by Rajan Khanna
“Well, he came and fought off the Valhallans. Afterward, there was a lot of rebuilding and restructuring, and Malik’s people stayed on the island. They halted most of our work while things were figured out. So . . . I left.”
“You?” I said. “You left the work?”
“It wasn’t the work anymore,” he said. He shook his head. “I needed to do something. I thought where better to get back at them than from the inside? Why not learn their secrets and their weaknesses? We had lost so much of our data. So I made my way to a settlement I knew of, and I asked around, and eventually I joined up. I started out on Gastown, but then they moved me here.”
I shook my head, trying to digest it all. “Clay,” I said. “So much has happened.”
“And yet our paths brought us together again.”
I nodded. Then it was my turn to get teary-eyed. He pulled me close, in his arms, and in that moment it felt so good to be with someone I knew, someone safe. He even smelled like I remembered. I laid my head on his chest, and he cradled it there for a while. Then he gently raised my face to his. “I’ll have to go soon,” he said. “Before they get too suspicious.”
“Will you come back?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said, as if there would ever be an alternative. “I’ll be back, and I’ll get you out of here.”
“How?”
“I think I can get access to a ship. I just have to figure out how to get you on it. In the meantime, you sit tight here and I’ll visit when I can.”
“Okay,” I said. Something changed in me then. For months, the Helix had been breaking me down, stifling me until my fire had guttered. There, with Clay, I felt something spark inside of me. For the first time in a while, I felt something resembling hope.
Clay turned to go.
“Clay,” I said, before he walked out. “What do you know about Ben?”
He turned back to me and his face and neck were red, even in the dim light. “I knew you would ask me about him.”
“And?”
“When I left, he was in a cell,” he said.
“The Helix did get him?”
“No,” he said. “He was in a cell on the island. He survived the attack.”
They didn’t have him after all. All this time, and they never had him.
“I’d heard that he and Malik had some history,” Clay said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know much. Only rumors, but . . .”
“What is it?”
He met my eyes, then looked away. “I think they were going to execute him.”
My breath caught in my chest, and the tears returned. I nodded. It wasn’t a surprise that Maya had been lying to me all these months. I think I suspected it somewhere in the back of my mind. Only I couldn’t take that chance. But then to learn that they didn’t have him, that he might be dead . . .
“I see.” I nodded again. I smiled a smile I didn’t feel. “Thanks, Clay. Make sure you come back soon.”
“I will,” he said. “I promise.”
Then he walked out and shut the door.
Afterward, I cried for a while, now knowing exactly everything I was crying for.
* * *
Clay has returned four times now. Each time he brings me something. Some kind of treat. Something to eat, or a special pen, or a new notebook. Every time he does it so that we’re not noticed. When we’re together, we talk about the old days, about our friends, about better times. Through it all, Clay holds my hand, and I hold his hand back, as if that physical connection helps reinforce our emotional connection. As if we are anchored to one another.
Clay’s still planning our escape, but he has to work some more on the plans. Getting me on the ship will be the trickiest part. Getting the ship out without anyone noticing I’m there will also take some planning. But once we solve that, we should be home free.
“But what about Maya?” I asked him, the second time. “She knows what you look like. She was on Tamoanchan.”
He nodded. “That’s partly the reason for the hair and beard. I thought it would help to disguise me.”
“I recognized you,” I said.
“Not everyone knows me as well as you do,” Clay said. “But you’re right. The less she sees of me, the better.”
“Which makes it riskier with her always being around.”
“We’ll find other places to meet,” Clay said.
I shook my head. “Don’t you get it? They’re always watching. I start meeting with someone suddenly and they’ll investigate. If they start pulling on strings, it all might unravel.”
“I’m willing to take that risk.” He grabbed my hand in his and it was rough, and warm. “What else can we do?”
I leaned my head against his chest, once more comforted by something familiar. I didn’t feel confident, but I let his confidence buoy me. I clung to him, the only bright and good thing in my life.
“We’re smart,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.” Then he threw his arms around me, and we stayed like that for a while.
What I didn’t say to him before he left is that I’m not entirely sure that the people watching us, the people keeping us, aren’t smarter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We’re in an inner yard of sorts, some place where they can bring in vehicles. We’re in our line, still, the slavers in front of us, half of them with guns, the other half with long metal rods. They’re soon joined by other people, rough faces, rough expressions, most likely out of Gastown or Valhalla. Some of them are wearing furs.
That confirms it, then. We’re back at the plant that I visited with Claudia and Rosie. Where I rescued the Cherub from, only to sacrifice her to save Tamoanchan. The first attack, I mean. I didn’t have a Cherub to sacrifice the second time.
You sacrificed something.
I brush the voice away, if only because I can’t indulge that kind of thinking now. If escape was hard before, it’s impossible now. The number of people guarding us has not only increased, the competency of those guards has multiplied. I’ve seen these people execute their workers. Without hesitation. They’ve probably all seen some kind of combat before. This place, this plant that still provides helium to Gastown—and, by extension, to Valhalla—is essentially an armed camp.
So my hopes crash as quickly as a downed airship, my dreams burning like a hydrogen fire.
Poor humor. But it’s all I have left.
I was wrong—it’s not a market. The transaction had already been made. We were being hand-delivered.
One of the Valhallans, a tall, muscled, pale man with a shaved scalp and some missing teeth walks up and down the line, inspecting us. One of the slavers stands close to him. Looking expectant, even behind his mask.
Baldy opens his mouth and hollers at us. “Do any of you know how to work machinery?”
I keep my eyes straight on him, but can feel some of the others looking at one another in the line. One woman calls out, “I once worked on a metal press and I’ve used other machines from the Clean.”
Now I look over. Baldy comes and pulls her out of the line, and she goes to stand by one of the other Valhallans.
“Anyone else?” Baldy calls out.
No one says anything.
Baldy walks the line again. “You are all here to work for Gastown,” he says. “This is the Gastown helium plant. The plant provides helium that is sold in the city. You are here to help us operate this plant.” He talks forcefully. I can see the spray of his spittle as he barks at us. “Do a good job, and you may well be rewarded. Food.” He meets some eyes. “Smokes.” He meets others. “Sex.” A broken-mouthed leer. “Refuse to do as you’re told, or do a bad job . . .” He trails off.
Two more Valhallans step forward, eyeing the line. I fight the urge to meet their eyes and instead look neutrally into the distance. It only takes a moment, but then they move forward, grabbing a man out of the line and pulling him forward. The man whimpers.
“Refuse to do as you’re told, or do a b
ad job,” Baldy repeats. He removes an axe from his belt. More like a hatchet, but with a cruelly sharp-looking blade at its end. In one smooth motion, he buries the blade into the man’s head. There’s spray, but it goes wide of Baldy, and his people are out of its reach. The man from the line falls to the ground, his feet kicking and twitching.
“Am I clear?” Baldy cries out.
There are some assorted affirmatives and mumbled yeses.
“Am I clear?” Baldy roars.
The whole line says yes, and I only realize afterwards that I am one of them.
“Good,” Baldy says. “You’ll each be taken for a debrief, and then you will be assigned to jobs. You will be housed here on the site, fed, clothed. Excel at your tasks, and you will be well cared for. Cause problems, and . . .” He gestures to the body on the ground.
Then Baldy walks away to talk to the slavers, and each one of us in line is taken to a room with tables and benches, and we’re each sat down with someone from the plant. These aren’t Valhallans, though. Not even raiders. Maybe workers from the plant or even Cabal. It’s not easy to spot them.
“What skills do you have?” the thin, reedy woman with reddish-brown hair asks me while tapping a hand on the surface of the table.
“I’m a pilot,” I say. “Airships. A forager.”
She looks me up and down, but clinically. Almost absently.
“Ever worked with machinery?”
“No.”
She writes something down on a paper in front of her.
“Any physical problems?”
I meet her eyes. “I get this crick in my back every so often.”
She sighs, then writes more on her paper.
“Any technical training at all?”
I spread my hands out on the table. They haven’t restrained us, but there are plenty of guards and there’s little to no chance of doing anything in this room. “I told you,” I say. “I’m a pilot. A forager. A zep. I make my living by finding things and flying them away. I can repair an engine. Mostly. But I’ve never worked in an operation like this, ever.”
She makes a few short strokes on the paper, then says. “We’re done.”
They throw me into another cell. This one is a bare room, large enough for a lot of people. There’s a smell here. Human waste, I think, but covered up by some kind of antiseptic, some kind of super-strength disinfectant from the Clean.
I start to have a sneaking suspicion of why they need to hire slavers for new labor. I think back to my last time here and a man named Atticus, who helped lead me out of it, or at least most of the way out of it. He ended up dead. Because of these people. If they’re as bloodthirsty here as they are elsewhere, I’m sure they’ve chewed their way through a lot of the people they had working here. Especially after I escaped with the Cherub and took out a few people along the way. I later heard from Tess that there had been a big reaction to what we did, and I wonder if that heightened things for everyone else.
More blood on your hands, Ben. More wreckage in your wake.
For now, I’m the only one in the cell, though. I guess everyone else has something that would make them useful here. Everyone except for me. What does that mean? Does it mean I’m going to be put to work sweeping up or cleaning shit? Or does it mean I’ll do labor, carrying things or moving things? Or does it mean my value isn’t worth them feeding me and keeping me around? My chest starts feeling tight, and I feel like I might throw up, despite the lack of food in my system.
The doors to the room open up and a guard walks around the cage. I recall this one from the yard, but he’s wrapped up. Large, with a knit cap low on his head and a red plaid scarf wrapped tightly around his mouth. Dark shades and protective gear on. The guard stares at me. I stare back, not saying anything.
The guard uses a key from his belt to open the door. He enters, then closes the door behind him.
I hold my hands loose at my sides. I don’t see any reason why he would be in here with me. Unless this is where he’s going to kill me. I’m reminded of the antiseptic smell that lingers here.
But he has a key to the door on him. The currently unlocked door. There’s nobody else here. I could try to overpower him and make my way out. He’s big, but I fight dirty. Is this what they have planned? Make it look like an escape attempt so they can dispose of me quickly? Is this a test?
The man moves toward me. His weapon isn’t out. He seems relaxed, almost casual, but there’s a set to his walk, a way he holds his back and shoulders that makes it seem like he’s prepared. That he could drop into a fighting stance at any moment, or draw a weapon and fire. But there’s also something familiar in that walk. Something I can’t place.
The man stops in front of me, and I have to look up at his face. All I can see are hints of brown skin around the shades and the scarf. That tells me nothing.
Then he tugs down the scarf, pulling it away from his face, and I see a full, dark beard. Then the shades are pulled off.
And I almost gasp.
“Diego. What—”
Then the massive fist comes up and punches me in the face.
* * *
The last time I saw Diego was during a dark time in my life. I had lost Miranda. Just lost her. Tamoanchan had been attacked. In force. Not just ships, but mutated Ferals, dropped on the island. Tearing through it. Killing people and causing fear and terror. Blood and fire and ashes. And just when things seemed like they couldn’t get worse, just as I was lost, and frantic, wanting to run, to get up into the air and away from everything, where I could find a safe patch of sky (up in the Blue) and cry and grieve and fall to pieces, that’s when Mal appeared.
I never figured out if he tracked his ship, the one I stole, or whether he had found out from Tess—it was something I didn’t think to ask her before I killed her—but he found the island. The supposedly hidden island. And he found me. On the beach. Still shattered from what had happened to Miranda.
He wanted revenge. Of that I was sure. As he stood over me, in the sand, his eyes seemed to burn with it. Not only had I left him for dead, all those years ago, but then I returned to offer him his chance at a reckoning. Only I escaped. And I had stolen one of his ships to do so.
I didn’t do it alone, of course. It was Miranda who rescued me. Sweet, smart Miranda. But Mal blamed me, and his desire for revenge must have only grown. That’s how it looked on the beach. I expected him to do it then. To pull out a gun, or better yet a knife, and end it there. To sink the blade in, with his own hands, feel the hotness of it, the immediacy. I was ready for it. I almost felt like I wanted it in that moment. It would have spared me all those horrible, terrible feelings that were spewing up inside of me.
Only, he didn’t do it. Instead, he had some of his men take me away. First to his ship, then later . . .
Well, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Mal arrived in the middle of the attack on Tamoanchan. On an island already devastated by the Enigma virus. The island had been caught by surprise. But the thing is, Mal came in force, too. He brought his whole group with him—the warship, carefully reclaimed and restored to full working order, and the airships that moved with it. His mercenaries and pirates and forager friends came too. They were looking for a home. And they had found, along with me, an island that was already set up.
So it wasn’t a surprise that Mal made a quick decision, and, using his warship and his airships and his weapons, helped to push back the invading Valhallan/Cabal/Gastown forces. I remember being pulled aboard the ship as the cannons went off, and there was a tremendous sound, like the sky breaking open, and then airships, in the distance, exploded into fiery pieces.
A part of me cheered at that, even as another part of me cringed.
With Mal’s help, the assembled Tamoanchan defense ships, once they were able to mobilize, were able to push back the attacking ships. Mal’s people, along with the Tamoanchan defense forces, were able, with some casualties, to kill all the mutated Ferals that had been sent to attack. M
al helped save the day. And Tamoanchan, I later discovered, loved him for it.
But of course I didn’t see all of that, because they threw me into a cell. If I ever get a tombstone, maybe that should go on it—Ben Gold, From one cell to another, now in his last.
As cells go, it had been one of the worst. Mal’s good humor, his sense of honor, had been all but obliterated. They threw me into a dank hole, dripping with water, smelling like shit, with no clean place to sleep. Nothing to piss or shit in. Sweltering. Hot. Humid. Like the inside of a toilet.
While I remember knowing where I was—and I remember every horrible, stinking detail—I don’t remember much else. They left me alone there for a while.
* * *
I knew what was going to happen. At some point, whenever Mal was ready, they would pull me out, and there would be some kind of ceremony—a mock trial, or a proclamation, or a celebration—and at the end, Mal himself would order my death, either by his hand or by hanging or drowning or whatever. He once threatened to keelhaul me, which meant tying me to the bottom of the ship and scraping me against the bottom of the ocean.
I knew that was coming, and I had resigned myself to it. This was the natural end of my story. Everything had led to this. All my past crimes had caught up to me, and this was where my trajectory had tossed me.
So I waited. And I lingered there in my own piss and shit, and I waited for the end. I looked forward to it.
They didn’t really come to see me much. Mal certainly didn’t. Someone would shove in some food from time to time, and sometimes I would eat it. I seem to recall a couple of times one of Mal’s people coming in and force-feeding me, shoving food down my throat. Sometimes I would vomit it up. Other times I didn’t. From time to time I would wonder why they didn’t just let me die, but then I realized that Mal wanted it to be a big deal. He had been imagining this day for years. He wouldn’t just let me wither away in a cell. That wasn’t his style. He needed to see it happen. He needed me to know that this was his revenge. He needed others to know it.
One day the cell door opened, and I didn’t bother looking up because I had stopped doing that. A voice said, “My god.”