It was at this point that they began to hear voices in the tunnels behind them. The youth bringing up the rear, Missing Ones and Harvested alike, began to panic and push forward slightly.
“Tyna-”
“Tyna-”
“TYNA!”
The final one came in a scream as Ziggy whipped around to see an Airborn guard staring him straight in the face. Their weapons crashed together with a spray of sparks, and the rumbling sound of vibro-spears filled the air. As this happened, Doki, despite the fever and pain, opened her eyes to see Jon looming over her- her first instinct being to grab up the nearest thing to her, a bloodied scalpel that they had been using in the desperate attempt to save her leg, and slashed across the back of his right knee. He howled in pain and went down, clutching the injury. On instinct, the guards around him surged forth, four of them bringing their spears up-
And down, straight into the dying girl.
A terrible sound rang through the chamber. It reminded the boy of the time he’d seen a dog get hit by one of the Skyborn’s bikes, and its insides spilled all over the outside. Sirius stopped and stared. The world went quiet save for a ringing in his ears. He watched Doki go limp and stop squirming- stop screaming. The blades of the vibro-spears came back to their owners slick with blood.
Sirius opened his mouth, howled in challenge and leaped forth. That indescribable something stirred in his chest once more, but this time it burned with an agonizing fury that had his blood bubbling, his arm raising. He smashed the cudgel into the face of the first Airborn he met, sending the young man flying jaw-first into the concrete. The blade of a spear came from the gloom, whirring round just inches from his head, before it was intercepted by another. Tyna had stepped into the Airborn soldier’s guard, his blade now incapacitated, his body wide open.
“NOW, Sirius!” she hollered, and Sirius wasted no time in delivering a devastating blow to the chest. Another down. A victorious scream went up from the terrified youths behind them and they split in two, half surging forward to connect violently with the men and women in the cavern, the others pushing back against those that had followed them down the tunnels. The roaring of the spears” motors and the screams of the wounded echoed over the clashing of metal. Those that had been taken hostage rolled away from the action and surged to take up arms, but it wasn’t long before everyone began to tire.
Suddenly, a flaming streak flew through the air and exploded in the massive campfire as it burned down to embers, sending splashes of flame up the backs of the Airborn guards trying to defend their position. Several of them were sent howling back down the tunnels, alight, while the others started to back away. Tyna’s father was nowhere to be seen.
“Tyna, we have to get out of here!” Ziggy called out just as he slashed another guard across their unarmored chest, sending them to their knees before kicking them onto their backs and delivering the final blow. “More are coming!”
In the disorganized fray, the bodies littering the cavern, the flames that were starting to lick at the bedrolls and piles of stolen equipment, their leader was faltering. She stared around for the next attacker, eyes wide and wild, swinging her spear this way and that as three of them stalked around her, trying to get into her guard and restrain her. To take the commander’s daughters alive was the only option- but they would not be taken so easily. Wielding an enormous blade that looked more like a meat cleaver, Celeste ran forward and buried it into the back of one of the guards. The insulated handle helped protect her small hands from the electric current that surged through the blade, sending the guard to their knees, jerking and spamming and screaming.
The screaming was so loud. There were so many. Sirius looked around wildly, trying to locate his sister, finding her crouched over the body of one of the Harvested that had been unlucky enough to be mistaken for an armed threat. She was weeping. He made his decision, thundering forward and scooping her up by her midriff. This time she didn’t beat her fists against him or protest, simply slumping in defeat and terror.
“MISSING ONES! TO ME!” Sirius bellowed, his voice sounding mightier to his own ears than it ever had done before. He ran to the pile of supplies, hurriedly slinging as much as he could onto his person as possible, before turning to the rest. It was bad. So many now lay on the ground, groaning or crying for their mothers and fathers. Sirius knew that there was nothing they could do. They had to get out. “TO THE TUNNELS! NOW!”
Some obeyed. Some stayed, throwing down their weapons to the floor and themselves to their knees, resolve broken and ready to surrender. Tyna, Ziggy, Celeste, and half a dozen of each of the Missing Ones and the Harvested were all that were left as they made their escape. The Airborn were hot on their heels, but as they passed the mouth of the yawning tunnel that would take them out of the city and away from this nightmare, Celeste turned and delved deep into her knapsack.
“CELESTE!” Tyna screamed, turning to yell at her sister to join them, but the skinny girl raised something in her hand high above her head and brought it down hard before her. A wall of flame erupted and bathed the Airborn chasing her in its savage glow. They fell back, screaming as the others had. Sirius was sure he could hear the sound of maniacal laughter coming from the smaller girl. “Celeste, NOW!”
She joined them, and they fled, the sound of their dying comrades and those they had left behind ringing in their ears. They didn’t dare use a lamp yet, hurriedly feeling their way along the tunnel with their hands pressed against the walls, fearing what could be waiting for them in the gloom. They made their way in silence. Shocked, sickened, already exhausted, by the time they saw daylight up ahead of them it was almost unwelcome.
Tyna stopped them before they went any further. She seemed about to say something, hand out for them to halt, but slowly dropped to the ground and rested her back against the wall of the tunnel. She drew her legs up and wrapped her long arms around them, burying her face in her knees and starting to sob. A few others cried with her, but none reached out for another. Every one of them, even Sirius and Celeste who were among the few dry-eyed after the ordeal, seemed as though they had just aged fifty years having seen the horror they had just escaped from. Sirius’ grip loosened on her sister and she fell forward, only to be caught by Ziggy, who quickly earned himself a sharp slap to the face.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Why is she even here, Sirius?!” Ziggy snapped in a sudden bout of rage.
“Shhh. Idiot.” Celeste stepped forward, laying her hand on the boy’s arm. “You don’t know who could be listening.”
“Oh, who cares!” he bit back. “Look around you. There’s…” he did his math. “There’s thirteen of us left! And who else but me and Sirius thought to grab water? Food? There’s not nearly enough for all of us! Not if we’re gonna be out there for days! Maybe even forever!”
“You don’t know that. Sirius says that the town is out there. It’s a two day walk. We will find a-”
“We’ll do what now? That back there, that was our way! Sticking together! Fighting together! And we left half our number back there to die!”
“Ziggy, you need to-”
“I don’t need to do anything, Sirius, I’m gonna die!” the boy’s eyes were manic and full of pain. “I’ve watched enough of my friends go today that I don’t even care anymore. It’s over! We’re through!” Sirius and Ziggy stood, glaring at one another. Tyna stopped crying, furiously rubbing her eyes and pulling herself up, ignoring Sirius’ offered hand. “And what’s more, it’s all his fault-”
Before Ziggy could finish that sentence, Tyna made a short, sharp noise for silence.
“We’re not through until we say we’re through.” Her voice was gravel and blood, her eyes aflame. “We’re not letting anyone we’ve left behind die in vain. We are more than that. We are the Missing Ones. We took care of ourselves when they told us all our lives that the only way to survive was to live within their putrid system.”
“If the spirits willed it, we would all have
died or been taken back there. We can come for those we have lost, but now, we must go on.” Celeste reached into her pocket and drew out the gnarled tooth that she had pulled from the monster’s gums for herself. Sirius suddenly felt the presence of his own, tucked away in the breast pocket of his tunic. “We do not falter. We do not stop. We keep fighting until the spirits will otherwise, or we are already dead.”
There was no way they were going on without rest, though, and Sirius made sure that everyone had a short drink of water and at least a tomato before they even thought about getting up again. They listened with absolute paranoia for the sound of voices or booted feet, watched the tunnel behind them for the slightest hint of light. Meanwhile, Sirius took it upon himself to step forth to the blinding opening before them, the sun now two hours into the sky. What he saw almost took his breath away.
Having spent all his life within the city walls, Sirius had never seen the close reaches of the Sickening, nor been beyond the western walls to the desert. But the pipe that opened out to a rough, rusted edge, sticking out like a broken bone from a mass of crumbling concrete, showed him what looked like the end of the world. Sand stretched in rolling dunes as far as he could see, the dark mountains in the distance providing little more than the illusion that the landscape ended at that jagged tear in the skyline. Beyond that… who knew. He’d never even had a view that extended this far from the windows of his home. Right now, it looked like nothing more but the wasteland of slow, agonizing death that he’d always been taught that it was, but looking back over his shoulder, he steeled himself. He saw Tyna desperately trying to hold her ground against her fear and sadness, Celeste gently talking Ziggy down from his panic. He saw Kora, who had huddled in a bundle with the other Harvested, their pure white tunics and flowery crowns ragged and flecked with blood. Kaz and Zak, the twins both of indeterminate gender- spirits only knew how they hadn’t been separated- were trying their best to soothe the frightened kids, but their own eyes were haunted and strangely vacant. What everyone needed now was strength. And no matter how badly he needed it from someone else… someone had to bring it.
“Alright. Let’s get up. Let’s get moving. Come on.” He puffed up his chest, straightened his shoulders and back, and felt for all the world like an idiot. “I know how everyone feels. But to stop is to invite death at this point. And we haven’t suffered this much and fought this hard to just end up on the end of a guard’s spear. If there’s something out there for us, spirits willing, we’ll find it. Come on.”
Tyna shot him a grateful glance, and they took the front of the convoy together. The rescued kids took a little coaxing, but soon they were up themselves, some needing linen bound around bare and bleeding feet to ensure that they could walk over the burning sand. Sirius didn’t dare to look back once they had all been helped down from the six foot drop from the pipe’s edge to the ground. He felt that if he did so any more than was necessary, his own morale would be gone before they’d taken twenty steps. Ulead had been his childhood, his coming of age, his whole life. Leaving it behind, despite how much he hated it, may as well have been as strange and alien as a bird burrowing under the sand. To let it show would be to betray THEM, though, and THEY needed him; so he kept his face plain and blank, kept that stance as straight and solid as he could.
They seemed a pathetic company- under armed, under equipped, and, as each and every one of them felt, heading for their doom. The walk started off uneventful, though the sun climbing higher and higher into the sky had one or two of them flagging before it was even noon. Tyna, having been trained for short desert treks, taught them how to use the garments they had to cover their heads to alleviate at least a little of their suffering. After a couple of hours, Sirius, by chance looked back at the city, which was still enormous and imposing against the sky, to see a small cloud of dust approaching them.
“Tyna… what’s that,” he asked, pointing. Tyna stepped back to meet him, shielding her eyes with one hand.
“Oh no. Oh…” She grabbed Sirius by the arm in reflex. “Behind that dune. Now. COME ON!” came the sharp bark. “No, not over it! Around it! They’ll see us!”
They ran, slipping and sliding over the treacherous sand. Once behind the dune and shielded from sight of the city, Tyna pulled them all down until they were laying on the burning ground. At least where the sun was, it provided the smallest amount of shade, but the sound of sand bikes and one or two other vehicles roaring towards them put any thought of relief out of their minds.
When the rumbling of engines stopped, it couldn’t have been more than half a hundred feet away. The wind had begun to pick up, sending stinging grains scattering along the desert. Tyna motioned for Ziggy to climb with her up to the point of the dune, to peer over carefully and see. Sirius watched them instantly duck down.
“I thought your little informant told you they were heading out to the desert. You idiot. There’s nobody here, and why on earth would they?”
Sirius recognized the voice from the Skyborn that had slapped him in the middle of the chop shop. His hands shook.
“The boy was in a cell with that mad old Airborn that yells in the city square. He’s one of the last that still holds onto that old rumor. It makes sense that ramblings about some kind of sanctuary would have any dissenter flying out into the sand.” It was Tyna’s father. His voice sounded strained with pain. Good. Sirius hoped that Doki had put him out of real action for a while.
“And I trust that you’ve had the old man pay for his flapping mouth?”
Oh no. Sirius looked up at Ziggy, who, from his place laying flat against the sand, he could already see was beginning to drop back into the terrified rage from the mouth of the tunnel.
“I don’t imagine what you mean, Sir. He’s already in the gaol.”
“Oh, please. You know exactly what I mean.” The sly little monster’s voice made Sirius’ neck prickle. “Have him dealt with. As soon as we return. I mean it, commander- this is a mess that you are going to be cleaning up for a long time. You’ll be lucky if that pretty badge isn’t gone from your lapel by the time night falls.”
Ziggy, instead of leaping over the peak of the dune and rushing them screaming as Sirius expected that he would, rested his head against the sand in defeat instead, narrow shoulders quivering. Sirius watched as Tyna placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Well, if they aren’t out here then they must be still in the city. We head back, post haste.”
Suddenly, there was a flash of movement beside him. He watched in shock as Celeste, her hand clamped over Kora’s mouth, put a dagger to his sister’s neck. Sirius motioned to get up, instinctively ready for a fight, but Celeste gave him such a look that he dropped right back down again, looking at Kora. She wouldn’t meet his eye. The engines rumbled to life once more and disappeared back to the city.
“What the hell was that?” Sirius demanded as Celeste dropped Kora, none too gently.
“She was about to scream,” the acolyte spat, nudging a defeated and dejected Kora with her boot. “Traitor.”
“All of you are the traitors!” Kora cried out, her green eyes filled with tears. “All of you! Don’t you care how many have died because of you? And for what? To ‘save” seven of us and drag us out here to die and our souls to become ghouls without our burial rites! I’ll be lost out here forever with all of YOU! Spirits damn you all!” Her tirade was stopped with a sudden, sharp slap around the face.
“What do YOU know about the spirits, you stupid little girl?!” Celeste boomed, voice ten times louder than Sirius had ever heard it. Ziggy and Tyna slid down the dunes.
“What the hell is going on?” Tyna demanded. Celeste simply gave a dismissive noise. Kora stared at the ground. Sirius did the same. “Right. Well, save your strengths. The hardest part is yet to come.”
“What do you mean, the hardest part?” Sirius asked cautiously. Tyna gave him a pitying look.
“The desert isn’t all sand, Sirius. They say there used to be a lake here, long ago...”<
br />
She dragged him up to climb the dune… and when he did so, he stared out at the landscape in horror. “When the lake dried up… it left that.”
As far as the eye could see past the ripples of heat that hazed over the horizon, past about another half a mile of sand dunes, was a wide, sprawling, crystal-white flat. No cover. No shade. No way of hiding from the cruelty of the sun.
Sirius swallowed heavily. It was going to be a long day.
Chapter Six
“I can’t. I can’t do it.”
Sirius looked back. The sun was at its highest point in the sky, glaring down like a vengeful god intent on setting the salt flats beneath their feet ablaze. The horizon ahead was almost indiscernible through the heat, jittering in front of his eyes whenever he made the mistake of putting them forward rather than concentrating on the ground in front. The wind, which he’d thought would have been a help against the almost unbearable heat, simply served to scorch them further, blowing tiny fragments of grit and sand over any exposed skin. “I can’t. I won’t.”
He stepped back a couple places in the convoy to the source of the suffering. Kaz- or was it Zak- had actually dropped to their knees with the strain of walking any further. Their twin tugged at them, none too gently.
“You have to. You need to. You’ll die out here, man, c’mon,” they murmured, struggling to pull the other to their feet.
“Have you been drinking?” Sirius asked as the others stopped to see what was going on. “…Zak?”
He’d guessed correctly. The twin on their knees looked up, the most pitiful expression on their face that Sirius could have ever hoped to not see on a person that one was trying to pull through the desert. Their lips were swollen and chapped. “Damn it, get them some water.”
Zak drank deeply, but couldn’t be allowed too much, moaning slightly as the canteen was pulled away from them. “We’ll take a break.”
“We can’t, Sirius, we’re sitting ducks out here. If they figure out that we gave them the slip and come back out, they can see us out here for miles. We have to get them up.”
Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction: The Missing Ones: A Dystopian Adventure Page 7