by Seth Fishman
Rob seems to agree; after a moment, he looks at me apologetically and I’ve lost. “She’s right, Mia.”
His parents live in Fenton too, and he must be just as concerned for their safety, but it doesn’t make his siding with Jo sting any less.
I take a shuddering breath. “I mean, what’s down here? What’s he walking into?” I say out loud, but Rob and Jo have the sense not to answer. He’ll come back, of course he will. I stare at the giant wall spreading out before me, and feel sorry for myself. Until I see something move.
“Mia, I’m sorry,” Jo says, but I cut her off, grabbing her arm and squeezing hard.
“What’s that?”
There’s something bobbing up ahead—many somethings—coming through the gates. Rob puts a hand over his eyes, as if to shade them from an imaginary sun.
“There are six of them,” he says.
“Six of what?” I reply.
“Mia, we should go,” Jo pleads.
Suddenly, the shapes become tall pale figures moving at incredible speed. I remember the images from the map. The white characters, the brilliant blue eyes. I take a step backward, my foot sloshing in the water. They’re only fifty feet away, and it may be a trick of the light from the gates, but their eyes seem enormous, too big to be real. They each have something in their hands, knives or spears or something.
“Oh shit, hurry,” I shout, and turn to the water. The others follow and we dive in. The skiwear is problematic, but I don’t want to waste any time shrugging it off. I buzz across the surface, letting my adrenaline push me. I hear sounds, one two three six splashes behind us as they follow us into the water. I swim possessed, the water guiding me, until suddenly I’m there. I can feel a suction below me, as if there were a drain. I stop, look around for my friends, but I’m alone.
“Rob, Jo!” I shout, treading water.
“Mia, go!” This from Jo, who I can see now, being dragged out of the water. I couldn’t tell how tall they were before, but her captor’s gotta be seven feet. Rob’s there too, held by another one. I feel the tingling beneath me. I could get away. I should. Jo’s right, I need to save Fenton.
But then I hear it, too late. A swish in the water. I spin around and he’s there, eyes like softballs, blinking wet and curious in front of me. I scream, and don’t stop until he’s dragged me all the way back to shore.
2
THEY TIE OUR HANDS WITH ROPE, LOOPING THE ENDS together and then around our waists so that we’re connected, and we’re forced to walk single file. They’re giants, my head only reaching their chests, and they walk on either side of us, sometimes staring at us but not saying a word.
After I was dragged out of the water, thrown together with Rob and Jo in a pile on the shore, I finally got a good look at them. They’re human, I think. Some sort of long-divergent relation. Their bodies are built the same as ours, with their disproportionately enormous eyes and stature the noticeable difference. Their eyes probably adapted for the dark long ago. I wonder if they can see the end of the blackness above our heads. These beings are unreal, but then no figment of my imagination has ever picked me up like a rag doll and tossed me onto shore.
“I guess we’re not going home,” Rob says.
A part of me is relieved. Now I can find my dad. The rest of me is in shock.
“Do not speak, little one,” says the guard at my shoulder, looking back at Rob.
“You know English?” I blurt out, unable to help myself. The guard lifts a hand as if to strike me but a different guard shouts him down in another language, his voice so sharp it echoes.
This guard has high cheekbones and curious eyes. He reaches out his hand and I flinch, but he tsks at me and uses the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the water of the lake from my face, like my dad used to do at the pool when I was young. “I am only trying to be of assistance,” he says, his voice softer than the other one’s, almost bashful. “I have never seen one of you. A Topsider. He should not have threatened you.” The fabric is cashmere-soft and form-fitting. They all wear the same thing, this red long-sleeve shirt that hugs the body and tight pants. They look like they’re ready for a slumber party. My guard has short black hair that curls tight on his head, like a Roman emperor. On the bridge of his nose there’s a smear of paint, also red.
I have to bite my tongue, afraid to speak but now filled to the brim with questions. How’d they know we’d be here, especially if they’ve never seen one of us before? They’re calling us Topsiders, they’ve given us a name. They know of us but they haven’t seen us.
Turns out that the gates are kind of far away, which means I totally miscalculated the size of these things. They’re as tall as skyscrapers, and as we approach them, I have to crane my neck to get a better look. There’s an odd buzz in the air and it takes me a second to realize that it’s coming from the gigantic columns the gates are hinged to. As if they’re plugged in somewhere.
“Stop there, friends.” The voice isn’t from one of our guards. Another pale man, dressed in the same tight-fitting night wear—except his sleeves are bright yellow and his pants and the chest of his shirt are blue—stands by one of the columns. His arms are crossed and his pale head is shaved. Across his face, covering his eyes, is a band of blue paint. I wonder if the paint indicates rank. Jo shoots me a look. Something’s going on here.
“What is this, Keeper Straoc?” my guard asks, hand reaching up to take hold of the thin spear he has strapped to his back.
“I am to take the Topsiders from you.”
My guard shakes his massive head, his ringlets shivering. He says something in their native tongue and the bald new guy, Straoc, interrupts. “No, keep to the Topsider language. I want them to know what you are ordered to do, so that they might better understand who are their friends.”
My guard glances our way, and when he continues, it’s back in their hesitant English.
“It matters not, because we were instructed by Keeper Arcos to search for other Topsiders and to escort them to the Lock. We have searched and we have found. They will join the other, they will stand and be judged.”
That was English, maybe, but I understood almost none of what he said. Either way, it didn’t sound good.
Straoc looks me up and down, then smiles, flashing brilliant white teeth, as polished as a movie star’s. “Of course, friend, but it is from Keeper Randt himself that I have orders to take these. We must separate the Topsiders. They cannot be kept in the same place.”
My guard hesitates. He looks to his friends for help. One of them shrugs.
“Friend Keepers,” says Straoc, “I will not have Randt waiting. Thank you for your service and please return to your normal duties.”
“We cannot,” my guard says, almost apologetically. “Our Keeper Arcos tasks us to bring them to him.”
“Do I mishear you?” Straoc replies, in mock confusion. “I believe you were tasked to escort them to the Lock. Now you say Keeper Arcos asks for them himself?”
My guard stays quiet, chastised.
“Arcos and Randt rule the city now,” Straoc says, speaking confidently. “Keeper Randt requests the Topsiders and will send them to the Lock in due time where Arcos may have his personal interview, so leave them and go back to your side of Capian, where you and Arcos belong.” Straoc pulls a long yellow ribbon from his belt and lets it drop, hanging from his hand like a whip. The guards surrounding us immediately draw their weapons and tighten their grips on our arms. Jo even squeaks in pain. I can hear the creak of leather against skin. This guy’s either crazy or that ribbon isn’t used to decorate birthday presents.
No one moves for several moments. I hear the sounds of rustling in the forest, of birdcall. Finally, my guard clears his throat. “You make idle threats,” he says, openly reluctant. “There are six of us. You cannot take the Topsiders.”
Straoc sways the ribbon back and forth. What is that th
ing that they’re so scared of? He smiles, a strangely gracious smile. “It is not you, friend, or your men that I would worry on. I have my own orders, and if I cannot take them to my Keeper Randt, then neither shall you.”
“Did he just say he’ll kill us if they don’t let us go?” Rob asks.
No one answers. My guard rocks forward and back. Another dips his fingers into a small pouch at his belt and leaves them there, like he’s ready to pull something out and throw it.
“I don’t want to die here,” Jo says, her voice soft but carrying.
“My clan leader does not want you to either, Topsider,” my guard says, and apparently this means he’s given in, because hands release weapons, fingers slip out of pouches. “Keeper Straoc, take them as you will. Keeper Arcos will be looking forward to seeing them placed in the Lock soonest.”
“Of course,” Straoc agrees.
The guards separate from us and hurry through the gates at a sprint, their long legs moving them ridiculously fast. The nearby columns hum and we’re left alone, still bound, with the new guy who just threatened to kill us.
“I am sorry about the confrontation. Keeper Arcos and my Keeper Randt have not been entirely friendly of late. And I am sorry for the rope.” Straoc smiles sadly. “But until I take you to Keeper Randt’s tower, it would do well for you to have the appearance of having been captured.”
I catch Rob frowning at what he just said. There’s clearly something bad going on between the leaders of these people. Why would we need to only “appear” to be captured?
He moves toward Jo, and I can see that it’s taking all her willpower not to pull away. He’s not just a strange man approaching her, he’s a strange man. He doesn’t touch her, but it’s clear that he’s checking out every inch of her body—it makes me feel sick just watching. He walks in a circle and finally crouches, looking at her feet.
“Leave her alone,” I say, trying to make my voice as intimidating as possible. I strain in my bindings, as if I could stop him.
He stands in a hurry, hands up in apology. “I am very, very sorry. It is just that I have never seen a Topsider before. So delicate. You do not have the water, and yet you somehow survive. You are different from me, but the same.” He pokes Rob’s arm, and Rob flinches. “I am interested in how you are so small. I just wanted to see. I do not mean any harm.”
“Who are you?” Jo says, scrambling back as far away from him as physically possible, which, with the rope, isn’t very far.
“I am Straoc, a friend. And you are lucky I was ordered to come. You would be otherwise on your way to the Lock. Nothing good would come of it.”
“Right,” Jo says. “And we’re lucky we’re not dead now either.”
“Yes, that is true,” he replies earnestly. My skin crawls.
“Is that where my dad is, the Lock?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Dad? Yes, the Topsider who came earlier.” Straoc whistles. “He is your father?”
“Yeah, is he okay? Is he hurt?” My mind flashes to the blood on Dad’s scrubs.
“He is perfectly healthy at the moment.”
“What do you mean, ‘at the moment’?” I say, panic rising in my throat. It’s like talking to a puzzle.
“I am sorry—did I say that wrong?” Straoc asks, “We believe we know your language, but without a Topsider to teach us, it is hard to be sure. You have a father, and he is alive and well at this exact moment. Come now, we must go.” He pulls on the rope, forcing us ahead. I let myself get pulled, almost exhausted with relief. The blood must have come from something else. He’s okay.
We move quietly, each mulling our own fate, moving closer to the towering columns and gate.
“Look at that,” Rob says, talking half to me, half to himself. He’s pointing at a massive hinge—six feet high, just the hinge. The gate is completely open and lined with long, cylindrical bars that reach to the sky. They’re on such a scale that Straoc seems puny. Where are the lumbering giants who built this?
“It’s moving,” Rob says, his voice unsure.
“What do you mean?” I ask. Straoc gives me some slack on the rope, apparently carrying an insatiable curiosity regarding his new prisoners and how they’ll react to his world. “I don’t see that.”
“Feel this,” he says, placing my hand on the giant hinge.
“Is this gold?” I ask Straoc, trying to imagine its value. Gold is, what, twelve hundred an ounce? This hinge alone must be worth a few million dollars.
Straoc doesn’t say anything. He’s looking beyond the gates now. Scanning the horizon.
“Isn’t gold too soft to be functional?” Rob asks.
“Shh,” Jo says. “Mia, you have to feel it.”
I try to shove Fort Knox from my mind and focus. I close my eyes and almost instantly I know Jo’s right. There’s a tug, a very gentle tug, like the sway of a boat on a still lake. The gates aren’t just moving.
“That’s why the water stops,” I say, alarmed. “They’re closing.”
“Of course they are, little Mia,” Straoc says over his shoulder. I don’t like that he uses my name so familiarly. “It is the cycle, though the water will always run on this side of the gates after they close. The source provides. Now we must hurry onward. I would like to allow you more time to discover us, but I cannot wait any longer.”
“When do the gates close?” Jo asks.
“Ten days,” I say grimly. Ten days is how long my dad said the water flowed. Then the gates will shut, and cut off the water. Cut off our way back.
“Days, Mia,” Straoc says, taking the rope in his hand and pulling us along. “We do not have those down here.”
3
JIMMY
JIMMY WAKES THIRSTY. HE SLAPS HIS HAND AGAINST the dresser, trying to find a cup of water, but nothing’s there. He always keeps a cup of water near the bed; the dorms at Westbrook are just so damn dry and he isn’t about to get a humidifier for the room; he’d never live it down.
It’s dark, Jimmy can barely see a thing, but he can see enough to know this isn’t his dorm room. He’s dazed. Where is he? Not at home either. He’s on a couch, must have fallen asleep. But there’s someone here, snuggled up behind him. Jimmy blinks, and remembers.
“Odessa,” he whispers, and she wiggles a little, down for the count too. Jimmy cranes his neck backward to look at her, but it’s too dark.
“Odessa,” he says again, louder this time.
“What?” she says groggily.
“I feel weird.” It’s true, he realizes. He does feel weird. He tries to move his arm and it’s clumsy, as if it’s not fully listening to him. He takes a breath, and even that feels strange, the air sifting into his lungs in an unfamiliar way.
“That’s because you’re an old man, remember?” Her lips are near his neck, and her breath is warm and comforting. Her arms give a reassuring squeeze around his waist; they feel good.
The squeeze releases the last gasps of his selective amnesia. He remembers it all. He had the virus, the one that’s killing everyone. The one that ages you to death, wrinkles you up and takes you down. But Jimmy had it for just a short while, so that he only aged up into an adult, not a decrepit old man. Odessa’s joking about that. He’s older looking, sure, but fit as can be. He wiggles his arm and it buzzes with a familiar pain; the arm’s just asleep. Jimmy’s still finding it hard to remember that his big body is now even bigger. He takes another breath, deeper this time, and lets the air settle in his lungs.
“Not sure I’m gonna get used to this.”
“What about me?” Odessa replies, fully awake now. There’s an undertone of a grin in her voice. “I’m, like, thirty-two. Guys just get sexy. Me, I’m already going downhill.”
Jimmy rolls over to face Odessa. She’s definitely aged, but even in the dark he can tell she looks amazing. Her freckles, something he had teased her about jus
t a few days ago, feel new and exciting. Her chin has sharpened, her eyes too. Her curly red hair floats around her in the dark like seaweed, but Jimmy loves that.
He touches her cheek. “I don’t think so. I think you look better than ever.”
He hears her smile as much as he sees it. And then he hears something else. A crack, muffled. Then another. Like a string of Black Cats going off.
“What’s that?” Odessa whispers.
Jimmy sits up, bringing her with him. “You hear that?” he asks the others. But no one says anything. “Guys?” he says, speaking louder.
It’s too dark to know, but he knows. His stomach sinks. They left him and Odessa. They’re out there right now, and they left him. Jimmy hops up and runs to the wall, tripping over a chair. He gets to the light, and in the brief moment before he flips the switch, he wonders if he shouldn’t. If he should crawl over to the couch and snuggle up with Odessa and forget everything.
There’s another crack. Jimmy flinches, turns the light on, and reality sticks. He’s in the rec room, a bomb-shelter lookalike that is really just part of the Cave, Mia’s dad’s fortress that he and his Westbrook alumni friends built in order to protect and research the water. Odessa’s still on the couch, but she’s got deer eyes at the noise. There are four sleeping bags, empty on the floor. Mia, Jo, Rob, Brayden.
“Where’d they go?” Odessa asks. “Why didn’t they wake us?”
Jimmy’s not sure he wants to know, but they’ve come this far, thanks to Mia, and if she’s out there and those are gunshots, then she might need help.
“Come on,” Jimmy says, slipping on his fluffy booties, the ones Mr. Kish gave him to replace his winter boots. He feels ridiculous.
Odessa opens her mouth to argue, but thinks better of it. She’s changed in more ways than her looks since they left Westbrook, Jimmy realizes. Normally she’d be sulking right now, or hiding in a closet. Now her eyes are set and she’s tying back her hair. Maybe getting shot in the leg will do that to you.