by P. S. Lurie
“We offered you a chance.”
“The sea receded. You could have left us alone.”
“There’s so much you don’t understand. If you’d realised then you would never have partaken in the great cull. My tears last year were real.”
I want to throw back a sarcastic comment. From what I can see, there’s no excuse for anything the Upperlanders did to us. It doesn’t make sense and she’s not making it any clearer. All the tears she’s ever cried can’t amount to the ones we were forced to shed. Instead I just listen to her explanation, wondering how she has the gall to attempt to justify her actions.
One of the guards has climbed into the helicopter and has turned on the engine. I dig a nail into my fist in preparation. I can’t lose myself now.
“I’m sorry about your family,” President Callister continues, over the noise. “But you are lucky that they survived.”
“Not all of them. Not my friends.”
“Henry. Yes, I am sorry about him too.”
“Don’t you dare say his name.” I furrow my eyebrows and grow even angrier. “You could have left the Middlelands alone. My family and friends died for nothing. You made us kill one another today for nothing. Why?”
I’m screaming at her but her tone doesn’t change. “Not nothing. Look at what our civilisation had: next to no crime. Grateful, loyal people. You all wanted to be part of it.”
“I want nothing to do with you.”
“We should go,” the other guard says on Ronan’s return from commanding Jack, Ruskin and Melissa to leave.
“I promise you there’s an explanation for all of this,” President Callister says.
What is she holding back? Whatever it is could not suffice so I focus on only one point. “You killed your own people. The Upperlands is over.”
“Not quite.” She hands my sister to the guard in the helicopter, before pulling herself into the hold. It’s obvious I have to go with them, whether I like it or not.
I lose myself in a fantasy of abandoning my brother and sister, and instead staying with my friends so that I can attack the Upperlanders from the outside because I will be under President Callister’s watch if I go with. I have to go, I have no choice; I can’t leave my siblings.
“You will come to understand, Theia. Please be grateful I’m allowing you to come with.”
I laugh. “You still want to hear that I’m grateful? That’s what matters to you?”
President Callister doesn’t reply. Instead she straps herself into one of the seats and places Leda on her lap. The guards sit in front. It is just Ronan and me on top of the Fence, with Leda an arm’s reach away. It’s what I’ve worked towards for a year. But not like this.
I thought that finding Ronan whatever the circumstances would suffice for me, and would quell my mother’s voice that has swum around in my head, but I was foolish to think that the Upperlanders would make it that straightforward.
I should feel exhausted but, in this moment, standing next to Ronan and looking out over the world, a spark reignites inside me that there’s still a chance to pull through. I wish I could hear my mother tell me I’ve saved them. I wish that the nightmares of her telling me I’ve failed them have come to an end but I know that if I fall asleep they’ll still be there. What I don’t know is what happens next, except that my mother’s words are still true: they’re my responsibility.
I have to play President Callister’s game a while longer. I’ve pretended to be loyal and grateful for this long. I need to know why she has focused on my siblings and me.
“Look.” Ronan points towards to the lightest parts of the sky down where the sun has set beyond the dry land, way past the Middlelands and the streets where Henry and my parents’ bodies have been laid to waste this past year, untouched by any water. I can’t see exactly where the water reached but in the distance are dilapidated districts: the Lowerlands that once had been lost, and beyond that to land I never knew.
I scour the landscape and realise that it wasn’t just the red of the sunset that lit up the sky but, in the dim light, I spot columns of fire and smoke. My heart skips a beat. People are out there.
“They’re coming,” Ronan says.
Selene
I reach for the elevator button but I can barely raise my arm. The pain is unbearable and I don’t know how bad the damage is. Ruskin, Jack and Melissa come into view, emerging from the elevator that is attached to the Fence that still stands proud. There’s so much haziness in my mind that a barrage of questions push against my tongue but my lips don’t have the energy to move. “Why are you coming back down? Why haven’t you boarded the Utopia and sailed away? Is my mother with you? How bad is...?” I don’t ask any of them.
Their faces fade and are replaced with the night sky, which turns much darker. There is so little light pollution that I see the moon, and the stars that, despite being dead light, are so far from here that they are lucky. I’m floating, on top of the sea, with a fairy-light stream of houses glowing from under the surface. I’m naked, and the water is neither cold nor warm. Just comfortable. My head slips to the side and my ear is submerged. I hear nothing in the flood or in the world above it. It is just me and water all around. But something’s missing... dead bodies. They always come but this time they don’t appear, and I know that this time the thing I’ve been fighting for my whole life is finally upon me: Freedom.
I’m free.
Through the murky distance I hear two words: “Help me.”
There’s no one else around and I realise that the voice belongs to me. “Stop it,” I want to protest. I don’t want help. I’m free.
“Selene?”
No. I’m...
Melissa is in front of my face, nursing me back to consciousness. The comfort of what I just imagined slips away as the events leading up to this point catch up to me.
“Is she ok?” Jack or Ruskin asks.
I want to tell them what happened, that my mother was killed trying to save me, that the Utopia blew up next to us – not the Fence, as they must already know – and that the glass panes were a ruse.
“What was beyond the Fence?” I ask, but no one answers me and I’m not sure I even said the words out loud. My ears are ringing from the explosions. I try to lift my head up and check my body but I’ve lost all strength.
The Utopia. There was someone else with me. The man who killed my mother after I spent a year protecting her. She came to save me and he shot her without any remorse. Nathaniel. I shudder, wanting to check where he is, not having been far from his clasp for the past year, under his control. But I know he’s not here. He was between me and the Utopia and took the brunt, protecting me from the initial force. He slammed into me and took me to the ground. Instantly, the world changed from a dazzling brightness to pitch black as the sky rained down with debris from the Utopia and buried us alive. Was it pure chance that Nathaniel was trapped whilst I was able to scramble out of the wreckage?
Despite wanting him dead all day, I can’t drown out his screams spilling over from me memory, beating out the high pitch that has damaged my ears, for me to come back and release him. I left Nathaniel to die. I’m finally free from him.
“Where are Theia and Maddie? Were they on the Utopia?”
This time I know they’ve heard me because Ruskin hushes me, as Melissa works farther down my body.
“The glass.”
Immense pain floods the nerves across my body and I give out a ferocious scream.
“She’s going into shock,” Melissa says, but my stubbornness prevails and I push my head off the floor. I wish I hadn’t because all I see is something where it shouldn’t be: part of the Utopia protruding from my hip. It makes my eyebrows shoot up in wonder; how did I manage to make it this far with such an injury?
I sense it again. I’m floating on the sea. It’s in my reach.
Then the thought that has kept me alive through so many events returns at the most unhelpful time. Despite wanting to be free, my min
d tells me that I’m not ready to die. That voice has been a reminder for me to keep pushing on whenever life was at its worst, but now I’m ready to let go of it. Only, the thought doesn’t let go of me. ‘I’m not ready to die,’ it says, in spite of what I want.
“What’s beyond the Fence?” I ask, and the expressions on their faces become even more sombre. I know that they definitely heard me.
Their faces tell me that right now I shouldn’t hear the truth. If I am going to die then I want to see what’s beyond the Fence.
“Can we move her to the hospital?” Jack asks Melissa.
“No,” I groan, but they mistake it for pain. “Up.”
I grab Ruskin and pull him near. With the rest of my energy, I cough up a question. “There’s no flood, is there?”
After a pause he answers. “No, Selene. There’s no flood.”
My eyes close, and I’m confused because around me all I can see is the flood.
Theia
Grudgingly, I climb into the helicopter and sit opposite President Callister. Ronan is the last to enter and joins me, strapping himself in by my side.
“You impressed me,” the woman who has directed so much pain my way says to me. “I watched you today, your determination to protect your brother and sister, and the others. I’m sorry about Harriet and Selma.”
Selma’s dead. My heart sinks.
“How did you know about my brother?” For all I knew, he was still living under the pseudonym.
“You mean Henry Argent?”
My heart sinks further at the name, seemingly always ready to carry more weight. President Callister knows everything about my life, but it is that she knows about this particular part that bothers me the most. She can’t know about Henry’s final moment with me, about the kiss, because no one knows about that. I didn’t tell Selma and, after I dragged him into his parents’ bedroom, Henry was out of sight from Melissa’s window so my friend can’t have seen it. Not even Ronan knows.
Only one other person alive knew about Henry’s existence. I sigh. “Adam Jefferson.”
“Interesting man.”
Of course he told President Callister. She must have questioned him after the announcement and, to avenge my mother’s death, he disclosed everything he knew about me, including Henry. Melissa saw Henry’s name on the medical database, so it wouldn’t have taken much to piece it together this afternoon.
The helicopter will soon take off and I dig into my palm. President Callister notices, takes in the subtle movement, but doesn’t pursue it.
“Who are they? The people beyond the Fence?”
“People you don’t want to wait around for. You should be...” she starts, but I cut her off.
“Don’t say grateful.” I’ll play along with the fake gratitude and loyalty if it’s in my best interests to protect all of us by appeasing her, but not right now.
“She smiles at me sweetly. “No platitudes. Just answers. That’s you in a nutshell. As I’ve said, you’ll come to understand.”
“What have you done to my brother?”
“We gave him a good life. We can give you a good life. You deserve it, Theia.”
“Why me? Why not everyone you just killed?”
“Because you were right. Loyalty and gratitude weren’t enough. The Upperlanders were wasteful and lazy, focused on trivial matters.”
“They were loyal and grateful. You forced them to be like that.”
“You and I both know that’s not exactly true. There was another quality we looked for. Determination. That only comes naturally. We couldn’t force that on anyone. A few of you proved that time and time again. If you don’t mind I’d like a moment of silence to grieve my dead.”
I watch President Callister close her eyes and retreat into her head. I don’t know whether she’s sorry and I very much doubt it, but it’s obvious that it’s as much information as I’ll get from her for now.
An officer starts the engine and the blades rotate, faster until they are a blur and the noise deafens. The helicopter takes off and I grip the seat, but I’m stuck in the present. We hover over the arena where I see my friends. Ruskin, Jack and Melissa are crowded over a body. Selene. Ruskin looks up as we swoop overhead but it’s too noisy and too far away to communicate anything. I don’t know if Selene’s alive. There’s nothing I can do for them now but other people are headed this way and I’m not sure whether that means they will soon be safer or not. There is more uncertainty than when today started.
I look up to the mansion on the mountain. Of course no one else would be allowed to climb the Fence, or ride a helicopter or see the world from up high because then they’d know the truth about the sea. “Henry died for nothing,” I say to no one, the words forcing themselves out of my mouth. To my surprise President Callister hears over the noise and responds.
“He died so your brother could live. All three Silverdale siblings together. Quite remarkable. As I said: determination.”
“Give me my sister.”
“Of course,” President Callister says, and hands her over, again too easily. She closes her eyes once more.
I take in my situation. Leda is on my lap, looking healthy, breathing normally. Ronan sits next to me, just like a year ago but in far different circumstances. For one, he wasn’t carrying a gun. And he was scared. Our roles are reversed because this time around I need all the reassurance I can get from him. I want to grip his hand, like he did with mine, but I know he wouldn’t let me. Still, I let my hand brush his anyway just to feel his skin, to prove he’s here.
To my surprise, with President Callister oblivious to the act, he squeezes my hand then swiftly retracts it.
Is he pretending? Is he still the brother I lost a year ago?
The helicopter carries on over the demolished Utopia, the non-flooded Upperlands and towards the mountain where the fortress stands, much higher than anything else in the world. I look to the outside where so much death has been allowed for no discernible reason other than cruelty. Maybe President Callister will explain but I doubt anything will be adequate.
I wonder what awaits me as I travel onwards with the woman that decreed all of this misery and I think back over today. There was a moment before we left the prison that I celebrated how far we had come. I told Ruskin about Jason. Then Selene and Selma were reunited, albeit briefly. And I have been reunited with Ronan and Leda. But not one of these things turned out as I had hoped. So many lives were lost, so much is still uncertain, danger looms more than ever. At least on entering the Upperlands I could shrink into the crowds but now President Callister knows all about me and is taking me into the heart from where the evilness stems.
Leda, Ronan and I are still alive, and Ronan isn’t a lost cause, and that should be enough in this moment. Would my mother be relieved by this? I don’t think so because what could happen next terrifies me; all I know is that we won’t be allowed to be left alone and happy. I am in the company of the very person who commanded the deaths of everyone I loved.
President Callister wants me to be grateful. I think of Maddie – did she escape the detonations? – and what she said to me in the basement. “When this is all over.” I’ll be grateful only when this is all over.
I know what I have to do. Not just protect my siblings but make President Callister pay. She may know everything about me but she doesn’t know how deep my desire for revenge runs.
Or maybe she does because President Callister isn’t a fool. Her words ring true in my head and maybe she’s correct about one thing: though my gratitude and loyalty aren’t up to her standards, my determination got me here, and my fight is now stronger than ever.
As the day draws to a miserable end and I have survived a second cull, I’m encouraged by a final, elated thought: I’ll play her game a while longer, and then I’ll win it.
Table of Contents
THE DAY OF THE GREAT CULL
ONE YEAR LATER6 A.M.
6 A.M. - 7 A.M.
7 A.M. – 8 A.M.
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8 A.M. – 9 A.M.
9 A.M. – 10 A.M.
10 A.M. – 11 A.M.
11 A.M. – 12 P.M.
12 P.M. – 1 P.M
1 P.M. – 2 P.M.
2 P.M. – 3 P.M.
3 P.M. – 4 P.M
4 P.M. – 5 P.M.
5 P.M. – 6 P.M.