by H. A. Swain
As the Pod nears the Palace portico, I do a double take when I see two MUSCies in their protective gear standing by the purple blossom bush. I glance at Talitha, but she’s busy looking at something on her Lenz. Then a third MUSCie emerges from the green leaves, carrying something blue and white and large and floppy. The sun hits the person just right as we zoom past, and I see Burnell Chen-Ning’s face inside the hood.
Quickly, I grab Talitha by the shoulders and dive onto her so we’re both lying on the seat out of sight. “I changed my mind! I want to go to the desert with you!”
“What?” Talitha stares up at me, then laughs. “Are you sure?”
My heart beats so hard I wonder if she can feel it against her chest. “Yes, I’m positive. Turn the car around! Now!”
She commands the car to U-turn, and I hug her fiercely so we both stay down as the car loops around the portico and heads back the way we came.
“I have to reprogram this thing!” She laughs and struggles to sit up so she can command a new location to the AutoNav. I wrench around and glance out the back window. The last thing I see as we speed from the Pink Palace is that boy Mundie from last night striding out onto the lawn toward Mr. Chen-Ning, who holds out my flight suit, like a husk that I shed.
* * *
My heart doesn’t stop beating a million miles a minute until the AutoPod pops out of the San Gabriel tube, leaving AlphaZonia behind the craggy mountain range that separates it from the Wastelands. Only then do I stop checking the sky every few seconds for MUSC drones on my trail. But the image of Burnell Chen-Ning holding out my flight suit as he walked toward Mundie plays over and over in my brain. I wonder how much they know and whether Mundie got a good enough look at me last night to put the pieces together. Mostly, I worry about whether they found my device—my ticket back to MUSC, unless I’m scooped up by security before I get to it on my own.
Out here, I feel safer, though. There are no Pods in front of us and none behind. There are also no more palm trees, green lawns, or blooming flowers. The entire landscape is brown and bristly. The hills are sparsely covered with strange, spiky plant life. In fact, the area is so burned out and empty that eventually the AutoNav disengages and Talitha uses voice commands to tell the car where she wants to go.
“How do you know where you’re going?” I ask as she navigates turn by turn down more and more desolate roads.
“Just follow your nose!” She laughs. “And I mean that literally, because we’re heading for the Dumps.”
“The Dumps?” I repeat, and swallow down my discomfort.
She takes a left onto a bumpy dirt road, and immediately we’re hit by a wall of stink. The festering aroma climbs into my nostrils and sticks to the back of my throat. I gag and gag again. Only Quasar seems intrigued by the symphony of scents. He sits up tall in the seat and sniffs at the air with relish.
“Eventually you get used to it,” Talitha says.
I press the bottom of my tank top against my nose. “You sure?”
“Sad but true.”
We take a right and enter the shadow of a mountain. Overhead, small white birds dart and laugh as big black ones fly in lazy circles.
I look more closely, then blurt out, “Those aren’t real mountains!”
“It’s the trash,” Talitha says. “Everything the Yoobies no longer want or need comes here.”
“I can’t believe there’s so much.” I take in the enormity of the mountain chain.
“I can,” Talitha says. “The Yoobies are completely self-centered. As long as they can shove all of their trash out of sight, the world is a shiny, happy place to them, no matter what the impact is on everybody else. No more trying to reduce, reuse, and recycle for them. The planet’s dying anyway. They figure they might as well wring every last ounce of resources out of it while they can.”
“What are those?” I point to a parade of what look like giant metal sea serpents rising and falling through the heaps of garbage. Quasar puts his paws on the window edge and barks.
“WRMS,” Talitha tells me.
“That ain’t no worm,” I say.
“No, Waste Reorganization Management Systems. They move through the Dumps, grinding and compacting trash to make room for more. You have to be quick when you scavenge. The best stuff doesn’t last.”
She tells the car to turn at a lone wind turbine, spinning for no reason, then drives for several minutes. We pass a dry lake bed where rotten piers poke out like the finger bones of a skeleton reaching for the hulls of boats baking in the heat. Then we pass rows and rows of tract housing that must have fallen like dominoes during the massive quake.
Finally, we come to a short, squat, windowless building in the middle of nowhere. It looks as if some giant hand from the sky plunked down a white box in the desert. The only sign that anything might be happening inside is a thin line of putrid smoke snaking up from a vent on the roof.
When Talitha commands the Pod to stop, I see the words SCIENCE WILL SEE US THROUGH emblazoned on the side of the building beneath a MUSC logo. I plaster myself against the back of the seat.
“What is this place? Why are we here?” I ask, starting to panic.
“It’s the ExploroBot Creation Center, where MUSC turns soldiers into technoslaves.”
My heart is in my throat, and I’m sweating through the borrowed shirt. “I can’t go in there.”
“Of course not,” she says as she pulls on the tall boots and long gloves she packed into the backseat of the Pod. “That place is locked down tight and fully automated. No humans allowed. At least no live ones.” She snorts at her own dark joke.
I turn to face her in my seat. “Talitha, I…” I search for a way to tell her who I really am and why I have to get out of here. “I can’t be here.”
“Okay, so come with me,” she says breezily. “It’ll only take a few minutes.” She shoves a set of boots and gloves at me.
“No, stop! I need to tell you something,” I say slowly.
“Well, it’s going to have to wait.” She commands the door to open and gives me a tight smile. “The trucks with bodies will arrive soon, so I have to take care of this now.” She straps the red knapsack to her back and steps out of the pod. Quasar hops after her and trots happily away.
I sit there dumbfounded for a few seconds, then I realize that staying on my own this close to anything MUSC-related scares me more than heading off with Talitha and her dog.
Quickly, I pull on boots and gloves, then run after her with my head ducked. I catch up to her and ask, “You can just march right in here?” I twist and turn, looking over each shoulder as we stroll past the building. “There’s no security to stop you?” I scan the sky for drones.
“Hell, most people want nothing to do with this place. Including me.” She shivers. “Castor liked it, though. Claimed he could find stuff here he’d never seen on Earth.”
Behind the building, I stay close to her side as we hike up the first rolling heap of trash. The late-morning sun paints the pale blue sky with streaks of pink and orange clouds. Quasar snakes his own path far from us, nose down, ears up. In the distance, packs of dogs romp over the hills, ripping open bursting bags to lap up the slurry of gad knows what. Puppies play tug-of-war over shreds of fabric and chase the rats and mice that also feast on the trash.
Below my feet I see mostly medical waste spilling out of bright red bags. Plastic tubes, empty vials, shiny slender syringes glinting in the sun. Scissors, suture kits, rolls of bloodied gauze. I step over an unopened box of antibacterial bandages that have expired. “What a waste,” I say, and kick them away.
“Rhetorical remark!” Talitha laughs.
When I look at her funny, she says, “Hey, you’ve got to have a sense of humor here and appreciate the absurdity of it all, or you won’t last a minute. It’s just too damn sad if you don’t.” Then she heads up toward the crest of the mound and calls, “I have to go to the other side.”
I try to follow her, but I’m slow and I have to st
op several times, hands on knees, to catch my breath.
“I’m coming,” I call after her.
“Take your time,” she calls back. “Or just stay there and wait for me. I won’t be long. Promise!” She disappears over the ridge.
When I’m about halfway up the mound, I hear Quasar yelp. I stop and scan the area, my hands covering my eyes to block out the glare from the sun. I find him farther down the mound facing off with a pack of dogs.
“Hey, hey! Quasar!” I yell and wave my arms. I move toward him, but I’m slow on the unstable garbage beneath my feet.
Above me, Talitha appears, casting a long shadow. “What’s wrong?” she yells.
I point to the dogs.
“Oh, no,” she says. “He’s bound to get into a fight. Quasar! Come on! Come here, boy!”
He lurches, as if to turn, but his back right leg is caught. He growls and snaps at his foot.
“He’s stuck, I think. I’ll get him.” I start to jog toward the dogs, since I’m closer than Talitha.
“Thanks! And be careful,” she calls after me, and then heads back down the other side.
Suddenly, behind the pack of dogs, giant WRMS erupt like parasites from infected skin. I stop and gasp as all of the dogs scatter except Quasar, who’s stuck in the dark shadow of the WRMS. I scream and run toward him.
One of the WRMS rises and curves into an S. Quasar yelps and shakes fiercely, but he can’t get loose and I’m still far away.
It plunges down like a fairy-tale serpent in the sea and rises again, this time only a few meters from Quasar. He frantically chews at whatever’s got ahold of his foot.
“I’m coming! Hold on!” I shout, trying to find firm footing on the ever-shifting surface of this trash mountain.
He turns and gnashes his pointy canines at the mechanical worm, but he’s no match for its circular maw with rows and rows of grinding teeth.
“Talitha!” I scream. “Help!”
TALITHA NEVA
WASTELANDS, EARTH
UMA YELLS FOR me, and I run. At the crest of the ridge, I see what’s happening, then fling myself over, slip, and roll while shouting, “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Yet everything keeps going.
On all fours, I watch one of the WRMS loom above Quasar, preparing to dive deep. Uma’s scrambling to get near him. I’m close enough to see them clearly, but I know I can’t reach them in time. Quasar curls up as small as he can get, closes his eyes, and braces for disaster. Just then, Uma darts beneath the grinding machine’s shadow and snatches up my dog. A metal grate hangs from his back leg like a manacle. They roll, Quasar cradled in her arms as the giant WRM plunges into the very spot where they had just been. It threads into the mountain, leaving only a dark hole sucking trash. I scramble to my feet and bolt toward them.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Uma hollers. She holds Quasar tight as they slip and slide into the hole the mechanical earthworm left behind.
“Dig in your feet!” I shout to her, but it’s too late. They are sucked down along with the bags of bursting garbage cascading past them.
“No!” I scream. On the ground, I see a long black hose. I grab it and run toward the gaping hole. While imagining where they might be, I throw it blindly over the precipice. The hose becomes a dark S written in the sky, then plummets.
“Grab on!” I shout as I fling myself down to peer over the edge.
Below me, at least twenty feet, Uma clings to some kind of conveyor belt hull stuck in the side of the hole as more trash rolls past. The hose lands close enough that she can grab it with one hand while still holding Quasar tight with the other.
“Hold on!” I shout to her. “I’ll pull you up.”
She twirls the hose around her wrist and wraps one leg, ankle to knee, farther down. The sides of the hole give way. She screams as she and Quasar dangle.
“I’ve got you!” I shout.
“Pull us up!” she yells.
“I’m pulling!” I grunt and groan as I tug with all my strength. Quasar tries to help, scrambling for a foothold with his tiny paws.
“It’s working,” Uma shouts. She gets the tips of her boots lodged into the sloping side, and slowly they scramble up. I hear her talking to Quasar. “It’s okay,” she says, her voice calm and strong. “Talitha’s got us now. We’re going to be fine.”
When they’re near the top, I dig my feet in deep and give one final, giant tug. Uma pushes off the side of the hole with her feet, and they both bolt upright onto me. The three of us tangle up and fall over, rolling the other way, down the hill, bumping over red bags of medical waste until we smack into a retaining wall and come to a sudden stop.
“Oh, my gad! Oh, my gad!” Uma screams.
“Stupid WRM!” I yell. “It’s supposed to stop if a human’s near.”
“Probably thought we were dogs.”
“It should stop for dogs, too!” I scream with fury at their disregard for Earth life.
Uma and I are covered in slime and grime, but Quasar is ecstatic. He licks our cheeks and hands and necks as if we are delicious.
“Stop! Stop!” I tell him, laughing and crying. “You have to hold still.”
“Easy there. Easy,” Uma says, trying to calm him.
“Hold him tight,” I say. “I’ve got to get this thing off his leg.”
Uma presses Quasar against her chest so he can’t move, then I wrap my fingers around his muzzle with one hand and grip the manacle hanging off his leg with the other. “One, two, three!” I say, then I twist and tug.
Quasar yelps in pain.
“You got it!” Uma says.
I toss the horrible biting jaw away. “Dumb thing!”
Quasar looks up. Surprised. He blinks, then whimpers and starts to lick his wounds.
“Is he going to be okay?” Uma asks.
“His leg is messed up. Bleeding badly.” I examine the chewed-up skin. Muscle and tendon are exposed, and the bone is crooked. “This place is crawling with horrible bacteria.”
“Wait!” Uma hops up. “Stay here.” She hands Quasar to me, then runs over the shifting ground, searching frantically for something. She returns a minute later with a roll of bandages.
“Expired or not, they’ll help stop an infection from forming,” she says. “Hold him steady, and I’ll wrap his leg.”
When she’s done bandaging him, I say, “We have to get him to my mom.” I hoist him up to my shoulder and stand.
“Your mom?”
“She lives near here. She grows lots of herbs and makes her own medicines. She can cure about anything.”
Quasar pants heavily from my shoulder. Uma stands beside us and rubs his back. I look at her. Beautiful, even covered in grime. “You saved him,” I say, suddenly overcome with a swell of gratitude and awe.
“And you saved me,” Uma says.
We look at each other, then we both move forward. Our lips press hard together. I wrap my arms around her shoulders, with Quasar in between us, and we kiss, tongues entangled beneath the strong sun.
* * *
While Uma carries Quasar to the car, I run back up over the ridge to the pit on the other side, where the goo is contained in a half-buried tank. I know what D’Cart wants, although I don’t know why. I hurry from barrel to barrel, reading the labels sticking up a few inches from the ground, until I find the one Castor has stolen from many times while we were here. I open the knapsack and take out the extraction kit I found at our house. With the hand drill, I bore a hole in the top of the thick metal barrel, then set up the siphon system—a long tube with a pump that draws the goo out into a canister. When the can is full, the pump stops. I withdraw the tube, then replace the metal disk to seal the top of the barrel with Castor’s special glue. I put the extraction kit and canister back into the knapsack, then hurry to the AutoPod so we can get the hell out of here before the blue MUSC trucks arrive.
CASTOR NEVA
ALPHAZONIA, EARTH
THAT AFTERNOON, WHEN the door to the tiny room opens, I sit up from where I s
lept on the floor, expecting a DomestiBot with my lunch, but I see Mundie in the hallway, arms crossed and scowling, and my heart sinks.
“Did Talitha come back? Are you here to release me?” I ask, hopefully.
“As if!” He walks in and plants himself in a chair to stare at me.
“Aw, come on, Mundie!” I get up and drop into the other chair, then put my feet up on the table between us. “I’ve been in here for two days.”
“Yeah, and it stinks in here,” he says. “But you’re being fed.” He nods to the empty plate from this morning’s breakfast.
“You can’t keep me here indefinitely,” I say.
“Actually, I could,” he says. “Who, other than your sister, would be looking for you?”
“I know people,” I say angrily.
“No you don’t,” says Mundie.
“My mom!”
Mundie scoffs. “I know your mom.” He stares at me, one eyebrow up. “She won’t come here. Not even for you.”
I drop my gaze between my feet to the flat beige carpet, because I know Mundie’s right. My mother loves me, but she’s not a fighter. She flees from trouble and hides. I’ve spent my life trying to push those instincts away. I sigh. Annoyed more than anything.
“You know, Mundie.” I stand and spin my chair around so I’m beside him. “We’re from the same place. Wastelanders like us should have each other’s backs.”
“When have you ever had my back?”
“When have I not?”
“You’ve spent your whole life ignoring me, and now all of a sudden we’re friends? I don’t think so.”
“I never did anything to hurt you,” I point out.
Mundie unfolds himself from the seat and stands up tall, towering over me like a menacing stork. “You keep Talitha away from me.”
“You do that yourself!” I say.
He winces at the jab. Then he reaches down to grab my arm and yanks me from the chair. I struggle to get out of his grip, but Mundie’s strong, and I realize I should try less to piss him off, so I add, “Besides, I don’t care who she’s with.”