The Uprising: The Forsaken Trilogy

by Lisa M. Stasse

  “Hey!” I call out. “Gadya!” She turns and walks over to us rapidly. She only has a mild limp from her leg injury. It’s barely noticeable. I can’t believe her leg has healed so quickly.

  “You survived the ropes,” she says with a grin. “Told you they weren’t so bad.”

  “You go up and down them every day?” I ask.

  “Naw. We usually have a sentry or two posted on the highway. He watches the road and checks the tram line. If he sees or hears anything suspicious, then more of us go up. But it doesn’t happen too often. You’re the first ones to get that tram working. But sometimes, drones find the road on foot. Then we go up there and deal with ’em. Most of them are too scared to come up here, though. They think this road is haunted by ghosts or demons—they don’t know it’s the travelers. For some reason, the Monk doesn’t ever force the drones to come up here.”

  “So how did you get out of the archive? I was so worried about you!”

  “After you two climbed into the pod and got put on the plane in the specimen archive, I just waited up there in the observation deck in the cold. At first, I thought some of those tiny feelers would turn up and catch me. But they didn’t. So then I figured I was just going to freeze to death unless I did something drastic.” Her eyes go faraway, like she’s reliving the painful memory. “I crawled across the floor and managed to get back outside. I was hoping one of the big feelers would come down from the sky and take me and freeze me, like they took everyone else—” She suddenly looks like she’s trying not to cry.

  “I feel so bad about leaving you,” I tell her, leaning forward and hugging her again.

  “I wanted you to leave, remember? I told you and Liam to go. It was our best hope for survival.”

  “What happened after that?” Liam asks her softly. “How did the travelers find you?”

  “I got lucky. Occasionally, they send scouts through the gray zone. There are a lot more tunnels under the barrier into that zone than we ever knew about. We just couldn’t get to them because the entrances are hidden in different sectors. But a scout found me inside the zone.” Unexpectedly, she smiles. “I thought I was hallucinating at first, ’cause he was dressed in hoofer skins. I thought it was a monster. But it was a traveler. He wrapped me in skins and carried me out of the gray zone, down into a secret tunnel leading into the purple sector.” She brushes back her blue-streaked hair. “It took me a while to heal. The travelers used special potions and herbal remedies, and they set the bone in my leg. The whole time I was thinking about you guys—where you were, if you’d made it, and what you were doing.”

  “We were thinking about you,” I tell her. “Planning how to get back here and find you, and everyone else. That airplane we left the wheel in was hijacked by rebel scientists. They flew us to a secret base in Australia, but it got destroyed by UNA weapons. So we traveled to another base in the Antarctic, and then I flew here in an airship, and Liam and his dad came on a hydrofoil. That’s the short version of how we ended up here.”

  Gadya looks startled. “Wow. That’s some crazy journey!”

  “I know.”

  “So you really came back to rescue me, and everyone else?”

  I nod.

  “And the rebels have airships and hydrofoils? I didn’t know they were so well prepared.”

  “They used to have them,” I say. “Until the drones got them and wrecked them. Now we have to start from scratch.”

  “Great,” Gadya says, her shoulders slumping.

  “So where is the travelers’ camp?” Liam asks, looking around. “You said they were nomads?”

  “Yeah, but only when they have to be. They’ve been living here for four months.” She waves us forward. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”

  We start walking.

  “If there are other tunnels, then we can get back inside the gray zone and rescue some captured villagers,” Liam says. “Who’s the leader here? Can we talk to him or her? Make some plans?”

  Gadya turns back to look at him as we walk. “There’s no leader. It’s not like at the village with Veidman and Meira, or the drones and their Monk. Everyone just works together.”

  “But without a leader, isn’t it just total chaos?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “No. These kids are older than us. They’ve been here the longest. They’re the ones who have the best survival skills—and they’ve also avoided getting the Suffering. That’s why they’ve survived past eighteen. They don’t need, or want, a leader. They take votes on stuff, but no one gets mad if they don’t get their way. Everything’s pretty peaceful.” She lowers her voice. “They don’t usually take in refugees like me or you guys. They keep to themselves. But just before they found me, a group of them got trapped by drones in the forest and killed. So they’re looking for new recruits to join them.”

  “How did they evolve? Where did they come from?” I ask.

  “They don’t even know who started the movement. It supposedly just came from a few kids who formed their own small groups. Kids who deliberately wandered away from different villages a few years ago. Since then, the tribe has just grown.”

  I nod.

  “You two will fit in fine, but I’m not sure about your friends,” Gadya continues. “Cass was a drone, right? I can tell. Maybe Alun was too.”

  “Yeah, both of them,” Liam replies.

  “They’ve been given counseling and antidotes to the UNA drugs on the wheel,” I tell Gadya quickly. “By the scientists who helped save us at the rebel base. So they’re not going to act crazy—or at least I don’t think they will. Besides, villagers killed Cass’s older brother before she even got here. That’s one of the reasons she became a drone.”

  “She better not act crazy, or the travelers will just vote to abandon her in the jungle.”

  “So if the travelers can get into the gray zone, why don’t they get off the wheel?” Liam asks Gadya as we keep walking. Ahead of us I see nothing but the gigantic concrete support pillars of the highway, and more trees and tall grass.

  “They’ve accepted their life here. They don’t see a point in leaving. Besides, where would they go back to?”

  I think about Camus’s book again, and his emphasis on the importance of fighting for freedom and passion. What would Camus make of the travelers? “So they’ve given up hope?” I ask. “That’s pretty depressing.”

  “No, they just found out it’s possible to avoid conflict and live on the wheel in harmony with nature and their environment.”

  “And you feel this way too?” I ask, startled. I notice Liam gazing at Gadya in surprise as well.

  Gadya stares at us for a second in silence.

  “Hell, no!” she finally whispers, looking around to make sure no one’s listening. “But I can’t tell them that. They don’t want to hear it. They’re happy. And they realize there aren’t enough of them to take over the wheel, anyway. So I keep my mouth shut.”

  “They’re going to get slaughtered eventually,” Liam says. “The drones are organized now, like the UNA military. We saw their armies. They’re going to sweep through the wheel.”

  Gadya shrugs. “The travelers will survive. They’ve made it through more bad stuff than we can imagine. You’ll see.”

  “So where’s their camp?” I ask, looking around.

  Gadya smiles. “We’ve been walking through it for the past couple minutes.”

  I pause, and so does Liam. There is literally nothing around us except trees, underbrush, and concrete.

  “Look closer,” Gadya prompts. “I told you they lived as one with the land and the environment, remember?”

  Liam and I stare around. I walk over to a shrub, thinking maybe there’s a hatch hidden underneath. But I see nothing.

  “Tunnels?” Liam guesses. “Burrows?”

  Gadya shakes her head. “Look up.”

  Our heads tilt up at the same moment.

  “Wow,” I say. Above us, I see the travelers’ camp. It’s built up high in the shadows direc
tly underneath the elevated highway, and in some of the trees off to our left.

  Everything is made of wooden beams and slats, disguised to look like part of the underside of the road. Platforms hang down on ropes and chains from the highway, attached to the concrete. I see a few figures moving around up there, high above us, watching. For a moment, it reminds me of the drones on the catwalks in the cathedral. But then I shake off the memory.

  In the trees, wooden platforms are built up high as well, like birds’ nests. They’re barely visible. Concealed with leaves and branches. I only see them because I’m searching for them. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have noticed.

  “Pretty impressive, right?” Gadya asks, enjoying our surprise.

  “Yeah, it’s incredible,” I tell her. “But how do we get up there?”

  “How do you think?” Her smile widens.

  “Ropes,” Liam says.

  I follow his gaze. I see some ropes painted gray with dried mud, dangling down from these strange hanging platforms attached under the road.

  “The travelers stay off the ground as much as they can. It’s the best way to avoid trouble.”

  “What about the feelers?” I ask. “If the travelers are nomadic and cross over into different sectors, don’t the feelers attack them?”

  “The feelers leave them alone. I don’t know why,” Gadya says. “The travelers are pretty careful.”

  “We haven’t even seen any feelers since we’ve been back on the wheel,” Liam adds. “Are they working?”

  “I hear them in the distance occasionally,” Gadya replies. “I don’t know why there aren’t more of them.”

  “Are we still in the purple sector?”

  She nods. “Yeah.”

  Gadya could be right about the feelers, but I know that they have to be somewhere. It makes me nervous that things have changed so much on the wheel since Liam and I escaped from it. If the rules keep shifting, I don’t know how we’re ever going to win control of the island.

  “If you’re hungry or thirsty, there’s food up there,” Gadya says, gesturing to the platforms under the highway. “Nothing compared to what Rika could cook at the village, but it’s decent.”

  “Rika,” I say, murmuring the name of our friend. I haven’t thought about her in a while. It’s frighteningly easy to forget about people out here. I never want to let that happen. “We need to figure out how to get back to the specimen archive and find her.”

  “We’ll talk about that when we’re up in the camp,” Gadya says. “But alone. I don’t want any of the travelers to hear us. If they think we’re planning something like that, they’ll ditch us the next time they move their location. And right now, we need them.”

  “Fine, but Alenna and I came here to save everyone,” Liam says. “Not hide out under a highway.”

  “Maybe we can try to rally the travelers and get them on our side?” I ask.

  Gadya shoots me a skeptical look. “Good luck with that. You don’t think I’ve tried?” She keeps walking closer to one of the roadway supports. We follow her. “Now how about some ropes?”

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later, we’ve made it up the ropes and onto the platforms. I stand there, panting for air. We’re on part of the strange, wooden scaffolding that hangs about fifteen feet underneath the road. Although everything looks rickety and handmade, the wooden platforms feel surprisingly sturdy. As long as I remember not to look down, I feel fine. A few birds nest up here too. They squawk angrily as we displace them.

  Travelers are walking around on the creaking beams that stretch between platforms. Some are resting on beds made of underbrush. All of them are dirty. Their hair is long, often woven into dreadlocks. Some of them look as old as twenty. Because of the grime and the hair, it’s hard to even tell the girls and boys apart, but it’s a mix of both. Their eyes watch us cautiously.

  We walk along a narrow platform, only three feet wide. It has no guardrails. Gadya is in the lead, with me in the middle, and Liam behind.

  A few of the travelers acknowledge us with nods, but many of them studiously ignore us. I understand why. This is their domain. And we haven’t proven ourselves to them yet.

  We keep walking. I smell food, and I glance around. Some nearby travelers are eating something that looks revolting—like egg-shaped, crusty brown oranges. Yet the smell is strangely spicy and enticing.

  Everyone looks fairly relaxed. That was something I never saw on the wheel before. Not at the village, and definitely not in the drones’ camp.

  I wonder what would have happened if David and I had been found by travelers that first day on the wheel, instead of by drones and then Gadya.

  Would David still have ended up switching sides and betraying us like he did? And would I be who I am today? I don’t regret anything I’ve been through or done, but I wish I hadn’t seen so much bloodshed. And I wish that so many of my friends hadn’t died or gotten frozen in the archive.

  “Alenna?” Liam asks.

  “Just thinking about the past,” I tell him.

  “You guys want some food and water?” Gadya asks. She moves nimbly across the platform, which gets even narrower here. I’m taking tentative steps. Even Liam is proceeding slowly, trying to get his bearings.

  “Sure,” I tell her. “I’m dying of thirst. And I can’t even remember the last time I ate.”

  “Good. The travelers have plenty of food.”

  Right then, I almost trip on an uneven slat of wood, but Liam puts out an arm to steady me.

  Gadya notices. “Careful. It’s tricky at first.”

  I’m relieved that she doesn’t seem angry at me, or weird about me and Liam being together. I was worried that seeing us as a couple might be too much for her, given her history with Liam. The two of them once dated, before I even got sent to the wheel. But she just seems happy to have us back, which is exactly how I feel about her.

  We follow Gadya onto a large octagonal wooden platform. I glance up at the concrete underside of the road, which is our roof now. I’m expecting to find some hoofer meat hanging somewhere, or even a primitive kitchen like we had at the village. Instead, Gadya leads us over to a group of discolored wooden buckets at the edge of the platform.

  “What is this stuff?” I ask when we reach them, glancing down at their contents. Inside the buckets is an array of strange-looking fruits and vegetables. I can’t identify any of them, except for some coconuts. There are also some lumpy white things that look like roots.

  “Breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Gadya says. “The travelers don’t eat meat.”

  “Why not?” I ask, as Liam scrutinizes the food as well.

  “Health reasons. They think it’s contaminated.”

  “How do they know this other stuff isn’t?” Liam asks.

  “Because the travelers are still alive and none of them has the Suffering.” She pauses. “Also, they don’t believe in eating meat in general. They only eat fruits and vegetables, and nuts too.”

  I reach into one of the buckets. I take out the object that looks like a small, brown orange. It feels slightly furry. “What is this? I saw some of the travelers eating them earlier.”

  “It looks genetically modified,” Liam muses, picking one up too. “I think I’d rather stick with hoofers.”

  “It’s not modified—it’s natural,” Gadya says. “It’s called a langsat. It’s a tropical fruit.”

  I probe the object’s skin. It’s leathery and vaguely translucent.

  “You gotta peel it first,” Gadya says. “Put the peel in that bucket there.” She points out an empty container.

  I nod, gouging my fingernails into the fruit’s skin and stripping it off. Underneath, the flesh of the fruit is pinkish-white. I raise it up and take a bite. It’s tangy and acidic, with a hint of sweetness. “Tastes kind of like a grapefruit,” I say. I take another bite.

  Gadya smiles. “I know. Pretty good, right?”

  Liam peels his langsat swiftly and takes a bite too. “Taste
s a lot better than it looks,” he says as he chews.

  “So how come we didn’t have these at the village?” I ask Gadya.

  “They only grow in this sector, I think. Someone must have brought them here and cultivated them. The travelers told me that they grow anyplace that’s warm and humid. Apparently they’re pretty common in New Hawaii, and on other islands too.”

  Liam is looking back down into the buckets, holding the half-eaten langsat in his hand. “So the travelers live off this stuff?”

  “Yep,” Gadya tells him. “Even tubers. Everything’s natural.”

  I turn to see a traveler passing behind us. He’s short, and his skin has been darkened by the sun. There are premature wrinkles in the corners of his eyes.

  “Hey there,” he says to us. He sounds friendly but guarded. He reaches out and grabs an unidentifiable green vegetable from a bucket. Then he keeps on moving, walking off down one of the wooden platforms.

  “So they don’t have a plan? Or anything?” Liam asks.

  Gadya shrugs. “Their plan is to stay alive.”

  “I’m not sure that’s enough,” I say softly. “I wouldn’t be happy just living on the wheel, especially when so many people are being killed.”

  “Alenna’s right,” Liam says. “We can do better than that.”

  Gadya looks from him to me. “Then let’s figure something out together. If—” She’s interrupted by loud footsteps. I turn and see Cass heading our way, trailed by Emma.

  “Where’s Alun?” I ask.

  “He lost too much blood to climb the ropes,” Emma calls out. “He’s back on the ground. The travelers are tending to him for now. I wanted to stay and help him, but they made me come up here.”

  When Cass and Emma reach us, Cass glances into the buckets.

  “Langsats,” she says. “Nice.” She reaches down and plucks one up. She instantly starts eating it without even bothering to take off the peel. Liam and I just stare at her. She pauses, noticing our gaze.

  “You know what these things are?” I ask her.

  “Sure. There were a few langsat trees in the orange sector. People would fight to the death over the fruit.” She blinks. “It seems like a crazy nightmare now.” She takes another bite. Emma grabs a langsat too.