by Sean Platt
“Do you feel it?”
“Its presence. Not its intention.”
“There’s something. Something missing.”
“But the wall—”
“It’s just buildings.”
“But it’s still a wall.”
“A barrier,” Meyer agreed.
“The only thing we can think is—”
“Obviously. But why?”
Kindred jumped from Cameron’s hand on his shoulder.
“Maybe you two wouldn’t mind speaking in English?”
Hadn’t they been? Kindred could never tell the difference. But then again, it was possible that most of what he and Meyer had just discussed went unspoken, in their private dialect or otherwise, and had happened with their usual shuffling of mental images.
Kindred and Meyer both looked past Cameron, to Piper, to Lila beside her. Feeling the same shared thought at the same time, they both took a step forward — but seeing this, Kindred deferred. Meyer went to Lila and wrapped an overdue fatherly arm around her as Kindred held himself back, feeling his usual push-pull. It was ironic: Human Meyer’s captivity on the mothership and the ensuing emotional crash course had made him more empathetic than he’d ever been before — and hence it was the copy of Meyer, in Kindred, who’d become more Meyer between them.
“Sorry,” Kindred told Cameron. “We were just trying to theorize about the city’s makeup.”
“And?”
“I’d rather not say. It’s … in flux.”
Cameron rolled his eyes. Charlie spoke in his place.
“Don’t be obtuse. The gates were wide open. They let us walk right in, but we’re in the no man’s land instead of the city itself. You’ll forgive me, but this all seems very familiar.”
“You mean it’s like Heaven’s Veil.”
“Which makes sense,” Charlie said. “Similar defense plans for the capitals. Heaven’s Veil had outlaw badlands, too, though they weren’t as … advanced as what we just went through. There was the entrance corridor at Heaven’s Veil that was a lot like this one, and you had to go through the corridor to get into the city itself. But I also remember entering Heaven’s Veil. Twice. And each time, the Astrals stepped aside and let one of us waltz right into a trap.”
“This is different,” said Kindred. Beside Lila, Meyer nodded.
“How?”
“To be blunt,” Kindred said, still looking around, his mind still touching Meyer’s, still looking for evidence he could add to his deductive equation, “it doesn’t matter what we think because our course of action can’t change.”
“Are you saying it isn’t a trap?”
“I’m saying it’s irrelevant. Either way, we have to enter the city. We’re hemmed in by the barbarians at the gate.”
“That’s how traps work.”
Clara spoke, and heads turned. “No, he’s right. This is different. I feel it too.”
Kindred nodded. “They’re not waiting for us to come inside so they can fool us. They’re just waiting for us to come inside.”
“Then shouldn’t we take the guns?” Lila looked at a still-fully armed Jeanine. The other weapons had been thrown about during the escape and crash; only Jeanine had thought to hold or recover hers.
“No,” Kindred said.
Charlie had already turned back toward the bus. He stopped.
“No?”
“No.” Meyer looked at Jeanine, but there was no point in arguing. If they asked Jeanine to leave hers behind with the weapons that had stayed on the bus, it would be wasted breath. But one gun (okay, two; she still had her sidearm) would change nothing except for the looks it would solicit from those inside.
Kindred watched the group, seeing their confusion. But based on the satellite images, there was an inner gate not much farther ahead, and once they reached it they’d understand.
Although even Kindred, honestly, didn’t understand what the evidence and ensuing logic was telling him.
That Ember Flats wasn’t what it seemed.
CHAPTER 23
Peers hung back at the group’s rear. With Aubrey dead, he was a lone stranger among family. The group was kind and courteous, but Peers had noticed the tall brunette, Jeanine, constantly glancing back at him. She kept slowing down — Peers supposed Jeanine wanted him to pass so she could position herself as rear point. But Peers slowed when she did, and the resulting nothing seemed to prove that he was at least accepted enough. She wouldn’t force the issue and insist he walk ahead so she could keep an eye on him, but she didn’t seem to trust him, either.
His hands fell to his robe, feeling for his concealed knife. It was still there, easily hidden by the voluminous fabric. They made a motley crew: most of them in assorted clothes they’d managed to keep intact, Meyer and Kindred in what could almost pass for business casual, Peers looking like a desert wanderer with a dog instead of a camel. Ideal dress for hiding weapons.
Nocturne looked up at Peers as if hearing his thoughts. The black dog was trotting in almost a heel position at Peers’s side as if this were all perfectly normal. The crash had knocked them flat, but Nocturne had survived, unbruised like the rest.
“What are you looking at?” Peers asked.
Nocturne licked his lips.
Cameron had taken lead at the front. The twin Meyers seemed to be letting him head the group, content to hang back and play navigator. There had been several false alleyways, and already Cameron had led them down two before backtracking. There had to be a way inside, and Cameron kept saying he remembered the way from the satellite imagery. But Cameron was just trying to not lose his shit, much like Peers was doing by talking to Nocturne and touching his knife. Just as Jeanine was doing by watching the straggler, clinging to the little control she still had.
“You ever have a dog?” Peers asked Jeanine when he caught her glancing back.
“All the tough spots you described getting into, I’m impressed you didn’t eat that dog.”
“He is adept at finding food, so it would be foolish to use him just once,” Peers said. “And besides. He is a great conversationalist.”
Jeanine turned her head and kept walking.
The group stopped. The outer periphery around Ember Flats wasn’t uniform; there were spots where the inner city’s buildings didn’t form a smooth wall and anyone walking the edges needed to detour around odd angles in the clumsily added outer shell. Peers knew every detail. He’d studied overhead photos night after night after night. For years. Grease pencil in hand, marking routes in and out. If they’d gone the other way around, there was a simpler but smaller gate they could have used. Cameron only seemed to have eyes for the large one, and Peers wasn’t about to argue. But to get through some of these tough spots, you had to walk in unexpected directions. Of course Cameron kept running them into dead ends. And each time, of course he feigned exploration, insisting that he knew what he was doing.
The periphery opened again, and now Peers could see the inner door ahead. He touched his knife, feeling impotent. None of them had any idea what to expect, and they had but two firearms among them. The group sort of knew where they needed to go but not that the Ark had been moved twice. Peers hadn’t told them. His theories on Ember Flats were just that: He knew the city’s layout but not its makeup; he knew where the buildings lay but not the city’s culture. The images always showed people, but it was never obvious, from above, who was who. Curiously, satellites saw the outlands and Hell’s Corridor in crisper resolution than the city itself. But why? Were the Astrals hiding something?
And how were they supposed to get inside with only two guns?
Would it make any difference if they were armed to the teeth?
Maybe not. And perhaps that was Kindred’s point. He’d said it wasn’t precisely a trap, but he was only guessing. They’d made a lot of noise coming in, and the city leaders would be stupid if they didn’t have a way to notice a bus barreling in. Someone would almost certainly be waiting at the gate, and those someones wou
ldn’t easily be overtaken by seven adults, a kid, and a dog — no matter how heavily armed.
But they arrived to find the gate casually ajar, the way Peers’s grandmother always used to prop her screen door open in summertime. There were no guards, or contingent waiting to abduct them.
“Is this it?” Jeanine asked, coming up from the rear.
“Is this what?” Cameron asked.
“The gate.”
“I see an opening in the wall. I see doors. Looks like a gate to me.”
But Jeanine wasn’t moving closer. Lila, Piper, and Charlie were hanging instinctively back as well as if they expected something to leap through the wide-open door and bite them. They could see people passing by through the door — milling humans and giant, hairless white Titans roving by. Nobody was looking toward the door. They saw the hustle of a modern midsize metropolis, if “modern” included sandstone blocks and gleaming blue glass.
“Where are the guards?”
Cameron shrugged then looked at Jeanine as if she’d asked the world’s stupidest question. “Coffee break?”
“Be serious for a second, Cameron,” Charlie snapped.
Peers inched forward. They must look ridiculous from the outside. They were approaching exactly nothing with intense foreboding and drama. It was like squaring off against a sloth, fists raised, daring the sleepy thing to come at you.
“Get away from the door,” Peers said.
Heads turned.
“Get away from the door,” he repeated.
Meyer squinted at Peers but complied. Kindred did the same. Slowly they all moved to the side, out of sight. Peers felt his pulse in his temples, certain that something was wrong. They were waiting just inside, surely to pounce.
“What is it, Peers?” Lila asked.
“Listen. Do you hear that?”
Four humans passed pushing some sort of a cart. The rapid-fire clacking of casters on stone sounded just like a Reptar’s purr.
“The cart?” Lila asked, peeking past him.
“I thought it was … ” He trailed off, glancing at Cameron.
“I thought the same thing,” Cameron said. “Reptars.”
“I don’t see any Reptars,” said Piper.
“Peers,” Cameron said, his voice artificially low. “You’ve been here before.”
“A very long time ago.”
“Then you’ve studied the satellite photos.”
“Yes, but—”
“Do you know where the peacekeeper station is? The Reptar patrols?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“I remember a cluster of buildings. That way.” He pointed. “Who has the maps?”
“The bag with the maps was pinned back in the bus. I assumed we’d have to use the tablet.” She looked at Meyer and Kindred.
“The tablet hit the floor in the crash,” Meyer said.
“You let it break?”
“We were a little preoccupied with making sure the key didn’t break in Cameron’s satchel to worry about the tablet.” Meyer nodded toward Cameron’s waist, where they’d already verified the key, in its padding, was still intact.
“Peers,” Cameron said. “You remember. You know the city.”
He did. His knowledge of Ember Flats and the region as a whole — as well as his connection to the community Benjamin had been collaborating with before his death — was the main reason he was here. But he didn’t just know the city. He’d obsessed over it. He’d plotted attack plans. He’d run scenarios. And yet he was already lost because by now he’d assumed they’d have gone over a wall, detouring through alleyways to lose their pursuers. Ironically, the only thing he hadn’t considered was the idea of walking right through the front door unopposed.
“The Ark is that way, right?”
Peers nodded. “Last we saw.”
“So how do we get to it?”
“We could walk that way,” Charlie said, pointing where Cameron already had. “Am I missing something?”
“Where are the Reptar patrols? Where is the Ember Flats guard?” They’d inched back out, a bit in front of the open door, where the city’s day-to-day activity marched on, uncaring. “Peers?” said Jeanine, trying again.
“I … I’m not sure.”
Meyer and Kindred were both watching the detente, their faces losing patience. Peers eyed them both — the former viceroy and the Astral who’d become his duplicate — feeling lost. He’d plotted this exact scenario so many times. He dreamed of Ember Flats. He knew the way from the outer gate to the inner gate to the viceroy’s palace — practically right into Jabari’s bedroom, where she closed her eyes at night. He’d seen the cluster of buildings around it in still images from above, watched the feed, deduced they were government houses. He’d scouted obstacles to hide behind, jumping from one to the other. But he was at a loss facing this complete and utter lack of resistance.
“It’s a trap,” Jeanine said. “They know we’re here.”
Cameron looked like he might agree. Meyer rolled his eyes and walked right through the doors, into the thronging crowd.
CHAPTER 24
Cameron rushed to keep up. Once through the gate, he realized that Ember Flats was as teeming as the streets of any old-world, moderately sized city. It wasn’t as big as New York or London or Berlin, and despite the Middle Eastern heat and limited desert colors it didn’t strike him as Cairo before Astral Day, or Jerusalem, or Damascus, or any of the other cities in the region he’d visited with his father long ago. Ember Flats was something else. Something new, echoing the old.
Meyer and Kindred, keeping their heads down and moving quickly, forded a stream of pedestrian humans and Titans then vanished. Cameron scampered behind, hearing the others on his heels. Once past the flow of bodies, he saw the two Meyers farther on, down a third of a city block.
As he rushed to follow, Cameron couldn’t help but look up, around, everywhere that caught his eye. The place was like Heaven’s Veil’s promise — potential the old capital never had a chance to reach. Cameron saw the same basic building schemes, the same basic geometric precision in its layout. He saw a familiar city grid here in the downtown, knowing the poorer areas would be similarly reflective of Heaven’s Veil’s more impoverished sections. But whereas Heaven’s Veil had been immature when destroyed (hastily constructed houses, not much more than well-appointed bivouacs), Ember Flats had benefited from a half decade to grow on those same humble foundations. There were tall buildings that were like ancient/contemporary hybrids: brown stone accented with chrome and glass, dozen-story constructions that resembled primitive, smooth-walled obelisks. There were buildings that looked like architectural whimsy beside squat, practical-looking stone structures fashioned from heavy pillars. The city was somewhere between ancient and new — a tight, tidy footprint meant for walking with some hints of public transportation (Cameron saw single rails embedded in the street and rows of green or red lights arcing upward) but without the quaint and overly narrow look of streets built before cars. And yet there wasn’t a single automobile. Shuttles, yes. But no cars.
And Meyer was gone again, around a corner.
Glancing back, Cameron saw most of his group. Lila was hand in hand with Clara behind him with Nocturne running beside them like an escort; Charlie looked like a hustling businessman with a filthy and highly unfashionable wardrobe; Jeanine trotted like a soldier, cradling her weapon as if it were a child, drawing frightened looks from all who saw it. But he couldn’t worry too much about them. They would follow. Catching Meyer and Kindred was what mattered.
Around another corner, in time to see them vanish again, now down a narrow alleyway.
“Meyer!” Cameron hissed. It felt inappropriate to shout, though not for the reasons he’d originally imagined. They’d already passed hundreds of people and dozens of Titans, but there were no Reptars or armed police — no one out to get them. Nobody, it seemed, cared that Ember Flats had been invaded. But Cameron still hiss-shouted with a sense of social propriety:
anyone who’d been raised to eat with a fork knew that you should never shout in public.
“Meyer! Kindred!”
He practically ran into them both at the next corner. They were coming toward Cameron rather than away, and looking farther on, Cameron saw why. There was a huge green shape made of what looked like either matte-finish metal or plastic blocking the path. It looked like a monolith — but then he noticed refuse poking up in a pile at one end and realized it must be the Astral version of a dumpster.
“This way is blocked,” Kindred said. “Go around.”
“Are you talking to me?” Cameron looked at Kindred then at Meyer. They talked to each other plenty in addition to whatever it was they did inside their minds, and it wasn’t clear if this was one of those times.
“Yes, I’m talking to you. Go around.”
Cameron pointedly blocked the way. Kindred and Meyer both tried to shove past him, but then Jeanine arrived and completed the blockade.
“What the shit?” she said. “You’re going to get us caught.”
“Look around you, Jeanine,” Kindred said. “Nobody cares that we’re here.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. We all know what Ember Flats is like.”
Cameron was still warring with what his senses were showing him. He’d heard the rumors same as anyone: Outside the Flats is hell, and inside is worse. Cameron had been picturing Heaven’s Veil’s police state, magnified by five years of fighting, distrust, and rebellion — along with the force required to quell it. In Heaven’s Veil, there had been Reptars and human collaborators, oppression and murder. Everyone knew Ember Flats was the real capital, what with the pyramids and the Sphinx and the new monoliths anyone with a crap-resolution feed could see they were building from space. The ancient Egyptians had needed many slaves to build their tributes to god-kings. It only made sense — and the tales confirmed — that modern Egypt would be the same.
But the reality of Ember Flats was all around them.
“Obviously we were wrong,” Meyer said.
“It’s just a city,” Kindred echoed.