by K A Riley
Two teenage boys step out from behind a thick, crimson curtain and stand with magisterial pretension, hands on their hips, noses in the air, in front of the two velvet-covered chairs.
Shouldering her way between me and Brohn, Trolly gives a small curtsey in the direction of the taller boy. “Greetings, Ledge. These are them.” She gives a broad sweep of her hand before backing away in a submissive crouch.
The boy called “Ledge” is strikingly handsome, clean-shaven, with high cheekbones, manicured eyebrows, and piercing green eyes that reflect the flickers of firelight dancing throughout the blood-red room. His light brown hair falls around his face in graceful, curly waves.
Like everyone else around here, he’s dressed like he just stepped out of the Middle Ages, only in his case, his clothes are much more kingly: white tights, a red satin coat with white trim, a waist-length red cape, and a golden crown angled on his head just above his eyebrow.
The strangest thing, though, is his footwear. Instead of stitched-together leather boots done up with laces or buckles, he’s wearing a pair of red, high-top basketball sneakers with thick white laces and a white Nike swoosh hand-painted onto the sides.
He gives us a weird look and a polite bow before sitting down in what, from up close, appears to be an old airplane seat, upholstered in the remnants of a British flag and decked out with colored pieces of glass, strips of silk ribbon, and shiny circles of plastic and aluminum.
Giving his head a small shake to shift the hair away from his eyes, he directs a nod of approval to Trolly before turning back to us. “I’m Ledge. Baron o’ the Banters. And this is my right-hand,” he says, pointing his finger and thumb like a gun at the other boy. “Lost-the-Plot.”
The shorter, heavier boy, scowling at us from under his bushy unibrow, drops heavily into the smaller but equally gaudy chair next to Ledge’s.
He reaches behind himself and rises up a little as he gives his bottom an aggressive scratching before plopping back down and leaning forward, his legs spread wide under a kilt similar to Rain’s. To my horror, I can see that he’s not wearing any underwear.
He catches my reaction and, through a curled lip snarl, spits toward my feet. “It’s…not a pleasure meetin’ ya prats in the slightest, an’ if it was up to me, I’d kill ya soon as look atcha.”
We all lean back at this weird, unexpected, and unprovoked bout of hostility from the muscular and oddly asymmetrical boy.
From his seat next to Ledge, Lost-the-Plot gives us all an evil-eyed glare accompanied by his extended middle finger.
“That’s rude,” Cardyn mutters to me out of the side of his mouth.
I shush Cardyn at the same time that Ledge half-turns and shushes Lost-the-Plot before fixing his attention back on us. “I see you’ve made the acquaintance of Trolly and Chunder.”
“We have,” Brohn says, stepping forward.
“And our reconnaissance archers,” Ledge adds with a tilt of his head toward the six girls standing at the back of the room, their bows now slung across their bodies.
They return his acknowledgement with tiny bows.
Grinning broadly, Ledge rests his chin on his interlaced fingers like a little kid immersed in his favorite viz-screen show. “Been a long time since we had visitors.”
“It’s been a long time since we visited anyone.”
Ledge’s eyes meet Brohn’s. “You’re not from anywhere around ‘ere, are ya?”
“Not even close.”
“And you weren’t looking for us, were ya?”
“No. We’re on a mission. Your people found us.”
“You really don’t know what’s goin’ on’ere?”
Brohn shakes his head. “No.”
Ledge sighs. He adjusts his slightly oversized crown, throws one leg over his knee, and leans back in his throne. “Well, for starters, you shouldn’t be ‘ere in the Great Wen. This is a place ta run from, not to. Even the ‘igh ‘n mighty Royal Family relocated to Balmoral Castle in the New Republic of Scotland…must be twenty years gone now.”
“Naw,” Lost-the-Plot sneers, staring blankly off into space. “Woulda been back in 2022, that.”
Ledge glares at Lost-the-Plot and looks like he’s going to tease him or maybe hit him, but he seems satisfied to let the correction slide.
“Make it twenty-two years, then. Most o’ the adults legged it off. Takin’ their chances outside the city.”
“Not us,” Lost-the-Plot murmurs, his two eyes—one tiny and brown, the other twice the size of its partner and gray as a stone—somehow looking in two very different directions.
This time Ledge chooses to ignore his intrusive lieutenant.
“Dracunculiasis. Checkmate Flu. En-Gene-eers sent in ‘awkers. Took away the special kids. So they say. Killed the Lurgies. That much is fact. Got the bodies ta prove it. We’re what’s left, aren’t we?”
From her position off to the side, Trolly half-raises her hand, and Ledge rolls his eyes but gives her a go-ahead nod.
“We might’ve got some of ‘em special kids right ‘ere.”
“How ya mean?”
“It’s like she told ya,” Chunder calls out—his index finger two knuckles deep into his nose—from where he’s now standing with the team of female archers who have stepped forward to take up guard-dog positions in a semi-circle behind us. “Them’s Mergies. Him there, the red-‘eaded bloke, tried to do sumfin’ to Trolly an’ me. Makes yer brain sleepy, don’t it?”
Ledge contemplates Chunder’s claim for a second before sitting back and folding his arms across his chest. “Naw. Mergies wasn’t real. Just a myth ta stir us all up, keep us scared an’ all.”
“Sure enough was real,” Chunder calls out again, inspecting the tip of his finger for whatever treasure he managed to dislodge from his nose. “Told ya before ‘ow that friend o’ me and Trolly’s cousin got taken away. Called ‘im a Dream-reader.”
Ledge grunts. “Sure. It’s always friends of friends of somebody’s cousin, innit?” He leans forward and scans us one at a time before his eyes settle back on Brohn’s. “Mergies. Hypnies. Dream-readers. If they really ever was, they was all taken away, so don’t matter none. We Banters are what matters. We’re what’s left.”
“Mergies?” Cardyn squeals before I have a chance to quiet him a second time. “Like Emergents? That’s us!”
Ledge’s head snaps around and his eyebrow goes rocketing upward as he swings over to face Cardyn.
Great. Thanks a lot, Card. Your big mouth is about to get us killed.
16
Revelation
Ledge gives Cardyn a sideways look and Lost-the-Plot gives him a one-eyed eyeroll.
“No. Really,” Cardyn insists. “We’re Emergents.”
Brohn and Terk back him up with vigorous nods and enthusiastic grunts of agreement.
I bite my lip, not sure if now is the time to reveal such a weird and intimate truth about ourselves. We may be hero-worshipped back home, but who knows how this walled-in community of off-kilter kids will take it?
Ledge hops down from the elaborately decorated and decadent airplane seat passing as a throne. “That’s a big claim.”
“Yeah,” Lost-the-Plot sneers. “If you was Mergies, ‘ow come the ‘awkers ain’t gotcha yet?”
“We don’t know what Hawkers are,” I confess, stepping forward to stand next to Brohn. “And we’re not from here. As you’ve obviously figured out. We really just need to get to the Tower of London.”
“And Lost-the-Plot here needs a trough o’ valium and anger-management, but I don’t see none o’ that ‘appenin’ neither.”
Crossing his arms and stepping down from the platform, Ledge starts to pace in front of us, the bottoms of his basketball shoes pressing a zigzag pattern of imprints into the thick, dirt-spackled carpet.
After a deep breath, he calls out to Trolly to come forward.
Trolly signals to Chunder who pushes the wobbly shopping cart with our confiscated weapons across the room and parks i
t next to Ledge in front of the platform and the two thrones. Along the way, the rusted wheels and rickety metal of the cart screech and echo across the weathered carpet and over the patches of exposed wooden sub-floor in the wide, mostly empty room. “They ‘ad these.”
Joining Ledge, Lost-the-Plot hops down from the single-step stage and plunges his hands into the shopping cart.
Trolly volunteers whose weapon is whose as Lost-the-Plot draws out Brohn’s arbalest, Cardyn’s tomahawk axes, Rain’s dart-drivers, and Terk’s flail. He shows them to Ledge who nods his approval before ordering Lost-the-Plot to drop them back into the cart.
“An’ where’s yours, Love?” he asks me through an oddly polite-looking sneer. I shrug, and he leans in close like he’s inspecting me. “Mergies don’t need weapons now, do they? Mergies is the weapon.”
At this point, I know we’re taking a big risk. If we confess the full truth about who and what we are, these so-called Banters could decide we’re a threat to them. Or they could figure we’re useful somehow and try to use us for their own ends. Or they could simply decide we’re witches and try to kill us. We barely even know where we stand at home. We’re even more in the dark here, in this desolate, foreign land.
“Naw. They ain’t Mergies,” Ledge declares with finality, drawing his eyes away from mine.
“What do we do wit’ ‘em, then?” Lost-the-Plot grumbles. He spits a grape-sized lump of mucous-y spittle onto the floor off to the side. “If they ain’t Mergies, they ain’t dangerous. ‘An we can’t afford another set o’ mouths ta feed.”
In the tiniest whisper I can manage, I ask Rain what we should do.
“We need to convince them we’re really Emergents and not just a myth,” she whispers back, loud enough for Brohn to hear as well.
Nodding from where he’s standing on Rain’s other side, Brohn sighs and steps up to the front of the platform where Ledge and Lost-the-Plot order him to stop. “Okay,” he says to Ledge, his arms wide in open invitation. “Stab me.”
Without a word or a second’s contemplation, Ledge reaches back, slides one of the two-handed swords out of a slot in the arm of his chair, and swings it, baseball-bat style, as hard as he can, at Brohn’s neck.
There’s a clang like a metal hammer on a gong. The impact of the strike knocks Brohn into me, and we go crashing in a heap onto the floor as the echo of the sword’s steel against Brohn’s skin pings around the room.
As nice as it is to be entangled with Brohn, he’s muscular and heavy, and I can’t breathe.
Looming over us and letting out a barbaric battle cry, Terk lunges at Ledge, but Cardyn and Rain each grab him by one arm and hold him back while I groan for someone to lug Brohn off of me.
“It’s okay,” Brohn moans, pushing himself up to his elbows and rolling over to the side.
He winces, and I gulp in a deep breath as he pushes himself to his knees and then, with a groan, all the way to his feet.
He’s reeling, but he’s got enough of his wits about him to reach a hand down to help me up, too.
As Terk turns to fuss over him, Brohn is greeted by a chorus of appreciative “Ooohs” and “Aaahs” from around the room.
The six archers seem overly impressed, and I get the sense Brohn has instantly achieved celebrity status among the girls, especially.
Even Ledge looks Brohn up and down before turning to run his finger along the blade of his sword, either inspecting it for damage or else trying to figure out if it just needs sharpening.
One of the archers drops her bow and rushes over to inspect Brohn’s skin. She’s got shaggy hair, a crooked nose, and chipped fingernails, but her eyes are huge and gorgeous, and I can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy as she runs her hands up and down his neck and chest.
Batting her hands away, he does his best to fend her off, but it’s like she’s a hyperactive octopus who’ll drop dead if she’s not in constant contact with him.
Ledge calls out for the girl to back off and return to her post, which she does, although she doesn’t take her eyes off of Brohn as she obeys Ledge’s orders.
Lost-the-Plot plods over to stand in front of Brohn and inspect his neck where Ledge’s sword struck with such power. There’s a long red mark running from under Brohn’s ear, across his collarbone, and along the upper part of his chest where the sword must have slid down and slashed clean through his distressed, full-length leather jacket.
Impressed, Lost-the-Plot gives Brohn a hard, proud slap on the shoulder. “First time I seen Ledge use ol’ Sally there and not wind up blood-soaked wit’ some bloke’s ‘ead rollin’ ‘alfway across the room.”
I can tell Ledge is equally impressed, although he’s trying to hide it. He paces in front of me, Cardyn, Terk, and Rain. “An’ what about the rest of ya?”
I turn to the side to stifle a muffled giggle into my shoulder at Ledge’s exaggerated air of superiority coupled with his captivated, open-mouthed stare. It’s alarming to think he could have severed Brohn’s head just now. But it’s amusing to see him playing king in his crooked crown and oversized basketball shoes.
He really wants to be royally respected, but right now, in light of the discovery of five potentially enhanced fellow teenagers in his presence, he looks mostly baffled. I hate to admit it, but it’s actually kind of cute.
He regains his composure and stops in front of me. He rests the blade of the monstrous sword on my shoulder, and my almost-giggle turns to a mini-bout of terror.
Brohn reaches out like he’s going to push Ledge away from me, but Lost-the-Plot steps between them, his thick, hairy hand plastered hard against Brohn’s chest.
Assured he’s been sufficiently protected by his right-hand man, Ledge turns his full attention back to me. “You Sally-proof, too, Love?”
Swallowing hard, I respond with a vigorous headshake and a giant step back, although that sword is still more than long enough to stay perched on my shoulder. I flick my eyes down and to the side, making sure the blade isn’t too close to my jugular vein.
Ledge’s voice softens. “Then what d’ya do?”
“What do I do?”
“You a Mergie, eh? Yer ‘ead as tough as ‘is, then?”
“No. My head is perfectly normal, and I’d like to keep it that way, thank you.”
“Well, if ya can’t ‘elp us, all ya can do is ‘urt us. Which means, Love, we got ta ‘urt you first. Nuffin personal. Just life.”
Brandishing the huge sword with both hands, he lifts it from my shoulder and raises it high up into the air.
17
Proof
Rain steps between me and Ledge and puts her hand up as he prepares to swing the enormous blade.
With Ledge on pause and with his sword primed to strike, Rain turns back to catch my eye. “It’s okay. Show him, Kress.”
“Yeah, Kress,” Lost-the-Plot snarls through a mouth full of fuzzy yellow teeth. “Show us.”
“You’re sure?” I ask Rain.
Resting the sword on his shoulder, Ledge smiles at me. “She’s sure. Show us, Kress.”
Holding up a finger and telling Ledge to give me one second, I tap into Render who is gliding in big, reconnaissance loops outside, high above the palace.
I wasn’t always able to see through Render’s eyes and my own at the same time. It was one or the other. Over the past year or so, though, I’ve been getting better at sorting out whose vision is whose. I rarely need to swipe my forearm implants to connect with him anymore. At least not for easy tasks like this.
As Ledge and his entourage look on, Lost-the-Plot sounds shocked when he says something about my eyes going black.
Ledge tells him to “Shut yer bloody pie-hole for a second.”
Focusing myself, I describe their walled-off area around us from a bird’s eye view.
“There are barns and rows of sheds like small houses.”
Lost-the-Plot wags his finger at Ledge. “Yeah. But she coulda seen that comin’ in.”
“Wait. There’s
more. There’s a big lake with litter all around and islands of garbage in the middle. You have parts of this compound divided up with old iron fences. Spiked on the top. You’ve made laneways and small neighborhoods here. Along the northern border, on this side of the wall, there’s the leftovers of some kind of wooded area—stumps, petrified branches, spiky bushes with no leaves. Bare trees, too. There are thousands of you. Almost all kids. Neos, Juvens, Sixteens, and…Seventeens, right? Like us. Some of the Seventeens are split off…in their own area. Why? There’s water. Another lake. But don’t drink from it. Not unless you want to melt yourself from the inside out.”
I take a deep breath and then continue with my description as Render banks hard and streaks back and forth over the huge estate. “You get your fresh water from a purification pump on the east end of the park. There’s a generator, but it’s on the outside of the wall. So how do you access it? There are so many of those sheds in rows. We saw some of them on the way here. But there are more than I thought. You made that happen, didn’t you? It’s a park. Like a campground. No. It’s a whole community, isn’t it? The wall we came through…it goes all the way around. And a big building, bigger than this. It’s like a mansion…on the other side of the wall. It’s stone. Gray columns. It’s got iron and gold fences around it. There’s a marble statue surrounded by a circle of stairs and a lake on its east side. There’s an archway to the west. It’s guarded—”
“Okay,” Ledge barks, as I blink my consciousness back into my own head. “We get it. So you can see what ya shouldn’t be able ta see.”
“But’ow?” Lost-the-Plot asks, swinging his scruffy head back and forth between me and Ledge. He’s trying hard to get his mind around my little parlor trick and equally hard, by the look on his strained face, to blink his eyes in unison.
Off to the side where they’re standing next to Terk and Rain, Trolly elbows Chunder. “I bet she’s clairvoyant.”
Chunder scratches his head. “Does that mean she likes girls?”