by P. S. Lurie
I stand up and lean against the wall, taking in all of his information. I shake my head at the insinuation that somehow he’s helped me out. “You let all of this happen. You knew about the culls. You drugged me. You wanted me to die on the Utopia. You let Nathaniel...” My tirade grows angrier, until I stop at a disturbing realisation. “Oh... no...”
“Selene?”
My stomach starts to heave. “He... was my... brother?”
“Actually no,” Dr Penn says, matter-of-factly. “I may have brainwashed him a little. He wasn’t my son. I met a woman in the Upperlands who already had a young boy. She died and he grew up thinking I was his father. Then I found out about the killings that would happen in the Middlelands and I encouraged him to monitor you.”
I hear the emphasis on the word ‘encouraged’ and realise that Nathaniel was messed with as well.
I think back to the night of the first cull and all of the times Nathaniel appeared. I had assumed it was coincidence but I had always pondered on the oddity that both he and Jason were in our neighbourhood when there were so few guards patrolling other districts. I must have lost him when I sneaked away to the market and then the coast but he picked up my trace once more as I returned to Henry’s house because he was by my side at the Fence as we gunned down the homeless. Then he kidnapped me and brought me to this apartment.
I can’t believe he was there for me all along and I have to say the words out loud to work them through. “He was there to keep me safe?”
“Yes. It would have been easier if you were just Rehoused but of course you decided to break the rules that night.”
“Why did you bother with me?”
“I felt guilty. I wanted to give you another chance. To allow you to come to the Upperlands because your mother had failed you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it? If you were in your house that night, do you think she wouldn’t have killed you or let you be Rehoused? From what I understand, in her later years her anger grew.”
My eyes well up. I don’t know what would have happened had I been home with her. My mother died a year later saving me and that’s all I need to know that she did love me. It’s this knowledge that makes me grow bored of listening to this man. He’s as much my father as he ever was, which isn’t saying much. He means nothing to me. Still, there’s one thing I don’t understand.
“Did you care about Nathaniel?”
“To an extent.”
“And me?”
“I thought you deserved a second chance.”
“So why did you let us board the Utopia? We would have if I hadn’t seen my mother.”
“Incorrect. At least, I had tried to reason with Nathaniel. It was a delicate time because I couldn’t risk you learning the truth too quickly but I came to your apartment that day to tell you to hold back and instead come with me to the fortress. Nathaniel was pig-headed too and you were in the middle of a fracas so I couldn’t make myself heard. I don’t know what he was thinking even when I tried to explain. He wouldn’t trust me. He was so intent on marrying you on board in front of President Callister that he really thought it was for the best.” He laughs. “President Callister wouldn’t have had any time for the two of you.”
“I told him the truth about you, that you were my daughter, but he was determined. He wouldn’t let me explain a single thing. That’s what we were discussing in the kitchen whilst you were strapped to the chair. I was going to knock both of you out until after the Utopia exploded.”
“When I came back...”
“I tried... but you...” – he holds up his hand with the missing thumb – “let’s put it down to miscommunication.”
I think of my mother’s hand in the freezer. It’s not just anger and revenge, his thumb for all her digits, but maybe it’s his disappointment that she couldn’t offer him her hand in life so he took it after death. I feel more focused now that I’ve digested everything he’s told me. One more thing. “Nathaniel?”
“Dead.”
Now I know. And I can feel the change in the tension between us. My father has told me everything he wanted me to know and now there’ll be a second part to his arrival. I need to work it out. “So you’ve come here to do what?”
“You deserved to know the truth.”
“Sure.”
Dr Penn laughs. “Cynicism. Just like your mother. I like it. Never lose that.” He takes a deep breath. “I never stopped loving your mother.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I blame you for everything. I even tried to reverse my anger towards you. I tried to make amends. To give you a good life. To save you. But you threw it back at me.”
I stand up, screaming at him. “You drugged me. You tricked me. You let a boy rape me, over and over.”
“You never were grateful.” He raises the gun towards me.
“Put it down and fight me like a man. Kill me with your own hands if you want me dead.”
“No, no Selene.” Dr Penn reaches into his pocket with his free hand and brings out a needle. “But I don’t want you dead.”
Zeke
We don’t have much time before the people after us will break through the entrance or find another way in. Even if they want to keep Theia alive I don’t think they’ll take much pity on me. I think back to the trip we took here whilst an ethnologist explained the importance of protecting the animals until the flood subsided. We were told that humans possessed unfavourable qualities and could act with bad intent but animals had no morals and couldn’t be held accountable for their natural instincts to survive, so we had a duty to stop as many species from going extinct; that some humans could also live was a bonus.
It almost makes me think President Callister has a heart but then I think about the lack of a flood and her reasoning for so many people to die was that we didn’t have enough space or resources for everyone, and my consideration goes out of the window.
I spot an aviary full of exotic birds with rainbow plumages and tuneful songs that fill the air but I don’t remember it from my first time here. Theia slides the door open and the cold air makes its way in. “Shouldn’t leave it open too long or it could mess up the climate control.” Punishing the animals seems unfair. It’s also my way of continuing my father’s work.
We step outside.
We are at the back of the fortress on the opposite side to the Upperlanders, a grey vista and not much else except for the levelled-off surface for some outdoor space afforded to the animals that need to roam farther than their enclosures allow. Beneath that, the mountain juts severely in ragged peaks with no city or habitable land underneath. In the distance, the world that was once submerged is revealed but there’s nothing to note, just browns and greens of a newly-restored land that has been left to its own devices. The sea begins just before the horizon but mixes into the overcast sky and leaves a murky, unpleasant panorama. Craning my head to the sides allows me to just about make out the far reaches of the Fence built into the mountains, cutting off anyone from passing into or out of the Upperlands. We’re high above the Fence but the edges slope upwards making the fortress impenetrable.
“The sea’s already receded so far,” Theia says, estimating the distance to where the Lowerlands would be in comparison. Although out of reach, there’s so much land in front of us. Theia takes a moment to admire a world she never knew. She shivers and rubs her arms.
“You alright?”
She shrugs. “It just reminds me of when I stood on the Fence. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I had survived another day but my world ended in that moment. So many things I thought I had worked for had been a lie. Seeing the outside again makes me remember that even if we get through this I’m not sure what part I want in any of it.”
“Any of what?”
“Living. With the memories of what happened, of families that died in vain.”
“Don’t give up on me now.”
“I’m not. I just...”
She
doesn’t finish, instead just stares at the outlook and I try to imagine how she would have felt learning that the sea had started to recede before the great cull happened. I want to ask about the people she lost but there will never be a good time for that. “Ronan and Leda are counting on you.”
“I know.” She nods, shaking herself out of the fugue. “Now we just need to get down there.”
“It’s impossible.”
“We could climb.”
“Look at us. We’ll never make it. Anyway, we’ll die out there. We need to get to the Middlelands and even if we didn’t plummet it would take forever to scale the Fence and circle the Upperlands.”
“We only need to get on top of the Fence. Then we follow it around to the arena.”
“We’ll be spotted. They have helicopters.”
She turns back to the inside of the fortress. “Water.”
“Water?”
“How do they have enough water for the animals?”
“Pipes from underground cisterns dredge it up,” I say confidently, aware of the intricacies of the fortress because of my father. I also know the funnelling system isn’t made for humans to pass through it. “Even if they were big enough we’d drown.”
“Then there’s only one thing to do,” she says, as she walks back towards the enclosures and stops in front of one that houses two snow leopards. “We cause a distraction.”
“We do?”
“If we can’t go around the fortress there’s only one option left. We go straight through it.”
Selene
Dr Penn takes a step towards me with the needle. He’ll struggle without his thumb to pierce my skin whilst holding the gun with the other.
“What are you doing?”
He crouches and slides the needle towards me and it stops by my feet. “I can’t manage without my thumb. Do it.”
“No way.”
“Don’t forget, I have a gun. I guarantee you do not want to be injured on top of what’s in store.”
His words are ominous and hang in the air between us. He hasn’t just come here to kill me; there’s something else he has planned. The last time he drugged me it was to try and sneak me into the fortress. That can’t be it this time, at least not to protect me. “Tell me.”
His face contorts with anger and disgust. “Pick it up.”
I bend down and grip it. The needle is the same as the one I pierced his neck with. I could...
“Don’t even try it. I will shoot you. Left arm, right arm, left leg... you get the drift.”
I flick the lid off the needle but my hand is shaking. I need to work out a way to distract him. I could break the needle but he’d just shoot me anyway. “What do you want with me?”
“I could have had a good life.”
“And you blame me.”
Dr Penn stares on. I must encompass everything that he has detested and he must believe that anything he tried to give me after the first cull I threw back in his face. Whatever he’s planning, it won’t end well for me. “Kill me and you’ll have exactly what you wanted.”
“No,” he roars. “I didn’t get what I wanted. I wanted your mother.”
I have to work out a way to throw him off. He seems caught up in explaining himself to me, which is all I can do to delay him. “She didn’t leave with you. She chose me instead. She couldn’t have loved you very much, not after you talked about leaving me behind.”
“She loved me.”
A shadow moves across the wall behind him. It must be the pilot or someone who accompanied him here, which gives me even less of a chance to overpower him. But the person is hidden and silent and it doesn’t make sense; why wouldn’t they reveal themselves? I wouldn’t be annoyed if Melissa had followed me after all.
If it is her then I need to keep talking to him and mask any footsteps. “If my mother saw you today what do you think she’d say?”
“She’d...”
A gunshot cuts him off and I tense. I scan my body for the pain from the impact...
Nothing. The bullet smacked into him but instinctively I duck to the side as he jerks and his gun also fires and hits the wall where I was standing. A split-second later and I’d be dead. Dr Penn’s chest tarnishes with red and his legs buckle under him.
“You bitch,” he says, grasping for air.
I stand and kick the gun away from his hand before he can shoot again. I look past him through the dim room and at the girl who has made her presence known by standing in the apartment, holding a smoking gun. It’s hard to make out her face but I know who it must be. “Melissa.”
“Not quite,” she says, as she comes into view, looking pleased with herself.
Melissa
“Stop,” someone shouts, a block from where we’re supposed to meet the others, and then Claire reveals herself. She scans us, mostly resting her eyes on Ronan but seems satisfied. “You all ok?” she asks anyway.
“Yes,” Travis says. “Ronan’s running high on my energy.”
“Where’s Selene?”
“Not back yet?” I ask, and then explain: “She went off on her own.”
Claire rolls her eyes. “Did you see that?” She points towards a series of tower blocks and atop the middle one is a helicopter.
“No,” says Samuel. “We must have been in the train or hospital.”
Tess notices Claire’s surprise about the train. “It’s been eventful.”
“Have the soldiers passed?” Ronan asks.
“Yes.”
I start to move ahead but Claire ushers us to wait. “We heard noise from inside the fortress. Sounded like gunshots. An alarm rang but stopped again.”
“Ronan?” I ask him for clarification.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t fit with the timeline.”
Dante appears from the top of the street and joins us. “We figure that more soldiers might be coming. A second wave.”
“Wait. Where are the others?” I ask.
“Ronan and Jack went to the arena.” Claire checks her watch. “But they should be back by now.”
My stomach is in knots. Ruskin, Jack and Selene are all missing and my thoughts jump to the worst.
“We haven’t got much time,” Ronan says.
“Before what?” Travis asks. “I’m getting tired of your revelations. Spill it out already.”
“Nothing. Just that President Callister wants us all dead by the end of the day. I say we move in five minutes even if they’re not back.”
“We have to wait for them,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere without them.”
“What if they’re dead?” Ronan says. “Five minutes,” he adds for effect.
“Maybe Ruskin was right the first time around,” Samuel says.
Tess speaks up in surprise at his sudden reversal. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s dangerous. What if he is leading us into a trap? You of all people shouldn’t be here.”
“Not this, you need to drop it,” Tess counters.
Claire looks between the two. “Would someone care to explain what’s going on?”
“She’s pregnant,” Travis replies.
“Oh Tess.”
“It’s not a problem. I can still fight.”
“Let’s go,” Travis says. “I’m with the boy. We’re open targets here. If Tess wants to come then she can.”
“That’s not your decision,” argues Samuel.
“It’s not yours either,” says Tess.
“What about the others?” I ask. “Claire?” I speak to her, thinking she might be the most sympathetic.
“If you want to go and find them you can but I think we need to push on.”
“Plenty of us if you want to go Melissa,” Dante says, and I can’t work out whether he’s supporting me or wants this inconvenience dealt with.
In a way, I almost hope they’ve been held up innocently and we’ve already gone into the fortress by the time they’re back. It might save their lives. I might be safer going to find the
m, especially if Ronan is lying, but I can’t let Theia down and I have to trust her brother. “Ronan, you lead the way.”
Suddenly Ronan has a change of heart and looks perplexed. “Maybe we should wait.”
“Why?” Travis asks.
“She might have been brainwashed. She’ll need Ruskin and Selene to help her remember her past.”
“Aren’t you good enough?”
Ronan grits his teeth.
“I’ve had enough of him,” Dante says. “He’s not telling us something.”
The conversation ends as Ruskin and Jack run up to us out of breath, along with two others: two children in police uniforms. Travis and Claire draw their weapons.
“It’s ok, they’re with us,” Jack says.
“Hey,” says Ronan.
“You look good for a dead body,” the new boy says in reply.
The girl pats Ronan on the back and then she laughs. “This is your army?”
I make sense of the situation quickly: these are the two Ronan mentioned that helped him escape. Children from the Middlelands who were brainwashed and managed to break the spell.
“Francine, Cal, this is... where’s Selene?” Ruskin asks.
“Don’t know,” I say, bluntly.
“She’ll be fine,” Jack says. “If she’s not here yet she’ll catch up. Ronan?”
“I guess you’re right.”
“We heard fighting from inside,” says Claire.
Francine glances at Cal, not expecting this to be the case but doesn’t say anything. Instead, we all make our way a few streets north and stop at a crossroads in front of an unexceptional sky-rise, the last building of the Upperlands just before the mountainous slope juts up towards the fortress. “It’s in there,” Ronan says.
“We shoot anyone that stands in our way no matter how old” Travis says. “All agreed?”
“About time I had some revenge,” the girl who has joined us says.
Ruskin looks at Jack, who nods. Samuel stands in front of Tess wanting to protect her for as long as possible. Travis also moves ahead of Claire, a bond I hadn’t quite realised before.
I check behind me but there’s no sign of Selene. This is the moment that is going to define our success and I accept that we’re about to announce our presence to whatever enemy is inside when the door bursts open and the fight comes to us.