Fractured

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  “S-sorry!”

  “He didn’t mean to,” Jill said, and scooted forward in the boat to grab a bent loop of rebar jutting from the broken wall. She hauled us into the shadow of the dilapidated building, the metal hull grating and echoing off the space. We climbed onto the landing where the knit scarf was, and I untied it as Jill checked out the stairs.

  “They should be good,” I whispered.

  “Excuse me for being careful.”

  As she crept up to the second floor of the warehouse I looked across the mottled darkness. Here and there gaping holes let in the growing morning light, bright pockets that seemed to make the surrounding areas darker still. The sounds of water lapping echoed across it, but disappeared under the creak of the metal handrail of the half-intact stairwell.

  “Okay, I think,” she whispered.

  I snagged my bow from the belly of the canoe and motioned for Sandip to go up. The hatchet in his hand trembled. We met Jill on the second floor, when there was a shrill sound and they dropped to the ground. Overhead, the beat of dark wings fluttered and scooted past, shadows fleeing toward the light.

  “Jesus!” Jill hissed when Sandip grabbed her. “It’s fine – it’s fine, just bats, okay? They’ll be gone now.”

  “Sorry… I’m fine, really,” he whispered.

  I edged past them, the echoes of the bat cries still clinging in the far corners. I searched the space, lit from a wide roof cave-in that had crushed most of the shelves into the floor below. “Come on. In and out, find anything useful – metal, plastic. No rot, okay? And watch your steps – I don’t need to be fishing you out of the water downstairs. And I don’t want to see you coming back for the lantern.”

  “How often is someone glad to see a hole in the roof, right?” Jill said and grinned at Sandip. She snagged his arm and pointed at a path that looked secure.

  We branched off, and each slow step became a chorus of echoes, as heels tap-tap-tapped to test the aged flooring. The closer I got to the west wall, the stronger the wet wood-rot smell grew. Beneath it rose the clay-mud soak from the river, dripping staccatos that offset our heeled beats. Gyproc and particleboard crunched underfoot, laminate flooring showing grime and blackened mould.

  I found a cache of saw blades, rarities that I stacked in my pack with care, and smaller bits like screws, sandpaper, and drill bits. They all went into the bag, and the same shuffle and scramble from Jill imitates those I’m making. Discarded, hardened glue, and rotten, cheap MDF – sorting the grain from the chaff. My mouth is in my shirt to evade the choking smell of mould by the time I find a box of bar clamps and a pipe-fitting wrench. No pipe. I wanted to bring it back to the farm, but maybe the toilet has seen its last. The crumple of flooring down into the water below redirects me back over my steps for safety. I can’t make out what Jill and Sandip are saying, but she’s laughing and the sound carries.

  Back on the stair landing, I hushed them and scanned for movement in the dim light as my bag clanks into the belly of the canoe.

  “Not much left,” Jill whispered.

  “We need everything we can carry from here. I want the scouts to find somewhere new before the water goes down.” I scanned the brightening morning outside, lapping cold waters hugging the submerged trees. The clouds are evaporating overhead, burning off in the sun. The quiet glup of the riverwater is almost comforting. From our vantage I can see the sentry watchtowers deep in the city. Alien architecture, with jagged, rotating edifices lit with bright beacons that can even be seen from the farm. There are memories of them coupled with my childhood, shadows and sounds that cohere into feelings and a sucking pain in my heart.

  Sandip and Jill chattered nearby, and I clambered up the stairs to find them.

  “Fuck,” Jill whispered, and she motions to me from across the floor beams. “Kimiko! You better see this!”

  The beams and remnant floorboards creaked underfoot as I hurried toward them, and the pain in my chest warped into anxiety as I saw the body of the tracker lying between them. Its body looked stiff with rigor, skin glistening with slime and dead-pale. Its hulking girth and broad shoulders were slumped, untouched by decay. They never decayed, and my memories drew on the fall, those vice jaws on my grandfather’s leg as he screamed for us to go, just go, and get out. Mom wouldn’t let go of my arm – it bruised that night. The snarls followed the screams and muffled weeping into my own hands, hyperventilating to try and stop.

  “I’ve never seen one up close before,” Sandip said.

  “It was dead, we didn’t kill it – we’re okay.”

  Jill was swaddled against mom’s chest, screaming. She wouldn’t remember. She never remembered.

  “Kimi, hey – hey, are you okay?” Jill asked, as she took my shoulders and gave me a quick hug. She laughed a bit. “I’m fine, don’t give me that look. It’s already dead.”

  “Let’s just get out of here. The sun’s coming up.”

  “You got it,” Jill said, and hoisted both her and Sandip’s bag up over her shoulders, clanking the metal within.

  “Damned beasts,” Sandip said, and hoisted the spade he had in hand.

  A half-cry escaped my lips as he brought the shovel down and severed the tracker’s head, crushing its skull with a squelch and spew of black blood.

  “What the hell did you do that for!” I started counting in my head.

  “Shit!” Jill had his arm and dragged him back toward the stairs. “Shit!”

  “They destroyed everything, I just needed… I just needed to do something back!” He almost tripped over an exposed I-beam, and jerked out of Jill’s grasp. “What’s the problem?”

  I grabbed his shoulder and pushed him ahead of me, glancing back at the crushed skull of the tracker with a double take. Twenty seconds. Better to overestimate. “You just tipped them off to where we are. Were you not listening when Marc gave the lecture this morning? You crushed the implant in its fucking skull, and now we have two minutes to get the fuck out of here before its signal is heard!”

  “What?” His face was slack, his feet moving under our efforts now. “But there was a set of pulleys—”

  “Forget it,” Jill said, her eyes averted from mine and a flush high on her cheeks. “We have to go!”

  Forty seconds and we were on the stairs, our bags clanking into the belly of the freight canoe. My hands shook as I pressed oars into their hands. “Get in. I’ll take the stern. Just get in, forget the rest!”

  A cluster of shiny bits tumbled out of Sandip’s bag as he climbed into the swaying boat. I gripped the stairwell, rusted flakes of paint digging into my fingers as I kept us from capsizing. Past a minute. We had to get out in the water.

  “Kimi, I’m caught,” Jill cried, and she jerked and ripped the long-sleeved jacket. She gasped and stared at the fabric left behind. It had been Mom’s.

  “I’ll patch it, I promise, just get – now!”

  The boat teetered as they grabbed their oars and I pushed off, muddy flood waters splashing as I steered us toward the dyke. Sandip muttered under his breath as they got their paddles in the water. The scant current was trying to pull us deeper into the suburb – toward where the main control tower was, downtown where the Golden Boy once stood. Dad didn’t believe it, but when the ships arrived, he couldn’t ignore it anymore. No one could ignore it. The statue was probably buried in the mud now, like we would be if we were caught in the city limits.

  The oars cut deep, and I barked to keep us in time, pushing over the dyke to hide amongst the icy trees, fighting the current of the river all the way. One hundred and 19 seconds. The klaxon from the watchtower in the city rang across the water.

  “Kimi?”

  “Just keep paddling.” I panted as we tried to keep pace. I checked over my shoulder again. Black specks in the sky, flies on the horizon that were gaining pace. The warehouse was out of sight, but our wake cut a clear line through the slow waters between the trees. My eyes darted. “Come on, back to the dyke.”

  “What?”
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  “Get your packs on,” I said, water rippling behind my oar as the canoe jerked toward a cluster of oaks on the submerged ridge. I slowed us enough as we threw them on. “We’ve got to flip it, see the trees? We need to hide.”

  “Are you kidding? The water is barely above freezing!”

  “You got us in this mess,” I hissed at Sandip. “Don’t argue when I’m getting us out of it. Come on!” I leapt over the edge, and almost lost my breath as the spring melt hit me. We’d be lucky if it were above freezing. “Keep a hold on the canoe – come on!”

  Jill hesitated only a moment as our eyes met before she joined me in the chest-high water. Sandip just stood there, his eyes to the north.

  “They might not kill us if they find us, we don’t have any tech,” Jill said, smiling despite the obvious chatter in her teeth as she tread. “Right?”

  Sandip scrambled with his pack, and a circular saw emerged.

  The fire in my belly bucked against the cold. “Throw it in the water, and then yourself. Get rid of that right now, if you value our lives!”

  “We need it – my father, for the barn,” he said, looking at the power tool.

  “Don’t be stupid! We don’t have the power and we never will, now throw it in the water before I drown you with it! I won’t be caught by the ludds with tech on hand!”

  He twitched and dumped it over the edge, shouldering his bag again and stumbling into the water, tipping the canoe in the process. I could hear the buzz of the engines now, but grappled the canoe rather than satisfy my morbid curiosity. I didn’t need to know how long until they were overhead, I had to breath, I had to get us in the trees, and I had to make sure Jill made it home safe. Mom’s voice was in my head.

  It was difficult to see beneath the canoe, our panicked breath and the slosh of water magnified against the aluminium hull. But those sounds were soon drowned out by the buzz and roar of the hovering patrol ships. I gripped the gunwale just beneath the surface, and held our cover in place. Their hands soon slapped to find purchase.

  “Kimi, the water,” Jill gasped, and I hushed her.

  “I’m sorry,” Sandip whispered, treading between us.

  The hull of the canoe reverberated and magnified the sound of the engines, making it difficult to discern where the ships flew. I saw Jill close her eyes in the roar, my lips in a hard line above the water. Sandip’s eyes were through the bottom of the canoe.

  “Keep moving,” I whispered, but it was drowned by the shuddering sound. Each kick of my legs welcomed the numbing cold up my legs, the water finding each crevice and bit of warmth as we tread.

  Another screech followed as the ships buzzed by, moving toward what I could only gauge to be the direction of the warehouse. Marc’s voice was a reminder to fight the cold. They’d investigate the tracker. We had time before they investigated further. But only a little. “We need to move. We need out.”

  “I can’t feel my feet,” Jill whispered, and spat out a mouthful of water.

  “I know. Stay here.” I sucked a breath of air and ducked under the water, feeling my way along the gunwale to emerge outside of the canoe. The beacon in the city watchtower swept across the sky, a hum at the base of my skull. It almost overrode the engine whine from the hovering ships, but they were there – to the north. My eyes darted, and I snorted river water. We were safe within the trees, the tinkle of ice in the branches almost serene by comparison. There was an apartment complex at the bottom of the dyke, not 100 metres upstream, beyond a trio of houses whose roofs were the only sign. The water lapped at the second-floor balconies.

  Another breath and I was under the freezing water, before gasping for air in the tight space beneath the canoe, the sound made more desperate by our aluminium cover.

  “Okay.” I could hear Jill’s teeth chattering. “I’m going to push us to an apartment nearby. We’ll take refuge inside until nightfall.”

  “We’ll follow,” Jill said, her voice a cold shell. “Under the canoe.”

  I nodded and ducked back into the water before I could think. The cold permeated less now – it had already dug into my skin, a numbness that made my muscles loathe to respond. I kicked anyway and grabbed the canoe, pushing it in the current toward the apartments, my hiking boots growing heavier with each push of the frigid current. My satchel dragged too, a wide hand on the small of my back urging me to go under. There was no buzz, the spotlight was gone. This was our only chance. Our oars drifted alongside me, tied to the canoe but eager to escape.

  I spat out a mouthful of water as I reached the balcony, and my arms trembled as I knocked on the canoe roof and hauled myself out. It was then the buzz echoed off the water and my head jerked – I couldn’t see them anymore, I couldn’t know.

  “Get out now – they’re coming.”

  “Help,” Jill gasped through blue lips. I trembled and almost lost grip, my cold limbs atrophied. But she was up and over the rail, and Sandip found his way too. I tied a quick hitch in the canoe’s rope, leaving it capsized but secured. We scrambled through the shattered patio doors and into the apartment, abandoning our bags with a wet ”thuck,” and kicking dust and dried leaves with each step and drip.

  I led us into the second room, a slumped bed atop a metal frame prominent in the room. We ducked into the shadows beneath a high, long window as the buzz grew louder, vibrating through the concrete walls and shaking little puffs of dust into the air. Swallows’ nests above the bed were white with mould and silent, the bed a mess of twigs and droppings. A pink plastic crib on the far side of the room had a lattice of cobwebs between the bars, and the far closet was half-open, shapeless shadows hinting at more within.

  Jill squatted and wrapped her arms around her head, chattering with cold. She shrugged him off when Sandip tried to touch her, so I put my hand on her knees instead. The patrol went by again, sweeping lights followed by the pings of echolocation.

  I was shaking too. Head against the wall to stay upright, I scanned the small room. How long would they stay? How diligent would their search be? The buzzing ships passed again, and I cringed down, the sound twisting in my gut and contributing to the tremble in my limbs.

  “W-what do we do?” Jill whispered into her arms.

  “We stay until tomorrow,” I said.

  “What?” Sandip snapped, and I glared at the volume. He was bluing too.

  “I’ll f-find blankets. We will. Our clothes n-need to dry. And we n-need them to go away.” I got silence in reply, save for the last drips falling from our clothes and leaving a cloying, stuck cold. Time slowed with my blood it seemed, thoughts elusive moths flitting around the light of my mind. The only warmth. They were chattering. No – no, it was me.

  They didn’t follow when I got up and threw open the closet, sending a puff of air whose chill I regretted almost as much as the dust that swirled and stuck to my jacket. There were loose, faded shirts that crumpled when I moved the hanger, natural fibres disintegrated long ago and waiting for the end. Soft knit sweaters were hidden behind, clung with webs but whole. One grey, it looked handmade, and another with a dinosaur motif on the front. I kept them at arm’s length from my soaked frame.

  “Get up.” It was a barren croak, and I had to lick my lips. “Get changed. Everything wet needs to c-come off.”

  I left the sweaters with Jill and crept out of the apartment. The drywall in the hallways was cracked and crumpling, black mould stippled in the corners and along the baseboards. There were signs of long-gone habitation: a clutch of rusted, penknife-jagged cans whose labels had faded into illegibility, and the blackened halo of a fire. It scuffed underfoot, blurred charcoal into wet lines that followed my trail to the next apartment. The buzz of the ships shook the building again, and I slunk against the wall to listen as they passed, shivering all the while.

  The next apartment was locked, but another still had its doors off the hinges. A laminate countertop had collapsed under its own weight, crushing the waterlogged cabinets underneath. The small kitchen connected
to an empty living room, into which the river waters lapped and reached for a dry bedroom. I pulled more clothing from a closet, puffs of decayed and moth-eaten fabric fluffing in the air with my motions.

  My breathing was fast, quick, and quiet, the air stolen by the cold – a struggle to take each one back. I couldn’t keep my limbs from shaking. Another scan – no blankets. Another apartment was gutted, the remnants of furniture and cabinetry visibly cannibalized, a half-burnt drawer showing their fate. I was at the end of the hall and walking on careful, frozen footsteps before I found a box which hid a pair of synthetic blankets sealed in clear zippered plastic. I took them and hurried back as the roving ships passed again, their lights lost in the growing daylight.

  Their clothes were hung up, and Sandip turned with a start, clad in the dinosaur sweater and skin-soaked boxers. Jill was squatting beside the bed, the sweater pulled down to her ankles. I thrust the pants out, and turned to strip as I said, “Everything wet. T-take it off, you need to dry.”

  Gooseflesh met the cold air, and I closed my eyes, shuddering still as I let it dry. I pulled on a turtleneck as I heard Sandip’s steps, and his eyes stayed down as I tugged on a skin-tight pair of jeans. They stuck on my hips, leaving the small paunch of my gut free. The last sounds of the hover-ships faded, the bleating calls of check and ping echoing through the otherwise silent city.

  “All day?” Jill’s mouth hid in the sweater.

  “Yeah. Come here, we’ll stick together.” I motioned to Sandip.

  He edged closer as I flapped the blankets, cream-coloured felt that caught my hangnails. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

  “I know.” I thrust one into his hands and propped up the bed on the end table to create a lee. I hunkered down and Jill snuck into the crook of my arm. “Can’t change it now. I’ll get us home.”

  He joined us and I strong-armed him in close as he flapped the second blanket over us.

  “Let’s stay quiet now. And rest if you can,” I whispered, and squeezed one shoulder and then the other as we slumped beneath the musty mattress.