No one said anything for several seconds, and then Trent turned to face me. Arms back across his chest, the move not defensive but more contemplative. He stared at me for a suspended moment, and then he whispered quietly, “Care to test a theory?”
I arched a brow, but nodded my head; just once. I was still a little angry.
He reached forward and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. My traitorous body betrayed me; swaying into his touch willingly. I tried to straighten, to pull back, but Trent shook his head. Minutely. But I saw it. I also saw the hunger in his eyes. A hunger that hadn’t diminished in all the time I’d known him. Just intensified, like a fire burning out of control. Banked on occasion, but an inferno when let free.
There was no denying Trent desired me, but what with his behaviour lately, I sometimes wondered if he did in fact love me.
“Baby,” he murmured. “You are everything.”
I searched his face for a clue, for a hint that he wasn’t acting. He looked sincere. But he was putting on a show, of that I was certain.
“This is hardly the place or time,” Cardinal Beck interrupted. “We are exposed here. If these urchins have backup, we’re sitting ducks.”
Trent offered him a growl, his hand slipping to the back of my neck possessively. And here was the protective instinct kicking in again, I thought.
But then the children moved. En masse, surging up and growling. At Beck. A bigger ‘back off’ he couldn’t have received.
Trent smiled. His eyes on me and not the ragged kids.
“They understand,” he said.
“They understand body language,” I argued.
“Yes and no,” he said, pulling away with a soft stroke of his finger over my cheek. “They appreciate a good love story, but there is understanding of our language to some degree.”
His hand slipped into mine, then he pulled me down into a crouch before the children. Bringing us to their height. They stilled, but didn’t pull back. Anticipation and curiosity shone from their eyes. A sense of greed poured from their little bodies.
This close I could see their injuries, the disabilities they lived with, that they could have lived with since birth. It was hard to tell. This environment would not have been conducive to a healthy lifestyle. Danger would have lurked at every pass. I also had trouble identifying what was wrong with them. In Wánměi we didn’t suffer like this. Upper lips split so wide the teeth inside were missing. Feet pointing in the wrong direction to such a degree it was clear the children walked on their ankles. Some had hands missing. Some had wisps of hair on their head as though they were eighty. Bones at odd angles. Eyes milky white. Skin covered in open sores.
This close my heart weeped.
“What’s happened to them?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“There are parts of Lunnon,” Calvin said in my ear, “that should not be seen.”
“This happened because they went there?” I queried. When none of the Cardinals, nor Trent and Alan, looked confused at my question, I knew Calvin had made his comment to everyone wearing an earpiece.
“This happened because they were born too near them,” Calvin said softly.
“All of this?” Beck asked. I hadn’t realised he’d come up behind me. And as my hand was still in Trent’s, I felt Trent stiffen at the Cardinal’s proximity. I was sure it was his proximity to me.
But Trent didn’t react, other than to hold my hand tighter. Then he forced his punishing grip on my fingers to loosen. The effort required looked painful. He was trying, I’d give him that. And somehow it made a difference. Somehow it made it easier to believe.
The confession had been delivered as an act; the rebel leader pretending to be contrite. The irony was the words had been honest.
I squeezed his hand back.
“Life here would not be easy,” Calvin was saying. “Born in the shadow of such devastation. Forced to survive in a world already half dead. Why they stay is a mystery.”
“They have no way to navigate the ocean,” Alan offered.
“Where there is a will, there is a way,” Calvin said cryptically.
I watched the children watching us. They didn’t shuffle in their seats as the young of Wánměi so often did. They didn’t look elsewhere when their attention span short circuited. They watched with an intensity that puzzled me. Not scared, but wary. Not aggressive, but tightly coiled.
They’d attack given half the chance. But they understood the threat of the Cardinals’ laser guns. Still, their interest piqued my own. They were waiting for something.
Despite their physical injuries, they were intelligent of mind. Maybe Trent was right. Maybe they understood more than body language. But what tongue did they speak?
I leaned over slightly and placed a hand to the centre of Trent’s chest. He automatically lifted his free hand to cup mine, holding it against his heart without conscious thought. Yes, actions spoke louder than words. But I needed the children to speak.
“Trent,” I said. Then repeated it. I pulled my hand from his grip, feeling the cool air as soon as his heat left me, and laid it flat against my own chest. “Lena,” I added. Repeating my name again for good measure.
Then I slowly, so very slowly, shuffled forward, reaching out my hand to the closest child. He had dark hair, not wispy in the slightest, but his upper lip was split, leaving his mouth constantly open. It looked painful, but he didn’t show it, if it was. He watched, fascinated, as my hand came closer. Not moving. Barely breathing.
And then my fingers reached his chest.
His clothes were rough, hard where they should have been soft. Stiff with dirt and a life lived underground and inside a broken city. I could feel his ribs through thin skin. His eyes met mine, big pools of dark brown liquid. This precious little child didn’t move a muscle. He let me touch him, almost as though in awe.
I raised my eyebrows in question, but when he didn’t say a word, I pulled my hand back. Watching as his body followed before he could stop it. I touched Trent again. Faster this time. Desperate to have that contact with the child again.
“Trent,” I said. Then tapped my chest. “Lena,” I added, returning my hand, forcing myself to slow down, back to the child’s chest.
I tapped it twice, leaning down, meeting his eyes, brows arched in question.
“You?” I whispered.
He whispered something back. It could have been a mimic of what I’d just said. ‘You’ but different, encumbered by his damaged upper lip. I wondered if he could talk at all. Then wondered if I’d chosen the wrong child to try to reach.
But this one had called to me. So small. So filthy. So… fragile. So broken needlessly.
“You?” I said again, slightly louder, more probing.
“Nirbhay,” he blurted, and then a torrent of words followed. The name was one I recognised. D’awan. But the words that flowed afterwards were foreign.
Part Anglisc. Part D’maru. And part something else altogether.
“What’s he saying?” Cardinal Beck asked.
“Shhh,” I snapped, leaning closer, trying to decipher the child’s stumbling words.
The other children moved toward him, as if to protect. The Cardinals all tensed.
And then Calvin said, “Uripean. There are hints of Teiamanisch in amongst the Anglisc and D’maru. Their language has evolved to include all three.”
“A pidgin Anglisc,” Alan added.
“Yes,” Calvin agreed. “I am attempting to extrapolate the parameters and will have a translation formula prepared in a few minutes.”
I smiled at the child, as his friends started jabbering away in the same multi-language as he had been. Nodding my head and encouraging them, as if I understood. And then I felt the child’s hand slip into mine softly.
His fingers were calloused. A hard nodule protruded from three of his knuckles. But a more promising sensation there had never been. There was hope here. There was a chance that we could achieve what we’d failed with their older co
unterparts. Children are such forgiving creatures. So open to change and progress, where their elders are stuck fast in their upbringing.
I held my breath as Calvin worked silently in the background, promise an emotion I gladly received.
And then my Shiloh announced, “I have it. Translating now.”
It took a second for Calvin to isolate my child’s voice from the rest, but I knew it was his translation that I eventually heard.
Because as he tugged on my hand evermore urgently, his young voice becoming desperate, Calvin said in our ears, “They are coming. They are coming. They are coming.”
Nine
And The Plan?
Trent
A moment’s panic set in. Not our usual SOP. But Calvin’s words in our ears had done a number. It didn’t help that the kid holding Lena’s hand was getting quite agitated. Tugging her towards the deeper, darker shadows of the tunnel. Urging her on in that strange language they all used and were frantically muttering.
None of them raised their voices, and that was perhaps what set my body in motion. Had they screamed, I would have forced myself to take charge. To shut them up in any manner possible. Disregarding what they said in order to calmly control the situation.
But no assessment was necessary. They had decided to warn us, a warning they delivered in muted tones but with urgency. A warning that skittered down my spine and set alarm bells off inside my head.
They are coming.
As soon as Calvin had translated Nirbhay’s words, all the creepy crawlies had chimed in, backing him up. Unanimously agreeing to help us.
Although, as they’d clearly trapped the trappers, maybe this was all still part of the act.
I couldn’t tell. They weren’t any enemy I’d ever come up against. Wánměi is not exactly full of deformed, under-nourished children.
“Who’s coming?” a Cardinal demanded, as the panic still swirled around us.
“It’s a trap,” Lena advised steadily, making it obvious that she’d come to the same conclusion as me. She stood up, hand still clasped in Nirhbay’s, face set, body in liquid-like motion. She was always such a joy to watch move. Like a dancer with lethal abilities. I watched as she checked her own laser gun, attached to her upper thigh, and then her eyes found me.
“Very clever,” I murmured, checking my gun too. “But if it’s u-Pol they forgot one thing.”
“And that is?” Beck demanded.
“Never work with children or animals,” I muttered, powering up my gun and letting the whine of electronics punctuate that statement.
“Movement aboveground,” Calvin advised through the earpieces. The fact he was including us again meant things had turned south pretty quickly. Until he’d started translating the kids’ words, he’d been ominously silent in Alan’s and my ears.
I wasn’t sure I was entirely happy about the change up. But with an unknown threat approaching, a terrain we weren’t familiar with, and creepy crawlies as our only allies, I’d take any help I could get.
“Let’s go,” I announced. “I’d rather be on the move than standing here when they breach The Underground.”
“And if these children are leading us into a dead-end where the u-Pol are waiting?” Beck asked, all snark and then some.
“Then you better be ready,” Alan muttered, shouldering past the Cardinal, his own laser gun fired up and waiting.
The kids knew the layout, had obviously covered this ground a time or two before. They scampered over debris, ducked under low lying fallen beams, skirted more dangerous areas; basically provided a crash course in underground survival techniques.
I watched as Lena took it all in. Each move they made. Each compensated for injury. They may have looked like something out of a horror movie, but they didn’t let it slow them down one bit.
Which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, because the speed in which they were travelling meant something.
“Who’s up there, Calvin?” I muttered, scraping my hand against a rough rock wall and feeling skin peel. I flexed my fingers once I’d gotten my balance back, but the sting of whatever coated the wall down here set my teeth on edge. How far were we from those no-go areas of Lunnon?
“Night has fallen, it is difficult to see anything on satellite imagery,” the Shiloh answered.
As far as plans went, this one sucked beyond all comprehension. I shook my head, angry at myself for allowing us to get caught in such a predicament and, I’ll admit, angry at Lena for getting herself into such a situation. Again.
This was not going to end well.
We needed backup, but as all the Cardinals were down here with Lena, and the only person I trusted back at the base was Si, that left just one conclusion. And Lena was not gonna like it.
“Lena,” I whispered as we came to a brief pause at a difficult to navigate section.
Her stunning blue eyes swung towards me. In the dim glow of our torches they shined, lighting up this shit-hole better than a Christmas Tree. She arched her brow, but didn’t speak. Like a true professional, she instinctively knew the less verbalised the better. We were deep in enemy territory. Being hunted. Any noise now could mean our end.
“We need help,” I whispered in her ear.
“The children…” she started, her face turned to mine, soft breath across my cheek. I closed my eyes; now was not the time to fantasise about make-up sex.
“I think we have to let your father know what’s happening.”
And there went any chance of getting Lena horizontal.
“I trust them,” she argued, nodding towards our new found allies.
I sighed, looking at the conviction I could see on her face, in her eyes.
“You shouldn’t,” I whispered, regret making my words raspy.
She knew. I knew she knew. Lena was not stupid. She’d laid a trap for them, and they’d flipped the trap on end. Just because it looked like they’d changed their minds, decided to disobey their orders, and help us, didn’t mean it was real.
“Ten minutes ago these kids were attacking us,” I murmured. “Ten minutes ago they were the enemy.”
Lena blinked. Long lashes coasting over cream skin. Utter perfection. I’d always thought her stunning, but dressed in combat gear, laser gun in hand, several knives strapped to her torso, hair tied up in a messy bun, she was out of this world incredible.
“I’ve never thought them the enemy, Trent,” she said. “That’s always been your angle. Not mine.”
And then she was up and following the last person to cross a spindly arse plank of wood across a deep chasm that must have gone on to the centre of the earth for how pitch black it seemed at the bottom. No hesitation. No arms outstretched for added balance. Gun in hand, feet light as a feather, she rocketed over the makeshift bridge to the other side and then waited.
Well, all right then. I gritted my teeth, muttered several times, “Do not look down,” and took the plank a whole lot slower, but at least not embarrassingly. I might have moaned a little in relief when I reached the other side.
Alan followed and then the rear guard; two of Beck’s most trusted Cardinals. It’s not often that Alan would be comfortable with someone at his back. But right now comfort was a luxury we’d long since bypassed.
Lena didn’t carry on our conversation, she simply nodded her head at Nirbhay once we’d all made it across the divide, and then we were off. More dark spaces. More fallen masonry. More too tight holes to climb through.
Until we came out into a vast space.
The night sky was once again visible, stars like you never see in over-illuminated Wánměi shone down from above. The moon lit up everything. Shattered remains of what had to have been a huge station lay all around us, like skeletal fingers the brick walls jutted out from the ground spotlighting a huge target area for all to see. X marks the spot. If there was a better place for an ambush, I’d never seen one. But the kids didn’t hesitate, keeping their heads down, they moved out across the vast space, ensuring
we kept to the natural shadows.
We’d never have been able to cross the area unseen without them. If they were leading us into a trap, they were taking their time about it, and ensuring we got there in one piece while they did it.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that; I didn’t trust them. But then I didn’t trust a lot of people. Alan. Si. Paul. Lena, and even then lately she’d been doing things I questioned. Certainly not a bunch of forgotten kids in a broken city working with the enemy.
We needed to get a handle on this situation and fast. I could feel the reins slipping out of my fingers. I could almost feel the laser sight in the centre of my back.
But then we made it across the shooting gallery and into the darkness of The Underground again.
This time it was different. This time there was clear evidence of the path down having seen some action. Forget about alarm bells clanging inside my head, I had a fucking klaxon blaring a warning, the loud sound reverberating throughout my entire body.
“Calvin,” I said softly, the uncertainty clear in my tone.
“I can’t help you under there, Trent,” the Shiloh answered. “I have no eyes nor ears to scout.”
“You let us go down there before,” I pointed out.
“I let Lena do what she had to do to make contact with the indigenous of this city.”
“And now we have?” I pressed.
“You’re on your own.”
Great. No vid-cams to hook Calvin into. No Net to allow him access to visual feeds or pick through various media for clues. Even the fact nightfall had arrived curtailed his assistance. Something was out there. Something that made the kids run, leading us… where?
These were just children. They might have been raised in a world that didn’t care, become tough enough to exist there, but they were still kids. Minors. Barely out of nappies. Snotty noses, shitty bums, and all the rest.
And what do kids do when they’re scared?
They go home. They go to their safe place. They run and hide.
Well, fuck. If it was the u-Pol who hunted us, who expected these kids to hand us over without a care, then they’d know where these kids lived, right?
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