by Sean Platt
Maybe she’s not dead. Maybe she brought me to this place. Maybe there’s some part of her still alive!
Mary shoved herself forward, following the trail of petals into the darkness.
The train raged behind her, so loud they must be sharing a path.
Mary broke into a run, ignoring her aching body and buzzing head, along with the branches scratching and scraping her skin. The path closed in around her.
The train screamed behind her. Then Mary recognized the sound: a tornado, not a train.
A flash of memory raced through her mind, too fast to grasp or make sense of before it was gone. Another deadly tornado — on that other world.
She looked back and wished she hadn’t. Everything behind her was coming apart — like the petals — remnants cast in every direction.
The path had sealed ahead of her, giving way to an endless tangle of brambles.
The red petals had vanished, but Mary couldn’t turn back. Whatever was ripping the world to pieces was growing closer and louder, eager to catch her. The only way was forward, through the sharp brambles.
“Mommy!” Paola’s voice cried out, scared, from somewhere ahead.
“I’m coming!” Mary screamed.
She closed her eyes and threw her arms forward, pushing the branches aside, suffering cuts like she were barreling through a field of razor wire.
The roar behind her sounded like it was whipping repeatedly at chunks of earth. With the sound, she felt tremors underfoot, convinced that the ground would split open and claim her.
The wind assaulted her from all sides, and branches thrashed violently, lashing and lacerating her flesh.
She cried out from the pain.
Mary opened her mouth and felt chunks of the world ripped up and carried away. Clumps of dirt, grass, and rock forced their way down her throat, threatening to choke her as she struggled to spit.
The sound grew louder, swelling with a pressure that supplanted every sense except pain.
With nothing to hold her, Mary was moments from lifting off and getting carried away by the sky.
Then it happened.
Mary felt her body lift, slowly at first, then with great speed, racing upward at an angle so fast, she was certain she’d smash into something — if there was anything left of the world — and get splattered by the force in an instant. Just like that, she’d be as undone as the petals and earth.
Mary reached out as if doing so could somehow control her flight, that she could manage and maybe slow her elliptical vortex. Shards of debris lacerated her body for the effort.
Her head was thrumming, dizzy. She couldn’t tell which way was up as she spun through the night sky. She wanted to look around, to gather some sense of where she was and where she was going. How near she was to the ground, if there was something she might be able to grab. Maybe she’d see Paola. Could reach her. Be with her again, as impossible as it seemed.
She didn’t dare open her eyes; she’d lose them forever if she tried, and maybe find herself a half mile in the sky. Like in those old Roadrunner cartoons, she’d plummet to nothing the second she saw reality for what it was.
As if reading her mind, the tornado stopped.
So did everything else.
And there was nothing but silence.
Mary fell but never hit the ground.
She found herself standing in the darkness, looking around, amazed by the world — empty except for an impossibly smooth dark soil surface.
Where’s all the debris?
Where’s Paola?
“Paola?”
Mary was filled with an ominous chill while standing among the nothing. The world was wrong, and she was desperate to know why.
She saw movement in the distance — a tree. One sole tree, giant, with hundreds of skeletal branches dotted by surreal, luminous red roses. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Something hit her head, hard.
Mary reached up, feeling a giant knot rising under her scalp, certain she was bleeding.
What the hell hit me?
She looked down and saw a small rock.
Where did that come from?
Another fell, maybe six feet away.
And then another.
Mary looked up. Her heart stopped as she saw that everything the cyclone had ripped from the ground was hundreds of feet above in one giant mass, falling fast.
She screamed, then ran.
Mary didn’t get far before the earth fell and buried her alive.
And now she was farther from Paola.
Mary woke to a muffled sound, a familiar voice saying her name.
She remembered the Black Guardsmen raiding their hiding spot. The bomb going off.
She opened her eyes, surprised to be alive.
Luca’s face swam into focus. Behind him, light seeped through an apartment window.
She still couldn’t get used to seeing him so old, now looking like he was in his late fifties. The healing had taken its toll. And he’d just used it to bring her back, just when she’d been so close to being with Paola again.
She sat up, surprised that her body no longer hurt. Even her headache was gone. But there was still a pain deep in her soul, an ache that even Luca couldn’t heal.
She looked up at him then at Boricio, Ed, and Jake Barrow all standing and waiting for her to return like Lazarus.
Mary looked at Luca again. Poor Luca. He looked like he’d aged five years, if not more, his hair gone completely gray, the lines in his face a bit deeper.
“Why did you do it?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“What?” he asked, his kind eyes wide and confused.
“Why did you bring me back?”
Luca stared at her, as if he couldn’t believe her question.
“Are you okay?” Boricio asked.
“No!” she shouted, getting to her feet.
Dizziness overwhelmed Mary and sent her stumbling forward.
Boricio and Ed reached out to break her fall.
Mary found her feet then swiped at their hands, eager to be away from them.
“Leave me alone!” She turned around, finding the unfamiliar apartment’s front door. She opened it then rushed through and into the hallway.
“Mary!” Boricio cried out.
Mary kept running.
* * * *
CHAPTER 4 — Boricio Wolfe
Boricio and Keenan traded looks of confusion as Mary left the apartment.
“What the hell?” Boricio said to himself.
Luca, surprisingly, had the only response. “It’s Paola.”
“What?” Boricio asked.
“Mary heard her while she was dying and didn’t want to come back.”
Boricio wanted to ask what in the devil’s dick that even meant, but he knew he didn’t have long if he wanted to catch up with Mary. They were in a new apartment, one she hadn’t been to before, surrounded by unfamiliar territory until they could reconnect with others in The Resistance.
He raced out the door and into the hallway, hoping she would just be outside, pissed, maybe sucking on a nicotine titty.
But she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Fuck!” Boricio turned back to the apartment. “Keenan, Barrow, I need some help!”
Three seconds later, Boricio was directing Barrow to start searching apartments on this floor, Keenan to head upstairs. He’d take the bottom floor.
“Wait for me!” Luca called out, grabbing his machete and strapping it to his belt.
“Dude, you stay put.” Protecting Luca was their prime fucking directive. He wasn’t just a healer. Luca was connected to the aliens, could warn his friends when he felt them near, and had thus far shielded them from discovery. Without Luca, they wouldn’t have had any of their successes killing squads of Guardsmen, sabotaging known alien outposts in The City, or finding new people for The Resistance.
“I might be able to find her.” Luca tapped his head with his index finger.
“Ah, r
ight, I forgot.” Boricio hadn’t forgotten but knew Luca’s skills were declining. Moving them from one world to another, and healing all the people he’d been healing, had beaten his body like a drum, turning him into an antique over the last several years. Additionally, the boy-turned-old-man seemed to look older every morning he woke up.
But fuck it, he was out here. May as well use his powers. “Okay, put that detector to work.”
Luca closed his eyes and focused. He looked down. “She’s downstairs. Heading for the street.”
“Try and keep up.” Boricio bolted toward the stairs and took them two then three at a time, six flights to the bottom.
The old kid couldn’t keep up, but Boricio figured if he were fast enough, he’d end the search before Luca made it downstairs anyway.
Boricio raced out into the street, into the bright morning light, and looked around, searching for any sign of Miss Mary Quite Contrary. The street was lined with apartment buildings, many climbing ten stories or higher. She could easily squirrel away in any one, which was why they’d picked Las Orillas to hide in.
Mary appeared in the doorway of an apartment building just up the road. Boricio sighed with relief.
She started walking toward him, her eyes on the ground, avoiding his gaze. She reached him and stopped, still not looking up.
“What’s wrong, Mary?”
“Nothing.” She looked up and met Boricio’s eyes, not a trace of tears or any expression.
“You storm out like a redneck at a gay pride parade and expect me to buy ‘nothin’? Come the fuck on, Mary. Boricio knows when there’s bullshit in his burrito.”
Boricio heard Luca on the radio behind him, telling the others that they’d found Mary.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mary said, “okay?”
Boricio considered telling her tough titties and soaking-wet tacos, but he already knew why she was upset. Luca said it was Paola. But if Boricio said he knew what was bothering her, she’d get at Luca for pokin’ in her head. No point in having Mary mad at the Boy Wonder, too. And hell, who was he to say she couldn’t keep her sorrow a secret? It wasn’t like he didn’t have his own demons to battle sunup to sundown. But Mary had made those battles less intense, even if she didn’t know it. He wished he could do the same for her — murder the pain that was eating her up.
It had been four years since Paola had died. How long was she going to keep blaming herself?
Boricio’s radio beeped, followed by Lisa’s voice. “Hey, I’ve got a hot package, and I need to know where to drop it.”
“How hot?” Keenan answered before Boricio could.
“Hotter than hell.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 5 — Paul Roberts
The Island
Earlier that day
Paul woke to the smell of bacon and eggs, smiling at Emily’s predictability. Today was her scheduled field trip into The Wastelands — The City he’d grown up in — and Paul still hadn’t decided whether she could go. This was her way of buttering him up.
He got out of bed, went into the bathroom and showered, dressed in shorts and a black tee, and came out to the kitchen where his twelve-year-old daughter was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for him, smile wide, green eyes beaming from beneath her thick brown curls.
“Ah, you made breakfast today? What a spontaneous treat!”
Emily said nothing, probably wondering if he was on to her and being sarcastic. He felt her attempting to worm inside his mind. Her telepathic skills had improved significantly over the past year, but she was nowhere near experienced enough to probe his mind … yet. Paul pushed back, gently, and noticed her wince, probably unaware that he’d built a psychic wall. From Emily’s perspective, it probably felt like a mild migraine.
Paul was waiting for Emily to tell him about her newfound abilities. He didn’t want to let her know he already knew. For some reason, he felt it was better to let Emily feel things out for herself without his interference. She was at the age where any idea originating with him was met with natural resistance. And while he wanted to train her on how to use, and hide, her skills, the subject required a delicate approach.
Paul sat and looked at the glass of cold orange juice.
“Wow, you went all out!”
Breakfast usually consisted of either protein shakes or maybe toast and jam. Neither of them was a morning person, so their first meal was usually a rushed ceremony between waking and preparing for the day — him for work and her for school — then getting out the door.
“I like to cook every now and then.” Emily dug her fork into her eggs and took a bite.
He grabbed a piece of bacon, bit into it. Perfectly crispy, just like he loved it.
“This is good. And so spontaneous,” he repeated.
Emily met his eyes. Her smile faltered. “Okay, I get it. I know you know what I want. So, have you decided?”
“I have not.”
“Great.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Are you really gonna make me do this?”
“You know the rules.”
“Why do you make me do this? I never win.”
“That’s because you think you’ll never win.”
“No, I know I’ll never win. For every reasonable argument I make, you come back with three against me. How can I win any argument with you? It’s not fair.”
“What did I say about that?”
“Sorry, sir.”
Paul hated the term not fair — the last defense of someone too lazy to try, or fight, for what they wanted.
“Why do you do this to me?” Emily’s shoulders slumped, defeated already. “What’s the point in teaching me to debate? Arguing may have worked in the old world, but it doesn’t anymore. Not for us. We’re at their mercy.”
“They can be reasoned with. We’re living here on The Island, aren’t we? We could be scrounging around in The Wastelands. If I couldn’t argue and reason, I — ” Paul thought of how desperately close they’d been to death when Desmond found them, “ — well, we wouldn’t be here. No whining. Tell me why you should be able to go.”
“Fine.” Emily sat up, her eyes determined and lips pursed. The expression, the fire in her eyes, reminded Paul so much of Jane. “I should go on the trip so I can see where I came from. Because I don’t have many memories before the aliens.”
“Okay, but what’s left of The Wastelands isn’t remotely close to the world you were born in. Many of the homes and buildings are rubble. What the aliens didn’t shoot down with their lasers, humans destroyed in the aftermath. Those buildings that are still standing house freaks, bandits, and God knows what other monstrosities. It’s impossible to see what’s no longer there.”
“I can’t give you a logical reason that’ll make sense to you. I just feel like I need to see where I came from.”
“That’s an emotional reason not a logical one. Emotional reasons aren’t valid, Emily. But emotions can be a liability, putting you in danger if you don’t master them. Far better to be in control of one’s feelings than to need outside stimuli or validation. Master your emotions, and you can master others who are still enslaved by their own.”
If she were ever going to develop her telepathic gifts, she’d need a framework to put them to good use. Persuading people, or controlling them, was nearly impossible if you didn’t understand what made people tick. And part of that understanding was mastering emotions, hers and others’.
“Ugh.” Emily rolled her eyes. “Fine. Then I should be allowed to go because I can only learn so much from books and video. I need to observe these freaks, bandits, and monstrosities firsthand to develop a working knowledge. Aren’t you always saying that knowledge is power?”
“Fair enough. Counterpoint: The working knowledge you’ll gain on this trip will be of dubious value at best. It’s not as if you’ll be on the ground. You’ll be in a shuttle, flying high above The Wastelands.”
“Yes, but with the equipment onboard, I’m sure I’ll be able
to zoom in and get bio readings on-screen, a lot more than I can get from books.”
“Agreed.” Paul nodded. “But I have to ask, why do you want to go so badly? Why are they even having this trip? The Wastelands are the past. This Island is the present and future. Why do you care so much about yesterday?”
“I told you that Mr. Pace is testing field aptitude to see who should be filtered into working in The Wastelands.”
“Is that what you want? To work in The Wastelands?” The idea of his daughter out there working at the slaughterhouse, factory, or farms the aliens maintained in The Wastelands terrified Paul to the bone. He’d sacrificed everything — had done horrible, unspeakable things for the aliens — to keep them safe on The Island. Not that she knew all the things his job required. She knew that he helped transition aliens into the bodies of hosts. She thought the humans were willing participants in this process. She didn’t know to what extent he went to break down the hosts to make them malleable enough to be suitable for the aliens to live in. Or that 12.8 percent of the people he transitioned wound up having to be put down when the migration didn’t take.
She shrugged. “I dunno, maybe I want to be out there.”
“Why? You have everything taken care of here. You want for nothing. Why would you want to be … out there?”
She looked down at her plate, shaking her head.
“What is it?”
She sniffled, titling her face down so he couldn’t see her crying beneath her hair.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“I don’t like it here.”
Now it was Paul who was rolling his eyes. He didn’t feel like having this argument again.
“Do we have any other options? Is there anywhere left in the world where we would have it this good?”
“No, sir,” she said, still avoiding his eyes.
“So, what’s the point? Do you think it’s better out there? Out in The Wastelands?”
“At least we’d be with our own kind — not living with the things that killed us. That killed Mom!”