by Beatty, Cate
The photo calmed her. She wished they were alive. But she had no one. She was alone. She had no one to…to what? she thought. To care about me. No one for me to care about.
Sighing, she turned her thoughts back to her foot. As she drank more water, she fingered the leaves that littered the forest floor. One type was large, soft, and velvet-like. Putting her water bottle away, she gathered the soft leaves and stuffed them into her sock. Through the sock, she gently manipulated them until they were at the bottom, protecting the sole of her foot. It would not be enough.
She examined more of the leaves in the area, disregarding the soft, velvety ones. She collected stronger, thicker leaves and layered them together, fashioning them into an ersatz shoe bottom. She pulled out the rope. It was a good, strong rope, the width of her finger, with multiple strands of thick fibers wound tightly together. She unwrapped the strands of a length and sliced off part. With the fibers of the rope, she tied the stout leaves to the bottom of her foot, wrapping the rope fibers around her foot and up her ankle—a sandal. She stood up and tried it out. The sandal helped tremendously.
But where to go? This was the Outside. The very word caused her to take a breath. She was to go west, but other than that, where? What did the song talk about? A white river, dead trees… Was she staking her life on a nursery rhyme? She started jogging at a slow pace. It was afternoon, and she kept the sun in view ahead of her—west.
The ghettos had erupted in minor turmoil. The donors watched as Joan defiantly yelled her name at the snatchers. They watched as the dart didn’t tranquilize—a miracle. They watched her climb painstakingly up the side of the gorge. At that point cheering broke out—at first a few isolated voices, then a cacophony, all calling her name, “Joan Lion.” Snatchers tried to keep order.
All of a sudden, as if on cue—as if an unseen conductor waved his stick, the crowd changed from an anonymous collective to individuals. Each of them shouted his or her own name—to the snatchers, to the drones, to the entire Alliance.
After Joan threw the rock at Duncan, a huge ovation filled the ghetto. The crowd turned on snatchers, beating them. They ran and tried to hide. For a moment, at least, the donors hunted the snatchers. But just for a short time. Soon vans and large numbers of reinforcements arrived to quell the would-be revolt.
But the rage remained. The determination, like a smoldering piece of coal buried under the sand, hidden and unknown, waited for a breath of oxygen to ignite a conflagration.
The tele-screen in Gates’s office broadcast a gang of donors pushing over a TEO van in the ghetto.
Gates stared at it, “What’s that they’re yelling? I can’t make it out.”
“It’s her name.”
“Huh? Whose name?” Gates asked with frustration.
“The donor’s name. Number 23,” one aide replied.
“Oh, right,” Gates murmured.
It angered him when the girl yelled her name earlier, but at the time he didn’t think it was important enough to remember the actual name. It certainly wasn’t significant enough to put into memory. “What was it? Her name?”
“Joan Lion,” an aide recounted.
Gates shook his head. This girl, this donor, he thought derisively, escaped the ghetto, escaped the Alliance borders. And she attacked an officer of the Alliance—his daughter’s boyfriend, no less. To attack an officer of the Alliance is to attack the Alliance itself—to attack the Governor himself. Order must be maintained.
“Never speak that name again. That name will never be mentioned in any government reports or on any news programs.” He paused. “Make it so.”
Joan arrived at a river at dusk, limping and favoring her left foot. Famished, she ate three energy bars and allowed herself to relax a little. Quiet. No drones. No dogs. Even the birds were still. The only sound was the river bubbling by.
A large tree near the bank of the river had roots extending a few feet out of the ground, and she found a cozy space in between the roots to bed down for the night. She pulled out the blanket. It was very thin, made of a metallic, reflective material, similar to aluminum foil. She hoped it was warm. By the time she snuggled into the space and under the metallic cover, darkness had fallen. The sun set rapidly in the mountains—not worried to leave the earth, not worried if it would rise the next day. The same couldn’t be said for Joan. As she curled up under the imagined protection of the blanket, she tried to sleep.
In the dark, she observed that the river glowed, sparkling in an electric, white light. Unknown to Joan, it was bioluminescence—a phenomenon where tiny organisms living below the water’s surface emit a blue light. The sight spellbound her. As the water moved with the current, spilling to and fro on the bank, the glowing light stuck on the ground, glimmering white and foamy.
Unexpectedly, it hit her. The song—the nursery rhyme—the very first line said, “The white riverbank makes a very good road …” White riverbank. Could it refer to this river? It gave Joan a sliver of hope, but she grasped it. She would follow the river tomorrow. At least she had a way to go. She wasn’t traveling blindly.
Nestling her head back and feeling somewhat optimistic, she spied the moon through the branches. A full moon. She thought of Duncan. He wouldn’t look at the moon tonight or ever again. She turned away and cried herself to sleep.
In Duncan’s hospital room, Nox stood, honoring him as a hero. Duncan’s parents were there, too. When the loudspeaker in the medical center announced that visiting hours had ended, his parents and Nox left.
Duncan sat in a wheelchair. With a bandage over his left eye and a cast on his left hand, he stared at the full moon out of the large picture window of his luxury hospital room.
Out in the medical center stairwell, Jack peered through a crack in the door, watching Nox and the Starrs leave Duncan’s room. He waited until the hall emptied—no nurses, no doctors, and no witnesses. Slowly, Jack walked out of the stairwell and strolled swiftly through the hall. He paused before Duncan’s door and looked around again. He brushed quietly into Duncan’s room.
Duncan was staring out the window at the moon and didn’t hear Jack enter. His thoughts existed elsewhere. Jack walked up behind the wheelchair-bound figure. At that moment, the reflection in the window revealed Jack’s presence. Duncan turned, and their eyes met.
“Why…?” Duncan sputtered, his anger evident.
“OK, just relax for a minute,” Jack calmed him. “What happened?”
“It was so fast. We got the order to pick her up, so I scripted her to warn her. But she was still there, at the apartment…”
“I know the rest,” Jack said. “I saw it. Everyone saw it.” He shook his head. “I was certain they’d tell me when they decided about whether or not to do the transplant. I thought we’d have enough time to get her out. Thank goodness you were there. Good call to switch to the TEO instead of the army.”
“For all the good it did her—now she’s out there alone. In the wilderness.” After a minute his frustration came out again. “Jack, I didn’t push her father. I never touched him. I—”
“It’s OK, Duncan, calm down.”
Silence for a few minutes.
Jack commented, “That was close, the dart you shot at her. Very close.”
“Had to make it look good.”
“You did. It unnerved me.” And then, to lighten the mood a little, “I guess you had a good trainer.”
The joke worked, and a smile cracked Duncan’s face.
“What’s the story with the dart? Nox’s dart?”
Duncan smiled, “Oh, I had his gun earlier for a minute, and I tampered with the dart.”
“Smart.”
More silence.
Duncan broke the silence, “Nox was just here.”
“Yeah, I know. I saw him and your parents leave. I think it’s best if you and I lay low for while. Limit our contact. Don’t want to raise suspicions.”
Shaking his head, “He’s here, honoring me as a hero, all in front of my paren
ts, trying to make brownie points. He doesn’t know the real agenda of my parents.”
“Does your father regret getting you into Nox’s unit?”
“Nah, he knows how I feel about Joan—I mean, about the System. You know how they feel about the System, too.” Changing the subject, “Jack, I think my clothes are there in the closet in a bag. Can you get them?”
Jack walked to the closet and retrieved a bag suspended on a hanger. Inside was the uniform Duncan had worn that day.
Duncan said, “Can you look in one of my socks?”
Jack rummaged through the bag, pulled out a sock, and touched it. Nothing. He looked at Duncan, who motioned him to check the other sock. He felt the other sock and came across something. He reached into the toes and pulled out a computer chip. Jack gazed at it questioningly.
“It’s from her wrist phone,” Duncan explained. “She left it outside the sewer. It has the record of my scripts to her on it.”
Understanding, Jack nodded, “I’ll destroy it.”
“No, I want it. Want to download what’s on it to my phone first.”
Jack handed the chip to him, and Duncan inserted it into his own wrist phone.
“Nox’s heading out after her first thing tomorrow morning. He has some sort of grudge against her. Something personal. He’s smart, very smart.”
Silence again.
“I can get you out, Duncan. We can still follow the plan we had for Joan—for you and Joan.”
Duncan rolled his head back, “Who knows where she is?” he paused, then spit the words out, “She tried to kill me. If I hadn’t had my hand near my head, I’d be dead.” He held up his hand in the cast. “She can throw and aim. She was aiming at me. Nox thinks she was aiming at him, but she was aiming at me. To kill me.”
“She doesn’t know the truth, that you—”
“She tried to kill me,” he almost yelled.
The rock did not just smash his hand and slice his forehead, but it also carved into his heart. The knowledge that the girl he loved tried to kill him wrenched at him.
From the first he met her, her simplicity, guileless, and humility, struck him, like the rock she threw at him. He had been walking across the Center grass as she practiced her long jump. He approached her, intending simply to talk for a minute or two. Aware of her donor status, he winced when she fumbled with a wrist brace, obviously trying to cover her tattoo. He wanted to assure her it didn’t matter to him, but he said nothing. She exuded a unique courage, tempered by a long-suffering melancholy.
After that first meeting, he sought her out often, making it appear as if their meetings were by chance. He remained careful not to intrude on her apparent anxiety over their difference in status, but he wanted to tell her it didn’t matter to him, mean anything to him.
He and Jack had been working on a plan to get money to Joan—to help her buy a citizenship. The System forbade such financial help, but Duncan hoped his father could pull some strings. There was no rush, he had thought at the time.
But then came the heart transplant.
Reck and Kaleb crawled out of a sewer in the darkness of the ghetto.
“Yuck,” Kaleb exclaimed, as he kicked something next to him on the ground.
“Sh—” Reck warned him.
They had to be careful. Since the riot snatchers patrolled the streets, enforcing a curfew.
“Rats,” Kaleb explained in a whisper.
“No big deal.” As a sewer worker, Reck was used to rats. “Come on.”
Reck held something in his hand—paper, rolled up. Sticking to the shadows, they made their way down an alley and slipped into a building.
Kaleb’s apartment was small but nicely kept, and it had a homey feel. His grandmother, Zenobia, sat on a rocking chair, smoking her antique wooden pipe. She was one of the oldest people in the ghetto, and she looked it. Her hair, once jet-black, fluttered gray and wispy.
Kaleb unwrapped the object on the kitchen table. Zenobia shuffled to the table.
“Gran, this is a template of a poster. What do you think? I’m going to take it to the printer tonight,” Kaleb told her.
By printer, Kaleb meant a clandestine printing machine. The Alliance outlawed printing devices in the ghetto, to control the spread of information. He had unrolled a photo of Joan, taken earlier that day—it showed her right after she jumped off the boulder. Determination showed on her face, and the red stain on her shirt resembled a heart. Underneath the photo was the caption: “Remember Joan Lion.”
Zenobia studied it for a minute or two.
“So, Gran, what do you think?” Kaleb persisted.
The wise old woman shook her head.
“What?” Kaleb questioned.
She pointed at the caption.
“The Lionheart,” was all she said.
The next morning donors woke to posters of The Lionheart hanging everywhere in the ghetto. While the Alliance may not have been able to take away the hope, faith, or aspirations Joan brought the donors, they did take down the posters.
14
Joan jogged at a slow pace along the river. She couldn’t travel fast without a shoe, but she managed to keep a steady rate. Listening to the river and the birds kept her moving. Then the birds stopped singing—silence, except for the gurgling river. She stopped and cocked her head to the side, struggling to listen. It was faint and ever so slight, but it was there—the sound of dogs baying in the distance behind her.
She took off at a speedy pace, but after a few minutes stopped to think, wincing from the pain. No matter how fast she ran, the dogs would follow and find her. The water. Dogs can’t track scent through water. She decided to swim to the other side of the river.
She waded out into the waterway. When the water reached her waist, she realized how swiftly the current moved. Could she swim it? It appeared to be thirty feet across. She had to try. She waded in deeper, but the undercurrent swept her feet out from under her and pulled her down, below the surface. She came up, gasped for air, and began swimming—fighting and battling the strong flow. The powerful river tugged stronger than anticipated, swirling her in different directions.
Downriver a large tree loomed, with its boughs overhanging the water. One of its branches sagged into the river. Struggling against the flow, she angled herself in position to grab the branch. She tried but found she could only reach the thinner, leafy part. Her hand grasped it, and she tugged, pulling herself up. But the slender branches tore. She desperately reached out with both hands, clutching at a thicker part of the branch. It held. The surge yanked at her, but she held on. She began heaving herself out of the water. Her hope was to climb up the limb and onto the tree—to dry safety. She scrambled a yard up the bough, when it snapped loose from the tree. Both she and the limb dropped into the river.
She clung to it. Climbing onto it as best she could, she wrapped her arms around it, dangling in the water from her waist. With Joan hanging on, the branch drifted downriver. She burrowed tighter into the branches. On the bough, she floated rapidly, covering much more area than on foot.
When Nox arrived at the spot where Joan entered the water, the dogs waited, circling and whimpering. He gasped for breath, exhausted from the chase.
Pulling out his gun, ready for action, he asked the dog handler, “So, where is she? Why have they stopped?”
“Lost the scent. She probably crossed the river.”
Nox eyed the swift-moving river. Instinctively he stepped back. He feared water. He didn’t know how to swim. In his youth, his first draft duty assigned him to the army with a position in a special unit. The unit’s role was to rescue outsiders from the dangers of the wilderness. The army used the word rescue, but at once Nox realized it was kidnapping. He took part in five rescues. All of them occurred on the ocean, grabbing people from the shore. One time a fellow soldier fell overboard. Unable to save him, Nox watched helplessly as the man slipped under the waves. He watched the man’s arm and hand sink into oblivion.
Nox equ
ated water with death.
After hours of drifting along the river in the frigid water, Joan was numb. Her hands shook, and she couldn’t concentrate. She had to warm up. She angled toward the bank by kicking, unsure if her legs even moved. Boulders temporarily halted the branch’s progress, and Joan pushed herself off the limb toward shore, grabbing rocks along the way.
The riverbank consisted of deep, thick, and gooey mud. With her legs still numb, she crawled her way through the sludge. Once on dry land, she collapsed, enjoying the feel of the soft, warm sand.
She slipped off the backpack. As she reclined, the hot afternoon sun shone on her, warming and drying her. She looked at her hands, covered in muck, and a smile crept over her face—a fond memory.
At seven and six years old, respectively, Kaleb and Joan were fast friends. After a big rainstorm, the two of them romped through the ghetto. They were young and innocent, believing all was well and that the destiny, which came to pass for all donors, would pass them by.
Streets in the lower part of the ghetto experienced mudslides. Boards of woods lay across the streets, enabling people to traverse without stepping in the mud. Kaleb and Joan crossed one board, with Kaleb in front. Halfway across, they encountered another young boy. It was Reck. They’d never seen him before. The board, less than a foot across, not wide enough for two, only allowed one-way traffic. Someone would have to give way. Reck was bigger than Kaleb, but Kaleb and Joan held their ground, neither budging, all too proud and arrogant to be the ones to give way.
People at either end were waiting to cross, and they began lining up and yelling at the kids.
Reck crossed his arms. Kaleb crossed his arms. They stared at each other—a standoff. All of a sudden, a loud siren from a snatcher van in pursuit of a donor pierced the air. The van was just behind the children, and it startled them, causing them to instinctively jump face first into the mud. They landed flat on their stomachs, in sludge six inches deep. The mud covered them—their hands, faces, and bodies. Looking at each other, they burst into laughter and then began a ferocious—and fun—mud fight. That was the beginning of the Three Musketeers.