The day after Ruben’s seizure, Dr. Mephisto watched Dinah like a hawk during the lunch break. She also hadn’t been allowed to leave Dr. Hel’s class when she had finished her schoolwork, and now both doctors sat together eating their lunch at a nearby table. Of course, the other kids were angels with them around, so there was an upside. But when Dinah when had finished her food and was about to retreat to her room, Dr. Mephisto stopped her.
“Not today, Dinah,” he said. He blocked her way to the hallway. “We want you to learn to socialize better. We spend too much time isolating ourselves, don’t we?”
“But I went to the gym yesterday.”
Dr. Mephisto just shook his head.
“I’m tired.”
He frowned.
“I have a headache.”
He pointed up the hall toward the gym, where many of the other kids had already gone, at least the ones not bound for study hall, different classes, or a solitary nap in their private bastion of isolation. She imagined he would have been disappointed if she didn’t at least try to have her way.
“Fine.” She shuffled obediently past him.
The gym was big enough that she could find her own place without anyone too close, but there was one thing that could get her down off a high perch on the bleachers.
Cards.
Stevie and the girls were setting up to play Mau. The game was simple, mostly luck, just a card- dumping game of matching suits and numbers. If you can’t dump, you draw a card. Get rid of them all, and you win. Dullsville. She imagined maybe they would invite her to play if she lingered long enough, but Stevie ignored her and the girls gave her dirty looks, so she knew that wouldn’t happen.
Some of the older kids sat high on the opposite bleachers in a tight huddle. They too had cards.
Do they still play Mau in the upper grades?
It didn’t look like it. They were having too much fun, judging by their whoops, groans, and cheers. She climbed the bleachers toward them. They barely noticed as she craned her neck to see. Each player held one card and had another card face up on the bench in front of them. A boy in a green hooded sweatshirt with a faded university logo dealt. He also had an open card and one lying face down. The ante took the form of seven yellow pills on a white plastic plate. She recognized the medication as everyone’s nighty-nites. Dinah got one each evening. She felt an immediate bond with these kids who hadn’t taken their medicine, as she always crushed hers and dumped them down the sink whenever Dr. Mephisto wasn’t watching.
She learned the dealer in the sweatshirt’s name was Kelly. The raven-haired girl to his left put two more pills on the plate. Her name was Addis.
“We have a raise of two,” Kelly said. Three of the players folded. Kelly and the remaining two checked, adding their own pills to the pot. Addis wanted a card. This arrived face up, a six to go with her revealed seven and her unrevealed card. She nodded her approval. The others took cards as well. Two of them busted.
“Show,” Kelly said. He revealed his second card and he held at twenty, which beat Addis’s hand. “Gotcha!”
He won the plate of pills. He looked up and saw Dinah as he shuffled all the cards together.
“Go away, squirt.”
None of the others gave her more than a glance. But something about the half-hearted way in which Kelly had spoken told her that he hadn’t meant it, really. When she lingered to watch the next few hands, he didn’t say anything, but continued to deal and went on to accumulate more yellow pills. Most hands saw the others bust. They were too hungry for cards and didn’t stand when they should. Addis was the only other player to take a pot.
“You want in?” Kelly asked.
“I don’t have enough to ante,” Dinah said.
“That’s because you take all of your pills like a good girl,” a boy named Kretsch said.
“I don’t. I just don’t save them.” She had never told anyone that before. It just came out, and she felt instant regret at revealing anything to these older kids, who might squeal just for kicks.
“More’s the shame,” Kelly said. He reached into a pocket and handed her ten pills.
“Hey!” Addis said. “If she doesn’t have ante, then she can’t play.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I can do with my winnings, Addis.”
“Those were mine,” she grumbled.
“‘Were’ is the operative word. If you didn’t want to lose them, then you shouldn’t have put them up. So put in your ante if you want to play. If not, watch and learn. But squootch over everyone, we have a new player. What’s your name, squirt?”
“Dinah.”
She lost three pills to raises that she didn’t call and split the pot on her fourth game with a ten and a queen. She lost the rest of her pills on the next hand calling Addis on a big raise. By the time the end of the lunch break chimed, she knew that she needed to figure out how to save her pills instead of flushing them.
Kelly and his group got up and marched down the bleachers. They headed toward the exit that led to the upper classrooms. The lower classroom students had already filed out.
She didn’t even realize she was following them until Kelly stopped her.
“Wrong door,” he said. “And your mouth is moving.”
She felt embarrassed. She had been so busy reviewing each of her hands and the revealed cards around her and the possible combinations and the best times to hold or hit or double down that she had been mumbling like a babe doing multiplication tables.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted.
“Don’t be. But keep your mouth shut about the game, at least. See you around, squirt.”
18. South
Dinah spotted the hunters coming. Two of their trucks drove up a small dirt embankment on a hill opposite from them that was devoid of trees. A thin rising wall of beige dust drifted high in the air behind the vehicles. Dinah and her companions found an easy hiding place among the oak trees that clustered their hill. It was good cover, and they were able to remain in the shadows.
The air was hot and silent around them, but it had to be hotter for the hunters in the trucks. A few grasshoppers buzzed and clicked in the yellow grass at Dinah’s feet. If the trucks hadn’t been around, she’d have gone browsing for a snack.
The trucks didn’t stop but continued to drive north. Soon they were out of sight, and Dinah and her companions kept walking in the opposite direction. She checked Karl’s device. A tiny dial that had been blank on her own device had stenciled numbers around it. After thirty seconds of fiddling, she got a green light and a beep. The small LED screen flickered a virtual needle that settled to the south. Dinah’s device’s screen hadn’t been that helpful. Both Redmon and Karl were keenly interested in her findings, yet neither asked what she discovered until she was ready to tell them. Dinah bet the oracles of ancient times got a thrill out of making people wait. She felt a small one.
“He’s still to the south, so he wasn’t inside the trucks we saw.”
They walked. A few times Dinah wanted to ask Karl about her brother and his health, how he could walk, and anything else Karl might know, but was afraid of how the questions would sound to Redmon. Concern for someone involved with so much wickedness might lead Redmon to believe she was complicit somehow.
The sun started to set behind a mounting pile of gray fog that rose above the western hills. There would be a cool breeze soon, but Dinah was sweating. She could smell smoke. A belt of haze hung in the valley air. By her estimation, they were miles from the burned village. Something new had been set on fire recently, something close. Her brother was in that direction. Destruction and flame followed him.
They descended the hill through an old quarry and came upon a dirt road where they found tire tracks from the trucks’ recent passage. Dinah examined a rusted green sign, but could decipher none of the words. A mile further they approached a makeshift wooden fence that surrounded an orchard of small trees, a few of which appeared healthy with green leaves. No fruit or
blossoms grew. Brown curled leaves hung sadly on most of the trees. Much of it looked like it might spontaneously combust. The burned smell was stronger.
Karl examined one of the trees. “Almonds.”
Redmon gave them a hand signal for them to stop. She ventured forward alone, returning a few minutes later.
“There’s a burned farmhouse on the other side of the orchard.”
“We’re getting close,” Karl said. “And if we can find him, he can find us. What’s the plan?”
“We need to keep heading south,” Redmon said. “Stick to the plan. Bypass your brother, if that’s even him. Let him follow you. We draw him and his troops away from the refugees and give the other towns to the north a chance to organize. We should avoid the farm.”
Dinah nodded. That had been the plan. A part of her wanted to continue traveling with the two, even if she didn’t trust one of them. They could be a broken family up in the hills and find more places like her secret spring. She knew of a rocky area not far away from Uma’s house where she could always find a few bits of obsidian. They could go back there and collect enough pieces to make some rudimentary surgical tools. Redmon could cut whatever was inside of Dinah out so she would be free.
She bit her lower lip and banished the nonsense.
“I’m going to take a look.”
They moved together through the orchard until they stopped at a vantage point where they could watch both a farmhouse not unlike Uma’s and the road. The house’s blackened frame and stone chimney looked as if the slightest wind would knock it all down. Dinah could just make out the back end of one of the hunters’ trucks parked behind the husk of the farmhouse. The vehicle appeared canted, as if both of the passenger-side wheels were in a ditch. Once she pointed it out, Redmon and Karl nodded.
“I want to wait here an hour until it gets dark,” Dinah said. “Then I’m going to sneak over there alone and go see if it’s him.”
By the looks on their faces, neither Karl nor Redmond liked her idea, but neither wanted to be the first to contradict her plan. They waited, watched, and listened.
One of the hunters came into view and built a small fire.
What is it with these people and fire? As if there’s not enough ash in the world.
He appeared to be alone and tottered about as if he were in danger of falling at any time. Was that him? It was too dark to see his features. Soon the fire was built, and the hunter settled in out of sight.
“There could be a dozen others hiding nearby or waiting in that truck,” Redmon whispered. “We should keep going.”
“She’s right,” Karl said. “If they’re actively looking for you, they’ll see that you’ve doubled back. Getting this close to any of them with their sensors is foolhardy. We need to get some distance so they don’t surround us while we wait.”
Dinah got comfortable leaning on a tree, her full attention on the fire and its sole attendant. The sun had quit the sky, leaving a growing moon alone to light the heavens. Fog began to roll over the hills. She felt a chill in the air as a breeze pushed through the orchard. The smells of the fire were replaced with the aroma of dried grass.
In the dark, she couldn’t see either of her companions well. They had settled in on either side of her. Both knew how to keep quiet. They waited on her to make a decision. Dinah thought of all the dead.
“I’m going over there to see,” she said. “You wait.”
Karl put a hand on her arm but let go once she started forward.
The orchard was a colonnade of shadows. She wished that the trees were soldiers who would join her, but they stayed rooted as she left them behind. The front of the farmhouse held little but barren, packed soil and a pair of feeding or watering troughs made of wood. She didn’t see a second truck or any indication that there was more than the one hunter.
She saw him clearly now. The lone figure sat in front of his fire and held his hands near the flame. An orange glow played across the blanket of fog above. She could hear the crackle of dry wood as it was consumed. The fire was much too large for one person, and the man appeared to be too close to it, making her wonder if he wanted to be enveloped by his own creation.
She rounded the side of the house and walked across dry furrows of parched earth. Her footsteps made no sounds. The reek of the burned home was strong, but she smelled no blood or roasted flesh. Whoever had previously lived here had escaped, been taken, or died elsewhere.
The old man looked up in her direction. Dinah was close enough that perhaps her face or eyes had caught some of the light, yet surely his night vision was spoiled by his proximity to the fire.
“There you are,” he said. “Won’t you join me?”
That would have been the time to run. All the sane parts of her urged her to do so. Yet she straightened and walked toward the fire.
“Dinah,” he said as if the name were an affirmation.
His scarf-wrapped face was a mask of dancing shadow. His dark goggles captured the image of the fire in miniature. She didn’t see a weapon nearby, but she had to assume he could have anything hidden in the gloom beyond him. A small pot was pressed close to the edges of the flames. Some kind of liquid simmered within.
“None of my men are here. They’ve headed north in search of you.”
“Let me see your face.”
“Of course.”
He pulled the ragged scarf down away from his mouth. He took the goggles and hat off. His hair looked red or maybe white, his skin very pale, and his eyes shined. His skin, eyes, and even the shape of his head appeared all wrong, as if he had been under the care of a sculptor intent on rearranging his features and bleaching the colors from his body. Yet the odd smile and the way his eyes held more mischief than malice spoke to who he truly once was.
It was her brother Ruben, no question about it. She swallowed hard. “Why?”
“I need you,” he said.
She waited for more. The fire popped. A few sparks shot up into the night.
“All of this for me?” She gestured to the burned farmhouse. “If you can find me, if there’s something inside my head that lets you track me down, why not just come for me?”
“Because this was going to happen whether you were out in the world or at my side. I made you a priority so the hunters would know you were to be spared. They need firm instruction, otherwise they get carried away. This cleansing will go on now that you’re accounted for. It would go on if you were still lost.”
“You have to stop it. If you need land, we can work something out. If you need food, we can trade. If it’s tribute you want, it’ll be given. We can make sure you and everyone in the redoubt gets what they need. That’s how everyone has made it this far without descending into anarchy. You can’t just kill everybody.”
“I have much to teach you about the world, Dinah.”
“If this is your world, I don’t want it.”
He sighed. “I shouldn’t have had you taken out here. It was a mistake that I quickly regretted but was in no shape to reverse. This world is dangerous. You could have gotten sick. I could have lost you out here just as easily as inside. If the doctors hadn’t been so obstinate in holding on to their ideas of what direction Nineveh needed to go, I could have kept you there. We would have spent the past six years together. But now I need you to come back home.”
She felt a surge of emotion. “I wanted to come back for you, I promise. But only to bring you out of there. You were dying. They were killing you, like they were killing all the children.”
Her brother laughed. She heard notes of the puckish boy who’d teased her about nuclear-powered robots fornicating with automated buses atop the ruins of nuked-out cities. His voice sounded scratchy and raw. He began to cough and suppressed it. His hack and wheeze made him sound like one of the old men from the villages who smoked whatever smelly herbs they could get their hands on. But her brother was only a few years older than her.
“I got better.”
“How?”
> “Oh, you know. Those mad scientists in their war room, and the doctors in the White Room with their tests and labs. They made us what we are.”
“And what about the other kids?”
“Why do you care about them? They made your life miserable.”
“That doesn’t mean I want them dead.”
“You sure about that?”
“I’m not a monster. I don’t want anyone to die. But the hunters listen to you. Are you in charge or not? Make it stop, and I’ll go with you.”
He moved. It made her flinch, as she thought he might be rising to close the short distance across the fire. Instead he pulled the pot away from the flame, produced a spoon, and took a taste. It smelled of soup, yet not like any soup she’d had over the past few years. It smelled of the redoubt cafeteria broth with the thin salty noodles.
He made a face. “Just nasty. But then again, nothing tastes right anymore. Maybe nothing’s ever tasted right. Soup’s on, if you don’t mind the desiccated stuff.”
More coughs. Pain creased his face. She fought the conflicting urges to run away and to go to him to provide comfort. “What did they do to you?”
Phlegm came up, and he spat into the shadows behind him. “What are you talking about? I’m the picture of health. I’m the product of what happens when you eat your beans and your beets and drink your fruit punch. You never were one for following instructions.”
He sipped another spoonful of soup. He gestured with it as if to offer some. When she didn’t move, he shrugged and put the spoon down in the pot. Then he let out a short laugh.
“It’s the elves, you know,” he said. “They know how to sew. So they stitched, and where the sutures didn’t take, they welded, grafted, and spliced. I’m thirty-three percent gardenia with a little bit of pear tree. My pluots are the best when I get enough sun.”
He kicked out his legs in front of him and reclined. His legs appeared thin, but when she had run into him earlier it had been like running into a wall. She got closer. He didn’t move. She prodded one of his legs with a foot. Solid. Not flesh.
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