Army of the Unsettled: A Dystopian Novel (Academy of the Apocalypse Book 3)

by K A Riley

  “It’s the Midday Mingle,” Angel Fire explains, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world and shame on us for not knowing about it. “For us, for the Unsettled, being stagnant, locked in, clamped down…to a place or to the past, well, that’s when fossilization happens.” He taps a fingertip to his temple as we tighten our circle around him so we can hear. “The mind needs to keep moving. It’s the only way to stop the worst parts of ourselves, the parts we hope at our best to leave behind and hope to hell they never catch up.”

  “Are we going in there?” I call out, pointing up at the trembling walls and windows of the rolling dance halls.

  I breathe a weighty sigh of relief when he says, “No.”

  I may have been outvoted when it comes to getting out of here and trying to find our way back to the Academy, but that doesn’t mean I’m anxious to jump into one of their traveling discos.

  My first job was to keep my friends alive. I didn’t just fail. I failed in spectacular fashion, and I know as sure as I know anything that I’ll be carrying the last images of Mattea with me wherever I go for the rest of my life.

  My second job was to gather enough intel to help us survive an inevitable war. Now, I’m walking through the Army of the Unsettled, amazed by everything I see but with no real knowledge about their location, destination, motives, weapons capabilities, or strategic plans I can bring back to Kress.

  In the same instant, my heart locks up under clamps of grief, fear, curiosity, regret, and sorrow. I feel as if someone came along and sliced my brain up like a lemon drizzle cake, and I gasp at the overwhelming sensation of being pulled in a dozen different directions.

  “I feel guilty,” I confess to Matholook.

  “Because of Mattea?”

  “Uh huh.”

  He flicks his hand toward the pulsing, whale of a bus and scoffs. “It’s not like we’re going to go in there are join in their dance party.”

  “It’s not that. Well, it’s not just that.”

  “What then?”

  “This place…this Leisure Garrison. The idea of being leisurely, of relaxing, reveling, having fun…It all seems so carefree.”

  “Being carefree is better than being worried, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe. But carefree is a little too close to care-less. And I don’t want to be careless with Mattea’s memory.”

  I feel the pressure of tears behind my eyes, but I fight them off. I can’t afford to lose my edge. Not here. Not now. Not like this.

  Matholook puts his hand on the small of my back. In any other time or place, we’d find a nice, quiet corner to sit alone and talk. But sitting and being alone are out of the question, and there’s not much that’s nice or quiet about where we are.

  So I settle for enjoying the light, reassuring pressure of his hand.

  26

  Cheers

  Our next stop in the Leisure Garrison (not that anything here ever really stops) is at a section of the Unsettled army made up entirely of repurposed food and ice cream trucks. The once-white trucks still bear the faded text and images of a colorful array of logos, pictures of popsicles, and cartoon drawings of brownies, overflowing milkshakes, ice cream cones, and fully-loaded banana splits.

  “Aww…This garrison looks so sweet!” Libra gushes, giggling at her own joke.

  Shaking his head, Angel Fire holds up his hand, palm out. “This is the Dungeon District.”

  “Oh.”

  Walking through the garrison, thankful to be able to hear again after leaving the music of the so-called “Midday Mingle” behind us, I’m expecting jail cells and criminals in chains.

  I’m partly right.

  A lot of the people here are in chains. Strapped into leather cuffs and nearly cocooned in overlapping links of silver manacles, there are teenage boys and girls and a few people, whose gender is a mystery, all partially bound or strapped into patchy recliners and modified barber’s chairs. But they’re not prisoners. “It’s one of our sex dungeons,” Angel Fire explains, pointing to one of the larger, windowless white vans he says is called “the Palace of Pleasure.” (We don’t go in. I’m willing to take his word about what goes on in there.)

  Sara lingers the longest and actually hops up onto the steel step and pokes her head into the van before Libra screams at her to “Get the frack down from there!”

  “This Garrison is run by the ‘S and M’ers,’” Angel Fire informs us as Sara—looking comically sad—jogs back over. “We’ve long ago given up on stopping them from doing whatever it is they do in there. Live and let live, and if it feels good, do it, right?”

  “Too bad we can’t have a visit,” Sara sighs, giving her lips a long, exaggerated lick. “Sounds like it could be fun.”

  “Sure,” I sneer. “If you don’t mind chafing in ass-less chaps.”

  Sara sticks her nose in the air. “All chaps are ass-less,” she corrects me and then asks Angel Fire about the lights coming from an expansive caravan of wide-bodied silver rigs up ahead.

  Angel Fire says, “Ah. You’ve got good taste, my dear. That’s one of our Coupled Cabins.”

  I’m about to ask what that means, but as we get closer, it’s easy enough to figure it out on my own.

  The tractor-trailers we’ve seen so far—the Trial Barge and the Port and Starboard Grandstands, included—have all been the standard fifty-three feet long, thirteen-and-a-half feet high, and just over eight feet wide.

  (The lorries in London were a lot smaller, not that there were many intact or working ones left.)

  These so-called Coupled Cabins, unlike the long American trailers, are two or, in some cases three of those single rigs welded together side by side.

  Instead of a single tractor-trailer, the fused together trailers form enormous steel boxes on a system of shared axles and multiple sets of wheels. They look for all the world like rolling, aluminum-sided bungalows.

  “We remove the interior walls,” Angel Fire explains as we approach one of the huge, trundling rigs. “So they’re plenty of roomy inside. Kind of like a lodge on wheels.”

  Picking up his pace enough to overtake the nearest of the trio of fused-together trailers, he leads us up a short set of metal steps and onto the back of the middle section of the Coupled Cabin. The boxy structure is framed on three sides by ribbed steel walls. But its back end is made up of huge panels of thick canvas in muted blues, dusty yellows, and phlegmy greens, most of it held together with zippers, metal latches, or else tied together Frankenstein-style with a crisscross stitching of thick, mustard-colored threads.

  Angel Fire makes a grand show of unlatching and pulling back one of the rear panels and ushering us inside.

  We step into the moving vehicle, and I glance up to where a giant mosquito net has been drawn over the top and is doing a surprisingly good job of keeping the heat out. (This might be the first time I’ve felt remotely cool since leaving the Academy.) The distorted pattern of squares cast by the long, sagging net on the murky interior makes the place feel like the inside of a beehive.

  True to his word, the Coupled Cabin is brillie roomy.

  Ignacio lets out a long, low, “Wowwww!” that makes Angel Fire laugh.

  “It’s huge,” Arlo gushes.

  “It’s amazing what a vehicle can look like when you’re not limited by the width of roads,” Angel Fire brags.

  The open interior of the three banded-together trailers is dotted with wooden tables and leather-topped barstools, all of them bolted to the floor, where twenty or so teenagers of the Unsettled are chatting happily over metal cylinders of some sort of drink that they raise to their lips and then plant down on magnetic pads embedded in the round tops of the bistro tables.

  The metallic-pink liquid sloshes along with the rocking motion of the Compound Cabin, but the cups stay fixed to their silver mag-pads.

  Unlike the previous two stops on our tour, this one doesn’t have the rollicking chaos of frenetic dancing or the lascivious display of teenagers with whips, ball-gags, riding-c
rops, fishnet stockings, and high-heeled, black leather boots.

  Libra nudges me with her elbow and directs my attention to the bar set up in front of the long side wall.

  “Nice,” I nod. “It’s practically a proper pub.” I direct her attention to the mesh-top ceiling. “If they replaced the netting with some oak beams…”

  “Yeah,” Libra agrees. “That’d be nice.”

  “Think they’ll pour us a pint?”

  Libra licks her lips and says she sure as frack hopes so.

  Standing shoulder to shoulder around a table, we bump and jostle against each other like commuters on an overcrowded passenger train.

  Matholook slips his hand over mine and gives it a little squeeze. “Can’t have you falling over,” he grins. “Again.”

  I tell him, “Thanks” and curl my fingers around his hand, grateful for the gesture of support but also for the warmth of his touch and the feeling of security it gives me.

  Although I don’t exactly have a ton of hand-holding experience, and I’m hardly the most touch-feely girl in the world, there’s something about Matholook that makes it easy and warm just being in his orbit. I’m embarrassed at the stupid, gushy giggle I let out when he releases my hand and slips his arm around my waist, drawing me a little closer.

  He’s still a Devoted. His people could well be war-mongering murderers. Matholook could be the enemy. But even if he is, one thing’s for sure: His arm feels amazing around my waist.

  I’m tucked under his arm like a baby bird, and I hate that I like it.

  “This is Sendahl’s Saloon,” Angel Fire announces, leaning over the table to make sure we can all hear him. His cheeks have the rosy glow of a teacher’s pet who’s been tasked with showing the new kids around. The smile is sweet, smug, and almost…cute?

  Unless there’s a whole committee of army generals we haven’t met yet, as far as we can tell, this barely-pubescent kid commands every boy, girl, and adult of the entire Army of the Unsettled. In the short time we’ve been here, he’s held us captive, put us on trial, bombarded us with challenges and mind-games, and may be responsible for instigating an upcoming war. He’s powerful, mischievous, and kind of adorable all wrapped up in a cloak of cheeky charm and an ill-fitting suit.

  Is this what it feels like to have a bratty little brother? Argh. What is it with me always getting charmed by the enemy? I’ve been called an “adrenaline junkie.” Is there also such a thing as an “adversary addict?”

  First, I feel an irresistible pull toward Matholook, whose Cult of the Devoted is dedicated to wiping out Emergents. And now, here I am, sitting next to him (with his arm pleasantly looped around my waist and his fingers drumming absently on my hip) and across from Angel Fire, whose Army of the Unsettled might also be dedicated to wiping out Emergents.

  What is wrong with you, Branwynne? What kind of a nutter keeps going out of her way to get so cozy with Death?

  Angel Fire drums his fingertips on the table and then rubs his hands together hard enough to make me think he’s trying to start a fire. “Best drinks in town.”

  “I don’t suppose they have fish and chips here?” I ask with a sassy smile.

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Bangers and mash? Beef Wellington? Shepherd’s pie?”

  “I don’t know what any of that is,” Angel Fire confesses. He flicks his thumb in the general direction we just came from. “But ‘Bangers and Mash’ sounds like something they’d do back there in the Dungeon District.”

  Laughing, I reach over and give his forearm a playful swat with the back of my hand. Probably not the wisest thing to do to the leader of a monstrous, moving army, but something in the air keeps nudging at me to let my guard down. Unfortunately, it’s becoming easier to do with each passing minute.

  I fall back into my own head for a second to remind myself what’s important: Mattea. My mission. My friends. Our survival.

  With Matholook next to me, Angel Fire across from me, and my Asylum looking way too relaxed with their big smiles and with their elbows on the round tabletop, it’s hard to stay in my head for long.

  Pulled back into the bizarre reality of our situation, I let out an easy breath of relaxation as Angel Fire waves to the tall girl behind the bar. He makes a swirling motion with his finger at the six of us at the table. The girl—bald, bug-eyed, and skeletal enough under her baggy jumpsuit to walk through a harp—nods and starts pouring frothy pink liquid from a huge glass pitcher into a row of wide-mouthed, pewter mugs.

  By the time she brings the drinks over—beaming a sparkling, toothy smile at each of us in turn—we’re already slipping into our own little side conversations. Angel Fire is explaining more about the Army of the Unsettled to Sara, who is drinking in every word like the covert spy I know she wants to be. Libra, Arlo, and Ignacio are on the far side of the table from me, hunched together in their own three-person confab and talking far too loudly about how different the Unsettled are from what we were told or ever imagined.

  Matholook must notice me toggling between relaxation and disengagement because he leans in close to ask me what’s wrong.

  I tell him, “Mattea,” and my chest tightens up, and I feel like I might burst into tears right here at this table and in front of everyone. “She should be here. Or else none of us should.”

  I expect Matholook to lean away or get weirded out or something. But instead, he leans in, those soulful, emerald-green eyes of his gazing into mine. A few tendrils of his brown-blond hair fall across his face, but he doesn’t slide them away or tuck them back the way I’ve seen him do so many times before. It’s like he doesn’t even notice and all he sees right now is me. “She’s not a casualty of war.”

  “What do you mean?” I say, snapping him a pre-offended glare.

  “I don’t mean that in a bad way,” he answers with a whoosh of hurried breath. “What I mean is, you’re a warrior.” He swings his eyes around the table at Angel Fire and our friends who are all oblivious to us and immersed in their own conversations. “All of you are warriors,” Matholook explains. “But Mattea didn’t die in a war. Or in battle.”

  “That wouldn’t have made losing her any easier.”

  “No. I know it wouldn’t. But it would have been in line with the life she was living and the lives you’ve all been in training to protect.”

  “I don’t—”

  “It’s like the Devoted always say about history. The course of history flows like a river with all the events acting as rocks along the way.”

  “And we’re all just leaping from one to the next.”

  “And sometimes, you just land the wrong way on the right rock.”

  “You’re saying her death was destined?” I say, leaning back with a scowl. “Or that it had some kind of purpose or meaning?”

  Matholook puts his hand on top of mine. I’m tempted to pull away, but there’s something magnetic about his touch, so I leave my hand where it is. He gives it a little pat before drawing away, himself. He locks his sorrowful eyes onto mine. “I’m saying Mattea is now part of that chain. And you will be stronger, smarter, and better able to take your own next steps thanks to her.”

  “Small consolation,” I grunt into a shallow sip of the pink drink in front of me.

  “I wasn’t trying to be consoling. There’s no way to return from what happened back there. There’s only going forward.” Matholook offers a feeble half-smile. “Like the Unsettled do. They don’t ever stop. And neither should we.”

  The way he’s looking at me and the wink he offers up makes me wonder who he means by “we.”

  The Cult of the Devoted?

  Our Asylum?

  Me and him?

  “So…,” Angel Fire drawls, tapping me on the shoulder. “What do you think?”

  “I think this place is the weirdest normal thing I’ve ever seen,” I call out over the boisterous laughs, the hoisted pints, and the happy buzz of conversations going on around us.

  Everything and everyone in h
ere is shaking all the time, but it doesn’t take too long to get used to it. It’s how I imagine it is to be on a boat on the open ocean. (In my time exploring London after the last big wave of drone strikes, I once navigated the corpse and garbage-filled River Thames on a raft of wood planks that had broken off from a pier under Tower Bridge. I strapped a toilet lid to a broom handle to use as a paddle and steered as best as I could. With a small group of the Royal Fort Knights deciding to fire arrows at me from the riverbank, I only made it as far as London Bridge—or, what was left of it—before I had to bail. And that’s as close as I’ve ever been to being on an actual boat.)

  Angel Fire raises his mug and leads us in a toast. “On behalf of the Unsettled, I’m so glad we didn’t kill you!”

  We all raise our mugs and clink them over a chorus of, “Cheers!”

  The pink drink (Angel Fire calls it “mineral beer,” but it’s grainy and tastes like malted sweat) is still surprisingly refreshing and gives me a tingle I can feel in my toes.

  Or is it Matholook’s arm slipped back around my waist that’s doing that?

  Drawing me close, he gives me a playful squeeze. Directly across the table from us, Libra beams us a goofy smile while Sara’s lip curls into a mean snarl, which morphs into a pouty frown.

  Sara’s looked at me in weird ways before. Sometimes, it’s been impatience. Sometimes, curiosity or contempt. A lot of times, it’s been condescension. Now, it’s pure hostility.

  Her dull blue eyes dart back and forth between me and Matholook. At first, she doesn’t seem to notice or care that I’m fully aware of her angry little gaze. Then, she averts her eyes and turns her attention back to Angel Fire.

  What—are you jealous? Maybe you’d have a boy who likes you too if you weren’t always being such a skanky little b—.

  27