The Loudness

by Nick Courage

  That gets my attention, and Ava’s, too. I feel her next to me, pulling the door completely shut, as I inch forward, finding a path through the flames. As I get closer to the federale, I get the strangest feeling that—against all odds—I know him from somewhere, know his face. It’s strong and square, like you’d expect from a soldier, but somehow familiar.

  It’s hard to tell through the smoke and shimmering heat . . .

  It’s been so long since I’ve seen him, more than five years since he moved to the City. But even older and in the uniform, he looks like his brother. “Ben?” I ask, my voice softening as Ava relaxes next to me, the scared stiffness leaving her body. “This is the guy,” she exhales. “This is Conor’s brother. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you . . .”

  “I know where they’re keeping ’em, Hank,” Ben shouts, nodding in confirmation. “But we don’t have much time. The generators should be up and running soon.”

  Of course. Mrs. Wallace was in the grainy photo of survivors, too, nestled into the protective embrace of one of the river engineers, a forced smile on her ashen face. His mom.

  I’d been so focused on the revelation that Ben was a federale that I’d forgotten where he’d come from. That even if he was military, we had a friend on the inside.

  As suddenly as the hallway erupted into fire, we have options again. I turn to Ava, bursting with a happy, nervous energy for the first time since . . . since Conor and I night-biked to the Other Side. A million years ago. She wraps her hand in mine, and only as I feel the soft warmth of her fingers on mine do I remember my pulsing charges and look down in horror at our intertwined hands, both now ensconced in my thrumming orb of light. They’re doing the thing. The fluid, translucent thing. But it doesn’t seem to hurt her. In fact, when I look up from our hands in mute horror, she’s leaning toward me, the fire crackling happily around us, as a pulse of cool, white light fills the stairwell.

  My heart hasn’t bothered me since the explosion, but I feel it ratcheting tightly in my chest as I lean in to meet her.

  “Are you serious?” Ben barks through the flames. “Let’s go! Up the stairs and to the back, there’s a better exit.”

  I jerk toward him, annoyed. And Ben seems to notice my hands for the first time.

  “Whoa,” he says, backing up against the railing. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Ava laughs behind me as the rest of the renegades trip backward up the stairs, their mouths agape.

  “Yeah,” I say, leaping over the last blackening pile of trash and onto the stairs. “I think you guys did this, actually. When you . . . blew up the power plant?”

  Ben cringes noticeably, then nods in acceptance despite my threadbare explanation. “Yeah?” he says, visibly upset. “That was stupid. I told her that was stupid.”

  “Told who?” Ava asks as we bound up the stairs to join them, her hand still in mine.

  “Not much time,” he says, evading the question. “Think you can turn those things off? We don’t want any attention when we’re out there . . .”

  I point toward the fire, my hands casting the dwindling orange flames in an unnatural white light.

  “That’s what happened last time I tried.”

  Most of the clotheslines crisscrossing the City’s skyline have been taken in, so the kaleidoscope of windows lining the narrow streets reflect only the thick grey haze that’s passing for morning. Having escaped the library through a service exit leading into an alley piled high with reeking dumpsters of wet, composting garbage, we’re running, pushing through the sweating masses toward where Ben says my parents are being held.

  Despite the insanity of a few hours ago, the streets are packed. The first federale responders had tried to corral rubberneckers away from the ruins of the power plant, Ben says, but an influx of Pickers diverted their efforts. With resources as limited as they are, the City can’t afford to have their boundaries breached.

  They can’t afford any more mouths.

  Especially now.

  I don’t get too much more out of him, distracted as he is by keeping us on the run and undercover, both of which would have been easier if the morning hadn’t turned so uncooperatively overcast. By the time we’d escaped the stairwell, my fists were on the verge of supernova. While the renegades formed a nervously protective circle around us, Ava had wrapped them in our sweatshirts, tying the sleeves and hoods in massive knots, praying the sun would cut through the fog, camouflaging any light that got through.

  So much for that.

  It’s not easy slipping through the crowds after Ben with shaggy, glowing paws. Besides the stares, I keep having to stop and pull Ava’s loosening knots tighter with my teeth.

  Still, it’s better than nothing.

  Now that it’s no longer wreathed in a million soft yellow lights, the City seems less like the Other Side and more like the Grey Zone. The people seem grey, too. Nobody’s hawking their wares on the sidewalks; there’s no music or resonating laughter. Just a thin layer of soot covering everything in sight and grim, worried faces as far as the eye can see.

  At least the Grey was empty.

  Here, armed federales stand like sentinels in the middle of the streets, tracking us with suspicious eyes as we try to unobtrusively push through the crowds. Luckily, Ben’s in uniform and is quick to bark a few authoritative words at any federale who tries to stop us. The federales all back down when they recognize him, and I wonder what he’s giving up to help us.

  To help the Green.

  And we’re not just under the watchful eyes of federales—it feels like everyone’s staring. I try to concentrate on my feet, to avoid eye contact, no matter what. To distract myself from the reality of the City; from the chilling memory of Carel, limp in the library, Julia-the-dog curled forlornly at his side.

  “En route to Central,” Ben growls at an inquiring federale ahead of us. “At ease.”

  We speed up to pass the chastened federale, but soon enough we’re trudging through the unnervingly quiet crush of the City again

  “Hank,” Ava whispers, her quiet urgency exploding through the muted streets like another bomb. “Are you okay?”

  Startled, I look up to flickering streetlights throwing a thousand widening eyes into and out of shadow. I follow their gaze downward, to my wrapped hands, which are engulfed in a radiant light that’s blinding even in groggy daylight. One of the sweatshirts, I notice—casually, as if it’s not connected to my body—is sparking with blue flames, like it’s trying to prove a point.

  “Off,” I whisper angrily to the torches at the end of my arms. “Turn. Off!”

  Ava arches her brow and takes a few cautionary steps back into the shocked, but still silent and unmoving crowd. Remembering the stairwell, I take the hint, but the sweatshirts flare around my fists anyway, then melt away, the remaining bits flaking off in crispy sheets that reveal the two seething orbs of my fists.

  They’re bigger than before, and angrier, with ropes of electricity whipping wildly between them.

  The crowd shifts around me, torn between backing away into safety and stepping forward to make room for rushing federales. I hear them, shouting, guns drawn. But I can’t seem to tear myself away from my hands, flexing fluidly within balls of light like glassy minnows in a stream—too quick and changing to get a good look at.

  “I’ve got this,” Ben shouts desperately, not breaking the spell. “Guns down! Guns down!” The federales, drawn inexorably forward, keep their weapons trained on us, and I feel Ben’s thick hand on my shoulder, pushing, as he whispers, “Hank . . . run,” out of the side of his mouth. “Keep straight—you’ll know where to go when you see it.”

  I start off slowly, not sure if the closing sea of people will part for me before I hit them. Ben’s still shouting behind me, ordering the federales to back down. When he sees me looking over my shoulder, he nods encouragingly—then tackles the nearest federale in a rolling dive. “Run, Hank,” he barks as he pins the soldier to the ground with a rippling arm, his unholstered gun trained
on the remaining federales, who’ve finally slowed their approach. “I have this.”

  I tell myself that I would’ve stayed around to help if it wasn’t for all the firearms, but . . . cradling my still-flaming hands against my chest like an infant, I break into a full-on run, Ava trailing closely behind me. Ben’s voice follows us, rising above the shouts of the other converging federales. “Follow the jeeps!”

  It’s overwhelming at first, everyone staring at the two of us as we sprint through an unfamiliar City, which parts instinctively at the sight of the sparking electrical bombs I have for hands. Overwhelming to know that the burden of rescuing my parents—and the Green—falls squarely on me. Despite everything, though, it feels so unbelievably good just to run again, without losing my breath or passing out, that I smile as I pick up speed.

  With each footfall, my calves flex, generating what feels like muscle. With each surprisingly cool breath, my chest expands, my lungs filtering oxygen from the dusty City air through rushing blood to pounding legs and arms. For the first time in my life, I feel what it must be like to be truly strong.

  And fast.

  The long strands of Christmas lights the locals have strung across the streets crackle on and off as I pass beneath them, strobing alongside the streetlights and flashing windows in my wake. In the eerie quiet of the narrow streets, the white noise of radios and televisions snapping quickly on and off as I pass sounds almost like a standing ovation.

  “Hank,” Ava yells from somewhere behind me, muffled by a growing distance. “Wait!”

  Jogging in place to give Ava time to catch up, I look back over my shoulder and can barely believe the ground I’ve covered. Ben’s federale scuffle is nowhere in sight, and neither is the library. Even Ava’s just a smudge in the distance, leaving me alone, surrounded by ashen-faced locals, all backed against walls and crowded on stoops, giving me a wide berth.

  “No exit without permits,” someone calls to me matter-of-factly from a second-floor window, emboldened by distance. Overhead, a street lamp burns so brightly, its straining filament breaks apart with a pop.

  “What?”

  “No one gets in, no one gets out,” he says, the rest of the crowd nodding in solemn agreement. “Not without permit. Roadblock goes both ways, and you’ll never get out with those.” He points to my hands with his chin, and—feeling conspicuous with fifty sets of eyes on me—I look away, craning my neck for Ava. She’s still a ways off, though. Frustrated, I turn back to the man, stretching my arms behind my head to hide them from his wide-eyed ogling.

  The effect is . . . not intended.

  Jagged ropes of white light arc angrily upward from my hands in the direction of the stretch, crackling through the broken street light above, leaving the lamp hanging by a molten thread from its anchoring pole. After a long second filled only with the sound of angrily sparking wires, there’s an en masse clearing of the road. As the locals push and shove each other back onto side streets and into powered-down apartment buildings, Ava finally catches up.

  “They saw me coming?” Ava asks, breathing heavily. I nod, laughing nervously, then point to the smoking lamp as the guilt sets in. Henry Long, Destroyer. “Huh,” she pants, nodding a few times in the affirmative while catching her ragged breath. “Okay, just go a little slower, yeah?”

  I’m careful to cradle my hands in front of my chest when we start off again. One wrong flick of the wrist and Ava could end up in the Hospital. Or worse. It crosses my mind more than once that I should probably be scorched by my writhing white hands as I press them protectively against my chest.

  But I’m not.

  I try not to over-think it.

  There are a million things that could go wrong; it’s just chance protecting us from chance at this point. Behind us, the lamp finally falls free of the pole, landing with a dull, wet thud against the asphalt, still too melted from the pulse to shatter. As freaked out as I am, Ava does have a point—it’s not so bad. And there’s no way anyone’s going to keep us anywhere we don’t want to be, permit or not. I want to sprint away as fast as I can—to feel my revitalized body crank into impossible gear, the hot wind whipping through my hair—but I have to concentrate on keeping pace with Ava, otherwise I’ll lose her.

  And I can’t lose her, too.

  “This was like the Other Side,” she says, having caught her breath. “Now it’s like everyone’s already dead.”

  I cringe, remembering Carel. But she’s right. Even more unsettling than the quiet are the zombie-like locals. Yesterday it was block after block of Tom and Rachels, artists and rock and rollers partying in the streets until daybreak, all light and music. Even the graffiti was the same as on the Other Side. Today, it’s like we’re running through shadows.

  “They’re not dead,” I say, shrugging the thought off like a too-hot sweatshirt. “Just stuck here.” Even as I say it, I know it’s more than that. There were a lot of horrible things in the newspapers I flipped through in the library, but they were all just headlines: print on grainy paper. The federales shield their cities from the realities of stuff like that. From people like the Pickers, who live—if you can call it living—right on the other side of their roadblocks, full of cataracts and cancers from chemicals and toxic wastes.

  After last night, though, all these people know what it’s like to be a headline.

  To be scared, like us.

  Like the Pickers.

  The thought chills the blood in my veins, and I pick up the pace, slowing down only when I feel Ava pull pleadingly at the hem of my shirt. But even jogging, my mind’s still sprinting forward, connecting dots: the federales are able to protect their cities from the truth because they have power. The power to make everyone pretend like nothing’s really wrong, even if they know otherwise . . . even if they’re pretending at the expense of the Pickers and the Green Zone.

  And Carel literally exploded that power last night.

  Grammy did, too.

  Most of these blank-faces were still outside when the federale power plant exploded, disoriented in the dark; noses twitching at the acrid, singed air as their illusion of safety abruptly faded. And then, punctuating the darkness: deafening rotors of low-flying helicopters and constellations of sparking federale guns. Those that weren’t injured in the aftermath were herded, shaking and scared, like chattel through the narrow streets—away from the encroaching Pickers and the smoking remnants of federale power. This morning, most of them are just waking up to the hazy light of the City-as-it-really-is for the first time—unable to leave, even if they wanted to.

  More prisoners than citizens.

  “Carel was right. They’re not like the Other Siders,” I whisper to myself, a spasm of guilt working its way down my neck and back. After everything they’d already been through, I’d used my own newfound powers to scare them out of my way. Like they weren’t even people.

  They’re not like the Other Siders yet, I correct myself with resolve.

  It’s impossible to miss the federale base where Ben says my parents are being held—and not just because Ben told us to follow the jeeps. Standing solidly in the middle of a smooth stone plaza is a column-lined bunker of limestone topped with a gleaming gold cupola. City Hall. Not the kind of place the federales would have built for themselves, given their predilection for black, but infinitely more impregnable than the glass skyscrapers dotting the skyline.

  An armada of sedans and jeeps are haphazardly parked across the plaza, boulders in the river of suited federales flooding the block. Some are talking surreptitiously into the sleeves of their blazers, others are conferring over maps unfolded on hot metal hoods. The door of a helicopter slams shut as its rotor starts whirring, drawing my attention to a bank of helipads at the far end of the plaza. The suits arguing over the map, used to this distraction, anchor it to the hood with the heels of their hands and raise their voices, not missing a beat.

  “Okay,” Ava says, her voice drowning beneath the rising helicopter, which blows her alread
y wavy brown hair across her sweating, soot-streaked face. “What now?”

  It’s a good question.

  The federales are too preoccupied to have noticed us standing at the perimeter of their operations, and I instinctively step back, trying to melt further into the surrounding mass of locals; compensating for my hands, which I squeeze furtively behind my back. We’ve been running from federales for so long that it feels strange to be on the offensive. Impossible, even—like we’re wrong to even consider it. Watching the flurry of activity on the plaza, I wonder again if there’s any truth to the newspapers . . . if the federales really were just trying to save the Green Zone, despite us.

  If that’s just what they’re trying to do now.

  Save their city.

  Despite us.

  No matter what Grammy or Carel says, this whole thing has to be more complicated than just us being good and them being bad. And even if it is that simple, there are so many other federale cities just like this one. A country full of them. If the federales are really as bad as Carel says they are, there’s almost no reason to try.

  Except for my parents, who are being held on the top floor of this building.

  In this city.

  Quit stalling, Henry, I whisper, trying to work up a plan and coming up with nothing except a sinking despair. Shivering despite the heat, I look down at my hands—still ensconced in shimmering balls of cold, white light—and the weight of the past week descends on me all at once. There are so many federales just in the plaza and on the front steps—at least a hundred—and I can’t imagine making it through them without getting shot at, let alone up the seven-or-so stories to my parents.

  How did we even get here?

  My hands crackle sympathetically as I fight back the tears welling up behind my eyes. A month ago I was hiding out in Mr. Moonie’s attic, reading dusty adventure novels from Before in soft, mottled light to the hopeful sounds of construction on the Avenue. And now . . .