Botanicaust

by Linsey, Tam

  Vitus curled his lip and turned to the pilot. “Not anymore. Clear for lift.” He plopped down in the seat behind the pilot and rearranged his tangled necklaces.

  The Holdout

  Tula woke to a strange chorus of chirping. She rose and padded to the window to investigate. Amidst the tree branches spreading up and over the house, small birds rustled the sparse, yellowing leaves. She leaned over the sill, chest swelling in the fresh morning air.

  The rest of the house lay hushed in sleep. Eily remained curled beneath a wool blanket on the floor beneath the sofa. Tula wondered how the meeting had gone. Long into the night she’d waited, finally falling into an exhausted slumber before Levi and the others returned.

  Thankfully, she and Eily hadn’t been chased from their beds. Straightening her dress, she entered the kitchen in time to meet Samuel, dressed and ready for work. He nodded once and departed through the back door. From upstairs she heard footsteps as others readied for their day.

  In one of the cupboards, she located a ceramic mug and filled it with water from the tap. The kitchen was so strange and yet familiar at the same time. Next to the stove rested a bowl of brown eggs and a wooden breadbox. Pots and pans hung from hooks along the wall to the pantry. On the table a black leather book sat at the head, and Tula ran her fingers over the cover. The Holy Bible. These were the Scriptures these people lived by. Breathed by. This was what made Levi who he was. And where you came from.

  She opened it to a random page as Levi emerged from a hallway behind the stairs. His face lit when he saw her. “Tula. Good morning.”

  “How was the meeting?”

  “I asked your father for your hand in marriage.”

  She blinked, unsure what she had heard. “What?”

  “Once you have confirmed your Faith, of course. And we can raise Eily in the ways of the Lord.” He held her hand, but Tula couldn’t feel his grip.

  “But, I hardly… I mean, I can’t just … What if I don’t…” She was about to say believe, but wasn’t sure how Levi might react. As much as she might want to have faith, she’d seen too much of the world to be sure God had a benevolent plan. “Levi, do you truly believe everything put forth by your religion?”

  He avoided her gaze, his eyes seeking out the top of the stairs. “I try.”

  Before Tula could pursue the thought, Beth appeared at the landing, along with a young man a little older than Eily. “Good morning, Levi. Katie, this is Gideon, our son.” She urged him down the narrow staircase ahead of her. “I’ll have some breakfast ready in a short while.”

  The boy hovered at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes wide as he stared at Tula.

  “Gid, your father is waiting.”

  The boy came to himself and scurried out the same door as Samuel.

  “I’ll go lend a hand,” Levi said, one side of his mouth quirked in a chagrinned smile. The burns on his cheek had calmed from angry red to dark scab lines.

  “I’m sure they’d understand if you need a day of rest.” Beth pulled a black apron over her head and tied it behind her.

  “No, my back is strong enough. Show Tula — Katie — Sorry. Show Katie how we do breakfast.”

  “Of course.”

  Tula watched him leave, mouth dry and throat tight. She was going to stay here the rest of her life. Could she be the person Levi and the rest of the community expected her to be? Subject to domestic rules and gender roles as foreign to her as her green skin was to these people. No more Dr. Macoby. No more saving the world through conversion. No more euthanization.

  But were these people better? They refused to attempt to cure their young. Calling it Gotte’s Wille didn’t make it any less of a death sentence. Just foisted responsibility off themselves.

  Like you looked the other way during euthanization? But she hadn’t in the end. And the choice had changed her world.

  Sighing, she joined Beth at the sink where she rinsed slices of bacon before laying them out on a towel. “Pat them dry and then lay them side by side in the skillet, there.”

  Swallowing her disgust, Tula picked up a pink and white strip and dropped it into the heating pan. Eily emerged from the sitting room, nose in the air sniffing loudly. “Good morning, Eily,” Beth greeted. “Would you like to help, too?”

  Eily cocked her head at Beth and looked to Tula for translation. “You wanna help cook?” Tula asked.

  Peering between the women, the child nodded, and Beth showed her how to wash her hands. The eggs amazed Eily and Tula as Beth showed how to crack them into a skillet. “These come from … chickens?” Tula dredged up the word.

  “I’ll show you both the henhouse after breakfast.”

  Ravenous as ever, Eily had to be admonished several times about eating before the meal. “So much food,” she said, again and again. “They don’t got the hunger times. Just like you said.” She asked the name for everything in the kitchen until Tula was sure Beth might be driven mad, but the older woman continued smiling and repeating the words until Eily had the pronunciation correct.

  “You’re a fast learner, Eily. Maybe soon we can teach you your letters.”

  The men returned for breakfast as Beth pulled biscuits from the oven. They all sat together. Eily reached for a biscuit, and Levi grasped the child’s wrist. “We must pray, first.”

  Eily obediently dropped her chin to her chest and laced her fingers in front of her.

  Samuel raised his brows and nodded in approval, then cleared his throat with a reproving look at his son. The boy had been unable to take his eyes off Tula and Eily since sitting. Gid dropped his chin, but his stare crept up beneath his brows as a prayerful silence was held.

  Tula watched the gathering, too, watched Gid’s eyes dart down every time their stares connected. She tried to pray. Wanted to. Beside her, Eily stumbled through the words to the Lord’s Prayer. Levi joined her, encouraged her, corrected her. Was there truly a God listening? She wanted to believe. They wanted her to believe.

  She finished the prayer out loud with Eily. “… the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, forever and ever. Amen.”

  But she couldn’t make herself believe.

  Working next to his brother-in-law again felt strange. Hog butchering time was upon them, and the scalding pit needed to be readied. Levi was down in the hole when he heard the commotion. Screaming. A subtle change in air pressure. A familiar dull roar.

  Heart thundering in his ears, he climbed out as one of the men hollered, “The devil followed you here!”

  About a quarter mile away, back at the houses, a duster hovered above the shade trees. A plume of black smoke boiled into the air. The Holdout siren began its frantic cycle as figures ran toward the houses. The fire would make the tunnels a death trap. “Stay out of the tunnels!” Levi yelled, pelting toward the chaos. “They’ll burn everything!” How could this have happened? The Holdout had been safe from Blattvolk for centuries. The pit of his stomach ached.

  “Dr. Sertularia Argentea Macoby. Show yourself.” Levi understood the words in cannibal from his time with the girls. We led them here.

  “Tula!” he screamed as he ran, his feet still in pain from the journey, his lungs dried by smoke and dust as the home next to the Ward erupted in flames. “Josef!” The occupants of the Ward would be completely helpless, too sick to flee. The nurses were likely helping the children into the tunnels, right now.

  The autumn-dry pasture near the schoolhouse caught, and the horses panicked, screaming and raising tail to flee to the far fence and over. Children swarmed out of the school and stood gaping at the duster as their teacher urged them to run. The ancient fire truck maintained by the Holdout repeated the hoarse cry of its horn as it barreled toward the row of houses.

  Beside him, Samuel and three others kept pace, shouting for loved ones above the siren as women and children fled the other direction. One man found his wife and swept their baby from her arms to lead her and another small child toward the gatehouse.

  Levi reached the hou
ses, craning his neck to watch the duster as the flame-tipped nozzle of its gun targeted old Mrs. Kuche tottering on the arm of her granddaughter as they exited the back door of a house. “Nooooo!” He waved his arms above his head, trying to gain the attention of the gunman. The old woman lifted a hand to make a sign against evil toward the duster. A rush of flame engulfed the women. Their dresses billowed around them as they screamed, then fell, curling in on themselves like dried leaves.

  Horror gripped Levi’s soul. The Holdout was a death trap. The only way in or out was the gate, unless they shut down the electric. He hoped Peter — or someone — thought of that.

  Just then, Tula appeared around the corner of the Ward. She carried Josef in one arm, another young child in the other. Eily and Beth followed close behind, arms full of children. Children able to walk trailed behind like ducklings. Behind them, two nurses and Brother John carried stragglers.

  On the horizon, another duster sped their way. Levi rushed to take Josef and the second child. Tula’s blue eyes watered, from tears or dust or smoke, Levi couldn’t tell. His own vision burned and filmed as acrid clouds of grit filled the air.

  “Run to the gate,” Levi shouted at the children.

  “No!” Tula cried. “No, don’t run. Surrender! They burn those who run. Find an open spot and drop. Just stay still!”

  He clutched Josef against his hip. Lord, deliver us from evil. His pride, his belief that he could circumvent Gotte’s Wille, brought this horror. The entire Holdout would pay the consequences. Collapsing next to Josef, he hugged the wheezing boy tight. “Papa, are they the bad ones?”

  “Yes, son.”

  The duster twisted in the air, and Levi saw the fierce green face of the gunman as he looked down the barrel at the children. Levi raised his hands in the air. Panting in panic, he met the stare of the Blattvolk, dark eyed and hungry as a cannibal. The Blattvolk shifted his attention to Tula and shouted gibberish over the roar of the flames.

  Tula moved forward and shouted back, gesturing to the people around her.

  The second duster arrived, kicking up swirls of fallen leaves and dirt. It circled the group and then settled to earth. Beyond, at the burning house, brave men manned the hoses of the fire truck to keep the blaze from spreading to nearby houses. Soot-stained faces kept checking back, but they continued dousing flames. Eily edged away from the group with the children.

  Several figures leapt from the open sides of the newly arrived duster. Tula shouted, “Mo!” and ran toward the Blattvolk, tripping on her skirts before hiking the fabric to expose her slim, green legs. She flung herself into one of the men’s arms. His touch was far too familiar for Levi’s liking, pulling Tula’s body close to his. When he planted a kiss directly on Tula’s lips, Levi shot to his feet. “Tula!”

  “No!” Tula’s heart leapt in fear. One overeager Burn Op turned his gun to Levi. “Stop flashing. These people are the ones Councilwoman Arnica ordered me to find. They’re peaceful.” She prayed invoking the Councilwoman would make the flashing cease.

  The Burn Op hesitated and shouted, “We found her first, Mo. The bounty is ours.”

  “I got Vitus onboard. He’ll call the shots.”

  Tula’s legs grew weak. “Mo?”

  “Vitus offered a bounty on you. Thought I’d make sure you’re brought home alive.”

  She pressed her lips together. He was still protecting her. “Thank you. Can you have the other duster stand down?”

  His brows twitched and he glanced at a man behind him who Tula recognized as his boss, Panone. “Sir?”

  At the lip of the duster, Vitus, adorned in blue and copper beads and bangles, clung to the edge of the door. His skin had a coppery cast she’d never seen before. His eyes bored hatred into her, the sclera as red as Dr. Kaneka’s. Her skin tightened from head to toe under his stare.

  Panone spoke into the micro headset wrapped around his ear. “Stand down, men. But keep alert.”

  Vitus blustered from his perch on the vehicle. “Ordinance eighty nine dictates all Outsiders not in compliance with —”

  “Excuse me, Dr. Dedecus, but Burn Ops is my division. Policy is to offer conversion to all non-resistant Outsiders. I see no resistance here.”

  Still staring at Tula, Vitus rasped, “You can’t bring back all these people for conversion.”

  That seemed to give Panone and the others pause.

  Tula tried to still the trembling in her chest. “This is exactly what the Board wanted to find — a people still living a pre-Botanicaust way of life. This is what Councilwoman Arnica sent me to find.”

  Panone nodded. “Round up as many as you can. Bill, get on the com back to the Protectorate. Let them know what we found.”

  “And take her into custody!” Vitus thrust a trembling, beringed finger at Tula. “Someone put her in cuffs!”

  Vitus tottered back to his seat in the duster. He grew weaker by the hour, it seemed. Damn that Kaneka, encrypting his notes so even his Fosselite assistants had trouble accessing the information. The spot where Vitus had banged his wrist this morning had blossomed into a flaming purple bruise. And to top it off, the brief exposure to the sun made his skin itch and his eyes burn. Again, he cursed the dead Fosselite.

  But he had Tula now. The power was his.

  He watched as they loaded her onto the duster. Her man refused to cuff her, and Vitus didn’t have the strength to argue. As long as he got her back to the lab for samples, he would leave well enough alone.

  She looked healthy. What he could see of her in that horrible dress, anyway. And that made him furious as well as hopeful. The Fosselites were keeping what they’d deciphered of Kaneka’s notes from him, but they wanted Tula back badly. Rice had contacted him several times since their initial interaction. He was convinced Kaneka had given her the new strain of fungi in spite of Rice’s assurances to the contrary. Seeing her unharmed reinforced his belief.

  Adjusting his necklaces to cover as much of his chest as possible, he settled back against the jump seat and watched them load the other mongrels into the hold. The duster would only hold eight or so prisoners, plus the Burn team in the cabin. The adults refused to let go of the children, and Tula convinced the Operatives to allow one adult per child on board. Not that it mattered. These kids were pale and coughing — obviously sick — and wouldn’t be fit for conversion anyway. Euthanize the whole lot of them.

  He watched Tula with sharp eyes and resisted the urge to scratch. The healthy glow of her skin brought saliva to his mouth. He would have that new fungi. And then nothing would slow him down.

  Levi squinted through the duster window at the Blattvolk city, his heart sick to be repeating this journey. Mirrored walls glared sunlight. Streets flowed with green-skinned pedestrians and those strange, clear-sided cars like the one he and Tula had driven into the desert. In the center, a solitary, solid building hunkered next to the landing pad. The prison.

  How could Tula do this? She’d run to that Blattvolk man’s arms as if she’d planned this all along. The nurses were saying she had. Even Beth refused to acknowledge him as he offered assurances Tula was a prisoner, too.

  Not that he believed his own words. The tawny-eyed man had helped her into the duster like a princess, offering her a seat, petting her arm, smiling at her with puppy dog eyes. The rest of the Blattvolk deferred to that man, except for the scrawny fellow Levi recognized from the prison. Vitus. That was his name. Vitus sat up front and glared at Tula with hateful red eyes. He was like a cross of the worst traits from both the Blattvolk and the Fosselites rolled into one.

  Lifting his limp son into his arms, Levi allowed the Blattvolk guards to usher him down the ramp. Josef had lost consciousness at the end of the flight. Other children from the Ward were not much better. One was worse.

  Beth’s ashen face as she carried little Saul down the incline made Levi vibrate with anger. The boy had died in flight, in spite of a Blattvolk medic’s attempts to provide oxygen. At the door to the prison, Beth refused to rel
inquish the body to the Blattvolk technicians. “No, you can’t take him. He belongs with his parents.”

  They grabbed her arms and wrested Saul from her. Beth fell into a heap, sobbing. “Don’t touch her!” Levi said in Cannibal, but he couldn’t help her and care for Josef. The Blattvolk lifted Beth beneath the arms and carried her into a cell. Helpless bile rose into Levi’s mouth.

  Keeping his head high, Levi followed, entering the cell they opened for him. “My child needs medicine.” He looked a Blattvolk in the eye and spoke Cannibal. The green skinned man turned his attention to Josef, put his fingers to the pulse at the boy’s neck, and then held out his arms.

  Levi trembled. If Josef didn’t get medicine, he would end up like Saul. But to let him go freely into the care of a Blattvolk…

  “I come, too.”

  The Blattvolk shook his head.

  Feeling the judgment of the rest of the Old Order upon him, Levi couldn’t move. His desire to follow the Ordnung hung heavy on his shoulders. His love for his son stretched the tethers of his soul. A child in another cell started coughing. Kept coughing. Josef’s breath rattled.

  Levi handed over his son.

  The air of the enclosed building tasted stale in spite of the venting system, like plastic and the closeness of people. Sunlight filtered through the clear roof onto the oval table where several council members had already settled for the trial. After so long in the raw sun, no amount of filtered light could make Tula feel at home. She rubbed her hands down the short skirt covering her thighs and readjusted the layer of necklaces as an Enforcer showed her to her seat in the defendant’s box. Crime was rare in the Protectorate; the box was a new addition to the Board Room, an ugly creation of extruded nuvoplast bent into a deep semi-circle.

  The Enforcer moved into position behind her. Tula smiled at him and turned to the small table inside. Her head just cleared the top edges of the nuvoplast box. A bottle of water and a gamma pad awaited her use.