by Jenny Moyer
“GM”—she points to the first letters—“to indicate genetically modified; one-six, which designates my specific conditioning; and these symbols here, to show my commissioning status.” She points to a faintly shimmering symbol. “This means Miner.” She says it without a hint of fear or misgiving—in a way that no other miner I know discusses service to Alara. “This is for the Overburden.” She touches the symbol beside it.
“What if you don’t want to mine the cordons for Ordinance?” I ask.
She shrugs. “They have other uses for me. But I’d never earn citizenship.”
Citizenship. “In Ordinance?”
Her violet eyes light up, vibrant as her Codev. “Alara,” she says.
“You understand what flash dust is, right?”
“I understand that some must die in order for others to live.”
“Well, then, I think you’ll fit in Alara perfectly.”
“Orion.” She grips my arm, giving me a hint of the superior strength in her grasp. “Nature has taken from us the ability to live in a perfectly moral and just society. People would die—either way.”
I slam my sifter in the sand. “You’re going to blame nature for this?”
“The Alaran Protocol is the reason your society survived. The commitment to keep exposure to the curtain’s radioactive particles ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ is the reason your city-state endured while so many others collapsed. To ensure the survival of many, some must be sacrificed.”
“Not so great for the people outside the protected city.”
“It is justifiable—”
“You see that kid?” I stab my finger in Roran’s direction. “The Congress considers what they did to him justifiable.”
“Compliance is essential for the preservation of civilized society.”
The only reason I don’t try to knock her onto her backside is that I’m pretty sure I’d fail. “You do belong in Alara,” I mutter. I stand, cordon sand streaming from my suit. “Find another partner.” I walk away, stepping past the other Miners on their hands and knees.
Reuder throws me a disgruntled look. “Return to your position, Miner.”
“No.”
Dram lowers his rifle and looks at me.
“Stay with your partner,” Reuder orders. “Work your grid.”
Dram gives me the look that tells me some things are more important than my pride, but it’s Roran’s expression that makes me turn back. A gust of wind brushes my talisman against my cheek.
I’m not a Conjuror.
You made a promise like one.
I drop to my knees and scowl at the horrible half human I’ve been assigned to. “Just so we’re clear,” I mutter under my breath, “if I see a cordon rat coming, I’m going to get out of its way and let it have you.”
GM16 shakes her sifter with methodical care. “I appreciate the warning, Subpar. But just so we’re clear—I have genetically modified blood that repels them.”
FIFTEEN
5.6 km from flash curtain
THEY CALL IT the dust trail.
It’s the route where all the quadrants intersect, the final stretch of sand before arriving at camp. All the squads travel it, and all have wounded who stop somewhere along the way. The flashtide claims them in the night, and eventually, their remains are scooped up by Miners.
The dust trail.
* * *
When the buzzer sounds, calling us from the cordon, our squad marches back to camp. By the end of the day, more than a few people can no longer march. Some can barely walk.
We don’t wait for them. Reuder explained this vehemently to Dram and me the first day, when we tried to assist an ailing Dodger. It compromises the rest of the squad’s safety, he explained. I told him that not waiting compromised our humanity. The next day, I had to wear a pack filled with rocks. I wore it marching, I wore it mining. I couldn’t even take it off to pee.
I didn’t question Reuder’s humanity again. At least not to his face.
Every time I walk the dust trail—twice daily—I remind myself what I’m really doing here. I’m not a Miner, but a hunter. The Hunter who is finding a way to take apart the Congress. I’ll do it with my bare hands if I have to. I make the promise so often, my hair should be weighted with talismans.
Bone, I decide, as we trudge the path on our way toward the curtain. If I were a Conjie, I’d use pieces of these bones poking up along the trail like markers. I’d conjure them into my hair, and they’d rattle and clack together like a skeleton come to life, calling for me to do something—do something!
It’s possible I’m flash-fevered.
* * *
Soma whines again. He turns, shifting his body restlessly, first one way, then another. The other strays respond with yips and whines, and paw at the ground.
“Something’s happening,” Dram says. He doesn’t lower his weapon or shift from the defensive ring the Dodgers form around us.
I watch the dogs as I transfer flash dust into my ore pouch.
“Orion?” Dram calls. “Do you think they sense a sandstorm?”
Somehow I’d sensed the shift in the elements back in Cordon Four—enough to give us a running start on a sandstorm that had nearly swallowed us. I pull off my gloves and push my hands into the burning sand. “Not a sandstorm,” I call. There’s no current that I can sense, no churning collision of cirium stirring.
Soma paws the ground, tossing sand behind him. The others keep their usual distance from us, but even from here I can see their hackles raised, their short fur standing on end. They scent the air in a way that makes me feel like I should smell the danger too. One by one, they begin to dig.
“Probably cordon rats,” Reuder says, but he sounds uncertain. We’ve never seen the dogs stirred to a sudden frenzy of digging. “It’s too early for flashtide.”
“What else is there?” Dram asks.
“Flashbursts, but those are usually—”
“Where’s the nearest shelter?”
Reuder glances at his screencom. “About four kilometers west. The buzzer already sounded. We need to get back to camp.”
“We need to run back to camp,” a Dodger adds.
Dram glances at Roran, who’s limping from an encounter with a cordon rat.
“He can barely walk,” he says. “How long till the numbness wears off?”
Reuder shakes his head. “Hours. If you don’t leave him, you won’t make it back before they lock the gate.”
“I’ll assist the child,” GM16 calls from beside me. “I can carry him.”
“You’re not a Vigil,” Reuder says. “You don’t have the strength and stamina to run with him—and that’s the only way you’d make it.”
Dram watches the dogs burrowing beneath the sand. “We should start digging, then.”
“Digging?” Reuder says. You’re glenting mad, Subpar.”
“It’s kept them alive!” Dram points toward the dogs. “And I’m not leaving him!” He drops his rifle and unclips his pack.
“Roran,” I call. He turns, and I toss him my sifter. He’ll never dig fast enough with his appendages. He hesitates for a moment, then sets his weapon down and kneels beside Dram. I join them and tear into the sand.
“The rest of you come with me,” Reuder orders. “We’re going to take the trail at a run!”
GM16 hesitates, her gaze swinging between me and Roran.
“You probably think I’m foolish,” I mutter, scooping sand.
She watches me pensively. “That’s not what I’m thinking at all.” She turns and runs to catch up to the rest of the squad.
Even with my sifter, Roran struggles. “Take mine!” I direct him to my burrow, which is twice as deep as his. He shakes his head, and I pull him into it. “There are things more important than your pride!” I practically growl. I can’t believe Dram’s words are coming out of my mouth. He has grumbled that same phrase to me more times than I can count. I pull Roran’s headpiece into place and secure it, then start
shoving sand over him, burying him the way the dogs have buried themselves.
“How do I breathe?” Roran asks, and suddenly he’s just a kid again. Scared.
“The air in your headpiece,” I tell him.
“I don’t want to be buried!”
I look at our supplies, trying to think past the rising Radlevels. “My flash blanket!” I pull it from my suit pocket, and drive my sifter into the ground to tent the top over his head. I wrap the ends around his appendages and twist the pulleys so his fingers close around the fabric. “Hang on to the ends. The wind is picking up!” Even as I speak, sand stirs, lifting around my face.
“Orion!” he cries.
I can’t imagine how this must feel for him. He lost his mother this way—all of our friends. “You’re safe,” I assure him, and I try to say it with all the conviction of a Conjie.
“They come in threes,” he says, his voice small. “The flashbursts.”
“Rye,” Dram warns.
“I need to dig—”
“No time.” He tucks his arms around me and pulls me into his burrow. He drives the muzzle of his rifle into the ground between us and tents his flash blanket over the top.
I can sense the energy churning in the particle-filled air. The air warms and then I feel it: a pulse deep in my veins, like the curtain’s joining me inside my skin.
“Dram,” I breathe, holding him tight. Our face shields press together, and I watch his face in the light of our Radbands. I wait to see if we will be turned to glass like the sands of Cordon Five.
“The dogs survive this,” Dram says. “They survive this.”
A sound makes us both jolt, a concussive burst that shudders up from the earth and rattles my bones. It’s the sound of a cordon shard slamming against the lodge at Outpost Five. But when I open my eyes, we are not glass. My skin tingles only because of how Dram holds me so, so close.
“Roran says they come in threes,” I say.
“Then we wait.” Sweat drips down his face into his eyes. It’s getting hard to breathe. “At least there’s no emberflies,” he murmurs.
“None.”
“And green flashfall. Mostly.”
“Mm-hmm.” Green aural bands are like the shifting green of Radbands. Not good, but better than the other colors.
“I don’t think the flashbursts will kill us,” he says. “Not with our cozy blanket of sand.”
“There’s always the chance of cordon rats,” I murmur. He smiles.
The air in our burrow dissipates all at once, as if the curtain is taking a deep breath in order to blow it all back at us. Dram grips the flash blanket, and we brace for the—
* * *
Still here. Not glass.
“Dram,” I whisper. His eyes open. “I think we’re going to make it.”
“Only one more flashburst,” he says.
“No, I mean this place. All of it.”
He looks hard into my eyes. “I believe it if you believe it.” Cordon winds tug at the flash blanket, and his shoulders tense around me as he grips it.
“How much air do you think we have?” I ask.
“Enough. If you need more, I’ll give you mine.” I grin at him, but he’s not smiling. “Rest, ore scout. I promise I won’t let go.”
“I believe it, if you believe it,” I answer. I tilt my face shield against his and close my eyes.
* * *
“My arms are dead.”
Dram’s hoarse voice draws me from my half rest. I open my eyes, and sand creeps in. It grits between my teeth. I unwind the flash blanket from where he’d wrapped it around his fists. I have to uncurl his stiff fingers and rub feeling back into his arms.
“Fire,” he gasps, gritting his teeth.
I push the flash blanket and its hill of sand from atop us, and help him to a sitting position.
“I’ll be fine in a minute,” he says. Since his hands are still numb, I brush the dirt from his face and comb my fingers through his hair, shaking out the sand. His talisman chimes softly.
My own legs move stiffly, but I pull myself from our den to check on Roran. He sits cross-legged watching us, Soma at his side.
“You’re okay?” I ask. He nods and moves his arm from the top of Soma’s head to his back, petting the dog with his arm instead of his appendage.
“I can’t believe he’s letting you do that,” Dram says.
“He came for me when it was over. Dug me out.” Roran’s water pouch lies open beside him, and Soma leans over and laps up water from it.
“We have to get back,” Dram says. “Before they lock the gate.”
We grab our gear and weapons and head toward the corral towers. The dog lopes beside us.
“Soma, go,” Dram commands. Soma runs a few meters away and barks. “Leave us. Find your pack.” The dog scrunches its massive body and prances closer, like this is a new game. “Soma. Go!” Dram flips his face shield up so Soma can see his stern expression. “A Strider will shoot you if you follow us into camp.”
Soma wags his tail and tenses, long legs stretched before him. Dram crouches and the dog lumbers over.
“Here,” Dram says, and he ties his neck cloth around the dog, so Soma can keep Dram’s scent even if he can’t keep Dram. “I’m coming back for it,” Dram says. But I hear I’m coming back for you. He turns and runs back to Roran and me. Soma watches.
“Go,” Dram calls.
And he does.
* * *
We half walk, half drag Roran back to camp.
Reuder told us, depending on where the tail spikes hit, the paralyzing effects can take hours to wear off. In Roran’s case, it’s taken two hours since we dug out of the sand.
The bones littering the dust trail gleam like pearl beneath the evening flashfall. Low-hanging clouds hinder our view, but part just enough for us to catch a glimpse of the fence.
“We made it,” Roran says. Dram and I don’t say anything. The camp lights are at night-dim.
“Can you walk on your own?” I ask. He nods, and Dram and I release him. He starts running, a rambling stagger that takes him colliding against the turnstile. It doesn’t budge.
“Let us in!” he shouts. “Reuder!”
I stare past the fence toward our barracks, my chest tight as I wait for the door to open, for our squad leader to come demand we be let in. But I remember the weight of that bag of rocks he made me carry. We don’t wait for anyone, Subpar. Compliance is the first rule of surviving here.
Roran bangs his appendage against the turnstile, and the sound clangs out across the camp. We won’t survive the night without shelter, not without the serum that keeps the radiation sickness at bay.
The barracks door opens, and Reuder steps out. He watches us, silent, his face drawn in hard lines. Please, I think. Do something. But who is he to make demands? He’s being punished here just like the rest of us.
A figure emerges beside him. GM16, wearing a Radsuit. She strides toward us. “My squad members are back,” she shouts. “Open the gate!”
“Return to your barracks,” a woman commands. I recognize her as the compliance regulator who commissioned us.
“They were helping an injured Dodger—a child!”
“There isn’t time for them to properly decon before flashtide. Protocol demands we not risk exposing others—”
“You can’t do this!” GM16 bangs her fist against the turnstile.
“Step away from the gate!”
“No.”
“Be compliant, GM16.”
“I will not be compliant,” she says.
The turnstile buzzes, and the web of bars pulls back. GM16 looks stricken for a moment as she looks out at the burning darkness beyond the fence. She turns to the other Gems peering out from their barracks. “They are going to die without our help!”
“Proceed through the corral,” the compliance regulator orders.
She lifts her head and pushes through the turnstile.
“Don’t close it!” A Gem with twists
of blond braids runs from the infirmary.
It’s like she’s the stopper on a bottle. A flood of Gems jog from their barracks and pour through the turnstile, their Codevs glowing beneath their sleeves. They stride toward us—more than a dozen of them, surrounding us in a circle so close we nearly touch. They form a barrier with their bodies—their genetically modified, flash-protected bodies. Already the temperature feels more bearable, like the air isn’t going to sear me from the inside out. A man passes a nutri-pac to Dram. He hands me a canteen of water, smiling, his white teeth flashing against his dark skin.
“Hydrate first,” he says. I drink, shaking with relief and the lingering effects of exposure. He shields us with his tall frame, blocking our noncompliant behavior from view of the Striders. Another Gem treats my burns with a salve that feels like water posey. Roran’s shaking hard, so I help him get the canteen to his lips. With the adrenaline wearing off, shock is overtaking us.
“Here.” The Gem with blond braids sets a tablet in my hand. “Put this under your tongue. It’s a restorative we use in the infirmary.” A physic, I think. The physic of the Overburden ran out here to shield us from the flashtide. Roran can’t get his appendages around the tablet, so she helps him with his.
GM16 kneels beside us, her back to the camp. She unzips her Radsuit, and I nearly laugh. She’s wearing rations strapped across her body. “Sorry it took me so long to get out here,” she says. “Reuder had to make sure it was hidden well.” She hands us each a meal pouch.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Thank our squad leader,” she whispers, sliding free a row of syringes. I recall the small supply of treatment Reuder has at the barracks. Tears prick behind my eyes. We might actually survive this.
The night winds pick up. The Gems shudder against the blast of heat, but it doesn’t consume them like it would us. GM16 crouches beside me. She trembles, and a pang of guilt hits me. This is costing them more than a sleepless night. Like us, they are resistant, not immune.
“Thank you, GM16,” I murmur.
“I always thought that I would like to be called Megan,” she says.
“My mom used to say that names are important.”