Unbreakable

by Will McIntosh

  They passed an open yard surrounded by cyclone fencing topped with barbed wire, filled with brand new miniature cars, vans, Jeeps. Miniature to these people, anyway. They looked just right to Celia.

  The rail yard was three blocks away. It looked remarkably similar to rail yards Celia had seen in movies: a dozen sets of parallel tracks, red boxcars parked in lines on a few tracks at the far end of the yard. The only difference was that everything was small. A train was parked on tracks toward the center. The door to one boxcar was conveniently, conspicuously open.

  “There’s our ride,” Anand said.

  It looked like a mouth waiting to swallow them. She didn’t like putting herself back under Dominion’s control, even temporarily. For all she knew the plan was to shuttle them straight to Slaughtertown for the Grand Finale.

  They made a show of stealth, ducking under a rusted old engine abandoned on the nearest track, then sprinting across the yard, hurdling tracks, finally diving through the open boxcar door.

  The car was filled with crates of chocolate bars. Ooh, how ironic. The audience must be loving it. Celia opened a box, offered a chocolate bar to Anand, holding it out for the camera, wherever it was. She’d seen enough advertisements in this place to understand why everyone in Record Village had been trained to use the brand name whenever they talked about a product. She’d play along for now.

  Anand’s hand froze a few inches from the chocolate bar. He was looking out through the open door. “I can’t believe it.”

  Beaners was standing with hands on hips, scanning the yard. Anand stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. Beaners jogged toward them with his duck-like gait. He vaulted into the boxcar, caught his eggplant foot in the doorway and fell on his face. It was funny, but Celia knew better than to laugh.

  “Man, you must love us a whole lot.” Celia said.

  Beaners rolled onto his back and sat up. “Don’t flatter yourself. They kicked me off the boat, just like I predicted.”

  That surprised Celia. Helping people like Beaners was what they did. “Did Calysta say why?”

  “No.” Beaners straightened the bowtie on his purple suit, which had become almost as soiled and wrinkled as his old clown outfit. “Okay, maybe ‘kicked me off’ is a slight overstatement, but nobody begged me to stay like they did with you two, that’s for sure.”

  “So you did come back of your own free will,” Celia said.

  Beaners pushed himself to his feet and stepped close to Celia. “I came back because you need me. You’d be dead six times over by now if not for me.”

  If Max had been intending to kill her, that would be true. He did save her from getting a nasty bruise if one of the rubber bullets in Max’s gun had struck her.

  The train jerked twice, and began to glide silently along the track, slowly at first, then picking up speed. The steel boxcar was scuffed and dented, anything but new, yet they glided along as if they were flying above the tracks.

  A jolt of anxiety hit Celia as it really hit her, that she could die today. From what Anand had said, he thought it was more likely than not. She thought back to what Lara had said, that if they killed Celia they would do it in a way that would be satisfying to their viewers. She wondered if that would still be the plan if Celia began ruining their shows.

  Chapter 23

  The train pulled to a stop beside a loading dock. Anand pulled open the door, just a crack. They jumped out and rolled under the boxcar. Actually, Beaners crawled under, unwilling to risk breaking the stacks of chocolate bars he had stuffed in his pockets. Celia guessed the workers unloading the train would ignore them if they simply opened the boxcar door and strolled onto the loading dock, but Celia wanted Dominion to believe they were playing along for as long as possible.

  After making sure no one was on the tracks, Celia ran, bent at the waist, into a nest of boxcars. When Anand and Beaners joined her, they wound between the cars and climbed a rocky ridge. A copse of scrub pines ran along the ridge. Beyond was an apartment complex. It all looked so different, now that Celia had been outside. Before, the pines had been towering giants, and the squat apartment building the epitome of modern. Instead of feeling five foot eight now that everything was to scale, she still felt two feet tall, and saw clearly that everything around her was in miniature. The illusion had been shattered, and she doubted it would be possible to regain it, even if she’d wanted to.

  They moved along the tree line, skirted the apartments and crossed a road buzzing with traffic. It was strange to think the people passing in those cars were still ignorant to what this island was.

  #

  It didn’t surprise Celia when she spotted a garbage truck rumbling out of the sanitation department parking lot. It was a hammy, heavy-handed ‘coincidence’ that Dominion’s viewers would probably lap up. As the truck approached, Celia stepped out of the woods and flagged it down, trying to appear surprised and thrilled to see Lorena.

  Lorena was genuinely surprised. As they climbed aboard she kept repeating, “I can’t believe it.” Her left arm was in a cast.

  “What happened to you guys?” Lorena asked as they headed down the road.

  Celia so wanted Lorena to be the first person on Dominion she told the truth, but they had to keep up the pretense just a little longer.

  “We swam out maybe half a mile and then headed down the shoreline,” Anand said. “When the coast was clear we swam back. We’ve been hiding out ever since.”

  “We’re going home,” Celia added. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. We figure if we melt back into our towns, security might leave us alone.”

  “That’s probably a smart idea,” Lorena said, her eyes on the road. “Who should I drop off first? Circus Town is closest.”

  But that wasn’t in the direction of the construction site. “Let me off first. What happened to your arm?”

  Lorena laughed nervously. “Nothing. It’ll be fine.”

  That’s what Celia had thought. They had cameras in the truck, so Lorena’s alibi had been worthless. Assuming the producers shared that sort of information with Redsuits.

  The construction site wasn’t directly on the way, so at some point they were going to have to get Lorena to change course. It was probably the last place in the world she wanted to see.

  Celia put a hand on Lorena’s shoulder. “How have you been doing?”

  “Oh, you know. Getting by. One day at a time.”

  Lorena was a kind soul, innocent and likable—good for a supporting role, not likely to overshadow the leads. Celia saw this place through such a different lens now.

  Anand came up beside Celia. “We need you to do us a favor.”

  Lorena glanced back. “What’s that?”

  “Take us to that construction site as fast as you can.”

  Lorena’s mouth fell open. “What?”

  “Don’t ask questions,” Anand said. “Just do it. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will. Or better yet, Beaners will.” He was making certain Lorena had no opportunity to be complicit this time, in case their plan failed.

  Lorena studied Anand’s face. “I thought you were my friends.”

  “Lorena, don’t talk. Just take us to the site,” Celia said. “Do you understand?”

  “I do, but—”

  “Don’t talk. Just drive. Fast.”

  The truck picked up speed.

  #

  As soon as they were on the ground, Lorena did what Celia had told her to do—she drove away as fast as she could. It would have been nice to have Lorena drive them from town to town, but it would not do for Dominion to know what they were up to and where they were headed. They stayed out of sight, circling to the right until they reached the hillside.

  “Ready?” Anand asked. It was daytime, so they’d have to deal with construction workers. Their hope was to make it in and out without being spotted. Plan B was to move quickly and hope the workers weren’t interested in taking on a clown and a very tall guy missing an ear to protect someone else
’s property.

  They scurried down a steep bank, kicking up clouds of dirt, and ducked behind stacks of wall segments. Construction workers climbed among the open sections of the maze and drove forklifts of materials and skid steers across the open concrete foundation. They’d made progress since the last time Celia had been here, but the project was nowhere near complete.

  Two workers, both women, passed close enough that Celia could hear them talking about going to a bar after work.

  They reached the spot by the edge of the cliff without being seen.

  The explosives were gone.

  “Damn,” Anand hissed.

  “After our friend blew himself to smithereens, they probably decided it was a bad idea to leave explosives lying around,” Beaners said.

  Voices rose on the other side of a partially constructed wall. It sounded like the same two workers.

  “We need to recruit a couple of volunteers to show us where they keep the explosives,” Beaners said.

  “Try not to scare them,” Celia said.

  When the women noticed them, Beaners tipped his hat. “Ladies. We seem to be lost. I wonder if you can help us find our way.”

  Looking Beaners up and down, the taller of the two said, “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?” She put her hands on her hips. “How’d you get here?”

  “Look,” Celia said, “we need to know where you store those yellow explosives.”

  When the tall woman looked around, Celia added, “If you call out for help, the clown will bite your hand off.”

  Beaners grinned and tipped his hat again.

  “They’re locked up,” the other woman said. She was older, maybe in her fifties. “We just work here, we don’t want to get hurt.”

  “And we don’t want to hurt you, so we’re all on the same page,” Celia said.

  Anand grasped the tall woman’s elbow, and they followed the older one around the main structure of the maze, to a shed with a padlock on it.

  “We don’t have the key,” the older woman said.

  “Piece of cake.” Beaners grasped the handle with both hands and pulled, grunting with exertion.

  The door didn’t budge.

  He lifted one foot, braced it against the side of the shed and pulled harder.

  The lock snapped all at once; the door flew open with a bang. Beaners was hurled backward, his arms pinwheeling. He landed on his butt a dozen feet from the door.

  Anand disappeared inside and emerged with the crate of explosives and detonators on his shoulder, a cord in his hand. He headed straight to a forklift, set the crate on the fork and lashed it down with the cord.

  “Show me how to drive this,” he ordered the workers.

  #

  They zoomed past the temporary worker housing. Celia, detonator in hand, read the instructions for the explosives.

  “Where are we headed?” Anand asked.

  “I’m not sure. Where can I cause the most commotion? I want to give the viewers a show they’ll never forget,” Celia said.

  “You want a show?” Beaners said. “Let the clowns loose.”

  Celia pictured that band of clowns at the high-dive ladder, eager to tear Beaners and her apart. Celia was so afraid she’d blow down the walls of some town, and the residents would simply stand there, just as Anand had predicted. She had no idea what the clowns would do, but they wouldn’t just stand there.

  “Let’s go to Circus Town.”

  His voice low, Anand said, “Slaughtertown is just down the road from there.”

  “Oh.” A town full of people trained to fight, who’d been terrorized by Dominion their whole miserable lives.

  “If we’re lucky, the producers released something recently, and when we blow the wall it won’t just be people pouring out.” From Anand’s tone, he didn’t seem too sure that would constitute a lucky break.

  #

  It was dark by the time they reached Circus Town, but a gibbous moon cast enough light to see by. Quickly, but gingerly, Anand withdrew one of the yellow tubes from the crate, jogged to the base of the wall to set it down and jogged back.

  They squatted behind the forklift as Celia typed a code into the detonator. “Ready?” She wasn’t. Even her hair was shaking.

  “There’s no going back once you press that button,” Anand said.

  She looked up at Anand. “You think it’s a mistake?”

  “I think we should hurt these bastards as hard as we can.”

  “Do it,” Beaners said.

  She pressed the center button.

  A ball of angry orange fire erupted, rising into the air like a fist. A section of the wall disintegrated, leaving a gap at least fifty feet wide as smoke mushroomed above the flame.

  “Stay here.” Beaners stood.

  “Wait a minute, don’t the other clowns hate you?” Celia asked.

  Beaners pulled a handful of chocolate bars out of his pocket. “They’re going to love me.” He trotted toward the gap, picking his way past smoldering chunks of debris.

  “That is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.” Anand was admiring the blackened ground, the smoldering ruin of the wall. He turned toward Celia, leaned in until their lips touched. “Or maybe the second most beautiful thing. Whatever happens...”

  Celia touched her finger to his lips. “Do not spoil that line with a depressing speech.”

  Anand exhaled. “Sorry.”

  “Do you think you’ll know anyone in Slaughtertown?”

  The idea seemed to startle him. “I suppose a few people may have survived this long.”

  “It’ll help if someone knows you.”

  Anand half-smiled. “Tell them who we’re fighting, and they’ll fight.”

  A whooping, lunatic cry rose from inside the walls.

  “Sounds like the clowns are out,” Anand said.

  Clowns burst out of the smoke sporting wide painted smiles, laughing whooping, hiccupy laughs. Some carried two-by-fours, others shovels, or tent stakes. There had to be forty or fifty of them.

  Other performers followed them out, looking bewildered.

  Celia stood on the seat of the forklift. It occurred to her that she should have prepared something to say, some brief, pithy, inspiring speech.

  “You ever want to go back inside there?” Beaners shouted.

  “No!” fifty voices howled.

  “If you want to be free, you have to fight for it. You ready to fight?”

  “Yes!” they shouted.

  Beaners pointed the knife he was holding at Celia. “She’s the one who blew the wall, and she’s going to blow a lot more of them before this night is done.”

  The clowns howled approval. More non-clowns were filing out by the minute. They seemed uneasy, but they were listening.

  “Do what she tells you, and by tomorrow we’ll be up to our asses in chocolate.”

  This time the roar of approval was deafening. For the first time, Celia thought they just might pull this off. When your life is misery, you’ll risk it even when the odds are stacked a thousand to one against you.

  “Sit down. Here we go,” Anand said.

  The clowns ran alongside the forklift, their eyes bright and wild. And it wasn’t just clowns: several dozen other Circus Towners had joined their insurgency.

  “This must be some sort of record,” Celia said.

  Anand squinted at her. “What?”

  “The most clowns involved in a violent uprising.” She flapped her hand at him. “Sorry. When I’m nervous I make bad jokes. I’m so scared I could vomit right now.”

  There was a crack. A clown running on the edge of the troupe dropped. Celia looked over her shoulder. There was a jeep behind them, closing fast.

  “Redsuits!”

  Anand jerked the wheel, left the road and headed toward the tree line. The clowns followed.

  Another clown was hit. His eyes opened wide; the back of his blue and white shirt bloomed bright red as he dropped.

  The forklift pushed throu
gh the underbrush. Anand steered around trees, grinding forward at ten miles per hour. They were about a hundred feet into the forest when the jeep came crashing in after them.

  Three clowns, one of them Beaners, broke from the brush carrying a tree trunk, maybe twenty feet long. They tossed it into the path of the jeep, which skidded to a halt. Before the driver could put the jeep in reverse, clowns converged on them from all sides. One clown brought a shovel down on the driver’s head.

  Celia looked away.

  Anand squeezed her shoulder. “Blood is going to spill.”

  Celia closed her eyes. “I know.”

  #

  Anand slowed as they crested the hill overlooking Slaughtertown. Three jeeps were waiting below, evenly spaced around the wall.

  “I’m thinking of a line I’ve heard in about twenty movies,” Celia said. “I’m praying you’re not about to deliver it.”

  Anand studied the jeeps. “I think you should stay here.”

  Celia pounded his thigh. “That was the line.”

  “You’re the heart of this. If you die...”

  “I dragged you and Beaners into this. I’m not going to hide while you get shot at.”

  The engine of the jeep closest to them started up. Even in the dark, it was hard to be stealthy with your troops dressed in bright, primary colors.

  Anand got out and lifted the crate of explosives off the forklift. “Get out. I have an idea.” He took out a tube and laid it on the driver’s seat, then entered the code on the detonator. “Someone find me a rock.”

  One of the clowns offered Anand a rock the size of a shoe.

  “Perfect.” Anand tied off the steering wheel with his belt, laid the rock on the gas pedal, and stepped clear as the forklift rolled away toward Slaughtertown.

  Shots rang out, fired at the empty forklift. They trailed off as the shooters realized there was no driver. Then someone shouted. Celia couldn’t hear what he said, but from the urgency in his tone, he’d figured out their plan.

  “If anyone gets close to the lift, I’m going to detonate it,” Anand shouted. “If that happens, everyone charge the jeeps. I’ll run for the wall with another bomb. When the wall comes down, stay clear until we know what’s coming out.”