The Earth Dwellers

by David Estes

  I glance to the left to find a single door. Will my cart fit through? This is my one shot, I remind myself. Grabbing the handle, I pull the cart over the bumpy transitional bits from the elevator to the lobby floor, cringing when a few cleaning bottles rattle against each other. The lady is oblivious as she tries to find whatever she’s looking for, and the soldiers only have eyes for her backside.

  Heading to the left, I pray the door’s unlocked. I turn the handle, feeling the satisfying give as the door opens. Pull my cart through…

  Crap!

  The sides of the cart slide along the sides of the frame and then stop. It’s wedged. Past it, the woman pulls something from the cabinet, scans it, and then starts to turn…

  I wrench the cart sharply, trying to force it through the doorway. It makes a nasty scraping sound, but then it’s through, rattling ten times worse than before as it follows me into a hallway. The door closes behind me. Did the woman or soldiers see it? Did they hear it? I’m not sticking around to find out.

  Heart thudding like a bass drum, sweat trickling down my back, I push the cart hard down the hall, just under jogging speed. Turn a corner and—

  —bright light blinds me, seeming to go straight into my eyes, into my brain, and

  —even as I slam my eyelids closed I can see the fiery red of the sun through them.

  Funny little spots dance amongst the red. It’s like I’m emerging from a life spent underground all over again. What was that? I wonder, even as I’m thinking, Gotta find a place to hide, in case that woman…

  Ever so slowly, bit by bit, I open my eyes, shielding them with a cupped hand. A wall of glass stands before me, angling sharply, creating the building’s pointed top. The panes face the rising sun, letting in an extraordinary amount of light. And above me and around me and everywhere, is the Dome, impossibly enormous and almost glowing as the morning sunlight pours through it.

  Beneath that, spreading out in every direction, is the city, the buildings’ dwarfed by the larger presidential offices. It’s a spectacular sight, and yet…there’s not a splash of color anywhere, and I might as well be back in the gray oblivion of the Moon Realm.

  I tear my gaze away and turn back to my cart and I’m about to move on, when I hear a voice. “Failure is not an option!” it roars, muffled as it cuts through glass and wood to reach my ears. And although the voice is different, angry, not in the least bit constrained like how I heard it before, I know without a doubt who the voice belongs to:

  Lecter.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Siena

  Grunt’s stumbling every few steps by the time night falls on the desert. I almost want to go over and let him lean on me, but I don’t wanna disrespect his manhood. And if I’m being honest, I don’t really want his sweaty, hairy arms touching me. A good night’s sleep will do him some real good.

  Unfortunately, that ain’t happening, ’cause if we wanna make the wide loop ’round fire country and back to the Glass City, we’ll hafta march well into the night.

  As the day has trudged on, there’s been less and less talking. Even I shut up eventually, stamping out the urge to drink half my water skin with each step. I’m still holding Circ’s hand, but Feve’s moved up ahead to walk with Wilde and Skye.

  Long after the sky turns completely black and littered with starlight, we stop to rest. Half the group, including Grunt, just drop where they stand, falling asleep without eating or drinking anything. Grunt must be awfully tired, ’cause it ain’t like him to miss a meal, even one as unappetizing as dried ’zard and raw prickler.

  Me and Circ lean up against each other, the sand warm and rough beneath our bare legs. Chew slowly, drink slowly, listen to each other’s heartbeats. Forget ’bout why we’re here and where we’re going and who we’re fighting. Just exist, as one, like so many times ’fore.

  A familiar voice shatters the silence, one I haven’t heard in a long time. A voice from the past, tossed through two sets of bars, comforting in the dark. “We’re almost there,” he says.

  I turn to see Raja, still as skinny as a tentpole, like me, but with slightly more meat on his bones’n the last time I saw him. Raja, who shared his secret with me. Raja, my wrongly imprisoned neighbor the two times my father sent me to Confinement. He’s holding a torch and grinning widely.

  “You—you look better,” I say.

  “Thanks,” he says. “Hey, Circ.”

  “Raj,” Circ says, passing him the water skin. Raja takes it and presses it to his lips.

  He hands the skin back. “Fightin’ the good fight, eh?” he says.

  “Searin’ right,” I say.

  “You know, we ain’t that far from…you know,” he says.

  “Where?” I say. Somewhere north…ice country? No, not that far yet, but close. Confinement. We ain’t that far from Confinement.

  Raja must see it click in my eyes, ’cause he says, “Wanna go see our old stomping grounds?”

  No, I think. But I wouldn’t mind going to see good ol’ Perry. I should be sleeping already. “Yeah,” I say. “Be back soon.” Circ gives me a look but doesn’t try to stop me.

  Me and Raja weave through the sleeping bodies, out into the dark of the desert, his torch freezing ’zards and burrow mice in their tracks ’fore they scamper outta our way.

  “Wooloo, isn’t it?” Raja says.

  “What?”

  “How things change so quick, like they’s strapped on a bolt of lightning, or the wind, or the back of a Killer.”

  “Yeah,” I say, blinking back the reminder of what happened to the Icers. “But everything stays the same too.”

  “How so?” Raja asks, holding his torch up to see my face.

  “We’re still friends, ain’t we?”

  “Guess yer right,” he says, and we stop to let a brambleweed tumble past.

  “Can I ask you something, Raj?” I say when we get moving again.

  “Me sayin’ no’s never stopped you ’fore.”

  I laugh. Ain’t that the truth. “We’ve both been in a hopeless place ’fore. Like hopeless hopeless, where we thought the world could end and we mightn’t even care or notice. But we pulled through, didn’t we?”

  “Is that the question?”

  “No,” I say, thinking of Skye. “I’m just asking whether we got lucky. I was never the strongest person ’fore, but then I found something inside me I didn’t even know I had. And I got through it. You did too. Do you think everyone’s the same like that? The strong ones, the weak ones, the in-betweens. Or will some of ’em stay stuck down in that hole, seeking out revenge and death?” What I don’t ask is: Will Skye stay stuck down in that hole? If Lecter dies, will she be satisfied? Or will she be angry all the time, boiling from the inside out, like a ’zard egg in bubbling water?

  Raja chews his orange-and-red flickering lip. “I s’pose it comes down to whether the person wants to climb outta that hole.”

  His words hit me so hard I almost stop walking. ’Cause holy ’zard skins! He’s exactly right. I never realized it, but that’s the truth, ain’t it? After I’d thought Circ’d died, I loathed being so miserable all the time. I coulda stayed that way, coulda plunked down in that hole of despair and chewed on durt and earthworms and all kinds of nasty stuff, but I stood up, my legs skinny and shaky and barely holding up my body...

  But still…

  I was standing, and that makes all the difference.

  “Raja, you’re searin’ smarter’n you look,” I say.

  “Uh, thanks. Was that s’posed to be a compliment?” he says. “’Cause it was the worst one I ever heard.”

  We both laugh at that, only stopping when we see it, dark and spindly and almost like the skinless bones of giant long-dead monsters, picked clean by carrion and sharp-toothed animals.

  The empty cages of Confinement rise up against the dark sky.

  Home, sweet home.

  ~~~

  While Raja picks his way over to his old cage—he says he wants to see w
hat it’s like to look in from the outside, rather’n t’other way ’round—I head along the backs of the wooden shells, remembering the first time my father sent me to this place. How Bart looked me up and down, made a rude comment. Everything came full circle when he tried to force himself on me and my mother killed the baggard.

  Am I past Bart’s old cell already? Am I past mine? I’m squinting in the dark trying to see my own hand in front of my face. Raja’s torch is somewhere on an angle to the right. I’ve gotta be close.

  “Oww!” I run smack into something thick and rough and spiny as all scorch.

  No. It can’t be. Not again.

  But it is. And it’s happened again.

  I’ve run smack into Perry the Prickler.

  Nice of you to pay me a visit, Siena, he says, looking more black’n his usual gray-green in the dark. But I wouldn’t recommend going straight for the hug next time.

  “Siena!” Raja shouts. “You alright?”

  “Fine. Just fine,” I mutter, feeling wet tears of blood in the dozen or so holes Perry opened up in my arms and stomach.

  “Did you move since the last time I saw you?” I ask Perry. I coulda sworn he was more to the left, not so close to the cages.

  Do you see any legs? he says.

  “Shut up, Perry,” I say, for old times’ sake.

  Do you see a mouth? he replies, ’cause his wit’s always been just a hair quicker’n mine.

  “It’s night,” I say. “I can’t see a searin’ thing, but you’re talking enough for the both of us, ain’t you?”

  I’m glad you’re here, Perry says unexpectedly. It gets awfully lonely out here in the desert.

  “Don’t I know it,” I say. “But I’m glad to be here too.

  Does that mean I get another hug?

  I groan, my skin still stinging from the last one. “Hey, Perry?” I say.

  Yeah.

  “I saw this tall, skinny prickler with bright red flowers back a-ways. She asked ’bout you.”

  You’re lying.

  “No, really, she’d heard all ’bout you. How you’re so good at standing really still, not moving the slightest bit, even when the wind’s blowing something fierce.”

  Now you’re just being silly.

  “She was really impressed. Said she might stop by sometime.”

  Hey, Siena. You gonna try any daring escapes while you’re here?

  “Changing the subject won’t work, Perry. We’re talking ’bout you and the smokiest prickler I ever laid eyes on.”

  “Siena, did you say somethin’?” Raja asks, peering through the bars of his old cage.”

  “Naw,” I say. “What’re you doing in there?”

  “Seeing what it’s like now that I don’t hafta stay in here.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What’s it like?” I ask.

  “Amazing,” he says.

  “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go get some sleep. We got a long day ahead of us.”

  I turn to go, but over my shoulder I say, “Take care of yourself, Perry. If I survive this war I’ll pop by every now and again.”

  I’d like that, Perry says. And Siena?

  I turn back. “Yeah?”

  Take care of yourself, too. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

  “Sure,” I say, even though that pretty much eliminates doing anything ’cept standing and poking holes in clumsy people. I walk away from Perry for what might be the last time.

  ~~~

  The sun goddess is shooting a hole through my head.

  We’ve been walking for hours and it’s like the sun and the clouds are in league with the Glassies, dead set on stopping our march. The sun goddess seems bigger and more fiery’n ever ’fore, and the clouds, well, they’re scarcer’n a burrow mouse under the shadow of a vulture. It’s a ’spiracy, I tell you.

  As per my promise to Veeva, I’m watching Grunt like a hawk, just waiting for him to keel over, to eat the sand with his dried lips. But he doesn’t, just keeps trudging on, back bent. Maybe he’s got more mettle’n I ever gave him credit for.

  I tried to talk to Skye earlier, but she’s like a rock-person now, all sharp edges and stone-faced, determined to crush anything and everything in her path. I hafta believe she wants to get outta the hole of anger and sadness she’s digging. Like Raja said, she hasta want it. The only person she seems willing to talk to is Wilde, and though it hurts a little, I understand it, too. Wilde’s a hard one to ignore. Her calm presence comforts us all.

  Wilde said a few words ’fore we departed this morning. She talked ’bout how we’re doing this for a lot of weaker people depending on us back in New Wildetown. How we hafta be strong for ’em. Right away I thought of Jade. Not that she’s weak, ’cause she ain’t, but ’cause she’s only barely old enough to be a Youngling, and ’cause her childhood’s been snatched away from her once and I won’t let it happen again. She deserves something good in her life. We all do.

  Feve is doing what he does best: giving us courage. He roams ’round the edges of the group, watching for anyone lagging or tiring. When he spots someone, he says a few words to ’em and they buck up right quick. Having a steel-boned warrior like him by your side gives you confidence.

  And Circ is Circ. My rock, my best friend. Other’n when my father threatened my life and forced him to fake his own death, Circ’s been there for me, as consistent and never-changing as a mountain.

  I hold his hand as we walk, sometimes in silence, sometimes with me going on and on like a chatterbox. And he always laughs at my jokes, even the bad ones, not ’cause he’s just being nice, but ’cause he thinks they’re funny. We’re cut from the same mold, he and I, only his came out strong and graceful and beautiful, and mine came out, well, like me. Perfect in an imperfect kinda way.

  The wind picks up as we reach the edge of ice country, blowing a slight chill down from the mountains. I enjoy watching the many of us who haven’t seen trees ’fore, as they ogle the stalwart defenders of the border. I remember the first time I saw ’em, the first time I felt the crunch of their dry, fallen leaves beneath my feet, touched their rough skin. It’s like yesterday and like forever ago.

  A thousand thousand footsteps and the day is gone, the sun goddess mercifully dipping below a thick wall of yellow clouds building along the western horizon, behind us as we head dead east. And just as she starts throwing purples and oranges and pinks into the sky overhead, we turn south, toward the Glass City.

  Will they see us coming? Will they expect us to sneak in the back? Was Tristan right?

  I hafta believe this is our only choice. We all hafta, or we’re as good as dead already.

  Purples and pinks turn to navy blue as the second day since Tristan and Roc and Tawni left comes to an end.

  In three days’ time, we attack the Glass City.

  Time’s moving too fast, leaving me feeling breathless all of a sudden.

  We march on, Circ and my footsteps in sync without even trying.

  We’re at the head of the column, just behind Skye and Wilde, who’re still leading the march. And as I’m looking out in front of us, watching the rise and the fall of the dunes as the desert breathes, I see something that ain’t right, ain’t natural.

  The sky is full of what at first look like black clouds…but no, they’re moving too fast, much too fast, and diving at the earth and fighting with each other, and croaking and cawing and carrying on. And beneath the clouds-that-ain’t-clouds…

  “Circ…” I say, my voice fading away like the last light from the dying sun.

  He sees it, too, ’cause he grips my hand harder.

  And then I know what I’m seeing, what ain’t right, what’ll never be right, and I know Skye knows what we’re seeing too, ’cause she stops, dead in her tracks. Wilde steps in front of her, trying her best to block my sister’s vision.

  We’re not nearly as far east as I thought we were, ’cause I see ’em like the images burnt forever in my mind. Only
they’re not images, they’re real, setting in front of us like a nightmare.

  Carts and packs of supplies and hundreds and hundreds of bodies.

  An army of vultures and crows fighting over the spoils, feeding, feeding, cawing and screaming at each other…

  We’ve come to where the Icers were slaughtered by the Glassies.

  Skye pushes past Wilde and starts running toward ’em.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Tristan

  “Kill me if you must,” Aboud says. “But I won’t fight with the likes of her.”

  My sword is catching the light and reflecting it in a slash of white on the general’s chest. He’s weaponless—there’s no way he could stop me from sending him to whatever hell my father is surely in. I’m sure the ex-president would love the company.

  If I do it though, am I just like my father? Killing anyone who disagrees with me, who challenges me? Would that make me a dictator too? If this man had something to defend himself, would it make any difference if I was the aggressor?

  Even if I want so badly to ignore them, I know the answers to those questions like they’re a part of me. Maybe that’s why my mother believed in me, why she trusted me with a responsibility that seems well beyond what I’m capable of. She could see the truth in my heart. I’m not like my father—will never be.

  Would she be proud yet? Or do I have dozens more moral decisions to make before I can proudly declare “I lived up to my mother’s expectations!”?

  I shove my sword back in its sheath. The heat of a dozen stares burns my cheeks, but the one I feel most is from the screen. Is that…a hint of a smile on her lips? Surely not. If General Rose were me she’d slash through the generals in an instant, wouldn’t she? Maybe she’s not all kill-strokes and snap decisions like I thought. Maybe she’s got a bit of Ben in her too.