by Ann Aguirre
Then we stood on the other side. Steps led upward with a metal divider separating the two sides. Fade led the way, and we climbed toward the surface. It took far less time than I expected. If everyone in the enclave knew just how close we were, figuratively speaking, people would’ve suffered some sleepless nights.
The air felt different, the higher we went. It moved against my skin, carrying new scents. But the stairs ended in a mound of rocks. The wind could slip through, not people. We stood there for a moment, stymied in our attempt to escape before we ran into the first hunting party.
“It will have to be the Burrowers,” I said.
“If not, I think the steps near where you found the relics go all the way up.”
That was halfway to Nassau. With the scant provisions Twist had supplied, it would be a terrible run. The closer we came to the dead settlement, the greater the risk we’d run afoul of the Freaks too. But there was nothing else for it. I retraced my steps with Fade on my heels and we scraped back past the metal gate.
“You know the way from here?” I asked.
“It’s not that far.”
Relatively speaking. We ran at a strong clip for several hours. Noises echoed in distant tunnels, but we didn’t see any Freaks. Our patrols had done a good job of clearing the area in the past days.
When we came to the split where I’d lost Fade, I started counting, and the correct number of steps brought me to where I thought we’d found the Burrowers. I ran my fingers over the stones until I found the loose ones. I pushed one until it plunked out. A pair of huge eyes stared out at me.
“Deuce.” I recognized Jengu’s voice at once.
He made a wide-enough space for us to slip through. As we continued down the narrow shaft toward the wider common area, I heard him rebuilding quickly; they gave the Freaks no sign of their presence. This couldn’t be the only entrance or exit, just the only one we knew about. The other Burrowers stared at Fade and me, but they didn’t speak. None of them looked wounded, and a weight lifted.
“Doan spect to see ya so soon,” he said with a friendly smile.
“Did you have any problems with the first trading party?” Fade asked.
Jengu grinned. “Not once we make clear we don’t open up til dem give us fish, and maybe Eaters find dem before den.”
Relief sparkled through me. In its own way, cleverness counted as strength. The Burrowers could trade with the enclave on equal terms. “How much did they take?”
The Burrower shrugged. “Lots. We doan need it. Can’t eat it.”
That was more or less what I thought. Fade was smiling. “We wanted to warn you not to trust them completely, but it looks like you were one step ahead.”
“Doan trust nobody completely,” Jengu said, philosophical. “But fish is fish.”
I declined an offer of a steaming cup of something. It smelled none too good. I’d rather eat the last of my dried meat and drink the tepid water Twist had given me. But right now, I had business to discuss.
“We need to leave the underground,” I said.
Jengu tilted his head, wearing an expression I interpreted as concern.
I went on, “We’re not asking you to reveal any of your hidden tunnels. But if you could point the way out, we’d appreciate it.”
The Burrower considered. “I can. But dem”—he jerked his head toward the other Burrowers—“gonna wan know how you paying.”
I hadn’t factored that. “What do you want?”
“What you got?” he countered.
With a shrug, I dumped the contents of my bag onto the floor. We were close enough to the torches that he could see everything I owned. The few baubles I’d held on to over the years caught the light and sparkled. Jengu bent down, entranced with a small blue object that shimmered. I showed him how to open it. Inside, it had a tiny mirror. Unlike most it wasn’t broken or anything. The item carried a nice scent too. I had no idea what it might’ve been used for, but I liked to open it up and look at my eyes. It was the one thing my dam had passed along to me, a family treasure. I’d had it for as long as I could remember.
His hand curled around it in a possessive gesture. “Dis. I show ya for dis.”
Of course. I suffered a little pang but acknowledged the price must be paid. “Deal. Is it a long way?”
“Two sleeps.”
“Can we rest in storage again before we go?”
“Plenty room now.”
He didn’t bother guiding us. I’d counted the way before, and that was one of my chief skills, besides fighting. This time, the platform stood half empty. Hunters had taken a lot of relics for the Wordkeeper to catalog; the work would keep him busy for a long time.
If I portioned it away, one step at a time, the fear of the unknown wouldn’t overwhelm me. Maybe Fade knew how I was feeling. We went to sleep on the platform without talking about what the future held.
After we woke up, we ate the last of our food. Then Jengu came to get us. The path took us back into the common area and down another tunnel. I counted the steps, but the twists and turns soon had me lost. Even counting, I doubted I could find my way again.
These tunnels were dank and damp, and they smelled terrible. Jengu carried a small torch with him, which told me there were no Freaks in here. Dark water trickled down the center, so we stayed to the edges and tried to dodge the floating, furry corpses.
It was a miserable journey. By the end, we were reduced to eating what Jengu gave us and hoping it wouldn’t make us sick. The air tasted disgusting, so I tried to breathe through my nose. Our Burrower guide didn’t seem to mind and Fade never showed his discomfort.
At last we came to slimy wall that had metal bars fastened to it. Jengu tilted his head. “Climb up. Push. And ya out.”
“You’re not coming?”
“Dem doan need nothing from Topside now. But we go sometimes. Get things.”
They did occasional supply runs to the surface? Interesting. Maybe Fade knew what he was talking about. Maybe we could make it.
“Thanks for everything,” Fade said.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Welcome.”
The Burrower didn’t wait to see how we fared. He turned with the torch and trudged back the way we’d come. Soon the shadows devoured us and I could only see the vague Fade-shape nearby.
“I’ll go up first.”
I didn’t argue, but I didn’t let him get far ahead of me either. As soon as he started to climb, I did too. The metal was slick beneath my palms; several times I nearly lost my balance and fell. Grimly, I continued up.
“Anything?”
“Almost there.” I heard him feeling around, and then the scrape of metal on stone. He pulled himself out of what looked like a small hole. Diffuse light spilled down, a different tint than I’d ever seen. It was sweetly silver and cool, like a drink of water. With Fade’s help, I scrambled up the rest of the way and saw the world above for the first time.
It stole my breath. I spun in a slow circle, trembling at the size of it. I tilted my head back and saw overhead a vast field of black, spattered with brightness. I wanted to crouch down and cover my head. It was too much space, and horror overwhelmed me.
“Easy,” Fade said. “Look down. Trust me.”
He was right. When I looked at the ground, the terror dialed back. From that point, I didn’t look up more than I had to. Tall things surrounded us, mostly blocking my view. Shards of glass and broken stones littered the ground. The air was full of sounds I couldn’t identify, after having known only enclave noises. Wind rustled through rock, creating a mournful kind of song. Chitters and scrapes alarmed me. We weren’t alone, and I didn’t like not knowing what waited in the dark.
Down below, I always knew.
I refused to show my fear. Lock it down, Huntress.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing.
“Buildings, mostly abandoned.”
Some towered, spearing up to unimaginable heights. I couldn’t even imagine how
such a thing had come to be built. Others had buckled and toppled, leaving rubble strewn all over the ground. That, I was used to.
The air didn’t burn the inside of my chest, at least, and it smelled fresher than I’d expected, based on the stories. No rot, no fetid wind like that down below. And I didn’t feel sick from standing here. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the elders had lied. Or maybe things had changed Topside since we first took shelter down below.
While I tried to get my bearings, he fitted the metal circle back in place and stomped it down. We stood in the center of an endless stretch of old rock. It didn’t look natural. Despite its age and poor condition, I thought it looked like something poured down and left to harden.
“I think you better tell me everything you know about this place,” I said shakily.
“I will,” Fade promised. “But first we should find shelter. There are no Freaks up here — at least there didn’t used to be — but from what I remember, there are other dangers.”
“There are places to hide all around us.”
He nodded. “But they’re marked. See?” As we walked, he pointed out bits of white or red paint marking the buildings. “The Topside gangs take their territory seriously. We don’t want to cross anyone.”
“What’s a gang?”
“Kind of like the enclave,” he said. “But meaner.”
“Is that why you left? To get away from the gangs?”
“Partly.”
I saw I’d get no answers while he was distracted and scanning the buildings, so I tried to help. I might not know what the symbols meant, but I could tell if they were present. We’d been walking for a while over the rough stone path — it buckled in spots as if the world had lifted up and given it a sound shake — when Fade spotted a crumbling red building that bore no marks at all.
“Here?” I asked.
“Let’s check it out.” He ran up three stairs to the door; it swung open when he tried it. But he stumbled away, one hand pressed to his face. “Stay back. There’s a reason nobody has claimed this place.”
The distance we covered seemed incredible to me. All the while, I fought my urge to panic. I couldn’t be up here. To combat the feeling, I focused on the new sights. Something flapped above us in the dark and I ducked down, curling myself into a ball.
“What was that?”
Fade was smiling. “It’s a bird. They can’t eat you. You’re too big.”
It sailed upward, riding the wind. The wings showed in silhouette, tapered and graceful. I marveled at the existence of such a marvelous creature, and wondered how it must feel to move like that, all elegance and velocity.
“All the old stories are true,” I breathed.
“Most of them.”
We walked until my feet hurt. I saw more birds, perched on poles and buildings. Rusted metal wrecks sat here and there along the street. Fade told me they were called cars and they’d once owned the surface we walked on. I found that hard to believe. Plants had forced their way through the cracks, giving the rock a mossy, uneven look.
The sky had begun to lighten by the time we found a building that didn’t smell terrible and didn’t bear any gang markings. Fade tried the door, but it was locked.
“Maybe there’s another way in?”
We circled and found in the back something Fade called a window — low enough for me to slide through. Fade wanted to, but it was too small. I waved off his concern.
“I’m a Huntress,” I said, out of habit. “I’ll be fine.”
And then it hit me all over again. I had no right to call myself that. I squashed the sadness and let him boost me up. The window slid open and I wormed my way through it. I hung upside down and managed to twist to my feet as I dropped. On the way down, I banged my shoulder on the wall.
When I got my bearings, I saw I stood in a dark room, but I could make out the shape of the door. Even the dark didn’t seem as black as it had down below. Maybe there were benefits to being Topside. I avoided the junk: dusty piles of broken glass and items that had rotted away or crumbled into dust. Still there were a few things I recognized like eating utensils, bottles, plates, and cups in different colors and patterns. The Wordkeeper would die of excitement if he could see this place.
After some fiddling, I managed to unfasten all the bolts, and then I opened the door to let Fade in. He joined me, redid all the latches, and then took a look around.
“It’s a storeroom. I think this was a shop of some kind.”
“A shop?”
“Where people traded.”
It sounded like a good idea. At the enclave, we’d held a shop on a regular basis in the common room, where we could examine what everyone else had and then barter for it with our best items. But if you lived in different buildings, people needed a place to gather and trade.
“Let’s take a look around.”
I led the way out, down a dark hall and into a bigger room. Metal shelves — we’d scavenged a few like that over the years — stood mostly empty. There were only a few tins left, nothing familiar, though, nothing I’d ever seen before. Broken glass crunched underfoot. Another door led to a waste closet, but this one didn’t smell like the other. Nearby, Fade twisted a handle but nothing happened.
“There used to be water, sometimes,” he said. “We used to drink it, my dad and me, but then he got sick.”
“From drinking that?”
“Maybe. I was a brat. There was a lot of stuff he didn’t tell me.”
“I have a little water to tide us over. Turn around.” Without asking why, he did. I struggled out of the leather harness. “Twist gave it to me. It has water pouches. The meat is gone, but I still have these.”
“Why? He risked everything by doing that.”
“I know.”
“I wish I could thank him.”
“I did for both of us. Let’s see what else there is here.”
We found another doorway off the hallway leading from the back room. I hadn’t seen it the first time because I wasn’t used to tunnels leading anywhere else. Fade noticed it and opened the door. Stairs led up.
“I thought this building had another level,” he murmured, and went jogging upward.
I didn’t know if going higher sounded like a great idea, but I wanted to stay by myself even less. Out of habit, I counted as I climbed, even though I could see perfectly well up here.
The steps opened into what I’d call a private living space. By my standards, it was unbelievably luxurious. Only the elders would’ve had something so nice in the enclave, but even they wouldn’t have gotten this much space. The room must’ve been sixteen feet long and almost that wide. I recognized the objects as furniture, but I had to ask Fade their names.
I burned with embarrassment when he grinned and pointed. “Sofa. Chair. Table.”
The sofa felt amazing when I sank onto it, despite its musty smell. Not even my rag pallet had been so soft. Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes. I could hear Fade moving around, checking the place out.
“There’s another room,” he said. “We can each have our own space.”
“I’ll take the sofa.”
He sat down beside me. “So you had questions before.”
That sounded like an invitation to ask whatever I wanted. “You were born Topside … how long did you live here?”
“Eight or nine years? And then after my dad died, it got too dangerous. They chased me down into the tunnels, where I just … lost myself.” His eyes went dark and distant, as if the memories required careful handling.
I remembered how he’d been when the Hunters found him, barely human. Living alone in the dark for years would do that. I marveled once again that he’d survived.
“Why did you stay with us when you didn’t want to join the gangs?”
“The elders didn’t give me a choice,” he said. “Well, they did, technically. Once the Hunters caught me, they said I could fight for them or die.”
“Oh.” No wonder he’d hated
us. We’d held him prisoner.
“I’m bigger now, and I’ve learned to protect myself. It’ll be different when we run across the gangs again.”
“What’s so bad about them? I mean, how do they compare with the enclave?” I still ached with disillusionment.
He half turned to face me, his arm resting behind my head. “You know all the rules you believed in? They exist to keep you safe, and the elders only want what’s best for everyone?”
I nodded, barely managing to restrain a flinch. “What about them?”
“The gangs have none. It’s … ugly, Deuce. My dad had weapons and they left us alone. Once he was gone, they were determined to recruit me. They don’t always take care of their brats. Sometimes…” His eyes bored into mine, as if willing me not to make him say it.
A shudder rolled through me. “Oh.”
At the enclave, there had been rare instances where the elders discovered the Breeders were twisted in that way. Those Breeders weren’t just exiled; they were also cut so the Freaks found them faster.
“You can see why I didn’t want to be initiated.”
I would’ve fought against it pretty fiercely myself. “Tell me what you know about the gangs. What we’ll be up against.”
“They’ll want to breed you,” he said without looking at me. “The only way to advance is to kill and keep killing until there’s nobody tougher than you left alive.”
“So it’s not like the enclave, where age is a sign of wisdom.”
He laughed. “No. We’d be considered elders. People don’t live very long.”
“But not because of sickness or age.”
“No. In the gangs, they kill you because you have something they want or you’re just standing in their way.”
“They must breed a lot to make up for it.”
Fade brushed my hair back, grazing the curve of my jaw. The heat of his fingertips sent a tingle through me. I tipped my head to one side so that his palm landed on the nape of my neck. His thumb skimmed along the tender skin, making me shiver. By the time he drew back slowly, I’d almost forgotten what we were talking about.