Under the Empyrean Sky (The Heartland Trilogy)

by Wendig, Chuck

  Cael imagines Pally clicking his teeth together. Finally he says, “Fine, fine, take him a tray.”

  The blurry, warped shape of Grey Franklin approaches the cell.

  He stoops, unlocks the hatch, slides through another tin tray—this one covered with a metal lid clipped to the edges—and then slams the hatch closed.

  “Hope they take you far away from us, murderer,” Grey says through the plastic. “Far, far away.”

  “Grey, I didn’t—”

  But Grey just turns his back on Cael.

  It cuts Cael to the quick. Grey’s always been good to the McAvoy family. The words sting. That Grey even believes the tale spun by Pally Varrin is…

  Well, it just shows that Cael’s neck-deep in the shit-heap.

  Both Franklin and Varrin leave. To go Lord and Lady know where.

  Cael sighs. Rubs his eyes. Looks down at the tray. He thinks about eating—Grey’s right; if you get pulsed by even a low-frequency sonic blast, it’s not the worst idea to replenish your gutty-works. But he just can’t muster the hunger. He taps the tray with a toe. Nudges it into the other tray.

  Then he gives it a kick, makes it spin.

  It rattles. Almost like a rattlesnake’s rattle, but louder, denser.

  Metal on metal.

  Is this a joke? What the hell is Grey trying to feed him? Nuts and bolts? He grab the tray, finds that it has surprising heft, and pops the lid.

  Well, look at that.

  The tray is split into quadrants in order to separate whatever gruel they’re feeding the prisoners. It’s just like the other one that way. But in this tray’s compartments, Cael sees no food.

  He sees ball bearings.

  He sees his slingshot.

  He sees a rasp-tooth saw.

  And atop it all a small, hastily scribbled note:

  RUN.

  Far, far away.

  What’s going on?

  No time to worry about that now. No telling when Pally will come back. Cael drops to one knee and gets the saw in between the hatch that’s cut into the plastic. He sets the saw-teeth against the hinge and starts working on it, back and forth, plastic shavings building a small cairn of squiggly clear bits on the floor. When he’s done, he kicks the hatch out, and it falls against the straw-strewn floor.

  He tucks his slingshot into his back pocket and fills his front pockets with the ammo.

  Then he breaks out of jail.

  THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE CORN

  “CAEL!”

  Pop’s voice echoes across the homestead. Out past the house, over the corn-tops, night is giving way to the first embers of morning. He swallows hard, brushes himself free of the straw and dust from inside the stable, and then he hobbles to the house. His hip feels as if it’s on fire, but his leg no longer hurts—instead, it’s falling prey to a spreading numbness.

  He limps toward the house, grunting and wincing and holding his hip.

  “Bessie!”

  No answer.

  Maybe they’re asleep. It is late. Or early.

  He goes to the front door. He doesn’t know how much time he has, but he knows it’s slipping through his fingers like juice from one of those beautiful strawberries. They’re going to come for him. And his son. And Filomena.

  Inside the house he calls again. “Cael! Bessie!”

  But still nothing.

  He hears a creak upstairs. A floorboard shifting.

  Bessie calls down, “Up… up here.”

  She sounds tired. As if he woke her up. Good. Maybe she knows where Cael is. Pop goes up the steps, formulating a plan. Filomena’s not going to be easy to move, and they don’t have a boat, not anymore. Burt and Bessie do, though. If not that, then the rail-raft. The magna-cruxes don’t only fit the rail running between Martha’s Bend and the McAvoy household. They also fit the rail two miles north of here—the ones on which the maglev auto-train travels to bring goods from town to town, delivering provisions and such to the likes of Bhuja and other deliverymen and women.

  Hit the rails like hobos, he thinks. Again.

  Arthur does his best to race upstairs, putting together in his mind a way to make a stretcher out of a couple oar-poles and a tarp from the barn. As soon as he reaches the stairs to turn into the main bedroom, he finds Bessie.

  She’s lying on the floor. Hands bound behind her. Bloody hair matted to her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  Two figures step out of the shadows. Evocati augusti. More guardsmen of the Empyrean. They point sonic rifles toward him. The rifles hum; Arthur knows they’re powered to full.

  From behind him, Arthur hears footsteps emerging from Cael’s bedroom.

  “Arthur McAvoy?” asks a female voice. A voice he recognizes from the many Harvest Homes as that of Proctor Simone Agrasanto.

  He hears Pally Varrin say, “That’s the rat-bastard traitor.”

  Arthur turns. He draws a deep breath. He musters what dignity he can and offers his hand. “Proctor. Nice to finally meet you in person.”

  She smiles. Broad, red-painted lips. Pale cheeks made whiter with makeup. Peacock-blue eyes behind a pair of dark cat’s-eye specs. She takes his hand. “So polite.”

  Then, a barely perceptible nod.

  A rifle butt slams into the back of Pop’s head.

  Cael sneaks around town as the sun just peeks the top of its fiery head over the horizon. He darts behind the old fridge around back of Busser’s when he hears a hsssst! coming from nearby.

  He sees Lane and Rigo hiding between buildings. They flag him over.

  “Cael! You’re all right!” Rigo says, throwing his arms around him.

  “Grey said he let you out. We’ve been waiting for you.” Lane nervously smokes a crooked cigarette, then tosses it in the dirt as smoke vents between his teeth. “Everything’s gone south, Captain.”

  “Everything,” Rigo confirms.

  “What? What’s going on?”

  Lane tells him. Tells him how they saw the Empyrean ketch-boat approaching the McAvoy farmstead and hightailed it out of there. How Bessie stayed behind. How they heard Busser and a couple of drunk field shepherds talking about the fight between Cael and Boyland and how Cael got stuffed in a jail cell for it. How they found Grey on the way to the jail, and he told them that Agrasanto wanted Pally and him to perform backup duties at the McAvoy farm in case things “got out of hand.” How the three of them devised the Free Cael from Jail plan. “Took you long enough to get out here,” Lane says.

  “We have to go to the farm,” Cael says.

  “No!” Rigo waves his arms. “Grey told us to run, Cael. Said that things were way beyond the point of fixing. We have to go.”

  Lane draws a deep breath and bites a nail. “I think Rigo’s right. I don’t think we stand a shot.”

  “They want my father. They probably have my mother. And Gwennie might still be here.” Cael stands up, draws his slingshot. “No force in heaven or the Heartland is going to change my mind.”

  Rigo and Lane share a pained look.

  “Then we’re in,” Lane says.

  Rigo gives a reluctant nod. “Lead the way, boss.”

  The ketch sits parked out behind the house and barn, a few hundred yards away—Gwennie thinks it’s so the craft stays out of sight. So far away, though, that she can’t see what’s happening. It feels as if bugs are crawling under her skin she’s so agitated and nervous.

  The Empyrean Lottery is no longer a gift she wants. It’s no reward. It’s a curse. She’s sure of that now. She doesn’t want to be part of those people. She doesn’t want her family to be part of those people, either. Besides, she’s heard the rumors: Lottery winners are freak shows to the citizens of the flotillas. Curious strangers. A novelty to be used up and then later abused.

  “We need to get off this ship,” she tells her family.

  “Just… sit tight,” Richard says.

  Her mother looks worried. “Richard, maybe she’s right.”

  “The McAvoys
are good people,” Gwennie says. “We can’t let Agrasanto do… whatever it is she’s going to do to them. You saw what they did to Boyland Jr. They don’t care about us. They could watch the Heartland dry out, or burn up, or drown in a hundred days’ worth of rain.”

  Richard shakes his head. “We won the Lottery. We just keep our heads screwed on tight, and we’ll be living a good life before you can bat your pretty eyelashes. Don’t worry, daughter of mine.”

  Gwennie’s had enough.

  She goes to the door.

  Waits. Takes a deep breath.

  Then slams her body into it.

  Once. Twice. Three times.

  It barely budges. She screams. Time for something bigger. She reaches under the couch and unscrews the leg. Richard asks her what she’s doing, but Gwennie no longer cares to answer. As soon as she has the leg, the couch tilts downward and Scooter laughs.

  Then she goes back to the door and starts pounding it with the stubby couch leg.

  Screaming.

  Weeping.

  Until she collapses against it, breathless.

  They drag Arthur McAvoy outside and throw him on the driveway. One of the guards gets behind him and pulls a thin white plastic cord. He closes it around Arthur’s wrists and then presses a button, and the cord tightens suddenly with a vvvvvip.

  Agrasanto hates this man suddenly. Hates him with every inch of her icy marrow. He’s ruined her trip here. This was supposed to be quick. Lickety-split. She’d fly down, snatch up the Shawcatch family, and then be back in her own bed by midnight, with her husband fast asleep. She’d turn on the oxy-mist. Crank up the white noise. Put on her lavender-scented face mask. And another sound night’s sleep would be hers.

  But now it’s almost morning. And she’s still awake.

  She hates McAvoy. And she hates the mayor, too, for putting her through all this. Ignorance is truly bliss. Martha’s Bend was not her problem, and suddenly it became her problem.

  One of the Babysitters—the squirrelly, scrubby one—gets a mean smile and then stomps over to McAvoy and kicks him in the ribs. The man oofs and rolls over.

  Agrasanto helps him to his knees.

  “Mr. McAvoy,” she says. “I regret to inform you that you have been declared a terrorist against the sanctity of the heavenly Empyrean and the earthly Heartland. Do you have anything—”

  “You’re the terrorists,” Arthur says, wiping his mouth on his shoulder. “You’re the ones who come down here and terrorize us. You take away everything we have. You get to keep it all. When we want a taste—just a taste—you kick us like dogs.”

  “Like dogs,” she says. “No. We treat you like the children you are. When you misbehave, we break your toys. It’s just a lesson. You’re just a lesson. A lesson to other Heartlanders to sit down, relax, and shut the—”

  Devon clears his throat behind her.

  “What, Devon?”

  He coughs and places the visidex gently into her hands as though she might reach up suddenly and snap his head off his neck. Which is not an entirely unreasonable worry.

  On the screen she sees the Shawcatch girl going spastic. Screaming and flinging herself against the door like a calf who realizes he’s about to have a nail shot through his head.

  “The ship alerted us,” Devon says.

  “Fine.” She snaps her fingers to the two guardsmen. “Go handle this. We’ll be along shortly.”

  “Ma’am—”

  “I said go. I’m not interested in bringing back a ruined ship, so just subdue the girl, will you? Subdue the whole family while you’re at it.” The other guards are still at Martha’s Bend cleaning up this terrorist’s mess. It’ll all be over soon. She’s irritated, yes, but not worried.

  The guards jog off.

  She steps back to McAvoy. Then she looks to the other Babysitter—the thicker, squatter one. She puts out her open palm and claps one-handed. “Give me your pistol.”

  “Proctor, I think we should just wrap this up.”

  “I have questions,” she hisses. “Pistol. Now.”

  He hands her the pistol.

  “Let’s talk,” she says, and then she cracks Arthur in the face with the pistol.

  A leafy finger of corn curls up under Cael’s chin and snakes its way toward his mouth as if it wants to crawl down his throat and into his guts. But he blows it away with a puff of air.

  He peers out through the corn at the house, his blood running hot.

  Rigo hisses, “What do you see?”

  It takes a moment for Cael to see anything at all.

  But soon it becomes clear.

  On the ground in the driveway, Pop kneels. Hands behind his back.

  Pally Varrin is there, looking smug. Franklin, too. Pacing, rubbing his face.

  There. Cael sees her. Proctor Agrasanto. Dark hair. Tight suit. She’s got a pistol in her grip—by the looks of it, one of the Babysitter’s sonic shooters. A small, dark-haired man stands nearby, tapping into some kind of computer.

  Agrasanto says something.

  Thens she hauls back and cracks Pop in the face with the shooter. Pop doesn’t fall, but the blow looks to have stunned him. Cael sees red.

  He scowls back at his friends. “We gotta get closer. Now.”

  Simone watches Arthur McAvoy leaning forward, spitting blood. His cheek is cut, but so are his gums. Her hand still vibrates a little from where she cracked him with the pistol.

  The proctor makes another attempt. “So. The seeds. You grew a garden, an impossible garden. Too good to touch this foul, corn-throttled wasteland. I need to know from whom you procured these seeds, Arthur.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Proctor.”

  More politeness from the terrorist. Cute.

  She hits him again. This time in the side of the head. The sonic shooter she took from Grey Franklin isn’t the same as her own shooter back on the flotilla. Her pistol is all curves: the gleaming chrome of a crafty, artisan-made Rossmoyne 70-99, a graceful weapon for an elegant operator. This crass pistol looks to be a—what? An Oswalt-Burmeister shooter from their Soundmaster line. With its boxy configuration, it’s all hard angles and hanging nodules. Before, she regretted not bringing her own pistol. But now—watching how this crass weapon tears up the flesh of this Heartlander criminal—that regret has melted away like candy floss on a warm tongue.

  The pistol leaves its mark. McAvoy’s temple bleeds.

  “We’ll get the answer one way or another,” she says. “Perhaps your son knows something. I hear he’s in jail. One assumes that however much pain it will take to get you to crack, it’ll take him half as much. That’s my guess, of course. Always possible that he will have a secret cache of vim and vigor waiting and will outlast even you. We’ll find out together.”

  “Cael,” Arthur croaks. A torch-flame of anger rises in his voice. “You leave my boy alone.”

  “Not likely.”

  “You’re awful. All of you. You’re not gods looking down on us from above. You’re not blessed by the Lord and Lady. You’re just monsters. The children of Old Scratch, looking down on ants with magnifying glasses, happy to watch us burn.”

  “That hurts my feelings,” she says. And she means it. To be called a monster? To endure the suggestion that the Empyrean is anything but mankind’s best intentions at work? Where would the Heartlanders be without the Empyrean watching over them? Without Empyrean science, without guidance, without a system of order in place? And here she is, an extension of that order, a hand carrying the best that civilization has to offer, and this animal, this primate with dirt in his hair, is going to tell her otherwise? It hardly seems fair.

  The Overseer who looks like a bulldog steps forward, says, “Might be time to ease up on the stick and try a little carrot.”

  She wheels on him. “Overseer, this is a criminal whose only intent is to undo the Empyrean’s good work. We do not negotiate with terrorists.”

  He offers up both hands and steps back. The other Overseer, sti
ll standing in the stomped wreckage of the last of the plants dragged out of McAvoy’s workshop, appears gleeful. Grinning ear-to-ear through a beard that looks as if it would better serve as a nest for birds.

  You get the hand you’re dealt, she thinks.

  Oh well.

  Time to employ another trick.

  They come through the corn to the back of the farmhouse. Cael, Lane, and Rigo hug the walls and sneak up along the side, ducking down by the set of cellar doors and peering around the corner to the gravel lot in front of the house.

  Cael sees his father, still on his knees but now swaying. The side of his face is wet with blood. The proctor snaps her fingers and points to Pally Varrin. Right then, Cael wishes he’d taken that sonofabitch out on the road when he had the chance. It’s the look of glee on the bully’s face that gets him—Varrin is enjoying this.

  From behind Cael, Rigo and Lane start talking about a plan.

  But Cael can’t help but watch.

  “You know what to do,” Agrasanto says to Varrin.

  The Babysitter hunkers down next to Cael’s father and pulls aside the waist of Pop’s pants, exposing the cluster of bone spurs jutting out of his hip. Even that simplest of motions causes Pop to moan in pain, his whole body tightening.

  “Your daughter,” Agrasanto says. “Tell me about her. Where did she go? I heard a rumor that she’s on one of our flotillas. Which one?”

  “I don’t know” comes Pop’s ragged answer.

  Cael hears Rigo saying, “I’ll distract ’em. Lane, you go inside the house from around back—”

  “Is she connected to all this?” Agrasanto asks with a sweep of her arm. “Is she carrying your terrorist agenda onto our ships, into our homes?”

  “I don’t even know… what you’re… talking about.…”

  She nods to Pally, who takes the tip of his shooter and jams it hard against Pop’s bone spurs. Cael doesn’t know how it feels, but he can see his father twist up as if he was just shot with a crackling bolt of lightning. Hearing his father scream…

  Lane whispers, “From inside the house I can get on the roof—”