by K. Makansi
“I have to go, Jahnu. Promise me … promise you’ll try your hardest?”
He nodded, an almost imperceptible movement.
“A favor,” he whispered, his voice creaking, like a branch in the wind.
“Kenzie … tell her….” he paused, glanced over at the bedside table where there’s a damp cloth and some ice chips. I wet his lips and he drew in a ragged breath. “She is my morning star.”
Now Dad puts his hand over mine as I stroke Lakshmi’s neck. He gives it a squeeze, and looks up at me. “You and Lakshmi make a good team. Take care of each other out there,” he says as much to the horse as to me. “And try not to worry about Jahnu. Kenzie and I will be with him.”
We both know not worrying is an impossibility, that life is not something you can bend to your will. Kenzie had been waiting outside the infirmary door, and I told her what Jahnu said. Seeing the happiest person I’ve ever known choking back tears, her eyes rimmed as red as her hair, was devastating. If anyone could will someone to live, it would be Kenzie. Or my dad, as he held my mom in his arms. But life doesn’t work that way.
Again and again and again we say goodbye, we separate, our circle loosens, lessens, disintegrates. I memorize my friend’s faces, keep the moment that I said goodbye to them imprinted forever on my soul. If I had more time, I would draw them all, etched not invisibly in my mind, but permanently in the world.
But I don’t have time.
Today, we’re headed into the Wilds to find the Outsiders. The real Wilds, not the forests we navigated through in the winter after we escaped Okaria, not the wooded areas between the Resistance bases; these are places that were destroyed by nuclear or environmental devastation in the ruination of the Old world. They’re nearly inhospitable, or so we were always told, and in the Sector they’re called No-Go Zones. But now we know better. Now we know that the Outsiders—and who knows who else—have been living out there for generations, and we’re going because, as the Director says, we need allies. We need people who know how to work between the Sector’s lines, and the Outsiders have been doing it for decades. We need them because there is safety in numbers, and we need them if we’re ever going to make use of the LOTUS database.
If we learned anything from the battle at Round Barn, it’s that simple rebellion isn’t enough. To execute our strategy, we need the Outsiders. To win over the citizens of Okaria, we need my video … but I’m not willing to show it to anyone just yet.
“Remember,” Rhinehouse says, “your goal is to convince the Outsiders to work with us. Not for us, but with us. They’ll benefit as much as we will from the overthrow of the OAC leadership and the reestablishment of a Sector that lives up to its founding principles. You’re all carrying the coded coordinates of our message drop points—in case you’re separated—so try to get word to us as soon as you can, and we’ll do the same.” Then to me, “Remy…be safe. Be careful. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Off you go, then.”
Vale, who has been appointed the leader of our expedition, nudges Mistral, his horse, to start. But all she does is shudder so violently I wonder if Vale is going to fall off, and then Mistral snorts out a loud fluppery noise and turns around to look at him as if to say, Seriously? You want me to do what you say? Vale kicks the horse’s sides a few more times and all it does is lift its tail to plop out great brown steaming patties as the rest of us sit in our saddles waiting for someone to do something. Then Miah—who appears to think riding a horse is as exciting as flying an airship—surges forward with a soft whistle and a light slap of the reins on his horse’s butt.
“Some leader you are, Vale,” he calls, heading down the trail as if he’s been riding all his life. Being a kid in the factory towns was apparently much different from being a kid in the capital. Firestone starts yeehawing like a wild man and yelling, “You go, Calgary 2!” and, as if that isn’t amazing enough, I catch Soren and Vale exchanging glances.
“Did you know he could ride like that?” Vale laughs.
“No idea,” Soren shakes his head in amazement. “Wonder what else he’s been hiding from us?” Leave it to Miah to have Vale and Soren laughing together.
Then, without doing a thing, our horses begin to trot down the trail, following Miah’s as if pulled by an invisible tether and jarring my teeth together like rapid-fire hammer blows. I turn one last time and see Rhinehouse shushing and scowling at Firestone and wonder what lies before us in the giant maw of the Wilds.
22 - VALE
Spring 18, Sector Annum 106, 19h00
Gregorian Calendar: April 6
After three days of traveling, we make camp in a dusty little ravine, overgrown with ragged, stunted trees, craggy shrubs, and a surprising abundance of wild goats. They’re strange but friendly, unafraid of either us or the horses, and adorable in a kind of old-bearded-man-animal way. They keep attempting to eat everything in sight—including Remy’s curls, the horses’ tails, and our canvas saddlebags. Remy’s taken to keeping her hood up and tied under her chin to keep them from sucking on her hair. I’m reminded of some photographs from the Old World I studied in my history classes. Some female adherents to an old religion called Islam covered their hair with headscarves. With her hood over her head so that only her face is visible, she looks like one of those women, and it makes her amber eyes stand out even more dramatically.
Our campsite is not completely inhospitable, but it’s certainly no place I’d like to call home. For our purposes that’s a good thing, since it means the Sector will have no reason to send any reconnaissance drones out this far. No reason to have drones in the region at all, since there’s nothing to watch over besides the goats.
Unpacking and setting up camp tonight was a major chore because our collective asses are chafed and sore. After our first day of riding, I wondered if I’d ever walk with my knees in close proximity to one another again. By the end of the second day, Remy started sitting sideways in the saddle every once in a while just to give her legs a break. Soren was groaning like he had both feet in the grave. Miah’s the only one who seems to be able to handle the pain. By the third day the horses finally seemed to get used to us, and we to them. We took the pace a little faster that day, often cantering and even galloping full out when we could. Whenever one of the horses gets a little stubborn, Miah takes the lead and they all fall back into line.
After we finish eating, we decide we’re far enough away from any Resistance bases that I can activate the Outsider beacon on the pendant Chan-Yu gave me. After I recounted, for the fiftieth time, my experience with the nameless Outsider who led my team to Normandy months earlier, Remy and Soren have become convinced it must be their “Osprey,” the same Outsider who left them bloodied messages and guided them to their boat after Chan-Yu helped them escape Okaria. I described the scars I glimpsed on her arms and the tattoos on her shoulder—“Like those water birds that fly over the lakes sometimes, the ones with the wide wingspan”—and now they’re hoping it’s Osprey who comes to our aid again. Everyone gathers round me, like it is some sort of ancient sacred ritual, and watches me flip the little switch with my thumb. Flick, flick. That’s it. Then, when nothing happens—as if they expected an Outsider to appear out of thin air—we all go to bed.
Since the Director had given out many of the tents on hand to surviving Farm workers, we got what was left over—one double and two singles, “one of them for Remy,” and even though I knew she meant it out of decency, it came out sounding like she was putting Remy in isolation. Remy, though, shrugged and looked pleased that she would have her own place to sleep. On the first night, I was afraid Soren would expect Remy to join him in the double, but he didn’t say a word as she began setting up her tent. I suspect something’s changed between them, but since neither one of them are in the habit of telling me their secrets or talking about feelings, I have no idea what might have happened.
“I don’t mind sleeping alone,” I offered, and we’ve been in the same arrang
ements since.
Soren’s on early morning watch when his voice slices through the fog of sleep, and I wake to “What the hell? Fuck!” and then a thud and a scuffling sound as if he’s fallen and is scrambling to his feet. I grab my Bolt and am up and out of my tent in a half-second, with hope as my guide, rather than fear.
And I see her. She turns toward me and her face lights up.
“Valerian. We meet again.” And once again I’m struck by her appearance. Lithe and boyishly feminine, but as tense and taut as a pulled bowstring. Since it’s not frigid and the snow’s not up to our shins, she’s dressed simply in camouflage pants and an open jacket over a skin-tight shirt. Just like when she pulled her coat up over her back to show us her tattoo, I can see she’s slender, but she carries her muscled shoulders with the same aggressive, soldier’s rigidity that I recognize from my military training. She’s got her feet planted as square and even as a drill sergeant, and yet she looks as if she’s poised, ready to spring at a moment’s notice.
“Where the hell’d you come from?” Soren demands, brushing the dirt from his pants. Looks like he’d been sitting on the remains of a weather-beaten tree trunk taking the opportunity to shave and clean up a bit when the Wayfarer appeared. His shirt is off, draped over the top of his tent, and his mouth is hanging open, half of his face cleanly shaven, the other half sporting a stubbly shadow.
“Your friend Valerian called. I came.”
“You could have said something. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Skaarsgard, I presume. Some guard.” She reaches up and grasps his chin, moving it side to side. “You missed a spot.” She rubs a thumb down the side of his jawline. “A big one.”
Soren flushes, and I realize he’s completely flustered over the sudden appearance of this almost mythical Outsider. Soren flustered—now that’s something I’ve never seen before. The girl—the Outsider, the wayfarer—turns toward the third tent as Remy crawls out.
“Ah, here’s the famous Remy Alexander, evil scourge of the Sector.” Her eyes light up, in that same glowing ember-ish way I recall from the first time I saw her.
Remy clambers up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, trying to flatten her hair, which sticks up every which way. “You don’t look nearly as dangerous as the Dragon makes you out to be,” the girl says.
“Osprey?”
“Guilty as charged.” She laughs and turns back to Soren, appraising him up and down so slowly, so brazenly, I feel my face grow warm on his behalf.
“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help before,” Osprey says, addressing Soren and Remy, “when you needed the boat, you know. But I ran into a bit of trouble. Had a run-in with an old friend.” The way she emphasizes the word friend makes it clear that whomever she ran into was most certainly not friendly. Her brows knit together for a moment and then she smiles again.
“I always wanted to meet Soren Skaarsgard. The pianist.” She stands on tiptoe, runs her hands up Soren’s arms to his shoulders and then on up his neck to cup his face in both hands. “In the flesh.” Then she pulls him down to her and kisses him on both cheeks. When she’s done, Soren’s face is as red as Kenzie’s hair, and I can see the goosebumps on his skin from two meters away. I’d feel a moment of jealousy that she hasn’t bothered to acknowledge that I’m a pianist as well, but then, I don’t think I want the same treatment she’s just given him.
Remy looks confused as Osprey turns back to me. “So where are we going this time?”
“We’d like to meet the Outsiders.” I respond.
She laughs. “Which ones?”
“If there are any ‘leaders’ of the Outsiders, we’d like to meet them,” Soren speaks up, his voice a little hoarse—whether from early morning sleeplessness or the fact that he’s just been handled quite physically by this strange but enthralling woman, I couldn’t say.
“Ah, Mr. Skaarsgard,” Osprey says, in a quiet, contemplative way that reminds me very much of Chan-Yu. Her voice takes on a more serious inflection, as though she’s addressing an audience instead of just friends. “Now there’s a tricky thing,”
“Why?”
“Because we go to great lengths not to be ‘led’ and even greater lengths not to be met,” she says, with that same sort of inflection Chan-Yu used to have when he was explaining something he obviously thought was very simple.
“And they’re obviously very good at it,” I say. “No one in the Sector has a clue what you all do out here, or why, or how.”
She cocks her head and looks at me. Her gold-flecked eyes are dark and fierce, like the bird of prey that is her namesake. “And we’d like to keep it that way, Valerian. You all have been a bit of a nuisance to us in the past, and we have no desire to get embroiled in the affairs of the Sector—or its enemies.”
“But you’re already embroiled. Chan-Yu had infiltrated the highest reaches of power. He worked right beside me—and supposedly for my mother—for years,” I protest.
“And he had help smuggling Remy and me out,” Soren adds. “So there are others like you, like Chan-Yu, in the Sector.”
“Only out of necessity,” she says. “We cannot avoid them if we do not understand them.”
“But we need your help,” Remy says, her voice not quite pleading, but almost. “I don’t know what happened to your people after the SRI massacre was blamed on an ‘Outsider terrorist,’ but you must know as well as anyone what the Sector is doing.”
Osprey’s eyes flash as she turns towards Remy, thrusting her arms out to reveal the scars I’d only glimpsed before, jagged lines that run up and down her skin like filaments etched into her flesh. I shudder. It reminds me of the thin scars, still red and raw, on the image of Evander’s face after Remy got to him.
“Yes, Remy Alexander, I do know as well as anyone. Maybe even better than you. Which is why I stay as far away from the Sector as possible. Perhaps you ought to learn that lesson as well, especially after what happened at Round Barn—”
“Okay, okay,” I interrupt, trying to calm her down. “So you won’t take us to them. Can you at least deliver a message?”
She pulls back and brightens up instantly, the smile returning to her face without missing a beat. “Sure, what message?”
Remy steps forward. “Tell them we seek their counsel on how the Outsiders have avoided conflict with the Sector all these years and how their experiences might help us avoid an all-out civil war. We want to change the Sector, but we don’t want war. We don’t want innocents dying any more than you do.”
“You sure have a strange way of doing business if you really want to avoid violence,” she says to Remy.
“I’d like to see Chan-Yu again,” Soren pipes up. “To find out what happened after he left Remy and me.”
Osprey’s face clouds over as I add, “And tell him Valerian Orleán would like to thank him for saving his friends, and for saving me. Tell him I am in his debt and at his service,” I say, surprised at my forcefulness even as the words come out, suddenly moved at the memory of what I owe my former aide.
Her eyes rest on each one of us as if she’s weighing us, considering whether or not we’re worth the effort of doing more than just guiding us from one place to the next. “That’s a message I’m sure he’ll be interested to hear,” she says finally, turning to leave as abruptly as she appeared, and it occurs to me that I have no idea how she travels so quietly and so quickly through the Wilds.
“Osprey,” I call after her.
“Yes?” She turns.
“Tell him ‘my allegiance lies outside the Sector.’”
She pauses as if considering my words. Nods once and then walks over to a pathetic excuse for a bush at the edge of our camp, grabs hold of empty air that shimmers into something that looks strangely like an Old world motorbike only without the wheels. She swings her leg over the seat, glances back at us, and then noiselessly speeds off into the distance, fading into nothingness as she goes.
We all turn around as Miah pokes his sleepy head out
of the tent. He yawns, adding an exaggerated groan into it, and then looks up at all of us staring down at him.
“What? What’d I miss?”
Next morning, Osprey returns before light has even broken. We’d spent the previous day scouting around camp and then cooked several wild hares that Miah and I managed to snare using a technique Osprey showed me on our earlier trek together. After dinner, the sky was so clear that, once the fire died down, I felt as if I could reach up and pluck a star out of the sky. Since none of us could take our eyes off the Milky Way, painted bright across the inky dome above us, we dragged our sleeping bags out and slept in the open.
“Osprey’s back.” Remy shakes me awake beneath the steely sky, and I blink and look up to see her face mere centimeters above mine. Since the amazing dream I was having featured her in a prominent and very active role, my body thrums with the desire to reach up and pull her down to me. But I don’t. Besides, I need to push those thoughts from my mind before I leave my sleeping bag.
“Okay,” I say. “I’m awake.” I push myself up on my elbows.
“She says at least some of the leaders have agreed to meet with us.”
“I guess the opportunity to see the four of us traveling together—especially the now-infamous Remy Alexander—is too good to pass up.”
“It’s the chance we were hoping for,” she says. “But we need to move. Now. She seems to be in a hurry.” She steps away and starts to tear down her tent. I’m dressed and ready to go in a matter of moments, but Miah is dead to the world. I nudge him as I roll up my sleeping bag and stuff it into its sack. Everyone is up and in various states of drowsiness—everyone but Miah, that is, who is curled on his side like a little boy, a trail of drool drying on his cheek. I kick him lightly in the side.
“Five more minutes,” he grumbles.
“Miah, we’ve gotta move. Osprey’s back.” I shake him, and he turns over in his sleeping bag.