Wanderers

by Susan Kim

  It wasn’t perfect, she knew; but there was no time to tie him more securely. She grabbed the key ring from his belt and the communication device that emitted an occasional squawk. His handgun, however, gave her more trouble. As she struggled to free it from its leather holder, something kept it in place and she had to leave it where it was.

  She didn’t think to take Tahir’s firestarter, a decision she would soon come to regret. But for now, all she knew was: She had to get to the others.

  Esther bolted from the restaurant. Then, with a leap, she grabbed the gate and yanked it down. Fiddling with the keys, she finally found the one that locked it.

  Then she took off.

  Esther raced through the hallways and up the staircase, her bare feet silent on the cold marble and metal surfaces. She ran the way Skar had taught her years ago: zigzagging like an animal from one safe place to the next, keeping to the deepest shadows possible. As she went, she kept her ears keyed to any sound. She knew it was only a matter of minutes before Tahir worked himself loose and called for help.

  There were dozens if not hundreds of possible places where her friends could be hidden. The adults had isolated her; perhaps that meant the others were locked up together. That was her only hope. Yet as she worked her way through the ground floor, checking each store, the cavernous darkness gave no clue: no voices, flickering lights, telltale shadows, or sounds.

  Desperate, Esther stood still in the middle of the central atrium, feeling the silence and empty blackness weigh on her like a mountain. Then she heard something.

  It was a skittering sound, coming fast out of the dark, nails sliding on marble. A hulking dark form, low to the ground, rounded a corner and bore down on her, breathing hard.

  Terrified, Esther recoiled, her hands held uselessly in front of her to fend off whatever it was. A scream boiled up in her throat as the thing leaped at her, nearly knocking her off her feet.

  As she staggered backward, Esther found herself gripping fistfuls of coarse fur. Then the creature thrust forth its face and, moments later, she felt an immense, warm, and wet tongue lick her face.

  To her shock, Esther realized it was Pilot. And the moment she recognized him, she became aware that someone followed close behind.

  “Aras?” She could not disguise the hope in her voice.

  The click of a firestarter provided a brief flare of light. To her disappointment, it revealed two strangers, a boy and a girl.

  “You alive,” said the boy. He was pale-skinned, ginger-haired, and his bony frame was swathed in black tatters. With a shock, Esther recognized him as the leader of the group that had chased them their first day in Montreal. The Insurgents, Inna had called them. “Where the others?”

  Esther hesitated, her guard up. “That depends. Who are you and how did you get in?”

  The girl spoke. “There’s a metal door in the ground. When you break through, you in the basement. More of us are coming.”

  The firestarter had evidently grown too hot and the boy let the flame go out, plunging them into near blackness again. “I’m Gideon. We here to help. We try when you first come.”

  Esther was still wary. “And where’s Aras?”

  “The boy that can’t see? He say the dog find you.” In the darkness, it seemed as if he smiled. “Say you the only one it won’t kill.”

  Esther smiled, too, her mind spinning.

  “We try to get in for years,” said Gideon. “Your boy say how to do it. So now we get your friends and go. That it.” He paused, and then he spoke with bitter relish. “This place ours.”

  Everything was moving too fast for Esther. She wasn’t sure if she trusted Gideon and his plans. Yet she had few choices open to her and even less time.

  “Last I knew, Inna had my baby on the third floor. But we got to find the others first.” As she spoke the words, Esther was struck by the hopelessness of their situation. No matter how confident Gideon seemed to be, the three would be attempting to search a massive place she knew only slightly, and in near-total darkness.

  Then she felt something soft and moist on her hand. It was Pilot, nuzzling her. At the touch of his velvety nose, she had an idea.

  In the darkness, she fumbled in the pocket of her skirt. From it, she took something out. It was the leather necklace Skar had given her, which she still carried for luck.

  She offered it to the dog. “Find Skar,” she said. “Take us to her.”

  At first, Pilot only looked at the object. Then he sniffed it, with greater interest. At last, he looked up at Esther, his tail wagging.

  “Let’s go,” Esther said.

  The dog took off so quickly, he nearly yanked the lead from her hand. Esther had to run blindly, a strange and unnerving experience. Yet once she decided to trust Pilot, she found she could go almost as fast as she could fully sighted.

  The Insurgents rode behind, following by sound as the animal led them through the darkened halls. They carried their bicycles up one set of metal stairs, then another.

  It wasn’t until they were on the second floor that the dog slowed to a trot. He paused and raised his head, to smell the air; then he put his nose to the ground. Sniffing the marble floor, he walked down the hall and came to a stop in front of a shuttered store.

  He sat, looking up at Esther, and whined. Esther approached the grille. The store looked locked and deserted, like every other storefront they had passed. But when she peered in, she saw silhouettes moving around further back.

  “Skar,” she whispered. “Eli.”

  In a flash, her friends emerged from the dimness and huddled close to the grille, their fingers curled through the slats.

  “How did you get here? And who’s that?” Silas indicated the two Insurgents who lurked in the shadows, still on their bicycles.

  “They took Eli.” Skar pressed her lips to the grille so she could speak in Esther’s ear. “Because he’s the biggest. Did you see where he is?”

  Stumpy, held in Joseph’s arms, was hissing at Pilot. “Isn’t that Aras’s dog?” asked Joseph.

  Esther only nodded. She couldn’t waste time answering any more questions. She was already fumbling with the key ring as she tried first one and then another in the lock that held the gate secure.

  “We got to go,” Gideon whispered, balanced on his bike.

  But there were several dozen keys in all, and Esther had to try each one in the lock. The first nine keys didn’t fit and she willed her hands to stop shaking. As she tried the tenth with no success, she heard something that made her heart sink.

  It was the distant sound of shouting.

  She assumed Tahir had worked free of his bonds and was calling for help. It would only be a matter of seconds before all of the adults would come after them.

  “Hurry,” breathed the Insurgent girl.

  Esther worked her way up to the fourteenth key, then the fifteenth and sixteenth.

  The seventeenth key slid in and turned with a clunk.

  As Gideon and the girl pulled the gate up, Esther had already moved on down the hallway, searching for Eli.

  Like Pilot, all she had to do was follow her nose. The faintest aroma of vegetables and sugared fruits wafted from down the hall and grew stronger the farther she went.

  Eli was the biggest, Skar had said, which made a terrible kind of sense.

  He would be the easiest to fatten up.

  She found him huddled in another darkened store. “How did you get out?” Eli whispered. There was no time to reply. By the time she was able to free him, the communications device in her pocket had started to crackle. From it, they could decipher a few phrases: “Escaped.” “Heading upstairs.” “Unarmed.”

  The others were waiting for them. “This is Gideon,” Esther said. “He and his friend can lead you out of here, but you got to hurry.”

  Michal spoke up. “What about you?”

  “I got to find Inna. And get Kai back.” Before the others could object, Esther cut them off. “This was my mistake. So I got to
make it right.”

  “At least take one of us,” said Eli. “That way, you can—”

  At that moment, brilliant light flooded the hall, silencing him. The giant glass stars that hung high above burst into electrical flame, illuminating the darkest hallways and deepest corners.

  Everyone shrank back, wincing and exposed as they blinked in the shocking brightness.

  “Lights on so they can shoot,” Gideon whispered. He seemed distracted, Esther thought, as he gazed around at their opulent surroundings; she remembered he had never been inside before. “Can’t outrun or outhide them now.”

  Silas was ashen-faced; and, beside her, Esther could sense Joseph trembling. Michal clung to Skar in silence.

  Then Esther gazed down at the dog panting by her side.

  “We still got one thing,” she said in a soft voice. “Pilot can see in the dark. Or near enough.”

  “But how—” the Insurgent girl began. Esther cut her off.

  “We got to get rid of the lights. Turn off the generator somehow.” She turned to Joseph. “We can do that, can’t we?”

  “Yes,” he replied with hesitation. “But—”

  “Just for a few minutes,” Esther said. “So you can all escape. And I can get to Kai.”

  “I’ll go,” offered Skar. “Just tell me how to do it.” But as she spoke, Esther saw the color drain from Michal’s face. Michal tightened her arm around Skar’s waist as Skar covered the girl’s hand with her own.

  “No. I’ll go.”

  It was Eli. He no longer had a partner or anything left to lose. The thought pulled at Esther’s gut, but she shook off the feeling. “Thanks,” she said.

  “It’s like a truck,” Joseph offered. “It’s parked inside on the ground floor. We saw it on the far exit, opposite from where we came in the first day.”

  “But be careful,” Esther said. “I don’t know if anyone will be posted, but guards are on the lookout for all of us.”

  “Right,” Eli said, his voice unwavering.

  Joseph took Eli aside and, as quickly as possible, told him in whispers what to do once he made it to the generator. After a few moments, Eli nodded and took off.

  As he rounded the corner, Esther tensed, waiting for the sound of gunfire.

  It didn’t come.

  Gideon spoke. “If we gonna do this, we got to move.”

  Esther nodded. “Wait for me with them outside. Don’t come back in. I’ll come to you.”

  The Insurgent leader didn’t reply; in fact, he acted as if he hadn’t heard. He and the girl took off with Skar, Silas, Joseph, and Michal close behind. Instead of using the same staircase as Eli, they were apparently going to use one on the far side. A smart move, Esther had to admit, in case anyone gets caught.

  She waited until she was sure they were safe, and then she took Pilot by the lead.

  “C’mon, boy,” she said.

  Twenty-one

  IT WOULD HAVE BEEN HARD ENOUGH FOR ESTHER TO MAKE HER WAY undetected through the brightly lit District had she been alone. But now, she was accompanied by a large, shaggy animal that panted, yanked on his chain, and whimpered. One time, he even sat down and scratched himself vigorously, making his collar jingle.

  “Hush,” she whispered to him for what felt like the hundredth time.

  Esther was trying to remember the way to Inna and Ramon’s rooms. She thought she was on the right track, when she realized she didn’t see any of the familiar stores. She spun on her heel and cursed to herself when she realized she was on the wrong floor. Girl and beast had been trading positions of power; right now, it was Esther’s turn, and she feared her instincts weren’t good enough.

  Her only chance was to avoid drawing attention until Eli could turn off the power.

  Esther peered around a corner and saw two adults no more than a few feet away walking in the opposite direction. One of them carried a rifle. Her heart thundering, Esther shrank inside a doorway. Stroking Pilot and praying that he remained silent, she waited until they had passed.

  Up ahead, she saw a set of metal staircases.

  Esther was convinced this was the way to go. Yet the stairs seemed miles away, across a broad and open expanse at the end of the hall. Everything was still pitilessly bright. Light reflected off store windows and bounced off gleaming railings and the polished floor. There was no place to hide.

  Esther again peeked around to check if the coast was clear. She couldn’t see anyone, yet there was no way to know for certain. With a sense of fatalism, she gripped Pilot’s lead and stepped into the open.

  “Hey!”

  Esther flinched.

  Two women were at the end of the hall. One was speaking into a communication device. The other was pulling a weapon from her belt.

  There was no other choice. Esther began to run for the stairs, dragging the dog with her.

  Then a shot rang out.

  Eli looked at the incomprehensible machine.

  He had a vague idea of what generators were. There had been one in Prin, he knew, that provided the Source with its electricity. He, along with everyone else, had been forced to spend most of their waking hours harvesting gasoline in order to keep it running.

  This one was immense. It was, as Joseph had said, a truck, parked on the main floor against one of the exits. Eli eyed it with caution. The humming noise it produced was so loud it was impossible anyone could hear him approach, but a quick glimpse reassured him that it was unsupervised.

  The thing was made of tan-colored steel and covered with a bewildering assortment of pipes, boxes, and joins. The smell of grease, hot metal, and fuel hung heavy in the air. Eli stepped around it until he found an open panel on the side. As Joseph had told him, there were many glass dials, switches, and wires in here. These were what he was supposed to focus on.

  Eli tried to remember the rest of Joseph’s instructions. There were two ways to disarm the system: He could either try flicking a few buttons or pull out the long, rubberized line that led to the wall. But if he made a mistake, Joseph had added, he might burn to death; he wasn’t really sure. In any case, he said, Eli couldn’t be too careful.

  The dire warning made it hard to remember his instructions, so Eli decided not to heed it. It had been difficult enough making his way to the ground floor without being seen; there had been adults everywhere, running from store to store and searching each one. He had done it for one reason alone: Esther was depending on him. That was the only thing he cared about.

  His heart was beating so hard it hurt.

  Eli saw one switch on the side of the contraption that seemed to fit Joseph’s description. Yet actually touching it made Eli anxious. He extended his hand and, at the last minute, drew it back.

  Of the many wires, one stood out. It was a thick, gray cord that snaked forward, leading down the hall and disappearing into the darkness. Could this be the one Joseph had mentioned? The casing was made of a familiar material, rubber. The remnants of rubber he had seen in Prin had never been dangerous.

  Eli fingered the front of his denim jacket. He had liked it ever since Inna and Ramon had given it to him; and it was what he had been wearing when he danced with Esther. But he took it off and wrapped it around his right hand, to give him extra protection. Then he grabbed the cord and gave it a yank.

  It was no good. The cord didn’t budge. He would have to use two hands.

  Eli took a deep breath. Then he threw aside the jacket and grabbed the line with both sweating hands. He braced one foot on the wall next to the machine.

  Then he pulled as hard as he could.

  As she ran, Esther saw a bullet whiz past her, going so fast it was a blur. Up ahead, there was the resounding crack of breaking marble as it struck the wall. Then it ricocheted off and smacked into the wall on the other side before bouncing off and hitting a display window, which shattered in a burst of broken glass.

  Pulling the confused dog along, Esther veered first to her right and then her left, zigzagging as she continued he
r sprint toward the staircase. She hoped a moving target would be harder to hit than if she took a straight path. But she knew she was only buying herself a few precious seconds, and in her mind one thought kept repeating itself again and again.

  What was taking Eli so long?

  Ahead, the staircase seemed impossibly far away. And even if she made it there, Esther realized she would be offering her unprotected back to the gunman as she raced toward more adults undoubtedly waiting on the floor above. Esther was running straight into a trap of her own making.

  She heard a second shot. But she never saw the bullet.

  The hall had been plunged into darkness.

  The relief Esther felt was so great, it was like a physical shock. She heard the bullet ping off a wall in front of her and gutter out, as the first one had. She didn’t think there would be a third.

  In the distance, Esther heard one of the guards curse.

  Esther called to Pilot under her breath, clicking her tongue in the way she had heard Aras do so many times. Obeying instantly, the dog began to lead her straight across the hall, quickening his pace. Within moments, Esther bumped her foot against something: It was the bottom step of the staircase. With one hand on the banister, she held on tight as Pilot headed up.

  In blackness, they reached the third floor. Esther had a clear picture in her mind of its layout and with the dog’s help, was able to navigate back to the store full of children’s clothing and toys. When they rounded a corner, Esther saw that she was right: Candles flickered in the distance and she could hear the murmur of faraway voices. As she drew closer, Esther melted into the shadows by the wall and listened, trying to identify them.

  Outside the storefront marked PRADA, the older woman was pacing, agitated. Esther wasn’t certain, but she thought she was holding something in her arms. Was it Kai? Next to her was an armed guard.