Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction: The Missing Ones: A Dystopian Adventure

by Stephen Kelik

  Sirius shook his head frantically.

  “There has to be another way,” he murmured. “There has to be something else.”

  The old man regarded him for a moment, worked his toothless gums with a squelch-squelch noise as he thought. “Well.” He shuffled around on his makeshift bed, attempting to get more comfortable. “There was an uprising. But it was before even I was born. And I’m old as-”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Sirius was impatient. “How did it happen? Was there a fight?”

  The old man cracked his gnarled knuckles, as though he’d been waiting all this time for those words.

  “Ain’t much known about how it happened, and it weren’t much of a battle, weren’t much of anything really. Just a group o” people that somehow gave the guardsmen enough of a slip to over time organize before comin’ up to the surface to say, enough is enough, we’re leavin’. Earth and Airborn both.”

  “Leaving?” Sirius blinked. “As in, going into the desert? Were they crazy?”

  The old man laughed, a dusty hack-hack noise.

  “Probably. Legend says there’s a town that was way out there, maybe about fifty miles west. They say that it’s got a clean water source. But ain’t nobody heard nothin” from them people since they supposedly got outta here. So what does that tell you?”

  “That they never made it,” Sirius murmured. His shoulders drooped visibly, though it wasn’t as if he’d held high hopes for this crazy old man’s story. Just once, maybe, a glimmer of hope would have got him through the hours that he was probably to wait before they came to throw him at the mercy of the Council.

  “Never made it, died on the way, died when they got there, found somethin’ better, killed themselves with infightin’ from the lack of divine guidance. Either way, ain’t hide nor hair been seen or talked of them since. The higher ups don’t like those o” us that are old enough to remember their daddies talkin’ about it to be goin’ round sayin’ stuff about dissenters.”

  “Is that why you’re here?” Sirius thought for a moment, then spoke before the old man could answer. “Wait, aren’t you that crazy old guy that stands in the center square sometimes yelling about all men being created equal? How have you not been thrown out to the Sickening yet?”

  “Because that ain’t nearly as bad as what you’ve done, my boy. Mad old men are mad old men. An angry young man, now that’s a dangerous thing.”

  As though on cue, the bars to the cell, wrought out of scrap metal for their purpose a long time ago, made a deafening squeal as they slid open. Two Airborn guards clad in the red-brown attire that marked them out said nothing as they grabbed Sirius under each arm and dragged him from the cell. As he struggled to gain his footing and walk himself from the gaol, he heard the old man calling after him. “Spirits be with you, lad! You’re gonna need it!” The sound of harsh, barking laughter followed him, echoing down the hallway as he was forced out into the light.

  It was a day like every other he had lived through- blazing hot, the sun beating down without remorse. He had been left to stand in the center square, littered with debris from the previous night’s jubilations, tethered by the neck to the fountain and awaiting judgment. Slowly the square began to fill up with people, earth, air and Skyborn alike, united in their wish to see justice done upon the Dissenter. It was closer to noon than dawn before the council finally gathered; Sirius was sweating and shaking at the knees as his body began to heat to dangerous levels. At the wave of a lofty hand, one of the council members had some water taken to him, but he knocked it out of the guard’s hand and spat the last of his precious moisture out onto the ground.

  “Well. I think we can continue with the proceedings.” The Head councilman, Vox Firenze, stepped up to the stand. “Who stands accused, may he speak his name.”

  “Sirius, of family unit 2657.” Sirius spoke loudly and clearly, with pride in his tone, but his hands clenched when he heard a cry of dismay behind him that could only be his mother. He wasn’t sure that his family would come to see him judged, but it almost felt worse for them being there.

  “Does the accused know of what crime that he is brought here for?”

  “Dissent!” Sirius called out, raising his voice so that none could mistake him. “Dissenting against you trying to take my sister apart when you already took my brother from me!”

  There was a shocked silence. The tip of a vibro-spear, a wickedly sharp weapon powered by a small generator attached to the blade, made a small rivet of blood run down his spine from where the point dug into his back. Sirius didn’t flinch.

  “Your sister is Kora, yes?”

  “That’s her name, sir.” Sirius’ words dripped venom. The councilman smiled, reptilian, his pale, slightly flaking skin splitting somewhat underneath all the makeup as he did so.

  “Bring her out.”

  Sirius almost fell to his knees. Kora, head held high with poise and dignity, not throwing him so much as a glance, strode out from behind the long curtain and joined the councilman at the stand. He laid his long, spindly fingers upon her shoulder. Sirius felt sick. “Sweet child, is this man your brother?”

  “A dissenter is no brother of mine,” Kora spoke, voice ringing with all the clarity of silver bells, “but yes, we share the same family unit.” The wail that had come from the crowd had petered out into a light, devastated sobbing. Sirius’ heart almost split in two at the sound of it.

  “And you were one of the chosen hundred this harvest, were you not?”

  “I was.”

  “And how do you feel about this honor?”

  Kora tossed her hair back, which had been washed with fine oils and braided with brightly-colored beads. A crown of real flowers sat on her head.

  “I will ascend to the sky as my brother did, honored knowing that my body will join the purest and most spiritual of bodies in the skyscrapers.” Her small speech was so perfect that it could have been rehearsed. Through gritted teeth and a pulsing headache, Sirius bitterly thought that it most likely was. His knees shook.

  “Did you think nothing of your sister’s wishes? Of her piousness to our community, this great community that has shielded you all your life from the horrors beyond the walls?” the councilman was smiling now, his thin lips perked upwards. Reptilian. “Did you think nothing of our customs? Of the way in which we keep this proud city standing? Of the spirits that protect us all, whose anger you may have brought upon us? Have you no defense?”

  Sirius knew that he had already lost. He thought before he stood before this council of ancients with their parasols and their imperious faces that knowing this would bring him calm, but a desperate, furious cocktail of rage and fear bubbled in his gut. Each and every one of the people up on that stand had lived ten of his lifetimes, but in that moment he felt as though his very life was beneath the flabby fingers of eleven maleficent children. He opened his mouth to say something, anything; the great swelling of feeling in his chest tied a knot in his throat and to his horror tears began to burn his eyes. The councilman’s smile grew wider.

  “Then I believe that the community is in agreement. You, a dissenter that not only spits upon our sacred customs, putting all of us in danger of the wrath of the spirits, but tries to deny his own sister the spiritual ascension of being chosen that she accepted with such grace and dignity. You, who would bring shame upon your family unit were it not for the fact that it had already produced two such humble, loyal children, your brother who is with us always and your sister who is soon to join us. You are no longer a citizen of Ulead. Which path will you take away from the goodness and love of the community that you betrayed?”

  Sirius was silent for a moment, his eyes affixed upon the ancient cobbles of the city square. The white hot anger that had roared in him like a beast from tales of centuries past retreated, growling, leaving behind an emptiness. He raised his gaze to meet the watery blue eyes of his judge.

  “I’ll take the path into the Sickening.”

  A shocked silence spread out fr
om the crowd, rippling as it would if one were to drop a pebble into a bowl of precious water. The councilman shrugged, almost as though impressed.

  “May the will of the spirits be done!”

  “The will of the spirits! The will of the spirits! The will of the spirits!”

  The sound of his mother’s grief-stricken cry echoed in his mind a thousand times louder than the cacophony of chanting that almost drowned it out. His gaze met his sister’s as she was lead away gently by androgynous, matronly figures dressed in white. She looked over her shoulder at him for a moment, her eyes brimming with tears and saucer-wide with fear. He didn’t even see the wave of the councilman’s hand that signaled to the Airborn guards stood behind him, five vibro spears trained on the back of one young man, to place a sack over his head and drag him through the jeering crowd to his fate. He realized with a jolt that Kora had been given no idea as to what would happen to him, especially with her conviction.

  Poor Kora.

  Once out of sight of citizens and superiors alike, they removed his boots. Good boots like that had at least a few more years in them; what was the sense wasting them on a dead man, they’d laughed. He was prodded, shoved, even tripped over the rubble and through the narrow caves made by toppled buildings and collapsed walls towards the very edge of Ulead domain. The wall, twelve feet high and sectioning Ulead from the rest of the crumbling city beyond, allowed them through with the screeching of machinery as the mighty gate was parted. Sirius’ breath became shallow and his pace stumbling, reeling with terror. He had never seen the other side of the wall, and the Sickening was the setting of each and every tale of horror and monstrosity that his culture had to offer. His hands clenched were they lay bound behind his back and sweat plastered his tunic to his back.

  “Well see, we have to leave you three things. A canteen o’water, a knife, and a day’s food. Otherwise, it’s just an execution, and we’re Uleadians. We’re better than that, right boys? Fine upstanding Airborn lads that we are.” Sirius heard several chuckles, then a clattering as what he could only imagine was the sack with his name on it being thrown past the gates. “But see, I don’t trust a dirty dissenter as far as I could throw him. If we unbag and untie you now, who’s to say you wouldn’t turn the knife on one of us? We’d slice you up for sure, but you could really hurt somebody. Wouldn’t want that now, would we? Good luck getting yourself free before the mutants and monsters get you!”

  He almost felt the boot slammed into his back leave it’s perfect print upon his skin. He cried out and fell forward, helpless to stop himself, his face slamming into the stone and dirt past the gate. More laughter. Another screech sounded as the gate began to squeal shut behind him… but if despair hadn’t taken hold so viciously, he may have heard the ominous click-clacking sound of something with long, hard claws scrabbling up the side of the wall. Half a yowl, half a growl, a guttural challenge ripped through the air.

  “Wait.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh spirits, no! Please- AAAAAH!”

  An ear splitting howl of challenge, a noise more bone-chilling than Sirius had ever heard before, echoed off the landscape of degrading concrete and rubble. He heard the chug-chug-ROAR of vibro spears being activated, but this was quickly followed by the scuttle of dozens of more claws scrambling over stone, and a series of loud clangs as weapons were abandoned and left, motor still running. Their wielders’ screams grew faint as they fled.

  Sirius heard the clack-clacking come closer. Something thin and sharp, which the boy, paralyzed in fear, could only imagine was the long proboscis of a great and terrible insect, embedded itself in his neck. He thrashed in protest, before suddenly his world went cold, vacant, and finally dropped into floating nothingness.

  ***

  “Xan?”

  It was the first word out of his mouth, the confused, chilled haze that had settled over his mind, making some implacable dream bleed into his reality.

  “Did you give him too much?”

  “No! I’m not stupid!”

  At first Sirius was struck with the terrifying thought that he must have gone blind, because when he opened his eyes his world was entirely cloaked in darkness. Further investigation of his surroundings by thrashing around like a worm, his hands still bound behind his back, reminded him that he was still hooded, the burlap sack obscuring his view. But whoever the voices on the other side were, they were certainly human, not the monstrosities that his mind had created.

  Suddenly the bag was pulled from his head and the light beyond, despite being dimmed and flickering, almost blinded him for a moment. As he blinked blearily and looked around, he saw himself surrounded by… children.

  There were a couple of kids his age; one, in particular, a girl with a close-shaved head and a vibro-spear poised and ready despite his prone state. Others were a little to a lot younger; the smallest couldn’t be more than nine or ten years old. Past the inquisitive, mistrustful faces, he could see that they were in a great tunnel, a fire and some other proof of domicile dotted here and there. An enormous vehicle, bigger than anything Sirius had seen before, listed on its side against a great, long depression in the tunnel. The ground was mostly rubble. Stairs that may or may not have long ago lead up to the surface were blocked, the ceiling continuing as a massive mound of debris covered them, blocking that exit. No way to escape. Nowhere to run.

  “Where am I?” he murmured, his head aching the minute he spoke. A few of the youths looked at each other, before the older girl shrugged and stepped forward.

  “You’re underneath the city. Sorry, but we needed to get you here as quickly as possible and we didn’t know if we could trust you yet.” She didn’t sound very apologetic. Sirius bristled.

  “Trust me? You’re the ones that kidnapped me!”

  “Saved your life. You don’t know what’s out in the Sickening. What on the earth possessed you to choose THAT instead of a short death out in the desert?” Sirius opened his mouth to speak but she shushed him instantly. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. You’re here with us, now.”

  “And who’s us? What was that monster I heard at the gate?”

  A ripple of laughter ran through the underground encampment. Several of the youth nudged each other and grinned, before one reached behind a crate and drew out what looked like a gas mask that had been forged and painted to look like wide, staring eye and a set of razor-sharp teeth. A boy with a scar across his lip put it to his face. The same eerie roar that had sent the Airborn guards running filled the cavern.

  “Stop that,” the girl scolded him, but a wolfish grin appeared on her face. In the firelight her dark, sharp features and bright amber eyes made her look like some sort of avenging spirit as she spoke. “You don’t recognize any of us?”

  Now that she mentioned it, looking around, Sirius remembered how since the last Harvest, sketches of missing children had been peppering the streets. The callers in the street that announced community affairs had said that the number of kids aged twelve to nineteen had gone up to twenty-five in the past four years. Now Sirius saw all of them, stood around him and looking pleased with themselves.

  “What the hell is going on here? Where am I?” he demanded.

  “We call ourselves the Missing Ones. And you’re right under Ulead. I’m Tyna. You’ll learn everyone’s names eventually, but we all know yours, Sirius. We saw your trial. We saw you at the festival. We think you’re just the right man for our numbers. What do you think?” she addressed the small crowd, who whooped and nodded in approval. Sirius shook his head, which was starting to hurt.

  “I can’t be here. I have to save my sister.”

  Tyna gave the rest of the group a look, and they instantly dispersed, going about their routines and chores. She knelt beside Sirius, using a crude knife to cut the cord bound around his wrists. He rubbed them sullenly.

  “We save as many as we can, but for some, it’s just too late,” she murmured. Sirius looked over her shoulder, refusing to meet h
er gaze, and ended up catching another instead. A younger girl, features an almost identical mirror of Tyna’s but small and willowy instead of tall and wiry. Her eyes, even brighter and warmer than Tyna’s, stared out from beneath a hood of gray linen. The way she watched him made Sirius feel as though she was looking through him, boring a hole in his spirit.

  “What if it was her?” he murmured in Tyna’s ear, putting two and two together. Tyna turned to look at her sister, her jaw working slightly.

  “That’s different. We-”

  “Are Airborn, so have never had to know the pain of watching your siblings taken away and taken apart,” Sirius snapped. “Never had to know what it’s like to work till you’re half dead, have babies, and watch as the monsters in the sky eat them up.”

  “Listen, we’re under the Skyborn just as much as you are,” Tyna bit back. Several of the youths around them looked up to see what was going on. Sirius stared at her, incensed.

  “Are you joking with me right now?” he growled. “You seriously think that you Airborn have got it just as bad?”

  “I didn’t say-”

  “Yes you did.” Sirius got to his feet, and each and every one of the youth around them readied their weapons for a fight. But all that Sirius did is walk to the edge of the firelight and sit himself down with his head in his hands. Two days. All he had was two days, to somehow, as one sick boy, to save his sister from the jaws of those that through the consumption of hundreds upon hundreds of children before her, had made themselves gods. Those terrible gods that had taken his brother from him. And now, he would lose her too.

  Not caring who heard or saw him, with a sob that wracked his entire frame, he started to cry.

  Chapter Three

  “Sirius.”

  He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but now he jerked awake, looking around for a sign of danger. Tyna was staring down at him, a hand on his shoulder. “Come on. We’re moving out.”