Wasteland w-1

by Susan Kim

  The sun was now visible in the eastern sky. If she set off now, she should be back in Prin by evening.

  ELEVEN

  AT THE SAME MOMENT IN PRIN, A FIGURE LAY EXPOSED TO THE MORNING sun, writhing in agony. Instinctively, Caleb grabbed the fiberglass shaft where it entered his shoulder. He could not risk having the arrowhead break off, lodging in his body. So he pulled it out in one swift motion and flung it away.

  Then he realized his terrible mistake. Without the arrow to keep it plugged, the wound began to pump blood. Soon the front of Caleb’s shirt appeared black and glistening, and dark crimson began to pool on the packed earth beneath him. Caleb’s hands were stained red as he pressed hard against his chest, trying to stanch the flow that wouldn’t stop.

  It was so early, teams on an Excavation had not yet shown up. He was far from the main roads, miles from the center of Prin. His only hope was to somehow ride into town to get help.

  But when Caleb took his hands from the wound, a fresh bout of blood bubbled up through the soaked and torn fabric. He pressed his hands over it, felt the fluttering pulse underneath.

  Then he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Across the parched field, past the metal tracks long overgrown with weeds, there was an abandoned truck that sagged on dusty wheels. Next to it, a small person was picking its way toward him.

  It was not the hooded guard, the would-be assassin from the Source. It was bundled in a pale blue sheet, its head covered. Caleb felt a surge of relief. He tried to half rise.

  “Esther!” he called.

  “Don’t be scared!” it responded, and his heart sank.

  It was female, but not the one girl he desperately wanted to see. As she came nearer, a strange, heady smell, like that of a thousand flowers, seemed to shimmer from her. When she crouched next to Caleb and saw all the blood, the girl gasped.

  “I didn’t think he’d really do it,” she murmured.

  “Who? And who are you?”

  The girl pushed the sheet away from her face. To Caleb’s blurred vision, she was as unreal and exotic-looking as an animal from a dream: pale, with golden hair and strange blue eyes. He noticed the glittering rings on the girl’s fingers, the chains and bangles that dangled from her slim wrists.

  “You’re from the Source,” he said. “Levi’s girl. Michal.”

  Caleb fumbled on the ground for the arrow, which was sticky with his blood. “Keep your distance.”

  Michal glanced at the arrow, then back at Caleb.

  “I don’t blame you if you don’t trust me,” she said. “I should have warned you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After you left, I heard the guards talking. Levi told them if you weren’t gone by yesterday, to come after you. I kept an eye on the guards. And this morning, when one of them left with a weapon, I followed him.”

  Caleb cut her off. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I need to get to town. Give me that.”

  At first, the girl looked baffled. Then Caleb seized the cloth that protected her and started tearing it. When she realized what he was doing, she helped him to unwrap it. Then she wadded up one piece and pressed it against the wound. He used the other strip to bind the bandage against his shoulder.

  She got to her feet, having grabbed him under the arms. The effort of standing caused him to almost lose consciousness; his eyelids flickered in his pale face.

  “Hold on,” Michal told him; “this is going to hurt.”

  With difficulty, she managed to help hoist Caleb onto his bicycle seat. He was sweating and his teeth were gritted, but he said nothing.

  Then Michal wheeled him across the scorched field, trying to avoid the stones and ruts. It was slow going; his weight made the bike difficult to steer and they had to stop every few feet to keep him from sliding off.

  When they stopped for what felt like the hundredth time, Michal spoke up.

  “It’s too far,” she said. “We won’t make it.”

  The girl was clearly unused to physical exertion. Dressed in skimpy clothes, she was sweaty and red faced as she gasped for breath. Caleb knew she was right.

  Desperate, he looked around. Visible in the distance was the Source, and a sudden idea came to him.

  “You could bring me back supplies,” he said. “Fresh water, bandages.”

  Michal frowned, staring at the ground, weighing something in her mind. Then she looked up.

  “I should take you there,” she said. “It’ll be safer.”

  Caleb glanced at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “I got my own room. Past the loading dock.”

  “What about the guards?”

  Michal shook her head. “They got cameras everywhere. But when I left, I shut off the ones along the back. No one will notice if we hurry.”

  She seemed sincere. Yet it felt like insanity to Caleb to go to the very place where his intended executioner was.

  He noticed that blood was soaking through the makeshift blue bandage. Plus, he was having trouble breathing and his skin felt cold and clammy. He had no choice but to trust Michal.

  “All right,” Caleb said finally.

  As the sun rose, the two continued their slow and painstaking way across the field toward the gleaming white building in the distance.

  When Caleb came to, it was dark and cool. For a moment, he had no idea where he was.

  Then the memories came stuttering back as scattered and disjointed images.

  The sun blinding his eyes. The hooded guard appearing on the horizon, raising his hand. Then the split-second understanding of what was about to happen, when it was too late…

  He jolted upright, but a deep pain radiated from his upper chest, and he gasped. It hurt to breathe and he couldn’t move his left shoulder.

  “You’re awake,” said Michal.

  She was sitting beside him, wringing a washcloth into a plastic basin. Without her jewelry and makeup, she looked years younger, like a little girl.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in my room,” she said. “Don’t worry… no one never comes in here.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “I found you this morning. Now it’s long past sundown.”

  She handed him a cup of water. As Caleb drank, he glanced at Michal’s quarters. Everything was not only new, but impossibly clean: the bed, the silky quilts and pillows that covered it, the rug on the floor. The walls were decorated with glossy pictures hung in frames, not just images torn out of magazines; and scented candles burned on the bedside table. He had been changed into a fresh shirt and underneath it, he could feel the crackle of medical gauze and tape.

  He shook his head. “You’re his girl,” he said. “Why are you doing this?”

  Michal blushed and glanced down. “Levi disrespected me.” Her voice was so low he could barely make out what she was saying. “He… he offered me to you. In front of everyone.” When she looked up, Caleb was startled by the flash of rage in her eyes.

  “He thinks I’m worthless,” Michal said. “But I’m not.”

  She stood. “I heard what you said that day… that you’re looking for your son. Well, a few months ago, somebody brung a baby here. It was real late, but I could hear it crying. Levi wouldn’t let nobody near it. Not even me. But it’s still here, somewhere. And I know how to find out for sure.”

  Caleb had been staring at her. Now he swung his legs to the ground. With difficulty, he stood and grabbed his pack.

  “Show me,” he said.

  Moments later, they were outside her room. The girl moved through the darkened corridors and down a back stairwell. Aware of where the cameras were, Michal was careful to take a circuitous route, yet one that was not so unusual that it would arouse suspicion.

  Caleb trailed a short distance behind. Each breath he drew was agony. Yet he ignored his discomfort and focused on navigating his way through the treacherous terrain without being seen.

  Occasionally, Michal ran into a guard. Whe
n she did, she stopped to flirt with each one, touching the boy on the arm, laughing, leaning close. To Caleb, it was the oldest and most obvious trick in the world; nevertheless, he was impressed to see that it always worked. Each time, he was able to make his way past the guard, unnoticed.

  Soon, he and the girl were in the basement. In the hallway, he waited behind a cluster of pipes that ran from floor to ceiling as Michal slipped ahead to a battered steel door that lay ajar, halfway down the hallway. A sign attached to it read SECURITY.

  She disappeared behind it for a moment and reappeared, frowning. “There’s supposed to be a guard here.” Then, she made up her mind. “That’s where you need to go. Look careful, but be quick. I’ll be out here in case anyone shows up.”

  Caleb nodded, and slipped inside the room.

  At first, he was puzzled by what he saw. It was a small and windowless office, a scuffed cement cube painted gray. A set of dusty metal shelves held pieces of forgotten equipment; above it, a clock on the wall read an eternal 2:47. In the center of the room was a large table that supported a bank of twenty or so small screens.

  Caleb approached.

  Each screen showed a flickering image in grainy black and white. It took him a moment to realize that these were different locations within the Source: the front door, the loading dock, the dark aisles with their endless shelves of crates, Levi’s office. As Caleb leaned closer, he was stunned to see that these images were moving: A guard walked past a closed door. Levi leaned back in his chair. Another guard carried a box across a room.

  And in one screen, a toddler sat on the ground.

  The image was so grainy, it was hard to make out. The child had its gaze downward and appeared to be studying something on the ground. Then it clapped its hands, laughing, and for an instant, raised its head.

  Caleb gave an involuntary cry and leaned forward, his palm on the glass screen. If this were a window, he would smash through it now, to reach deep into the past, to grab hold of what he had once possessed and then lost.

  His son.

  Kai.

  “Miss?”

  Outside the security room, Michal jumped and whirled around. A guard stood in front of her, hulking and anonymous in his black hood. A moment ago, she had thought she heard something and went to investigate. She was unaware that in the echoing hallway, the sound was in fact coming from the other direction.

  Badly startled, she laughed. Even to her ears, it sounded false and hollow.

  “You scared me,” she said. That much was true. She tried to sound playful and again, failed miserably.

  “What are you doing down here?” Without being able to see his face, it was impossible to tell what the guard was thinking, feeling.

  Her mind raced. “Levi sent me,” she said at last. “He thought the camera on the front door was broken. He wanted to know if there’s still a picture.”

  The guard grunted.

  “Let’s go check,” he said, and turned to go.

  She grabbed hold of his arm. “I already did,” she said. Then she gave him a tremulous smile and tilted her head, opening her eyes wide and softening her expression.

  It always worked.

  But this time, something was wrong.

  He stared into her face for a long moment. Then he pushed her away.

  “What are you playing at?” She could see his eyes, small and suspicious, glinting through the holes in the fabric.

  Michal drew herself up haughtily. “Nothing,” she said.

  She could feel his eyes on her back as she sauntered away. She only prayed they were talking loudly enough for Caleb to hear and that he had had time to take cover.

  In truth, she was trembling with panic.

  Caleb heard the voices in the hall and froze. He could not make out what was being said, but even so, he sensed the alarm in Michal’s voice, pitched high and shrill.

  She was talking that way to warn him.

  There was nowhere to hide in the tiny room, so sparsely furnished with its table and equipment. Even as he glanced around, the dented metal door was swinging open and he ducked behind it, flattening himself against the wall. The moment the guard entered, Caleb managed to slip around the door.

  He was not expecting to find two more of Levi’s men in the narrow hallway.

  They were on their way to some sort of break, their defenses down; one had his hood partly pushed up so he could tear into a piece of flatbread with his teeth. The other glanced up and for an astonished second, locked eyes with Caleb.

  But Caleb was already on the attack.

  Sprinting forward, his adrenaline overriding his pain, he raised one elbow and rammed it into the throat of the second guard. Choking, the boy staggered backward against the wall and slid to the floor with a thud.

  The other guard, bread falling from his open mouth, let out a roar and rushed at Caleb. Caleb bent forward, digging his injured shoulder into the boy’s gut. Grabbing his hood, Caleb flipped him over his head, slamming him on the floor. As he lay there, dazed, Caleb kicked at his holstered weapon, freeing it from his belt and sending it skittering across the floor and under a rusted radiator at the end of the hall.

  Caleb had bought himself a few precious seconds, enough time to escape; but he forgot about the guard inside the security room, who now came barreling out, as hulking and enraged as a wild boar. Caleb scrabbled in his pack for anything that might stop him. The moment before the guard reached him, his fingers closed around something.

  Perfect.

  Caleb whirled his arm in a roundhouse punch and smashed a rock into the center of the guard’s hooded face. There was an audible crack, and with a scream, the boy reeled backward, clutching his nose. As his legs buckled beneath him, it was easy to grab one knee, yank it hard, and twist; this sent him crashing to the ground. Blood spurted from his nostrils, splattering his robes and the cement floor.

  Caleb was halfway down the hall, heading for the stairs. There was only one thought on his mind.

  Kai. Kai was alive and somewhere inside the Source.

  But where? On the main floor, he ran through darkened aisles, surrounded on both sides by towering shelves stacked high with cardboard boxes. The pain in Caleb’s shoulder pulsed powerfully in time with his heart; but the sensation seemed far away, as if it belonged to someone else.

  Ahead of him and high above, he saw something glinting, light reflecting off glass from some distant source he couldn’t yet place. Instinctively, he headed toward it.

  Caleb reached the entrance to a wide ramp leading upward, with handrails on either side. It was a peculiar thing, unlike any he had ever seen before, almost like a mountain road inside a building. Caleb hesitated. Behind him, he could hear the heavy steps and distant shouts of Levi’s guards. They were searching for him through the aisles, spreading out across the vast floor. Making up his mind, he raced up the surface and into the darkness.

  At the end, he paused to get his bearings. By the echoing void that surrounded him, Caleb sensed he was now in a large and empty space, devoid of shelved goods. As he moved forward, his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Soon he noticed a faint glow in the distance. He was in a cavernous room marked by giant rectangular columns, and he moved from one to the next until he reached the source of the light.

  It came from a small, box-like space seemingly carved out of the back wall and exposed, doorless, to the larger room. Two guards stood on either side. The bottom half of its three walls seemed to be made of some battered metal; upward, they were thick chain link, the kind you would see on a fence or cage. Inside, Caleb could partly glimpse what seemed to be a desk; the light came from a lamp. Occasionally, a boy’s hands moved into view and then away.

  Caleb removed his backpack and took out his weapon. Then he loaded it with all the ammunition he had left: three rocks.

  Placing it on his shoulder, he aimed meticulously; there was no room for error. He fired once, hitting one guard in the temple with a loud crack. As the boy sank to the floor, Caleb shot
again, but this time, his aim was off; he only grazed the shoulder of the second. The guard looked up: Caleb followed with a third shot that cleanly hit the space between the boy’s eyebrows, just above the bridge of his nose. With a grunt, he also dropped to the floor.

  The room was now undefended as Caleb stood before its threshold.

  Levi was behind his desk, papers strewn in front of him. Alone, the pale boy was paler still as he stared at his intruder. For an instant, fear and confusion flickered across his features. Then he acted as if nothing unusual was happening.

  “Caleb,” Levi said. “What are you—”

  Caleb gave the other no opportunity to speak. Like a hawk after a mouse, he lunged across the wooden surface that separated them. Using both hands, he grabbed Levi’s lapels and dragged him across the desk, scattering everything that lay in their path.

  With newly found strength, Caleb lifted the other boy clear of the desk; he felt the black fabric strain and rip under his hands. Then he threw him down onto his back on the floor, straddling and pinning him to the cement.

  “Where is my son?” he shouted.

  Levi’s hand moved. He attempted to lift a meager weapon, a thin, decorative utensil with a blade too dull to cut but pointed enough to stab. Caleb seized the slender wrist and twisted it; with a cry, Levi dropped the weapon and it clattered to the ground.

  The two remained locked, one under the other, both breathing hard. The pain in Caleb’s shoulder had spread down his arm, weakening his grip; still, he did his best to ignore it.

  Even in the losing position, Levi maintained his composure. Caleb had to restrain himself from crushing Levi’s throat. Instead, he grabbed the small weapon on the ground beside him and placed the sharp tip against the side of the other boy’s neck. He took grim pleasure in noting that the pale blue vein there was pulsing wildly, betraying the boy’s show of cool.

  Caleb pressed the tip of his knife in deeper. A bead of blood welled up, the bright red in shocking contrast to the white skin.

  Through a fog of emotion, something clicked in his mind.

  The fire. His house, burning to the ground, with Miri trapped inside. A freakish mutant attack, as senseless as it was deadly.