The Nethers

by M. E. Parker

  Myron and the twins sprinted toward Mesa Gap. Navigating debris, he hurdled a broken concrete bench. With his attention diverted by a coin-operated carnival ride with the distorted face of a plastic horse melted into a shopping cart upended over it, he tripped and fell. The twins darted through the skeletons of stripped automobiles in the parking area adjacent to the Gap. Gunfire sounded from hidden spots on the wall above them, but both guards at the gate lay dead under a heap of rubble caused by the attack. Myron ran for the gate. The outer gate was locked, the inner gate barred shut. “Let us in. Please.” He rattled the bars.

  Myron picked up a shotgun one of the gate guards had dropped and searched for shells in the fallen guard’s clothing. He loaded the shotgun. A whoosh sounded over his head. High up the wall, a blast shattered a battlement, sending four Gapi fighters tumbling through the sharp debris on the wall, collapsing the gate opening, and filling it with impassable junk.

  Myron prepared to fight what came next, but when a low rumble climbed up the hill and surfaced on the plateau, he froze. It was unlike anything he’d seen, a war contraption, a retrofitted steam shovel on track wheels, over two stories tall, equipped with two shovels in front inverted to claw instead of dig. It led with a locomotive snowplow that deflected anything that got in its way. On a third arm was a well-driller fitting with the capability to drill sideways, and two lifts on the side that looked as though they could elevate the machine, but Myron doubted whether it could work under the weight of the extra armor. The contraption wasn’t pretty, clearly having been fabricated with parts from a few different steam shovels, but it looked as if they’d designed it specifically to bust through the Mesa Gap wall.

  Myron heard the bullets coming from Mesa Gap striking the contraption again, achieving nothing more than pocking the surface of the armor. Overloader bulldozers accompanied the contraption on both sides, heading to different spots on the wall. And, between those, Myron saw that the little wahwahjita had followed them. She darted in front of the giant contraption, skirting the track wheels that almost squished her to goop as she ran toward Myron and the twins, barking.

  Myron picked up the dog, which did not bite him this time, and urged the twins toward Food Court, to the safest place he could think of to hide—the crater. They slid down the steep wall of earth and out of sight. The dog jumped out of Myron’s arms and trotted around the edge of the hole, making noise.

  “Shhh,” Myron held his hand out for the dog to sniff it. The tiny dog with the heart of a coyote had followed them into battle. She was a fearless companion. “Drillbit,” Myron said, naming the dog after the first thing he thought of that was small, with a bite, and straight to the point.

  The sounds emanating from the wall made the hairs on his arms stand. He climbed up the crater wall high enough to see what was happening.

  The steam shovel arms of the contraption extended, shovel blades facing down like a claw, digging into the Old Age debris that formed the wall. The metal on metal screeched, plastic crunched, glass popped, concrete blocks scraped like fingernails over slate. The sound ground into Myron’s ears the way it chewed up the wall. As it progressed, Myron realized why the roof of the contraption formed a steep slope: to deflect the falling debris as the wall fell apart above it.

  Myron’s grandfather once told him that there was a time to fight for his life and a time to run away, but there was also a time to stand up for someone else, a principle or a person, something that mattered in the world, and Mesa Gap mattered. Te Yah, the last of his kind, mattered. This wall and what lay behind it mattered, but it no longer mattered that Myron wasn’t allowed inside. He understood it now. He grabbed the shotgun and climbed out of the crater to find a close-range spot that would provide him cover. He looked back to warn the twins what he was about to do—but they were gone.

  While Drillbit dug into some soft dirt at the edge of the crater, an overloader rammed its bulldozer nose into a section of wall near Myron. He ran up, taking the operators by surprise from behind and fired two shots into the open back of the overloader. He yanked the driver out by his orange—now bloodstained—shirt.

  Myron had never operated an overloader before, so he studied the controls, two steering levers and a steam lever, a directional control. Normal operations required an operator to drive the vehicle and a fireman to stoke the fire and shovel coal into the firebox when needed, but it had already built a good head of steam.

  Myron engaged the steam. The overloader smashed into the wall. He found the directional switch and cranked it into reverse before engaging the steam again. He pulled the right lever. The rear of the vehicle went left into a concrete pillar, the impact knocking his shotgun onto the floor. He engaged forward, heading toward the giant contraption now eating away at the Mesa Gap gate.

  The two-story gate crasher had armor in the rear and sides, making it impossible to commandeer as he had the overloader. Myron planned to ram it from the side, in hopes of toppling it over. He built up speed as he approached. The legs on either side of the contraption extended, making Myron aware of their purpose, to stabilize the top-heavy construction of the gate crasher.

  Rapid gunfire tinked off the front of Myron’s vehicle, ricocheting over his head. He peeked through the vision slit in the front armor. Bullets pinged off his water tank, rupturing it. Steam blasted from the vent and the water gushed out below the tank, bringing Myron’s counterattack to an abrupt a halt.

  He took a deep breath, reloaded his shotgun, and looked to the heavens, wondering if there really was a Great Above that would welcome him. The bullets kept popping off the front of the overloader. Myron gazed through the vision slit, awaiting his opportunity—then he spotted the twins.

  They knelt behind the giant wall eater, out of sight of the advancing forces coming up from behind. Mah-ré hopped up onto the left-side track and squatted while her sister followed on the right-hand side. They each wielded a jagged shard of broken glass. They walked along the track wheels, squatting, and slipped, unseen and unheard, under the armor as though they were made of smoke guided by the wind. Within seconds, the clawing arms came to a sudden stop.

  Drops of blood tricked out from inside the cab. Gah-té slipped out the side she’d entered and climbed over the steam shovel arms and through a tiny opening in the cascaded junk wall. Myron got a glimpse of Mah-ré behind her. Myron hopped out of the overloader in time to see a hundred or more soldiers following the advance, hoping to march in behind the contraption that the twins had just immobilized.

  Myron gathered more shells, loaded his shotgun, and fired a first blast, then a second, before reloading again. He was close enough to see the eyes of his enemy, those who’d lorded over him only days ago, and it spurred his will to fight.

  Two Alliance soldiers charged him. He whipped behind a chunk of the broken wall, letting it absorb the shot before he reemerged, firing two blasts. He fought, changing positions around the gate. Sweat rolled down his nose and mixed with the blood from injuries he’d sustained from flying debris and shrapnel. He made his way for the second story of Food Court to have the strategic advantage of higher ground, but it put his shotgun out of range.

  The advancing soldiers saw him and began a climb to the second floor. Myron hurled any piece of junk he could, including the frame of an old sofa that toppled three of his pursuers back to the first level. He fired when they were close enough and fought to keep them at bay until he heard voices voice behind him.

  “My-ron.” The twins crawled out from a small recess in the wall. Hidden in shadows and hollows, it resembled a cave that wound through the mountain of junk. His respect for Te Yah aside, Myron knew he could not defend Mesa Gap alone, so he ran for the hole and crawled through, with Drillbit chasing at his heels. He snaked flat on his stomach, navigating his way under a fallen concrete pylon, following the twins as Drillbit scampered over his back and on ahead of him.

  Once inside the wall, Myron realized that it wasn’t a wall at all but a city folded onto itself whe
re the ground had buckled, structure upon street upon store upon cars upon streetlights, heaped into what appeared to be an impenetrable mélange of city remains. The Gapi hadn’t built the wall in as much as they’d claimed it, used it, filled in the bare spots, and massaged it to their purpose. In places Myron had to crawl, sometimes on his belly. Some spots required him to suck in his stomach until he thought his ribs would poke through his flesh to squeeze through the space. At times, the trek through the debris required him to climb and swing, hop and duck through and around objects, some of which he could identify, many he could not.

  He wandered from cranny to crevice, afraid he’d lost the twins. Drillbit slipped under a flattened boat hull and circled Myron’s legs before darting to an opening between two crisscrossed poles that tested Myron’s flexibility. He emerged into a tunnel cleared through the rubble, bisected by a chain link fence the height of the tunnel that ran in both directions as far as he could see. The twins waited for him there, pointing to ladders on the other side of the fence that led up through the rubble where the Gapi defense teams reached their catapults.

  When Myron approached the fence, the twins jumped in his way. “No touch,” they whispered at the same time. They each pretended to grab the fence and closed their eyes, convulsing. “Zappo.” Mah-ré tossed a piece of junk onto the fence, which buzzed and sparked when it hit.

  The twins led Myron, who had to carry Drillbit to keep her from the electrified fence, to an upside-down staircase that they scaled with ease to a climbable part of the wall that jutted partway over the fence. They hopped down on the other side and motioned for Myron to follow. The drop wasn’t that far, but it was high enough to sting Myron’s ankles when he landed. From there, they ran back the direction they came from, this time on the other side of the fence, until they reached a ladder.

  Myron climbed the ladder with one hand and held the squirming dog with the other until they reached the top. Drillbit scampered off when Myron set her down. The mouth of the path turned into a road that passed a giant sculpture of a bear fashioned from concrete blocks, wire, and metal poles, leading them, at last, to Mesa Gap.

  Inside the settlement, instead of the wall resembling a heap of garbage from the salvage pit, much of it had been transformed by the Gapi into artworks. Sculptures, totems, scenes, and landscapes constructed from and arranged in the junk that protected them from outsiders. Their view from the inside reflected the hybrid culture the Gapi had germinated. It was a celebration of what they knew of their ancestors and what they had created themselves.

  The road ran adjacent to the wall toward the interior front gate, and from there, Myron could see Mesa Gap, a bustling city clustered around an enormous crater in the earth that resembled the one in Food Court, only wider and deeper, and stepped such that crops grew on a staircase of soil. Vines and plants also grew from hanging gardens suspended on cables that stretched across a portion of the city, providing shade while maximizing the use of limited water supply. A network of tracks, similar to those in the Jonesbridge mines, spiraled throughout the city. They provided transportation powered by electric current around the rim of the crater.

  Near the gate, a large group of warriors, some armed with rifles, others with shotguns or bows, some rolling catapults, mobilized for battle. Myron hid in the shadow of a now-empty barrack that the wall guards had vacated for the battlefield. He made his way around the building and froze when he saw Te Yah standing by Mesa Gap’s main gate with his ear toward the east as the warriors left. Through the clatter and commotion of the troops’ departure and the percussion of artillery blasts on the wall, smoke billowing through the air with smell of melted Old Age plastics, half a hect away, Te Yah turned toward Myron as though he could see him.

  To Myron, blind people tended to look nowhere in particular. Their gaze could fall on this or that without significance, but when Te Yah gripped his cane and began to limp in Myron’s direction, Myron slipped to the other side of the barrack to evade the old man.

  “You’re not supposed to be here.” Te Yah continued in Myron’s direction. “How did you get in?”

  Myron came out from hiding, holding Drillbit. The twins stood beside him. “I followed Mah-ré and Gah-té.”

  Te Yah cocked his head. He turned his ear toward Myron. “They are here? With you?”

  “Yes, right here.” Myron wondered why Te Yah could sense his presence but not the twins, although they were delicate of foot, as though they moved without disturbing the earth or displacing the air.

  “They cannot be here, either. They are—unnatural. But I have heard word of your bravery and your fight on our behalf. It is appreciated. Though you are not welcome here, as a token of thanks, I will offer you something from our stores.” Te Yah showed Myron the storage sheds filled with fruit and vegetables too colorful and smooth to ruin by eating. He examined stalls filled with mats and rugs, wheels, ore, bricks, wood, and bolts of cloth.

  When Myron spotted the fabric, his mind went straight for the memory of his grandfather’s airship and the one he’d built in Jonesbridge. He rushed through a door and into the storehouse, where he rubbed the fabric between his thumb and index finger. He stretched some of it out and held it to the window to see how much sun came through. While he waited for Te Yah to join him, Myron inspected the other material.

  “All this stuff is too porous. Do you have any fabric like this?” Myron tugged on the hem of Gah-té’s shirt, which was slick, lightweight material perfect for an airship.

  Te Yah tapped around a crate with his cane and reached for Gah-té, inspecting the shirt with his fingers. “We have no fineries such as this. But”—he wagged his finger toward the far side of the wall—“there is a big roll of Old Age plastic that is not porous.”

  “Plastic? Can plastic be sewn?”

  “I don’t know. It is a scourge of the Old Age. It does not rejoin with the earth. It only occupies it.”

  Myron thought of Sindra, Nico, the twins, and maybe Rounder, and mentally measured the amount of fabric it would take for an airship of that size. “Is it too big to carry?”

  “It’s very heavy.” Te Yah showed Myron the roll on the floor in the far corner of the storehouse. The clear plastic roll stretched two people end to end in length and toe to knee thick.

  “Can…I also have that rickshaw?” Myron eyed a contraption by the storage barn with the front half of a bicycle connected to a two-wheeled cart with seats for two and a cargo bed.

  Te Yah rubbed his face. “Okay. A rickshaw loaded with plastic. And then you will go.”

  Myron motioned for the twins to help him load the plastic on the rickshaw bed, where it stuck out behind the vehicle like a long tail.

  “How is Nico?” Myron asked.

  “The boy?” Te Yah limped away in the direction of the street as Myron mounted his new rickshaw. “He is ill with fever. His wounds are swollen and…unusual.”

  “Will he live?”

  “My physician has attended him, but with our casualties from battle, he will have to fight for his own life.” Te Yah turned his ear toward the south. “You are all touched by darkness, I’m afraid. Your presence here has already disrupted our village. You must go now.”

  “But there’s a battle going on. Please. These kids will get smashed out there.” Myron thought of the stealth of the twins and figured they would fare better than he would on the battlefield, but they were young and frail.

  Te Yah sighed. He turned around and began to walk toward an intersection where the rail tracks and the road crossed. “You may stay.” He held up two fingers. “Two days to rest. That will give us time to defeat our enemies. Then you must go. They must go.”

  “What is this big hole?” Myron set Drillbit down. The dog scratched up soil with her back paws and darted through Te Yah’s legs.

  “This dog must also go in two days’ time.” Te Yah swatted at Drillbit with his cane. “Or sooner.”

  Myron scooped up Drillbit and tossed her in the cargo bed of the rick
shaw.

  “I don’t know what caused these craters. There are many of them out here in the painted lands.”

  Myron pedaled his rickshaw cargo bike with the twins seated in front of the plastic roll, while Te Yah ambled at a ponderous pace that challenged Myron’s patience.

  “Your city—it’s big.” All the structures bore the mark of the fallen world, constructed from the junk they had left behind. Myron’s head swiveled as he studied an intricate sculpture of a waterfall made from thousands of nuts and bolts dangling on wires of different lengths, hung at varying depths so that it resembled water cascading down a mountain. “It must have been here a long time.”

  “No. Mesa Gap is a relatively new settlement. An experiment of sorts. Our old home was lacking the resources and safety for survival.” Te Yah leaned on his cane and swept his hand across the panorama of Mesa Gap, the future of the Nethers, what he called “progress against the wind.” He explained that his attuned hearing saved him from the darkness of being blind, but it had tortured him with the unending buzz of ambient clatter. “But my hearing—this is how we found our home. Five winters ago, we faced certain death. No water. No food. No shelter. Wandering. Unsure of where to lead my people, I followed the sound of a hum on the wind.”

  It was a shiver. If the earth were made of glass, he claimed, the vibration would have shattered it. “Others didn’t hear it. How could they? I wasn’t sure I did.” Te Yah grinned, revealing his toothless gums. “When we came upon these ruins,” he raised his cane in the direction of Food Court outside of the walls, “I not only heard it, but felt it.” He tapped his chest. “Right here.”

  Te Yah led Myron down a path beside a set of tracks. They wound toward a cluster of structures built into the side of the crater. Above them, plants bearing fruit hung upside down from cables dripping with water. “When I found, at last, the source of the hum, Chooli, my adopted daughter, whispered to me—describing what my eyes could not see. This is a beautiful woman, she told me.”