed. They didn’t build a fire.

  She glanced at his bed and a sad look washed over her face before she turned away to settle into her robe. “Tula,” he said before he could change his mind. He was a grown man. Surely he could bundle with her without taking things out of bounds. He just needed to avoid those luscious lips.

  He beckoned her to his blanket. With a smile, she nodded and crawled over to join him. As he wrapped his arms around her beneath the fabric, too tired for anything but sleep, he felt at home.

  The next day, they reached the wreckage of an enormous city, with buildings reaching skyward in imitation of the jagged mountains all around. Amarantox struggled upwards through the broken pavement. Tula followed closely as Levi picked his way between foundations piled with blown-in silt toward a mountain of broken concrete shored up on one side by rusted girders. Like a series of interconnected rivers, the roads curved and twisted amongst each other, crossing over and under as well as through. The largest spread of buckled pavement carved a straight line north through the ruins.

  Shading his eyes against the intense sun, Levi pointed along the stretch. In the distance, a tall, snow tipped peak arched toward heaven. “That way.”

  They followed the broken pavement for two days, leaving the city to climb higher into the mountains. Sheer rock walls of red stone rose around them. Nighttime temperatures dropped to freezing, and they woke with frost on the top of the blankets.

  Tula looked around, wondering how people could find food in such an austere landscape. The tamarisk disappeared, and pockets of soil that could support plant life sprouted nothing but amarantox or clusters of shrubs she didn’t recognize. A creek sometimes wandered by the road, but the gravel bottom and swift water appeared inhospitable to living creatures. The cattails had dwindled, and Levi scrounged big seeds he called acorns. Sometimes he found clusters of small black berries and made faces while he sucked the pulp from the seeds.

  “Levi, you live here?”

  He shook his head and pointed east, where the plains spread forever to the curve of the horizon.

  Frowning, Tula looked north along the road. She’d assumed he was going home. She pointed the direction they were walking. “Why go?”

  Stopping in his tracks, he sighed. The weight of the mountains seemed to press on his shoulders. “My son. Josef. He needs doctors.”

  “Josef.” Tula remembered the drawings of the laughing child. “Sick?”

  Levi nodded and began walking again.

  “No doctors Levi house?”

  “Not this kind.” He didn’t elaborate.

  They reached another city, and they turned west, following the cracked asphalt toward the mountain. Sharp rock and patchy amarantox reached for the sky. Swells of crumbling pavement climbed ever higher to the west.

  At the base of the mountain, the road narrowed and began a steep switchback climb. Parts of the street had sloughed off the mountain, leaving sheer drops to the trail below. The other side hugged the vertical rise of more rock. In one spot the path passed over a ridge with precipices on both sides.

  At a plateau, the way flattened, and a barbed metal fence guarded by a gatehouse blocked the road. Beyond, abandoned cars, bulky and square, sat in neat rows on cracked pavement.

  The gate was shut, but a hole had been cut through the fence next to the gatehouse. As they passed through, a slight whirring caught Tula’s attention and she turned to see a camera no bigger than her thumb swivel to follow them from its protected spot under the eaves.

  Tula stopped. Technology. Outside the Protectorate. She knew where they were. Stories drifted through the department about men who lived inside a mountain. The ones who traded the telomerase used in conversion. Doctors who could heal her organs. “Fosselites.”

  Levi looked back at her. “You know them?”

  Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears, but her smile was joyful. “My people trade with them. They give me healing.” She grabbed his right hand between both of hers and hugged it between her breasts, her lips trembling as if he’d just given her the best gift in the world.

  Foreboding erupted in Levi’s heart and he didn’t think about his hand so intimately pressed against her skin. The salt trader never mentioned the Fosselites were green people. “Are they … Blattvolk?”

  “No. They…” She struggled for the words. “They know many much. Live long. Before Botanicaust. Have medicine.” She smiled at him. “Me. And Josef.”

  Her excitement swelled his chest with joy. God was leading them both, it seemed. He nodded and kept hold of her hand as they approached the mountain side. The fence narrowed into a funnel lined by enormous light-posts jutting toward the sky like giant tree trunks with a cluster of leaves at the top. The line of posts closed in on a huge, gaping shaft embedded in the mountain.

  Absolute darkness swallowed the hole. Levi tugged the basket from Tula’s back, still guilty he couldn’t carry it. “Light.” He found the flame rod and let her re-shoulder the load.

  By the flickering light, they entered the passage. A thin trail passed down the center, cutting through decades or more of accumulated dirt. The walls echoed the hollow scuffle of their feet against the pavement. Air thick with dust and cobwebs clogged their nostrils. The darkness closed about them as the light from the entrance receded into the distance.

  The tunnel ended abruptly at a massive steel door sealed tight into the stone. Levi couldn’t see a handle or other means to open it from the outside, only a seam in the metal. He knocked against the surface, expecting a deep echo. Instead, the tapping reflected back to him like he’d knocked on a stone. The door must be thick.

  He put his mouth near the seam, hoping his voice would carry better than his knock. “Hello? Can anyone hear me? I’m looking for the Fosselites.”

  Tula called out, as well, in her own language.

  High in the rock above them, movement drew his attention as a cylinder swiveled to point at them. Grabbing Tula, he pushed her behind him and scanned the walls for danger, but she wriggled free and faced the cylinder, waving and shouting, “Hello!!”

  Clanking sounded from the door and the heavy portal shifted outward on silent hinges. Dim light peeked from the crack, and the door, as thick as a man was wide, opened enough to allow them in. Releasing the trigger on the flame wand, Levi stepped into the opening and let his eyes adjust.

  Fosselite Mountain

  Three men faced Tula, clean-shaven and pale as moonlight. They wore brightly colored short pants and sleeveless shirts; fitting for the warm, humid air filling the cavern. One of the men loomed unnaturally over the rest of the group, his long, horsey face rather sad looking as he gaped at the newcomers. A second man also looked strange, with slanted
, epicanthic eyes and a receding chin. Trisomy 21?

  Tula had read about such defects, but never seen any because the Protectorate rejected imperfect genomes during embryonic implantation. And cannibals with obvious defects were culled before they reached Confinement.

  The third man looked like a cannibal except for his unusually pale skin and black-rimmed glasses. The skin wasn’t so horrible; according to the Protectorate emissaries, the Fosselites didn’t go out into the sun at all. But then Tula looked into his eyes and tried not to recoil — every capillary in his sclera must have burst, rendering the whites completely blood red. These were the Fosselites? She’d heard rumors they were freaks, but she’d never taken it to be literal.

  They don’t euthanize. Options opened before her. With the Fosselites’ aid, she could safely reach Levi’s people. Maybe facilitate conversion without Protectorate participation — without Conversion Department policies.

  In silence, the trisomy man and the tall man hauled the enormous door closed with a deep and very final sounding thud. The third man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and spoke. “Welcome. I am Dr. Kaneka.”

  “I’m Tula, and this is Levi.”

  “We did not receive word the Protectorate had sent an emissary.” Dr. Kaneka’s lips pursed with displeasure.

  Before Tula could answer, Levi babbled something excitedly.

  Dr. Kaneka stared at him in confusion. “Is he speaking German?”

  “I don’t know. We captured him weeks ago in the Reaches. But he’s not a cannibal.” Tula reassured the doctor.

  “Deutsch?” Dr. Kaneka asked Levi.

  “Ja.” Levi started another sentence, but the doctor held up a hand to stop him.

  “Fascinating. I’ve not heard German in over a hundred years. What’s he saying?”

  Tula flushed and tried to maintain eye contact as the doctor turned his bloody gaze back on her. “I don’t know.”

  He huffed, nostrils widening in contempt. “I’ll see if a translator is … available. Follow me.” He entered an enormous hall carved out of solid granite. Thirty feet overhead, weak illumination from long bulbs barely reached the concrete floor. Their echoing footsteps bounced off distant walls, dying away in the vastness of the cavern.

  His companions hung at the back of the group, gaping at her as she grasped Levi’s hand to follow the doctor. The yawning tunnel smelled of dust and disuse and the faint hint of ancient petrochemicals. Two flatbed trailers holding insectile looking, metal-bladed flying machines squatted on one side of the chamber. A blocky, old-style automobile parked nearby looked like it might still operate.

  The doctor continued a brisk pace down the concrete centerline, pausing only to point at a dust mop. “Alex.”

  “‘K.” The trisomy man wrapped thick fingers around the metal handle and began sweeping.

  “Michael, with me.” He didn’t bother to verify the larger man complied before continuing his march. The big fellow waited for Tula and Levi to move, then shambled along behind. Ahead, the doctor mumbled to himself as they walked, but Tula couldn’t make out the words.

  At the end of the three-story-high tunnel, they reached a wall. In the center of the massive barrier, two opposing four-step staircases met at the top of a small landing where a set of double doors provided egress. The doctor gestured Levi and Tula up and through. Inside, a small anteroom offered three narrow white hallways — two dark, one illuminated, each barely wide enough for two people to pass. They followed the lit corridor in silence, the walls echoing with the vague hum and clunk of machinery deep in the bowels of the earth, and the doctor’s sporadic mumblings.

  Used to the airy feel of the greenhouses, and more recently the open sky, Tula swallowed against the threatening claustrophobia. The dismal lighting and cramped hall were worse than the lab. At least the lab’s offices offered fiber-optic sunlight. Maybe the quarters are more spacious.

  They passed several rooms, and finally the doctor paused at a set of white double doors, his hand on the latch. He focused an annoyed glare at Tula. “You should have called before you arrived. Our translator won’t be ready, you know. And we don’t have accommodations prepared.”

  A new worry entered Tula’s mind. What if the Fosselites contacted the Protectorate? Neither side would want to do anything to damage trade relations. “It might be better if you don’t tell the Protectorate of my arrival just yet.”

  He looked Tula over, his focus lingering on her scarred arm and her hand joined to Levi’s. Suddenly she felt dirty. She dropped Levi’s hand, wiping the palm on her skirt.

  “You have been in the desert too long.”

  Resisting the urge to run her fingers through her hair, she said, “I … yes. I suppose I have.” She must look an absolute wreck, and for the first time in her life, longed for jewelry.

  “Perhaps you should come with me while your companion talks to the translator. We can set up a telomerase drip.”

  The idea was tempting, but she wasn’t sure what Levi might tell the translator, and this entire situation needed to be handled delicately. “I’d much rather stay with him, for now. I might be able to help with the translation. As his Conversion Psychiatrist, I managed to learn a little of his language.” It couldn’t hurt to let them know she was a doctor. Perhaps her skills could be a useful trading point.

  Dr. Kaneka’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s your patient?” His bloodshot eyes flicked over Levi again. “I didn’t realize … What can we help you with?”

  “He’s here to get a doctor for his son.”

  “Your doctors could not help him?” The condescending tilt of his eyebrow made Tula want to retort in kind. She bit her lip instead. They needed his help.

  “We couldn’t understand his language.”

  “So you brought him here. How altruistic of you. Why don’t you —” The door opened and two ginger haired women emerged. They looked like twins, except one had the moony features of trisomy 21.

  The non-trisomy woman gasped — and lunged at Tula.

  After so many weeks together, in prison and in the desert, Levi understood Tula’s body language. He sensed she was upset, although he couldn’t understand the conversation between her and the Fosselite. She knew his son was sick, but expressing the specifics of cystic fibrosis without words was impossible. If he couldn’t communicate with Tula, how did he expect to make the Fosselites understand? This entire ordeal could be in vain. Samuel certainly believed his goals were vain. I didn’t do this for personal glory. Please, God, let me find a way.

  When the redheads appeared at the door, it was not the answer Levi hoped for.

  Tula threw her arms out to protect herself against the woman’s attack.

  Dr. Kaneka shouted over the flurry. “Michael!”

  The big, silent man at the rear of their group stepped in and put his long arms around Tula and lifted her like a doll. He charged down the lengthy hall, while Dr. Kaneka wrestled with the newcomer.

  Levi sprang for Tula, but the chaos in the narrow corridor blocked him. Fear clenched his insides as he watched the monster carry her away. “Tula!”

  Ahead, Dr. Kaneka grasped the strange woman by the wrists as she tried to chase the couple down the passage. He shouted unintelligible words at her. She struggled against him. Stay with Tula.

  Levi slid around the other redhead — a Down’s Syndrome woman in canary yellow who stood red-faced and bawling at the open door. As he passed, the small woman flung her arms around his middle and buried her face in his stomach. Her shoulders vibrated with fragile sobs.

  “Uh, it’s okay. Shh. Don’t cry.” He tried to disengage, but she clung so tightly he was afraid he might hurt her if he pried her off.

  The wild woman clawed at Dr. Kaneka’s face, knocking his glasses askew and leaving a bloody weal on one cheek. He snapped back and slapped her. As she stood stunned, he shoved her, hard, back into the room.

  Dr. Kaneka disappeared after her, leaving Levi with his sobbing companion. Craning his n
eck, Levi peered around the doorjamb. Circular tables filled the area, and several people were soothing the crazy lady as they held her to a chair. The faint smell of food drifted into the hall, and Levi saw more people sitting at the tables eating as if this were an everyday occurrence. Their garishly colored clothing seemed out of place against the dim gray backdrop of the granite walls.

  “Hello, can I get a hand out here?” Levi called as he plucked at the woman around his waist. Several heads turned his way. He held his arms over his head while two people came his aid. The woman wiped snot on her forearm and followed the others into the room, still shuddering breaths as she slumped into a seat.

  Levi squinted down the dim curve of the hall where Tula and the big man had disappeared. A hand around his elbow urged him into the cafeteria as a stranger babbled nonsense at him. Several curious stares met him, many with the slant-eyed gaze of Down’s Syndrome.

  Levi longed for something to wipe his naked, tear-wet chest with, but no one offered him a cloth. He looked like a cannibal, he thought as he glanced down at his crude, cattail fiber leggings.

  The doctor gestured for Levi to approach the same redhead who had attacked Tula. “Levi, Rosalee.” He didn’t bother to introduce the woman with Down’s Syndrome.

  He wants me to make nice with her? Levi glared at Dr. Kaneka and pointed back out the door. “Where is Tula?”

  Dr. Kaneka pointed to Rosalee.

  Refusing to look at the woman, Levi repeated, “Where did he take my friend?” His heart hammered so hard he felt the pulse in his temples.

  The woman named Rosalee cocked her head. “Your friend?”

  Now, Levi did turn to her. She spoke German? “Yes. Why did you attack her? Where did they take her?”

  A confused look washed over Rosalee’s face. “I don’t know.” She sat a moment, looking at him with soft, harmless eyes. “Who are you again?”

  “My name is Levi. My friend is Tula. I’ve come looking for a cure for my son.”

  “Oh, no. No, no, no. We’re still in research phase. The FDA hasn’t approved the treatment yet.”