by K A Riley
“Where are we going now?” I ask.
Angel Fire pauses long enough to give me a quizzical stare, and for a second, I think maybe I have something on my face, a pink beer moustache or something. “You want to get to your weapons, right?” he says at last.
I blush, embarrassed about forgetting what should have been the most important, pressing thing on any of our minds.
There’s that fog again.
According to Kress, the Cult of the Devoted have the ability to recruit people into their ranks through a sort of subtle, communal brainwashing.
“I’m not sure how it works,” she confessed. “But you need to be on your toes. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re doing what you’re doing because you want to do it or because someone else is manipulating you into doing it.”
And now, I’m wondering if something similar could be happening here. I’ve got a specific mission to finish, and there are countless dangers between me and success. Nothing is more important right now than getting our weapons back.
Could the mental haze be because of the music? If so, is music the best thing in the world, or the worst, for making me forget?
We’ve been walking along for a while, and I’ve already noticed how we keep automatically adjusting our speed to that of the moving vehicles around us.
Maybe it’s just chance. Or maybe my Asylum and I have synched up out of a sense of self-preservation. After all, slowing down or speeding up too much around here could easily end with a person crushed under a set of wheels or treads and left to rot among the rocks and the crispy, straggling weeds.
I don’t care what Angel Fire says about how slow these things go. I’ll take my chances against pretty much any person—or even multiple people—in a fight. Most of these rigs, though, are a few dozen tons of something else entirely.
“You know,” I say to Angel Fire, “the Unsettled are different from what we heard and a lot different from what we expected.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Or put too much faith in your expectations.”
We all nod our agreement, and Angel Fire tells us we need to keep moving. (That seems to be their mantra around here.) “There’s more to see between here and the Military Garrison at the front of the fleet,” he boasts, “and I’m sure you won’t feel comfortable until you have your weapons back in hand. I know I wouldn’t.”
As we continue marching along, various adult men and women queue up behind us and shuffle forward, one by one, to ask Angel Fire about one thing or another.
Despite being surrounded by the six of us—all total strangers and only recently released from a very public penalty of death—they don’t seem too concerned about secrecy or privacy.
Often shouting to be heard over the rev of nearby engines, the clunk of gears, the clang of slamming metal doors, or the putter of darting and dashing dirt-bikes, the adults hurl questions at Angel Fire before sprinting off to enact his orders.
A man with a head of thick, woolly hair sprints up first with a floppy spiral notebook in hand. “The Advanced Scouts have updated reports of troop movement for the Devoted.”
Angel Fire wrinkles his nose and fires a hostile glance at Matholook who responds in the only way he can: with a blush and a helpless shrug.
Dipping his head back around to face the messenger, Angel Fire seems relaxed as he strides along, issuing orders, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. “Dispatch two Strike Squads. Make sure Callie leads one of them. Have them take four of the good Skid-Steers from the Search and Rescue squad. Callie’ll know which ones.”
The man says, “Yes, Governor,” before jotting some notes in his notebook with the nub of an orange pencil. He rolls the pad closed, tucking it into his back pocket, and sprints off the way he came.
A woman, her hair braided through with silver and golden wire, pops out from between a row of garbage trucks moving along next to us. Striding into the wind, her long, brown trench coat billows out around her like a cape. She draws the belts around from the sides and ties them off as she approaches. (And it’s a good thing, too. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure she might catch too much air and go sailing off like a human kite.) The trench coat lady asks Angel Fire what she’s supposed to do next.
Calling out over the crunching of the treads from the pair of backhoes next to us, he tells her, “Get the weapons inventory results from Varetta in the Military Garrison. Make sure she includes the new and repaired stock. And tell her we’re on our way.”
“Yes, Governor.” And then the woman sprints off, her rubber flip-flops slapping against her heels, her trench coat whipping along behind her as her belts come undone and she cuts at a right angle and disappears into a crowd of pedestrians.
The next woman shuffles forward, and Angel Fire greets her with a friendly nod. The woman asks him something I can only partly hear about energy efficiency or some such thing.
He tugs on the shoulder of the woman’s faded, silvery coolant tunic, drawing her in close. “Tell Galisteo to consult with Canova about the upgrade to the solar cells. And remind her about tomorrow’s Navigation Committee meeting.”
“Yes, Governor.”
The woman dashes off and is replaced by a shirtless man with a broad, red chest.
“Ethanol production was down another fourteen percent as of yesterday,” Angel Fire says to the man. “Tell Straton and Colby I want to know why and what they plan on doing about it. Make sure they consult with Minden. She should still be in her lab in the Tech Garrison.”
“Yes, Governor.”
It goes on like that as we walk, grown men and women of the Unsettled, rattling off reports, asking questions, taking orders, and rushing off to do Angel Fire’s bidding.
There’s a sort of chaotic efficiency to it all. Back at the Academy, I’ve seen teachers and students pouring into Wisp’s office to ask her questions of one kind or another. I’ve been in Kress’s office when we’ve been interrupted by students seeking dispute resolution or one of the other teachers needing information or guidance about lessons, combat training, or facility maintenance issues. But in those cases, there were walls and desks, and the person being sought out sat and listened and solved the random problems that came popping up over any given day.
Here, even strategy sessions happen on the move.
My mum used to tell me about how you used to be able to see the stars at night. “Our planet is rotating on its axis while it revolves around the sun,” she said, her eyes on the lofty wood and stone ceiling back in the Tower of London. “And the sun is in constant motion at the center of the solar system that’s spinning around other solar systems throughout the galaxy that’s also spinning. So you see,” she finished, “the key to the universe is motion. We’re always in it, even when we think we’re not.”
Watching Angel Fire in action is like that: objects in orbit around other objects in orbit around even more objects in orbits of their own, and on and on it goes.
“I’ve got to give the Unsettled credit,” Arlo says from just behind me. “They’ve got this place running like a well-oiled machine.”
“Look around you,” Libra corrects him with a laugh. “This entire place is a well-oiled machine.”
“How many of you are there, exactly?” Sara asks, sidling up next to Angel Fire.
“Looking for a tactical advantage?” he grins, along with a knowing wink.
“Just curious.”
“You know what curiosity did to the cat, right?”
Sara rakes her fingers through her hair and shakes her head. “Um. No.”
“It killed it.”
“She was just making conversation,” Libra apologizes on Sara’s behalf. Tugging Sara by the sleeve, she gives her a shut-the-frack-up look. Sara scowls and yanks her arm out of Libra’s grip and shuffles ahead to keep plying Angel Fire with questions.
She asks him about the size of the army, their inventory of food and water rations, their navigation systems…everything.
To my surprise, he answers every question. And not like he’s being interrogated. He seems proud of his army and is clearly happy to share its specs with a bunch of teenagers I think he’s starting to think of as friends.
As it turns out, he’s a gifted multi-tasker. He continues to field questions from his own people, offer suggestions, and solve problems as the men and women of the Unsettled approach him like autograph hounds descending on a celebrity. At the same time, Sara asks him some more about the different Garrisons, the general history of the Unsettled, the way their army is structured…and he keeps on telling her everything she wants to know.
Is he a careless, unsuspecting, and piss-poor excuse of a general? Or is Sara a more convincing spy than I thought? Either way, if he wants to give us a huge tactical advantage, who am I to stop him?
As confident as a conductor, Angel Fire continues to keep tabs on everything around him. But there’s more to it than control. He has a balanced relationship with his own people, and he seems committed to developing a harmonious one with us.
As we walk along, the tension in my body and the weight on my heart seem to lighten. Taking in Angel Fire and my Asylum, I feel like maybe—just maybe—we’re all becoming players in “the music of friends.”
29
Explanations
Shuffling along so his long strides don’t have him outpacing the rest of us, Ignacio tosses in a few questions of his own.
Angel Fire responds to him, too, while he’s also, apparently, running the entire army by himself as we continue to walk along next to the rolling fleet of vehicles.
“We didn’t always live like this,” he explains. “How much do you know about the last twenty years?”
“We learn about history in the Academy,” Ignacio boasts.
“And this guy’s people are all historians,” Arlo adds, clapping a hand to Matholook’s shoulder.
“So you know about Krug, the Patriot Army, the Eastern Order, the Drone Strikes, the Atomic Wars?”
We all nod, and Libra gushes about how he can ask us anything, like she’s excited to show off her knowledge for a teacher before the big test.
“I believe you,” Angel Fire laughs. “And how much did you know about us? Before today, anyway.”
This time, there are no nods and no cocky claims about our knowledge. Instead, we respond with an embarrassing, humbled, and slack-jawed silence.
“The truth is,” I tell him finally, “we heard some.”
“And we assumed a lot,” Arlo admits.
“But I guess we didn’t really know all that much for sure,” Libra confesses with a resigned sigh.
“Don’t worry,” Angel Fire reassures us. “This isn’t a test. You’ve already passed all of those. Our secrecy has been part deliberate, part accidental. It was deliberate because our founders were trying to escape our country’s self-inflicted apocalypse. And it was self-inflicted. Make no mistake. Any enemy you might have heard about was just a fearmongering fiction to cover for Krug’s real enemies.”
“Who were his real enemies?” Sara asks.
“Anyone who was honest and unafraid. Anyone who refused to sit still. Anyone with the courage to ask questions or challenge their own convictions. Our founders discovered that not only is a moving target—even one that grew to be as big as ours—hard to hit, it’s also hard to get to know.”
We continue padding along in a cluster around him as he navigates the laneways, waving at his fellow Unsettled, asking questions about their health or their families, and exchanging friendly greetings as he goes. He seems to know everyone’s name and everything about them. “Nearly twenty years ago,” he says, turning his attention back to us, “the floodgates to greed and selfishness opened. Everything that had kept them back—empathy, charity, compassion—wound up being disposable. So Krug disposed of them.”
“Not just Krug,” Matholook offers. “There were a lot of complicit people: politicians, law enforcement, civilians…”
“All true,” Angel Fire agrees, “but Krug makes such a great scapegoat, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t think—”
“I’m kidding,” Angel Fire interrupts with a pleasant laugh. “It’s just easier to blame everything on one person than to admit that it takes millions of people—either through action or inaction—to enable evil to flourish. The founders of the Unsettled, they didn’t want to be part of the problem, and they didn’t want to be part of the solution. They just wanted to be. For our founders, the world didn’t go to Hell. Hell came to them. So they moved on. What started out as an abstraction—the whole ‘rolling stone’ metaphor—evolved into a reality. Our oldest members got the idea of staying in constant motion. The drones were mostly attacking cities and high-value infrastructure targets. They weren’t being programmed to go after desert nomads. So that’s what we became. It was the only way to stay safe. And we scooped up followers along the way. People were desperate, and we took them all in. It didn’t matter to our founders how you lived or what you thought. As long as you could commit to being in constant motion.” He makes a sweeping, general gesture at the army and presses a fingertip to his temple. “Out there or in here.”
“That’s pretty enlightened of them,” Libra says with a surprised but approving grin.
Angel Fire agrees. “The original Unsettled were kids, like all of us. Untainted, unprejudiced, and scared to death of staying still. And it’s been this way ever since. Don’t get me wrong. Knowing your roots is great. Being locked in place by them…well, that’s something our founders decided was too high of a price to pay.”
I catch myself riveted by his history lesson and by the bits of philosophy he sprinkles in. But it’s more than that. I’m amazed at how much he seems to know for someone so young. He sounds smart—maybe even wise—but not pretentious or condescending. He looks twelve, acts fifteen, and talks like someone who’s lived five lifetimes.
“Isn’t it hard living like this, though?” Matholook asks.
“The Devoted live out here, too,” I remind him.
“But we have a secure compound. We’re building and growing, expanding out. Being on the move all the time like the Unsettled…I just can’t get my head around it.”
“Fuel shortages are a problem,” Angel Fire admits. “That’s why we’ve been working on developing solar and magnetic propulsion and a host of other alternate energy systems. And then there’s water shortages and Dust Devils.”
Ignacio scrunches up his face. “Um…Dust Devils?”
“Vortexes of sand and wind. Like a cyclone or a tornado. They pop up out here all the time. It’s the result of radical temperature fluctuations. The Earth has natural freeze-thaw cycles and atmospheric balance. It didn’t take much more than a couple hundred years of human interference to throw it all off and then another decade or two to thoroughly knock it completely out of whack. So now it’s hot where it should be cold, windy where it should be calm, and chaotic all over. We Unsettled…we stopped fighting the chaos. Now, we ride it.”
Laughing, he makes a wavy, dolphin-like motion with his hand, like it’s surfing on the air.
“The kids run the Unsettled,” Libra says. “I get that. But what happens when you get older?”
“This.” Angel Fire’s broad hand-sweep nearly knocks me over. “This is Retirement Garrison.”
He directs our attention to a huge collection of nearly identical motorhomes, all chrome and white and startlingly clean considering the constant clouds of dust swirling around, through, and over the constantly moving city.
“How do you keep them so clean?” Ignacio asks.
Angel Fire slaps his open hand to the slick side of one of the lumbering behemoths and then, just as quickly, says, “Ouch!” and snaps his hand back. “Synth Steel but coated with a magno-static, polytetrafluoroethylene particle repellent. Makes it hot as hell, but it keeps the dirt and dust and such from sticking.” He gazes up into the side window of one of the motorhomes as we pass. Inside, a man with thick gray
dreadlocks presses his palm to the glass and nods at us as we walk along. Angel Fire tips his head in return and goes on to tell us more about the fleet of motorhomes in the Retirement Garrison.
“Forty-one feet long. Leveling jacks. Double awnings and slide-out generators. Eight batteries. Gravity water fill. Leather seats. Full kitchen and dinette. Bedroom. Bathroom. These are condos on wheels. The first Unsettled ‘liberated’ most of them from a bunch of dealerships in Denver long before the city got bombed and walled off.”
“Liberated?” Matholook asks.
“Pilfered,” I explain. “Filched.”
“Filched?”
“You know: Nicked.”
“Who the frack is Nick? And why the frack do you want to pinch him?”
“Wait. Are you having me on?”
Matholook’s lips are straight, and his eyes are expressionless. “Maybe.”
And then it’s like his whole face bursts open into a belly-clutching laugh.
I shove him hard enough to stagger him into Ignacio who growls and pushes him back into me. Pretending Matholook is about to fall, I throw my arms around him and say, “Whoa!”
“You saved me,” he pretend gushes.
“You’re worth saving,” I answer, speaking the real and total truth. And then, sadly, I release him from my unnecessary bear hug as Angel Fire leads us along.
On either side of us, all the motorhomes have low, wrought-iron fences encircling their rooftops. Adult men and women sitting in lawn chairs on the tops stare down at us with what I can only imagine is a combination of confusion and curiosity. While most of the Unsettled are dressed in their hodgepodge of mushroom-colored clothes, my Asylum and I are still sporting our Academy kits.
“I hope they don’t think we’re the spearhead to an invading army,” I sigh. “We must look like a military squad. Or maybe a biker gang.”
Libra says she doubts anyone is that suspicious of us. “Especially with Angel Fire leading the way.” She bites her lip as she scans the rooftops of the motorhomes, returning the gaze of the dozens of staring faces. “They don’t look all that old.”