by J. P. Smythe
She doesn’t tell me that she’s terrified but it’s in her eyes; her hand shakes as she takes the rope.
“Follow me,” I say. “You get stuck—shout, and I’ll help you. I won’t let you fall.” I wade out, holding onto the rope as I feel the water get deeper, the sand below harder to reach while keeping my head above water. Rex takes it after me, follows me out, her good arm hooked around the rope, the other—complete with knife—free at her side. “Let me know if you need me and I’ll help,” I shout. The water crashes around us and I turn back to Fiona. “Thank you,” I yell. “I won’t forget this.”
“I know,” she shouts back. “I still want to hear that story of yours someday. Way I see it, we’ve got some shared blood.” She walks backward and she waves. “Be safe.”
The tide is the strangest temperature: almost warm as it pushes in from the sea, then colder as it drags back, the chill from inside escaping. I’m shorter than Rex and I’m treading water before she is, almost swimming. With one hand on the rope, she launches herself along, kicking with her feet to stay afloat. The rope sags a little too much under the weight of both of us. The water splashes over our heads every so often, soaking us. She spits when her head’s above the waves again, smacking her lips at the taste of the salt, breathing in, coughing when she inhales it; she shakes her head again to get the water off her face.
“Not much farther,” I say, but the truth is I have no idea. I’m counting on finding something; seeing something that gives us an indication, a way in. They do this, Fiona said. This is how they get into the city. They come this way for rations or supplies.
This is safe—until it’s suddenly not.
There’s something on my leg—something coiled around it, snaking and tight. I panic because I can’t move. I try to look behind me, shouting for Rex, clinging to the rope; the thing seems to pull as the tide goes, as the waves crash, and my grip on the rope slips. Suddenly I’m under the water—eyes open, mouth closed, desperate, being pulled down. I don’t know what to do. I try and reach for whatever’s taken me under, but I can’t. I can’t see.
I wonder how long you have before you drown. I can’t hold my breath and I open my mouth, my lungs screaming for air. Water rushes in and I remember this feeling—of thinking I could drown. Everything happens again and again. Everything is an echo.
My vision goes black so much quicker than I remember it happening.
And then it stops. Then I’m above the water and Rex is clinging to the rope, her knife-arm wrapped around it, her hand dragging, heaving me to the surface. I can see the glint of the blade reflecting the moon. The clouds have cleared and the sky is now so blue and so clean. I gasp in air and water, clinging to the rope to steady myself.
Rex pushes up. “There was a weed,” she says. And that’s it—she freed me, saved me. Simple. She starts moving on, following the rope around the wall. She just expects me to carry on. So I do.
Ahead of us, the rope disappears. All we can see as we follow the wall—as we hit a corner, a sharp edge—is the end of the rope where it’s fastened, tied off through a chipped-away section of the concrete. There’s no entrance visible and it’s only when we’re there, right at the end, that I feel the cold current underneath us tickling at my feet. Our way in is down, under the water.
“How far?” Rex asks.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Not far, I’m sure.” I don’t give her a chance to balk, to back out. I gulp a breath and dive and she follows, holding my hand. There’s a tunnel, a tube that’s big enough for us both—but only just, so we swim through, kicking our legs in unison. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. It’s so dark and my eyes sting, so it’s hard to make out any details, but I know that there’s a light.
Shut your eyes and go, I tell myself. Do it.
Rex struggles. She didn’t breathe enough, I know, but we’re nearly there. I pull her with me. Kick harder, I tell myself. She does as I do, like she heard me, or realized.
And then we’re clear, through the tunnel and racing for the surface of the water, which is so much colder than the sea. But we can’t get through to the air—there’s ice on the surface of the water, between us and it. My lungs are screaming for air. I already almost drowned once. The ice is so thick and the water is so, so cold. I beat the ice with my fists. Rex turns in the water—pivots, kicks out, slamming her boots against it, using me as a joist. But she gets nowhere.
In a desperate bid she tries her hand—the knife. Not enough force, but it chips away a little. I grab her arm and we both put all our force into it. Just as I think I can’t do it, as I have to take a breath in the water, the ice cracks.
We’re going to be okay.
The first time I went into the water at the edge of the city, I was running from Alala. Ziegler had told me to find her, that she was a good contact, that she would sort me out. I didn’t trust him, not entirely, but I needed to try. I was terrified, just five or six days into being here on this planet. I had escaped and now I was free, in hiding, and alone; I went to find her only to see that she wasn’t home, that her door was open. And there it was—food. Not much, just bread. Then, as now, she left her door open at all times. The only time a door was shut was when she was asleep. The bread? I took it because I was desperate. I would pay her back; that was never in question.
She returned just as I was leaving, hands clasping the loaf like it was going to run away from me, clutching it tight to my gut. I was ashamed and scared. Her head tilted like she was intrigued—quizzical more than anything else.
“Little girl? What are you doing in my home?”
I shook my head, terrified. I prayed that she didn’t see the bread. I could make an excuse but there wasn’t anything she would have believed.
So I bolted. I pushed past her and I ran as fast as I could. I wasn’t yet healed, my body bruised and broken in so many places, but I had to do what I could—get through the docks, away from her, pray she didn’t follow.
She didn’t, but her people did. The junkies, the mutes. They chased me to the edge of the water and those who could speak screamed and howled that I would pay, that they would drag me back to Alala. She would deal with me. The ones who couldn’t speak beat their chests like war drums instead. But they wouldn’t catch me, I knew. They didn’t have a chance. I could take them.
But I didn’t want more blood on my hands. I didn’t want any more chaos.
I hit the water before I even knew it was there. It was dark out and I wasn’t watching where I was going. Keeping my head down as I ran—looking at where I was treading, not where I was going—I plunged into it blindly and it was so cold I screamed. But all that came out was the muffle of bubbles. Water coursed into my lungs. I kicked out and I had a moment of sheer terror: that the past week hadn’t happened. That I was still on Australia trying to get below, to the secret place beneath the bodies—to Mae, to Jonah—to leave Australia forever and get to our new home.
I came to my senses and swam to the surface, chilled and sobbing. They were hunting me. They looked around, calling out for me, so I stayed out of sight under the wood of a decaying dock at the edge of the water.
When they gave up—it didn’t take them long to assume I was dead—I found the remains of the bread floating on the surface—bobbing around, sodden. I crawled out of the water and sat shivering until I felt I could move; then I rushed to the place where I’d spent the past few nights sleeping—a shanty that somebody had abandoned not long before, that I had stumbled across in a lucky moment of synchronicity that gave me some vague sense of hope—and I found Alala there, waiting for me. She found me like she always finds anything she looks for. I didn’t know that about her then, didn’t know that she had eyes everywhere. She was sitting on the ground cross-legged. As I approached, she stood and dusted herself off.
“Silly little girl,” she said. “It was only bread. I would have given that to you.” She smiled—and in that moment, I trusted her. Nobody smiled that warmly and meant you har
m on Australia. “When you have something you really need help with, a real problem, come to see Alala, eh?” She patted my cheek—slow pats, almost slaps—and walked off. “You’re a pretty girl,” she said as she went.
Where she had been sitting there was another loaf of bread—and meat, and cheese, and a bottle of drinking water—all wrapped in brown paper.
It was a day later that the infections I got on Australia set in. My wounds started burning, my skin peeling and blackening. Alala didn’t seem surprised when I turned up at her door and told her that I had a favor to ask.
She smiled that same smile. She could help me, and I gladly accepted her help.
Rex and I are in a part of the city that isn’t supposed to have water in it, but no one has fixed the problem. This part of the city was abandoned a long time ago. That’s obvious as soon as we reach the edge of the water and haul ourselves out: The ground is broken and torn up with shattered glass everywhere, piles of garbage, metal, and plastics. There are buildings all around us—windows caved in or boarded up, faded paint. Everything is the same gray-white color in the moonlight. Nature has started to take this part of the city back. There are young trees springing up through the concrete, their roots making the ground bulge. Plants have grown everywhere—up the buildings, through those smashed windows. The doors we can see have been braced, sealed off with clamps. There’s no noise here. The Wall is kicking out plumes of ice-white smoke; it spills over the water, seeming to float above it before resting at the edge, the lip that we’re standing on. It’s freezing here.
“Come on,” I say. We pass a sign, a faded green sign. GODDARD something, it says. The ground is littered with the remains of the people who lived here: bars of metal, sheets of what look like particle board, electronics, all lying around underneath canopies of trees. It reminds me of the arboretum, almost.
There’s a clatter and I turn to look at Rex. The tape that held the knife onto her arm has slipped, unraveled, and the blade is lying on the ground. She stoops to pick it up. Her forearm looks sore—where the implants for the augment were fitted, the skin is red, inflamed, a deep black in places. “Does that hurt?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “No more than usual.”
“What do you mean?”
“It always hurts. I can feel the hand as if it is there, still attached to me. It hurts like a burn. Or as if it is trapped.” She cradles the stump with her other hand. “It hurts, but it always hurts.”
“You need somebody to look at that,” I say. “It looks infected. Maybe we can get some medicine after . . .” I don’t finish the thought. I haven’t planned what happens next. I would have gotten some from Alala. Maybe she’ll have some. I can find her, confront her, take it.
“How do we find the girl?” Rex asks, as she ties the tape around her wrist again, pulling it into a knot with her teeth to hold the blade in place.
“We need to find Alala first. She’s got the information I stole.”
“So where is she?”
“South, I think. The other side of the city. Further along the Wall, at a place called the Andrews Docks.”
“And she’ll know where Mae is?”
“She will,” I say. “I think she will.” We go deeper into the complex. That’s what this is: warehouses and buildings, part of a large industrial estate.
“When you’ve got what you need, you’ll kill this Alala,” Rex says. It’s not a question.
“No,” I answer, but I don’t sound convincing, even to myself. So I hammer it home. “That’s not me. Not who I am. Not now.”
“You want to change who you are,” Rex says.
“I was never that person,” I tell her. “I won’t kill her. I can’t.” I kick something that clatters; I bend down, pick it up. A small figure—white, plastic, in a spacesuit like I saw in the museum. There are more of them all around here. Toys most likely. What a waste this bit of the city is. These buildings could be turned into homes where people could live lives far easier than they the ones they live in the docks. Fixed up, some of these places might be better than some of the houses that people have actually paid to live in.
As we walk through the ruin we see a building that’s different from the rest. White walls and blacked-out windows that are still intact, still protected. Around it there’s a fence. It looks secure. It will do for the rest of the night—to keep us safe and warm until the morning when we can work out exactly where we are and what to do next. We try the door and it’s unlocked. It’s heavy, hard to open, made of metal. The metal continues inside—there are metal grates on the floor, gray-blue walls. A sign reads TICKET OFFICE. I can just about see it in the moonlight that’s creeping in through the blacked-out windows, but that part of the building is cordoned off.
“Where are we?” Rex asks, but I don’t know.
At the end of the corridor there’s another door. This one opens for us, swishing to one side as we approach. I step through into a giant chamber, enormous and round. In the middle of it there’s another structure suspended in the air and hanging from wires. There’s just enough light for me to see it. I know this place. I recognize it. I’ve seen it before—or something like it.
Three words are printed on the side of it. THE NEW WORLD. It looks exactly like the ship that we arrived in, the smaller one that brought us down from Australia. It’s one of those, and it’s here, and it’s pristine.
“You are intruding,” a voice says. Gaia, she’s everywhere. “I am raising an alarm and backup has been called. Do not attempt to run.”
I don’t even have to tell Rex to ignore Gaia. She’s out of the door before I am, careening down the corridor to the exit. I follow her out into the yard we were in before, tearing away from this building and the wall toward the city. We can’t see anyone coming for us yet but we can hear them: the thrum of birds assembling themselves in the distance, rising into the sky, getting ready to hunt us.
There’s a fence looming. Birds circle above it, pointing and looking in our direction. This whole area is cordoned off, kept secure. I’m panicking, looking for a way out, when Rex starts shooting. I forgot that she had the gun. The sound echoes off the walls, bouncing around, and the birds collapse, spiraling to the ground. She only stops when they’re nearly all down, a mess of flames and torn metal. The gun clicks uselessly as the final couple of birds rise out of harm’s way. She’s out of bullets. She throws the gun to the ground and we climb the fence. It’s tall enough to stop most people, but not us. The jagged edges at the top aren’t going to hold us back now.
From the top of the fence we can see the rest of the city: the tall buildings in the distance, the streets, the lights making it not quite night—not as dark as we’ve had the past few days. I stop for a moment and I stare, but Rex is already pulling away, leaping off the fence and pelting down a street away from the flaming chaos of the birds behind us.
She doesn’t even stop to stare at what’s in front of us. She just takes it in her stride.
We stop because our lungs hurt. You can only run so far after what we’ve been through. We’ll sleep for a week, I think, once we’re safe. In Ziegler’s home, if I can persuade him. In the bed he lets me use, assuming there’s nobody else using it. Rex can have it. I’ll take the floor as long as it’s warm in there.
We’re cold and wet and sweaty and hot all at once. My heartbeat is so heavy, so loud. I can feel it in every bit of me: my chest, my head. I can even hear it.
Ziegler. We just need to get to Ziegler.
Exhausted, Rex and I slump down against the concrete support of an underpass, away from any cameras or passing cars. After we catch our breath, I tell Rex to stay and I walk to find a terminal. There’s one a block away. It’s old and it lags, but it just about works. I ping Ziegler, hoping he’ll know that it’s me. I hope he hasn’t forgotten about me. Or given up on me.
“Where do we go?” Rex asks when I get back to her.
“We wait here,” I say, “see if he comes to find us.”
“And what if he doesn’t?”
“Then I don’t know,” I say. We sit in silence and I think about how much easier my life might have been if I had just let my mother’s death pass quietly, not tried to defend her or myself that first day I met Rex.
It isn’t the noise of the car that wakes me or the sound of Ziegler’s feet on the pavement. It’s only when he touches my shoulder that I react—and it’s like the past year of my life never happened. I grab his hand and twist it away from him, bending his fingers into a shape that I know will nearly cripple him with pain. It doesn’t matter who he is—I’m hardwired to protect myself when I’m sleeping. Can’t shake that. Doubt I ever will.
“Chan!” he says, trying to back away, “Chan, it’s me.” I breathe hard, open my eyes, let him go.
“Okay.” Then, “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He rubs his hand, looks me over. “You look like death warmed up.”
“What?”
“Something that my mom used to say. Death warmed up. It means . . . Not good.” He reaches out to me, pulls me to my feet. “Let’s go.”
“You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“You’re easier to track than most. You make a loud noise wherever you go, it seems. You were in the Pine City Revision Facility,” he helps me to my feet, “until a few days ago, when you escaped. That was all over the news. Car’s over here.” He looks around. “I don’t know this part of the city that well. Don’t know where the cameras are. And there are drones out, so you might want to keep your head down. Just until we’re inside.”
I look over to wake Rex, to introduce her to Ziegler, but I don’t see her. I touch the spot where she was sleeping next to me and it’s dry. She’s been gone a while.
“What?” Ziegler asks. “Have you lost something?”
“I think we’ve got a problem,” I reply.
“You’re sure she was with you last night?” he asks. I stare out of the windows, but can’t see enough, so I put them down and lean out, peering down streets as we pass them, trying to get a better view. The sun is starting to come up, the sky reddening over the Wall. “They’ll be looking for you,” he says, as if I don’t already know that. “If they see you, they’ll come down hard—harder than you can run from.”