All isn’t lost. You must find Bolt.
“Why Bolt?” He almost laughs at her suggestion. What the hell is the kid going to do about his current dilemma? If anything, it’d be better for Bolt to stay missing, to confront his fate head-on like all of the Stayed will and must do at some point.
He’ll help you get to the North.
Sterling sighs bitterly. “That kid isn’t going to help me do anything!”
You can’t do this alone.
“Do what alone?”
Find Bolt. Return to the entry point not far from where you’re currently wallowing in self-pity.
“And then what?”
And then you storm the castle.
***
Storm the castle.
Sterling’s never even seen a castle, unless you count the Church of the North and South, which are about the closest things to a castle that the Canyon has to offer. Cast in the same cold stone material as the rest of the Canyon, the church walls are what set them apart from the surrounding structures. That and their Rapunzel towers, where Halo used to live and where Time resides in the North. The towers reach to the sky, three times taller than the tallest building on either side of the Off Limits. A parapet crowns their pinnacles, visited only by the most pious of the Devout.
Rumors abound on both sides of the Off Limits, carried on faint breaths and handed down from generation to generation. What lies beneath these churches? What is the Hole? What happens there? Who wrote the Book? Why is there a Book? Why is there a Goddess?
What is outside the Canyon?
The latter a cardinal sin in question form, the Stayed learn very early on to keep their curiosity to themselves when it comes to questioning the Canyon’s origins. Sure, the War of the Untold is widely known, and a few Uppers from either side even work in the Off Limits, but the origins of their shared situation are cloudy at best. There was a war and somehow, the people of the North and South survived. Some, especially Northern Forehead Drillers, claim that another war is fast approaching. These religious fanatics are well-known for their doomsday prophesies.
Better to have faith than question fate.
Sterling recalls the passage from the Book, that cryptic collection of parables and maxims that is stitched into the psyche of the Canyon. There are hundreds of sayings that more or less fit into the confines of his current situation, which gets him thinking about the nature of these sayings. He’s never actually seen a southern version of the Book. How different is it from the Northern interpretation?
They are as similar as they are dissimilar.
“Dammit, Halo, get out of my head.”
Sterling closes his eyes, wills himself to die. He’s close enough as it is; maybe Time will take mercy on him and extinguish his life. He whispers the Death Prayer, visualizing each word: “Open heart and open mouth, go the path of the Devout. Deathborn, not I, vultured soon. Rebirth comes at the next full moon. Deathborn, not I, Goddess forgive, grievances from the times I lived. Deathborn, not I, sins escape, give me the guidance of the Devout, the Stayed.”
Saying the prayer calms him some. He’s just about to whisper it again when a thin voice cuts through his thoughts.
Find Bolt.
“How? He … he could be halfway to the Church of the South by now.” He glowers in the direction of the Great Demarcator, the Off Limits, hopes Halo can at least sense how pissed he is.
He’s near.
“Then use your mind magic to call him over to me, Goddess.”
I already did.
“Bolt!” Sterling kicks his feet against the ground like a crying infant. “BOLT!” he shouts, his voice tearing from his body. The scream feels good. Animal instincts are intrinsic; crying at the top of his lungs, Sterling can taste more blood. He can feel his life force in the form of weighted breath springing free from his lips. It’s invigorating, primal, strangely human.
He screams the kid’s name again and again until his throat aches.
“What is it?”
His ears hone in on a voice several yards away. The voice is breathless, familiar, that of a child approaching manhood. He recognizes it immediately.
.2.
Bolt hasn’t been there for very long when they’re lit up by a blinding beam of light. Somewhere close by a moto engine whines into life, its sound a jagged dagger slashing through the calm after dusk. The harsh glare washes out the shadows, cuts off any avenue of escape.
Sterling scrambles to his feet, automatically closes one eye and squints the other against the glare. “Did someone follow you or something?”
“I don’t think so Bolt instinctively gets behind the bigger man.
The moto rushes up on them, its engine howls louder and louder, its headlight is unbelievably bright. Sterling tenses his muscles – he’s about to shove Bolt in one direction and leap in the other himself when the moto comes to a sliding stop as the driver kills the engine and snaps off the light.
Now Sterling pushes Bolt out of the way, drops, retrieves his shiv, and crouches, knife at the ready. “Back away!” he screams. With one eye, all he can see is a giant purple spot; the other – the one he closed – isn’t much better, but at least he can see the bulky shadow move towards them.
The shadow stops, hesitates and continues forward. “Where’s the Goddess?” a man hisses.
It takes Sterling a moment to register the voice. It’s Clay, the man who tried to kidnap Bolt that morning. The man takes a lumbering step forward, his silhouette menacing as he brandishes a clubbing stick. “Where is she?”
“How … how’d you know?” are the first words out of Sterling’s mouth.
“A hunch,” says Clay. “Every able bodied man in the South has gone east searching for the filthy fuck who stole … who took … I knew it was you! I knew it!” He kicks his feet against the ground as he recognizes Sterling. “One more time – where is she?”
“Keep behind me, kid,” Sterling whispers through the side of his mouth.
“I’ll kill you first … then … ” Clay points his clubbing stick in Bolt’s direction. “Then I’ll make the boy talk. I have my ways.”
“She’s not here!” shouts Bolt.
“Not here? What … do you mean?” Caught off guard, Clay hesitates.
“She’s done, finished,” says Sterling. “The North has her now. You’re too late.”
“LIAR! BLASPHING FUCK!”
“You heard me.” Sterling squeezes his hand around the grip of his shiv. “Now get the fuck out of here or in the name of the Goddess I will spill your guts right here and piss in your mouth before you die.”
Clay leaps forward, swings his clubbing stick like it’s a mallet and he’s driving a fence post. Sterling fakes left and dodges right, thrusts his shiv at Clay’s back as he passes. Clay put too much force into his swing and overbalances when it fails to connect, stumbles out of shiv range and instead advances on Bolt.
Eyes wide, mouth agape, paralyzed with fear, the boy is helpless before the clubbing stick wielding madman.
“Run, kid!” Sterling shouts. Fear becomes a catalyst, a true rotator of feet as Bolt backpedals to escape the imminent death dance.
Bolt’s exit distracts Clay long enough for Sterling to move. The clubbing stick has reach and power, but is slow and unwieldy; the shiv is faster and deadlier, but has to be in close – the falling boulder versus the viper’s strike. Clay bellows his righteous anger and swings his clubbing stick as Sterling ducks under it, drives his shoulder into Clay’s mid-section and thrusts his shiv one-two-three times up under Clay’s ribs.
Clay roars in pain and surprise, tries to push Sterling away so he can use his clubbing stick; Sterling holds on and stabs and stabs and stabs. Sudden, shocking pain blossoms in Sterling’s shoulder; the enraged Southerner has choked up on his clubbing stick and gets in an awkward but still damaging blow.
Sterling slams his head up under Clay’s chin and they separate. Sterling’s left arm dangles limp and useless; he can only hope that n
othing’s broken. Clay tries to heft his clubbing stick, but it slips from his grasp and clatters to the ground. He’s suddenly aware of the damage he’s received, winces as he runs his hands over his wounds, and stares at the blood that slicks his palms.
He meets Sterling’s eyes; surprise and confusion is writ large on his face. He sinks to his knees, and makes no effort to catch himself as he falls on his face.
The clubbing stick has fallen beyond Clay’s reach, but Sterling warily approaches him with left arm tucked in against his side and shiv out ready to stab or slash. He rushes forward, lands with one knee on Clay’s neck, and drives his shiv into the juncture of neck and shoulder.
“Please don’t – please!” Bolt cries.
Sterling locks eyes with the boy, and stabs the fallen Southerner twice more without breaking eye contact. “Kid, if he got through me, what he’d have done to you would make getting trimmed seem like hugs and kisses from your momma.” He goes to use his left arm to lever himself up from the soon-to-be corpse, gasps as the pain overwhelms him, and falls forward across the Southerner as the blackness squeezes in on him like a fist.
Bolt is hovering above him, his face daubed in subfusc shadows and after-twilight blue as Sterling’s eyes flicker open. He gingerly moves his arm; it hurts like fury but it does move – maybe nothing’s broken after all.
“What do we do now?” says the boy as he looks from Sterling to the blood that’s pooled around Clay.
“We get to the North.”
“You’ll take me?”
“I wasn’t yelling your name for nothing,” Sterling finally says. He grimaces as Bolt helps him up. “Help me find my shiv, kid. I need to make sure he’s finished.”
Let him suffer.
“Sorry, Halo, that’s not how this works.”
Bolt watches as Sterling crouches over Clay.
“Is she speaking to you?” he asks, turning away instinctively. He cringes as he hears Clay’s final gasp as Sterling finishes the job.
“No, but we’ll speak to her soon enough. Let’s get to the entry point.” Sterling stands, still a little out of breath. He cleans his shiv on the Southerner’s cloth wrappings and re-sheathes his blade. The feeling returns to his left arm in an agony of cactus thorns, and robs his victory of any triumph he might have felt. He’s not getting any younger and the beating Zander’s knifemen gave him when they took Halo combined with Clay’s last kiss goodbye leaves him feeling like hammered lizard shit. Still, he has no regrets and no remorse – he’s made it this far and he’s not dead yet. Life is haphazardly given and taken in the Canyon; it is the way of the Stayed regardless of era or social status.
“Do we just leave him here?”
“No more questions,” Sterling says, as he stiffly moves away from Clay’s cooling corpse. “Just give me a moment to think this through.”
***
Bolt doesn’t give him that moment. As they move towards the Off Limits, the kid can’t get his mind off the fight that just took place. “Did you actually want to kill him?”
“I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“But you stabbed him.”
“He clubbed me and he was trying to get you. I did what I had to do.”
“Where did you learn to fight with a shiv like that?”
Sterling doesn’t feel like reminiscing about past battles and near death experiences with the pestering youth. He’s been lucky, that’s for sure, but he knows if he keeps it up, eventually he’ll be on the receiving end of fortune’s shiv.
“Just keep moving.”
“Are you going to be all right? You’re limping a little.”
“Yeah, no shit kid. In case you haven’t noticed, my day hasn’t been all luxury R Boxes, sweet delixer and lover’s kisses, and while I’m not particularly enjoying life at this particular moment, I’ll probably be okay.”
“You don’t look like you’ll be okay.”
“Great. Thanks for the encouragement. Now shut your trap for a while so I can think.”
His muscles loosen as he walks; the pain and stiffness recede from the forefront of his consciousness and allow him to clear his mind. They could have taken Clay’s moto, but they’ll be much quieter if they approach on foot. Besides, it will at least give him some time to sort things through. What Sterling wouldn’t give for an hour or two to lie down, relax, and worry about nothing.
“You murdered him,” Bolt says solemnly.
“Drop it.”
“The Book says–”
“–It doesn’t matter what the Book says, in the North or in the South. We’re going to … ” Sterling gulps and thinks again about what he’s about to say. “We’re going to rescue the Goddess.” He realizes how bizarre his statement must sound; in a single day they’ve gone from kidnappers to rescuers, a complete one eighty in a matter of less than a day. “That’s why I need your help. We will rescue the Goddess together, you and me, kid.”
“My help? You believe in the Southern Goddess now?” Bolt stops, waits for Sterling to turn to him, but it doesn’t happen. He keeps his back to the kid, his eyes trained on the horizon.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
***
“What do we say?”
Bolt and Sterling are closing in on the entry point, which is lit up brighter than full day. Right now, there’s still enough shadow to conceal them, but the closer they get the more difficult it becomes to hide.
“Halo said to just … just approach the entry point.”
Bolt harrumphs. “Really?”
“Yeah, well it’s not like we haven’t broken all kinds of Northern and Southern laws today. Might as well test our lizard luck.”
No lizard luck necessary. Please hurry.
A brilliant shaft of light pins them in place; they’ve been noticed. Even with his eyes closed, the light is blinding, overwhelming.
“Halt!” The woman’s voice is stern, confident, akin to the voice of every other OL Officer. “Hands up!”
Sterling reluctantly raises his hands into the air and the spotlight snaps off. Two smaller lights appear and illuminate the two of them. The lights are bright, although with nowhere near the retina-searing intensity of the first one.
“What do we do now?” the kid says in half-whisper.
“No idea.”
The lights grow as two OL Officers approach. The officers wear the same seersucker clothing as Uppers, sand-colored, with no draping fabrics or mouth covers. Their pants are bloused over their form-fitting R Boots to keep sand and debris out.
“They’re the ones,” the woman says. She moves behind the pair with some type of weapon. Sterling recalls what Halo told him – this is the thing that flings bullets. Strange, he’d never heard of anything other than the common weapons of the Canyon: clubbing sticks, shivs, rocks, or a combination of the three, such as a clubbing stick sharpened at its opposite end.
“Move to the entry point.”
“What is that thing?” Bolt asks.
“No talking. Move,” the female OL Officer replies.
They oblige because there is really nothing else they can do at this point. Sterling figures that they’ll search him and find the shiv but they don’t do that either. The woman falls in behind them, her light illuminating the way forward. Without a word, the other OL Officer flanks them.
The entry point looms large before them; the Great Demarcator rises into the smoggy night. Sterling hasn’t been through an entry point before, and has no idea what to expect once they reach it. He’s sore and uncomfortable, he’s tired, and he’s nervous and on edge – so much so that he’s afraid he might puke on his R Boots.
The four pass through the Khomeis; a series of waist-high pillars arranged in a zigzag pattern to keep motos from directly approaching the Off Limits. Bolt traces his fingers across the tops of one of the pillars, receives a harsh glare from the officer to his left and returns his hand to his side. A green light blinks in the air, hovers over to them.
�
��A metalzip?” Bolt asks.
The light leaps over them, stops in front of the woman’s face. “Four-zero-zero-seven with two detainees,” she says as it scans her. It does the same for the guard on their left who says, “Four-zero-two-three.”
It moves to Bolt and Sterling.
“What is it?” Bolt whispers, his mouth agape as the green light moves over his face.
The OL Officers remain silent. The green light hovers away once it is done scanning Sterling.
“Move.”
They approach a featureless metal door that is several heads taller than Sterling. It makes a hissing sound from the inside, clicks open. The air that billows out smells metallic and stale. The officer on the left opens it wide enough to let Sterling and Bolt pass through. He places himself behind them, next to the female officer, and the four continue forward.
The corridor is large, cut down the middle by a walkway lit on either side. As they advance, something grinds overhead, stops directly above the four. A whirring sound fills the passageway, followed by three beeps and a subtle hiss.
~~You may proceed.~~
Sterling tilts his head up and tries to place the origin of the sound, but loses his concentration when the floor lifts slightly and begins moving forward.
Bolt grabs Sterling’s arm with both hands.
“Easy, kid,” Sterling says. He’s seen some mechanical automation, especially at a few of the newer depots, but nothing like this. Many speak of the advanced tech used at the Off Limits, but few have seen it firsthand.
The male officer breaks his silence. “Crouch down, place your hands on the floor to stabilize yourselves, duck your heads to shield your eyes.”
The platform picks up speed. It’s propelled by some force totally outside Sterling’s experience, and its sudden changes in speed and altitude disturb his inner ear and unsettle his stomach. Their forward velocity is such that the wind whips tears from his eyes, even with his head ducked, and what little he can see is just a blur of meaningless shapes and shadows.
With a series of quick beeps, the platform slows. Out of the corner of his eye, Sterling catches something moving within a glassed portion of the half cylindrical wall. It’s large, black, with multiple outward facing pipes on its exterior.
The Zero Patient Trilogy (Book One): (A Dystopian Sci-Fi Series) Page 11