Wasteland w-1

by Susan Kim

  She turned to him, her heart pounding. He was holding out a book to her. She took it, uncomprehending.

  “This was one I found especially interesting,” he said. “But you only gave me the first volume. Do you have the other?”

  Puzzled, Sarah turned the book over in her hands. She couldn’t recall ever seeing it before. It was an academic volume, dense and impenetrable. She flipped through it, but had never heard of any of the words: “Topography.” “Aquifers.” “Spring flow measurements.” “Hydrosphere.”

  “I might,” she said, handing it back. Frankly, it wasn’t the kind of book she liked or understood, but she had several such volumes she rarely glanced at. “It could be in my house. I’m not positive what books are there.”

  Levi nodded, refusing to take it. “Why don’t you hold on to it?” he said. “Because I’d really appreciate it if you could find me the second volume.” Before Sarah could respond, he added, “We’ll talk again when you do. And by then, I just might have some more weapons in.”

  Sarah understood. If she could find what he needed, this meeting wouldn’t be their last. And as she was thinking this, he was seizing her by the waist and pulling her close. He kissed her, lingeringly.

  “Let’s keep this our secret,” he murmured. “All of it. All right?”

  Sarah couldn’t speak for a second. “Yes,” she said.

  Her voice almost sounded normal, even though her face was burning. She couldn’t hide the smile that covered her face.

  Moments later, Sarah was outside, walking, if unsteadily, away from the Source. The white of her robes seemed to give off an unearthly glow in the bright glare of spotlights that sliced across the darkened parking lot.

  From a tiny window hidden high up in the Source, Levi watched as the girl was swallowed by the surrounding darkness. As before, his expression was unreadable. He thought about the past and, for a moment, almost felt sorry for Sarah.

  Then he shrugged it off. She was like everyone else in this world: just a means to an end.

  Levi returned to his office. There he examined the handmade maps of Prin he had drawn, the laborious approximations of its physical layout that were tacked up on his walls. They had taken him more than five years of careful study and reflected the locations of not only each of the forty-seven Excavations to date but every Gleaning, as well. Still, they had not brought him closer to what he was seeking. Frustrated, he was tempted to tear them all down.

  Levi had come to Prin, drawn by a rumor of its hidden clean waters. He met Sarah, who taught him how to read. Most books he found worthless; yet one convinced him that the notion of an underground network of springs was true. All he needed was a little more time to locate it, but time was running out.

  Unlike everyone else, he always knew the supplies in the Source were limited. In the last few months, they had reached dangerously low levels. He recently had doubled and tripled the workloads, driving the town to exhaustion, and increased the punishments for shirking. It was a delicate balance, squeezing the greatest amount of work out of the people before getting rid of them.

  Sarah’s unexpected appearance had given him new hope. If anything, he was annoyed at himself for not having thought of this earlier.

  He needed the book, the companion to the text Sarah had given him so many years ago. With any luck, she would soon find it and bring it back to him, as trusting and unquestioning as a dog. And just as easily satisfied, with a little affection and a good meal.

  Someone broke into his thoughts.

  “Is she gone yet?”

  Levi nodded, without looking, as a girl encircled his waist with her arms. She had sand-colored skin and hair, her eyes were a vivid blue, and her thin clothing fit close and tight to her figure. Her name was Michal and she was perhaps fourteen.

  “Then can we eat now?” she continued.

  Levi looked down at her. “Sure,” he said.

  The two headed back upstairs to the dining area, where guards stood watch over the ruins of the table. Even hooded as they were, they resembled wild dogs themselves, staring at the leftovers, their eyes visible and gleaming in the spill of the electric light.

  “I still don’t know why you put out so much,” said Michal as she sat, and began piling roast rabbit onto her plate. She licked some off a finger. “I thought lots of people were coming. Why so much food for one old woman?”

  Levi smiled. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said.

  But Michal was no longer listening. She was too busy eating.

  FOUR

  THE NIGHT SKY WAS DARK AND HEAVY. YET AT CERTAIN TIMES, THE dense clouds parted, allowing moonlight to shine down. Someone stood by a window above the main street, gazing into the night.

  Esther had been waiting like this, filled with dread, for hours. If Sarah returned home accompanied by Levi’s men carrying weapons, she had no idea how she would be able to stop them. So when she spied a gleam of white coming down the sidewalk, she was relieved to see Sarah was not only unescorted, but also empty handed. Esther was so thankful, she barely noticed that the older girl was behaving strangely when she came in. Her cheeks flushed and eyes glittering, her prim sister was talking in a loud and aggressive voice, slurring her words.

  “Levi didn’t have any weapons,” Sarah announced as she entered, before she had even removed her outer robes. Then she added snidely, “So your friends the mutants won’t have any opposition. That should make you feel good.”

  But there was something careless about Sarah’s tone, as if she was not paying attention to her words and was just saying what she believed would mollify her sister. She was not revealing what was actually going on, Esther suspected.

  “Rafe’s coming over in a little while,” said her sister. She was folding away her robes, clearly trying to sound casual and unconcerned. “It’ll just be business talk. Nothing important.”

  Esther nodded, as if the thought of a late-night visit from the town’s leader was an everyday occurrence.

  “You’re right,” she said. “It sounds boring. I think I’ll go to bed now.”

  She tried faking a yawn, stretching her arms over her head. If Skar were here, she would laugh at how obvious the ploy was. But Sarah didn’t even seem to notice.

  Once inside her room, Esther knew enough to change into her sleeping shirt and get into bed. When she heard Rafe’s knock less than an hour later, her sister checked in on her, opening the door just wide enough to let in a crack of candlelight from the living room. Esther, motionless, kept her eyes shut and breathed slowly. But once the door was pulled shut, she flew across the room, kneeling in the dark to listen.

  “Don’t worry,” Sarah was whispering. “Levi has weapons and is happy to give them to us. It will just take a while, that’s all.”

  “We ain’t got a while,” Rafe said loudly, not whispering at all.

  “Shhh,” murmured Sarah. “My sister.”

  “We ain’t got a while,” Rafe repeated in a harsh whisper. “We ain’t got no time to waste while Levi plays games with you. Can’t you see he’s just playing you for a fool?”

  “You have to trust me. If you’ll just be patient—”

  “Don’t you get it?” hissed Rafe. “The mutants ain’t being patient. Next time, they gonna murder us in our own beds on account there ain’t nothing we can do about it. At least not without weapons.”

  “Please,” said Sarah. “Just wait and see.”

  From where she listened, Esther was now convinced that her sister knew more than she was letting on. Rafe, however, was too stupid to understand that.

  “All you had to do was bat your eyes at him,” he said. “Guess I was a fool for thinking anyone might still want you. Thanks to you, we’re on our own.”

  A second later, the front door slammed.

  Esther only had enough time to get back into bed and shut her eyes before the door creaked open one last time. After a moment, the door was pulled shut and Sarah walked away.

  Esther counted to ten be
fore creeping out of bed. She opened her door and slipped into the hallway. In the darkness, she sensed a faint glow was coming from the living room.

  It took Esther a few moments to realize what Sarah was doing. Although her sister kept a set of shelves full of musty books, they were now mostly for show; she rarely read anymore. Yet right now, Sarah was on her knees, searching through her collection. She worked methodically, muttering to herself as she pulled out one book after another, squinting to read their titles, then discarding them in a growing pile next to her.

  Despite the care she was taking, she seemed desperate. For it was clear that she couldn’t find what she was searching for.

  After half an hour of watching Sarah, Esther couldn’t stop a real yawn from escaping her mouth. Fearing she’d be discovered, she slipped back to bed.

  But sleep proved to be impossible. With a tightness in her chest, Esther lay in the dark brooding over what she had just seen and heard, events no one trusted her enough to explain.

  As the first rays of sun brightened the leaden sky, someone could be fleetingly seen darting through the shadows of Prin.

  Esther was bringing supplies to her friend Joseph. She came alone; no one else in town cared to visit the village outcast, the eccentric pariah who lived on the outskirts of town, close to the Source, alone with his timepieces and cats. Even Skar was made uncomfortable by him. “The crazy one,” she called him privately.

  Joseph was not just one of the rare individuals in town who could read; he also kept a cluttered and moldering library that included old magazines and newspapers. The walls and surfaces of his home held dozens of watches and clocks in working order, homemade calendars, even hourglasses and a sundial. The rooms were filled with the gentle and persistent murmur of ancient gears shifting, second hands ticking, and the occasional muted chime.

  Although Joseph was an old friend, this was no mere social call. For years, Esther had been skimming the supplies from her household to share with him. She sensed that if she did not do so, he would die, for he was too proud to ask for help. The girl took pains to hide her theft—pouring off the remaining water into different vessels, for instance, so it was harder to gauge how much there was. But recently, she had been bringing less because there was less to steal.

  Esther chose to make her deliveries at dawn, a time when the wild dogs had long since left and the townspeople had not yet risen. But the relative cool of early morning vanished as the sun rose. It was sweaty and dangerous work to make one’s way across the ruptured ground and giant, uprooted pine trees that protected Joseph’s home like steel pikes around a prison, and as effectively, too. This was true even when one was not carrying a heavy armload of food and water.

  Joseph and his ten cats (Malawi, Benjamin, Tiffany, Samsung, Mr. Roberts, Seven for All Mankind, Ginger, Claude, Tiger Boy, and Stumpy) lived in the wreckage of a hotel called the Gideon Putnam. Uncomfortable with people and frightened of open spaces, he had retreated there years ago; its remote location and condition scared off the curious. The lobby was a blasted ruin. One had to cross it to gain access to the stairwell, where seven flights of cracked and crumbling steps awaited. Like most of Prin, the building had sustained heavy damage in the series of earthquakes that had flattened much of the surrounding area some years ago, and it was no mean feat to navigate it without the carpeted ground giving way or sections of the ceiling collapsing. There were entire floors Joseph dared not venture onto. Sometimes, in fact, he was quite certain the whole building was about to fall down.

  Now, as he worked his way around his apartment, winding and adjusting each of his clocks and watches, Esther’s signal sounded from somewhere in the building: a two-note whistle. Joseph’s cats recognized it and began to call and mill about. They were fond of her, or perhaps they were just fond of the bits of dried meat she always brought.

  “Joseph,” Esther said as she appeared at his door.

  Joseph looked as he always did: with long, unkempt hair and light-colored eyes. He was so tall, slender, and stoop-shouldered that he seemed to undulate rather than walk.

  She didn’t waste time with small talk. “Lately, the food payments are down even more,” she said. “And the water payments are worse. This was the best I could manage.” With that, she set down a gallon of water and a bag of cornmeal by the soot-filled firebowl in his hallway. “I don’t know when I can bring you any more after today.”

  Joseph seemed to think this over and nodded gravely. The fact of the matter was, he couldn’t support his brood and himself on Esther’s supplies alone. He had never mentioned it, but he had long been in the habit of setting traps for the various wild animals that visited his roof and basement in order to supplement what she brought. In fact, he prided himself on his squirrel stew.

  “I suppose we’ll have to make do,” he said. It seemed to him the right thing to say at such a moment.

  Unexpectedly, she took him by the arm. When he glanced down at her, he was struck by the look of anguish on her face.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying, Joseph?” she said in a low voice. “I don’t know if I can come here anymore.”

  This was something else entirely. Esther was Joseph’s only friend (his only human friend, that is) and his sole connection to the outside world. He rarely if ever left his building. To lose her companionship would be terrible for him indeed.

  Esther told him about the recent attacks by the variants. She was worried that these incursions were about to be met with retaliation by the townspeople, which would only serve to fuel more acrimony. If this happened, the long-simmering tension between norm and variant would erupt into open warfare, a conflict the fragile town of Prin couldn’t possibly sustain. If war began, they would all be at risk… even those who chose to live on the outskirts of society.

  As she talked, Joseph fetched a cup of water from his desk and started to raise it to his lips.

  Esther grabbed his hand.

  “Joseph,” she said, her voice raised in panic, “how many times have I told you? Don’t drink any water but the kind I give you. You’ll get sick.”

  She handled his cup like it was a live snake, holding it far away from her and carrying it to an open window. She was about to fling it outside, when a faint sound from below made them both glance down.

  Someone was calling.

  The windows of the apartment looked over the buckled remains of an asphalt field. The collapse of the neighboring building, subsequent looting, and the effects of many years of rain, sun, and wild animals had transformed it into a jungle of tall grass growing amid red clay, rubble, broken furniture, rotting wood.

  Although they were far above, the two of them took care not to make any sudden movement that might draw attention to themselves. As Joseph peered out, he was surprised to see four figures below, picking their way through the shattered field. From their light-colored robes, they were clearly townspeople. A distance away, four bicycles were propped against a sagging chain-link fence.

  “Do you think it’s a Gleaning?” Esther asked from beside him.

  Joseph shrugged. If it was, they both knew what that would signify, and it was not good.

  The Gleaning entailed searching empty houses and stores, sifting through the wreckage of buildings in search of anything viable: weapons, medical supplies, charcoal, bedding, and nails. Everything was brought to the Source, where it was displayed on long tables. Levi’s guards tallied the day’s take and, depending on its perceived worth, added more water and foodstuffs to the town’s portion. It was never very much, compared to what they paid for gasoline.

  If the townspeople were Gleaning Joseph’s ravaged home, that meant they were forced to reach even deeper into the outlying areas to try to meet the monthly quota. And that could only mean that Prin had been wrung dry, picked clean of anything of value.

  Esther observed the people for a few moments. Chewing her fingernail, she turned for the door.

  “I don’t like this,” was all she said.

&nb
sp; “But where are you—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

  Joseph had no choice but to raise his hand in thanks and farewell. She gave a quick nod; then, without another word, she was gone.

  In the lobby, she darted behind a crumbling wall and slipped out the giant gap that once held a large glass window. She slowed as she approached the backyard and hid in the dappled shade provided by some overgrown vines and bleak vegetation.

  From there, she could hear faint voices and something she couldn’t identify: a hollow twang that echoed in the canyon of the old hotel.

  When she peered around the jagged corner, it took her a moment to locate the origin. In the distance, one of the trespassers was holding something, a ball that was dusty brick orange in color.

  Now that she could see them clearly, Esther sensed that the four were not intent on anything nefarious; they were not even on a Gleaning. Whoever it was bounced the ball on the ground, once, twice, producing the strange sound. One of the others gestured at something a short distance away. It was a tall pole, with a metal ring attached near the top, with the shredded remains of a net clinging to it. The first one threw the ball at the hoop, but it fell short.

  The four laughed. Within moments, they headed back across the lot to where their bicycles awaited. Soon, they were gone.

  Then Esther heard something behind her and froze in place.

  Someone else was there.

  A boy emerged from the towering, ruined mounds and stood where the four had been. By the peculiar way he dressed, Esther could tell he was a stranger. Like her, he chose not to wear the hooded robes that the people of Prin used as protection from the fierce sun. Instead, he wore a long-sleeved blue shirt and dusty jeans, with a shoulder pack that he slung to the ground. A battered, low-brimmed hat obscured his face. He had been watching the group at play, although it was impossible to say why.

  He walked to the orange ball. Esther watched as he bent to pick it up.

  With one hand, he effortlessly tossed the ball over his head. It landed in the hoop, the ragged net swishing. He turned to go. Before he did, though, he stopped and glanced back.