“For our children! For our children! For our children!”
A couple fainter shots ran through the air and felled citizens where they stood, but another was always ready to take their place, faces contorted in animalistic masks of rage. Sirius watched the chaos unfold with horror in his eyes and Tyna’s blood beginning to coat his hands. He had, he realized, no idea what to do.
“Hey kid!”
Someone called up to him. He looked down and saw a tall woman with a long mass of plaits in her hair. She reached up with well-tanned hands, stepping up onto the axle of the truck. “I’m a medic. Get her down to us, come on. We’ll take care of her, but if the bleeding isn’t stopped, she’ll die.”
The other Missing Ones helped them to pass down a groaning Tyna flittering in and out of consciousness. He watched as they carried her away from the action, his heart twisting and aching in his chest. If she dies…
He looked up to the tower and his mood turned black. For the first time since he’d knocked down a playground bully in his youth, his hands itched with the urge to hurt. To tear and rip and pound away at whoever it was responsible for hurting Tyna, hurting Kora, his friends, his family, for subjugating them and working them to death and depriving them of water while the Skyborn bathed in infinity pools lining the towers for as far as they could see…
“Sirius!”
Ziggy took hold of his arm, pistol clutched in one hand. “Sirius, we have to get out of here. Something’s coming. Something bad!”
“What the hell do you mean-” he began, but his jaw was grabbed by Ziggy and yanked until he was forced to look up at the buildings surrounding the square, not as tall or impressive as the towers, but providing a perfect vantage point for someone to look over the crowd. And someone indeed was. In fact, there were many figures now, each of them holding something that looked ominously like the fireworks that were set off just days before in celebration of the Harvest.
“Oh no.”
A shriek ripped through the air, followed by a BANG and a flash of light, as one projectile was sent spinning into the crowd. It hit several people, eliciting screams and howls of pain as it exploded and showered all around it with sparks. Some of the protesters hair, clothes and even skin caught fire. The scent of burning flesh filled the air.
“We’ve got to get up on those buildings!” Ziggy exclaimed hurriedly. “Missing Ones! To me! To me! We have a job to do!”
All around them the crowd was scattering and panicking, their aim to get into the tower momentarily lost as they struggled, some over each other, to get to safety. Another whiz-bang was let loose and wreaked havoc among the sea of bodies.
“How are we gonna get out of here?” Sirius yelled over the sound of the crowd, who were flooding this way and that so erratically that even the truck was rocking slightly. A few more were downed by invisible shooters and some were not as lucky as Tyna.
“Leave the truck, we go by foot! Pick a building, get up there, and put a knife in their backs! Go!”
Ziggy always did seem like he was blossoming into a leader, but there was no time for Sirius to be proud. Almost slipping on some unidentifiable gore spattered across the cobbles, he began pushing through the crowd towards his chosen building. It was a tall one of great white stone pillars, and looking up at it gave him a feeling of vertigo. But then the figure stood atop that very building fired another rocket into the crowd and sent it whizzing and colliding into person upon person, and his mind was set, the anger rising up like bile in his throat. He started his climb.
There weren’t many footholds, and much of the building’s outer structure crumbled a little beneath his grasping hands. One wrong move by the time he was twelve or so feet up would mean almost certain injury or even death, but he kept on pulling, grunting as sweat and grit irritated his eyes. Finally, he pulled himself up and over onto the roof, sweating and gasping. The figure firing the rockets hadn’t yet noticed him, but the closer Sirius crept, the more familiar they seemed.
“…Tamir?” he spoke, disappointment and sadness shot through his tone. Tamir turned to see his former underling, lowering the tinderbox he would have used to light the next rocket.
“Oh… Spirits. Sirius? I thought you were dead.”
“So did I, until I got out of here,” the boy replied, not too coldly.
“Well, you’re back now.”
“That I am.” He started walking around in a wide arc, but drawing ever closer. “You know what I have to do.”
“I do know what you have to do, lad. But you know that I have to do what I have to do. I’ve got orders.”
“So you stayed loyal.” Again, disappointment in Sirius’ tone, as though he had just found out that a distant relative that he rather liked the company of had died. “That was a mistake, Tamir. A big one.”
“We’ll see.”
With a flash of movement, Tamir had the rocket in his hand lit and rumbling as the fuse burned down, ready to send the rocket spinning into Sirius’ face. But the boy was ready. Swinging the cudgel in his hand, he sent it screaming back at its offending wielder. It hit Tamir dead in the chest and sent him, arms spinning uselessly against the ground coming up to meet him, over the edge. Sirius heard the wet thump and horrified screams that followed from below.
He stood there for a moment, slightly shell-shocked and trying with all his might to feel something. His long standing mentor and superior who had taught him all he knew, whose tutelage had even saved them from a dried-out death in the desert… or worse, they might have gone mad with thirst and tried to drink the well, getting sick and dying in agony. Tamir was the reason Sirius was alive today, in a roundabout way, and the boy had liked him despite his strictness.
But he had been prepared to stand between thousands of people and liberty. He had been prepared to see a regime continue where children were murdered to prolong the fetid lives of the horribly wealthy and powerful. Tamir would have been prepared to see that continue, and for that reason, Sirius felt nothing. Only pity. Only fear at how many others like Tamir might be in the city right now, and if they would be enough in number to stop them.
A bullet whistled past his head and he ducked, a little ineffectually, as it bounced off the roof under his feet with a ping. Quickly he scaled down from the building, not able to quite breathe properly until both booted feet were firmly planted on the ground. What a relief. Climbing really wasn’t his strong suit.
A sudden and ear-splitting crash sounded as someone finally toppled the fountain in the center of the square, sending broken rock and rubble everywhere. The fuel that would have sent the mighty flame of Ulead rocketing towards the sky began spilling all over the ground, soaking the boots and sandals and foot-wrappings of unsuspecting civilians. One stray spark from the rockets and people would truly go up in flames.
Sirius found himself separated from the other Missing Ones, looking around and seeing not a familiar face in sight. He watched as a couple of the Airborn wielding the fireworks screamed and were toppled from their respective buildings, but the victors were too far away from him to reach. He had no choice but to regroup at the truck…
All of a sudden, two large, calloused hands reached out from the crowd and grasped him by the shoulders. He whirled around, weapon raised high.
“…Dad!”
Samuel, Sirius’ father, embraced him roughly, for the first time since the boy could remember. He could feel the older man’s heart hammering against his own rib-cage.
“Thank the spirits you’re alive. They told us you were dead. Where’s your sister?”
Sirius’ face dropped and crumpled. The weight of Kora’s disappearance dropped onto his shoulders again. He felt weak. “…It’s alright. It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re alive. They have your mother.”
“What?”
“They took her after you disappeared, for the second time.” Samuel grabbed his shoulders again and broke the embrace, looking into his son’s eyes intently. “They said all sorts of things, that she’
d raised a terrorist, a dissenter, a shame upon the spirits. They have her in that tower. The head of the guard took her before the riots started. I don’t know where, but she’s there.” There was something in the older man’s face, a pleading to a braver soul to save the woman who, even after twenty-five years, was still the love of his life. “I… I don’t know what to do.”
“I do.” The boy’s face set in determination. “Don’t worry, dad. I’ll save her.”
He turned to exit through the crowd, but was stopped by Samuel grabbing at his wrist, an imploring expression on his face.
“Come back alive. I can’t lose you too.”
Sirius nodded, pulling away gently and shoving his way back to the truck. Ziggy met him there, sporting a black eye and a split lip alongside an expression of victory.
“You alright?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. But I have to get in the tower. They’ve got my mother.”
Ziggy’s face twisted in an expression of pity, but he was cautious.
“I don’t know, Sirius. If you go in there alone, you’ll be up against spirits know how many guards. Maybe even some of those Suborns that get taught how to kill real good. You won’t make it out alive. What do you think you’re going to do? How are you even going to get in there?”
Sirius thought for a moment, though it was hard to do so over the racket of chanting voices and commotion. Finally he came to a conclusion, pointing at the large vents that stuck out of the building a few stores up.
“I’ll do what we did to get into the Harvest chamber. I’ll go through the vents, and go from there.”
Ziggy looked as though he would do anything to stop his friend from putting himself in such stupendous danger, but he knew for a fact in the few days that he’d known Sirius that nothing was going to sway him once he made his mind up. Instead, he pulled out the pistol and handed it to the other.
“Here. I’ll show you how to use it, but after that, you’re on your own. Just remember to brace yourself and don’t pump the trigger, squeeze it. You got that?”
As Ziggy gave him a small crash course in using the firearm, as well as a handful of bullets, the crowd began to disperse slightly. A small group of people had moved from the center heading east; Sirius was almost distracted watching them.
“Where do you think they’re going?” he asked Ziggy, as he felt the fierce weight of the gun in his hand by tossing it from fingers to fingers. The younger boy forced his hand down onto the other’s to stop him waving it around so carelessly.
“Don’t be daft. And I don’t know. But I have a funny feeling that a certain guardhouse is in that direction.” His mouth split in a wicked grin. “If they take that, we’ve won. All the weapons, all their armor, it’ll be ours.”
“You going to go with?” Sirius asked as he made to leave. Ziggy considered it for a moment, before nodding.
“Yeah. Gotta be someone there that knows what they’re doing.”
The fires that had started by the fireworks rocketing into the crowd had begun to spread. One of the buildings that had caught was beginning to smolder, smoke billowing out of the windows. Sirius recognized it as the building that they’d broken into to save the Harvested; he could hear screams coming from inside.
“Selene! Frankie! Gather up some people to break into that place and get those kids out! Ziggy, you go, now, before someone makes a mistake that costs us this whole fight. I’m going alone.”
Before anyone could protest he was away through the crowd again, cramming himself through any gap he could find in his desperate bid to reach the tower. Several times an elbow or a fist would come out of nowhere, swung wildly by panicked people, hitting him all over. Someone ran past him, given a wide berth by the rest of the crowd, doused in the fuel from the fountain and burning to death. The animalistic shrieking and the smell of singed flesh filled Sirius’ head until he could barely think, the chaos getting the better of him and causing him to breathe in short gasps, starting to panic.
Once he reached the wall of the tower, the ground around it littered with broken pots and other various projectiles that had been launched ineffectually at the building, the crowd was pressing him against it. With a few shouted pleas, however, he was given space, was hoisted up onto the shoulders of some of the more sensible members of the mob and launched towards the first handhold. He grabbed it, almost fumbling and falling, but managed to pull himself up to the next. A cheer ran through the crowd, heartened at the sight of one of their own scaling this symbol of oppression, although none of them had the faintest idea what it was exactly that he was doing.
Getting into the building was easy. The grate to the first vent he found clattered to the ground far below and he crawled inside, pulling himself forward with both hands as the gun laid dormant in his knapsack. He heaved himself through those darkened tunnels, his mind dominated with the thought that every moment that he was not by his mother’s side, she could be paying for his crimes against the city with her life. The thought spurred him on, a set expression of determination on his chiseled face.
What he hadn’t bargained for, however, was the venting system being unable to take his weight all the way through. One wrong move, too much weight placed on one part of the steel tunnels, and suddenly he was down and through. Despite there being nobody around in the pitch-black room he’d fallen into, his face burned with humiliation. How embarrassing.
He picked himself up, brushing the dust and sand from his clothes, before looking around. He seemed to be in some sort of supply closet, surrounded by makeshift mops made of metal poles and strips of fabric. Trying not to make too much noise, he found the handle of an ancient door and gave it a pull. It came open instantly without the resistance of a lock, leading into a hallway of blinding whitewashed walls. What floor was he even on? Sirius couldn’t tell.
What little electricity was used in the city, most of it was used here. The bulbs flickered slightly but provided plenty of light as he crept down the corridors, unable to read the signs plastered to the walls so unable to know exactly where it was he was going. Finally the hallway ended, leading through double doors whose glass windows revealed a sick, cold blue light emanating from inside. With fear writhing slightly in his gut for some reason he could not place, Sirius grabbed up his gun and placed his palm against the door, pushing it open with bated breath.
What he found inside horrified him to such an extent that he fell back through the doors, clutching his mouth with his free hand in a desperate bid not to throw up. Something urged him back inside, however. Whether it was curiosity or a need to believe what he thought he’d just seen, he stepped forward again, and entered the room this time.
All around him, the walls were lined with tanks, big and small, preserving something horrible in each with a viscous blue fluid that bubbled around the contents. Sirius looked closer, seeing the outlines of hearts, brains, limbs, even entire bodies of youths from about sixteen to the age of eighteen. Sirius recognized vaguely some faces that he used to know, which made it worse, the disgust roiling in his gut threatening to lose him what little food he’d managed to cram into himself that day before the fateful journey home to Ulead.
He walked past the tanks, sadness and revulsion plain on his features, until one tank caught his attention so fiercely that he stopped in his tracks. Another familiar face, the most familiar face. A face that he had woken up just to see for all his life until that day just over four years ago when it had been taken from his life forever. It was Xan- but not all of him. Some of his nervous system had been stripped from his flesh, his blood drained from the body, until all that was left was a head, four sheared limbs and a torso broken open. The contents of his rib-cage were gone. Despite the gentle expression of sleep on Xan’s face, his heart had been torn from its cradle.
Sirius fell to his knees. He was so caught up in his horror, his absolute devastation, that he did not hear the door being pushed open, nor the booted feet pressing themselves to the ground in a bid to not disturb him.
When the figure behind him, shadowed in the low light of the laboratory, was but a few feet away, it spoke.
“Oh, Sirius. You know, technically, he’s still alive, right?”
Sirius whirled around, eyes burning with tears of rage and sorrow.
“YOU.”
Tyna’s father smirked, passed his spear from hand to hand in a threat display, but made no move to attack. Yet. He was toying with the boy, stalking him, trying to see a sign of weakness or failure. Anything that he could use.
“It’s the fluid, you see. Preserves living tissue. Of course, everything you ever knew of your dear, dear brother is long gone. He’s brain-dead. Nothing more than a mindless lump of life, ready for when the next Skyborn needs a transplant or this or that tweaked and pulled so they can live another fifty years of miserable, slovenly life.”
“This… this is what they do to us? And you’ve known all this time! You’ve been letting them do it! Working for them!”
“Oh, please, don’t give me that display,” Jon shot back, no longer toying with the boy, his expression cold. “We all have to learn how to get along with our lot in life some way or another, Sirius. People like you… and my daughters… they have a fire in them that doesn’t let them. But it is far, far better to fade away than to burn out like a flare. Because once I snuff you out, history will forget about you. You will have contributed nothing.”
“Where’s my mother?!” Sirius snarled, pointing the gun directly between Jon’s eyes. Those eyes flashed with fear for a moment, and the older man took a step back, but he composed himself soon after with ease.
“Why, at home, tending to her other children, like any good parent would.”
“You’re a liar. My father said-”
“Oh yes, your father. They’re quite the pair of model citizens, your parents. Of course, it took a little threatening to get him to turn you in and send you here, mainly what we’d do to that angelic little baby of your family’s if he didn’t cooperate.”
Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction: The Missing Ones: A Dystopian Adventure Page 11