by Zaide Bishop
“And do what? Be eaten by pigs? We can barely walk. Half of us have wounds going smelly,” Zebra replied.
“We can make weapons.”
“A few more miles and we’ll be at Fifteen’s tribe! They’ll have medicine, food, weapons! They’ll come back with us and drive off the pigs!”
“You don’t know that, Zebra, you’re pinning everything on some Varekai you met for two whole minutes.”
“I’m the one who got us off the islands!”
“Now half the tribe is dead, you moron!”
“Stop.” India rolled to her feet, but the yelling continued. She growled under her breath, then her voice rose to a shout. “Stop!”
Fox and Zebra were almost at blows, and they weren’t the only ones. Anyone who could stand looked ready to fight or leave. India could see the way they held their bundles of meager possessions. Trash and flotsam they had picked up while walking. Bones and rope and glass, tied together with material harvested from the dead.
It was depressing and a little pathetic. But they had nothing, and somehow being wounded and homeless had left them more animal than the pack of pigs they had left to murder Tango, Xícara and Sugar.
She was tired too. She was sore too. She was sad and hungry and frightened too. Couldn’t they see it was equally bad for everyone? Tare stood by her shoulder, one warm hand reassuringly on her lower back. He had become the one constant. The one thing she could always rely on. India took a deep breath to center herself.
“Juliet came to me again. The river is not far ahead. Charlie is waiting.”
Fox shook his head. “Juliet is dead, India.”
“Dead or not, she took me to Soul. Or have you forgotten? It was only yesterday, Fox. How dehydrated are you?”
He bristled. “Not so dehydrated I can’t see we’re all going to die if we go on like this.”
India closed her eyes a moment, murmuring a silent prayer for forgiveness. “Juliet has shown me the path. You have to trust me.”
“Juliet was never our brother!” Fox snapped at her, stepping closer with his fists balled.
Whiskey put a hand on his arm. “She was mine. I loved Juliet. I trust her. And I trust India.”
The last part sounded a little forced. But it was still enough. India could see the shifting loyalties. Whiskey was the strongest. The most likely to get them through alive. With India and Zebra pushing, the others would fall into line.
“We’re abandoning three of our people,” Fox said stubbornly. Many of the others nodded. “I almost left Sugar once. I don’t want to make a habit of it.”
“None of us want to leave them,” India said. “But we can’t fight those pigs. They outnumber and outweigh us. We must go for help. We must beg Fifteen’s people to aid us. Then we will go back and hope they have held out.”
Without water, without food, baking in the sun and chilled by the rain, without medical supplies. It was a lot to hope for.
“Why should I listen to you, India?” Fox pressed. “You’re not leader here. Because you had a dream?”
The anger flared up inside her. She was too tired for this.
“Because I am the witchdoctor!” she snapped. “Because I discovered what we are. Because I fought to bring the tribes together when you were still calling us the enemy! Because you’re an idiot! Because you’re wrong.”
The silence was heavy. Beyond the concrete, the rain shushed over the gray landscape. Somewhere behind them, Sugar, Xícara and Tango were waiting. Somewhere ahead, Charlie was still alive.
Fox studied her, not hotly angry like she expected, but cool and calculating. Weighing her worth. She pushed her shoulders back and glared.
“And if you are wrong?” he asked.
“Then we can do what you want.”
“Sugar and the others will be dead by then.”
“They will not be the only ones we have lost.”
He looked around, paused and then sighed. “Gather your things. Get up. We have to find this river while there’s still a chance to get back to Sugar and the others.”
India sagged in relief, and Tare’s hand moved up to the back of her neck. “You did good,” he murmured.
India’s lips thinned into a tight line. “I just hope this Fifteen of Zebra’s is all she’s cracked up to be.”
* * *
Zebra wished he’d never suggested leaving the islands. Perhaps they would have been high enough to escape the tsunami completely. Perhaps no one would be dead or lost if they had just stayed put. But then they would have had no canoes. Being trapped on the mountain without freshwater would have been a death sentence of its own.
His brothers’ faith in him was starting to feel like a miracle. Or a curse. But then they saw the village.
It was nestled high on the slope rising up from the river. In the fading light it was clear some of the lower buildings had been damaged when the water rose, but already much of the debris had been cleared away. The untouched areas were alive with a riot of colored lights, and even from a distance they could smell the welcoming scent of wood smoke and food. They could see pens with livestock—chickens, horses, cows, goats—but no pigs. They could hear the calls of children and the rhythmic crack of an axe on wood.
They were spotted long before they reached the outskirts, and an alarm was sounded. It was not until they drew much closer that a party came out to meet them. Mostly they were Elikai, well-armed and silent. Then Charlie pushed her way through them and ran toward the Kai, face streaked with tears. The Varekai swarmed around her, and Zebra’s heart skipped. India had been right. Maybe for the first time in his life, he had been right too.
Here was the village and safety and food. He could see Charlie had been hurt, but also that her injuries were bound in dressings and bandages. She was wearing unfamiliar clothes from the world before. She had been taken care of. Fifteen had told him the truth. Yet, where was she?
Vaca handed Charlie her baby, and Charlie wept more. It was only then she looked around, her joy fading to quiet horror.
“Sugar! Where is he?” she demanded. Her knees buckled, and Zebra reached out to steady her.
“Alive,” India said. “But trapped with Tango and Xícara by a herd of pigs.”
“The tattooed pigs.” Charlie’s expression turned grim. She turned to the watching line of strangers, and from among them stepped a woman in brightly colored clothes in sharp contrast to her white hair and ash-black skin. She moved like an insect, precise and quick.
She was too old to be from an Eden.
“So this is your tribe, is it?” she asked. To Zebra she sounded younger than she looked.
“Not all of them,” Charlie said, with an odd urgency. “They have my baby, but three of my sisters are trapped by pigs.”
The woman drew a sharp breath between her teeth. “Blue-eyed pigs?” she demanded.
Charlie nodded. “You’re familiar with them.”
“They’re not really pigs, girl.”
Fox stepped to Zebra’s side. “We gathered as much. But what they are doesn’t change the situation. We need to go back for our brothers. Can you spare weapons? Maybe even some people to help us? I know it’s a lot to ask...”
“It is a lot to ask,” the woman said coldly. “What did you do to them? Did you attack first?”
“We killed one of their piglets,” Charlie said. “And we ate it.”
The woman made a strange gesture, where she touched her shoulders, then her forehead and her chest.
“We didn’t know any better,” Charlie amended.
“Spider, please.” Zebra recognized the voice, and his heart leaped. Fifteen. He turned around, and there she was, making her way through the silent, watching warriors. After so many nights lying awake thinking about her, suddenly she was there. So close he could
have taken a few more steps and breathed in the scent of her hair.
She was more beautiful than he remembered. Clean and in the exotic clothes of her people, her hair shining in the hundreds of twinkling lights in the trees around them. He wanted to say hello, wanted her to look at him, but suddenly he felt stupid and filthy and completely unworthy.
“Helping them is the right thing to do,” Fifteen said.
The woman, Spider, sighed. “Yes, it is. But kindness can be a costly thing.” She turned to the Kai. “Bring your wounded. You will bathe, eat and be tended. Then we will gather our weapons and torches and bring your friends back safely.”
“We don’t want to wait,” Fox said. “It’s a full-day hike back to where we left them.”
Spider laughed. “It’s okay, little fly. There is a bus.”
* * *
Sugar stared glumly toward the horizon as the sun began to set. It had rained on and off, so they had gathered water on plastic bags and licked it up. They had also felt the ground shudder and heard the roars that seemed to come from the air itself as aftershocks rolled in from the coast. The pigs around them shifted uneasily, but they were not so intimidated they abandoned their posts, hanging back about fifty feet from the truck where they could watch the three prisoners at all times. They guarded them in shifts. Seven on watch, in rotation, though their leader, the half-ton 0011-PGSTX, rarely left. Her radiating hatred was palpable in the air.
Sugar realized the way they grunted to one another, the range and tone of their sounds, was a language. He was even starting to pick up words. The grunt that meant “you,” the shrill bark that meant “them” so like a cuss he was certain it was derogatory.
Pigs that size must have had big litters. He wondered if the hybrid pigs were different, or if something had happened to the rest of the litter, or if she just loved all twenty of her brood with equal fervor. And the twenty from the year before, and the twenty from next year. Was a pig’s capacity for love so vast she could love a hundred children enough to die for all of them?
He wished he could say sorry. He wished he knew their word for it. He might even have time to learn it, before they starved to death.
“What’s that?” Xícara asked.
Sugar craned his neck and saw moving lights. Two of them, about five feet apart, bouncing around in tandem as they rippled across the ground.
“It’s a truck,” Tango said with a look of wonder on her face. “A working truck.”
He heard the growl of the engine then, though he couldn’t make out much detail behind the headlights. His heart leaped, a tangled rush of hope and fear.
The pigs started to squeal, furious, raging squeals, and the sudden roar of a gun fired into the air sent Sugar flat against the roof of the fire truck. The whole thing rocked as one of the pigs shoved at the tires. Pigstix was barking orders, and Sugar realized with a sudden panic they were going to try to tip the fire truck over.
“Sugar!”
He heard her voice over the engines. Raw, as if she had lost her voice, but unmistakably Charlie. His breath caught, and he scrambled back to his feet, swaying unsteadily as the truck rocked under him.
“Careful!” Xícara grabbed him as he almost fell, but he hardly cared.
“Charlie!” he hollered back, one hand to his mouth to amplify his call, the other on Xícara’s shoulder. The fire truck jerked wildly. The pigs were on one side, their snouts braced on the undercarriage, trying to hoist it onto its side. It was working, the whole thing tipping up on two wheels, the sudden rancid stink of the stagnant water inside rolling over them as it sloshed back and forth.
There was another loud report of a gun, and the headlights leaped as the approaching truck bounced over potholes and furrows in the road.
“Don’t kill any of them,” someone yelled. An unfamiliar female voice. “Use the paintball gun. Tag a few. Only kill to save a life.”
There was a different sound. A sharp phit, phit and a sudden, sharp pain blossomed over Sugar’s thigh. He yelped in pain.
“Sorry!” Another stranger.
“Watch what you’re shooting!”
He couldn’t tell who was speaking over the headlights in the twilight. Another volley and the pigs were giving high-pitched yelps of pain too. They broke and ran, and Sugar found his thigh was wet with lurid green paint.
The truck pulled up alongside them with a squeak of tires, and a shadowy figure jumped across the gap. She crashed into Sugar. He wrapped his arms around her, her scent and shape all he needed to recognize her, even in the chaos.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he murmured, his arms tight around Charlie’s shoulders. She felt bony and frail. “Is the baby safe?”
“She’s back at the village with India,” Charlie said. “I had to get to you.”
“Are you hurt?” he demanded.
“I will recover.”
His gaze flickered to the working truck, and he saw a collection of strangers. An older dark-skinned woman, three young men armed with guns, and Whiskey, Fox and Zebra. It was going to be a tight squeeze when they added himself, Xícara and Tango.
“You are from Fifteen’s tribe?” Sugar asked the largest of the men, but it was the woman who answered.
“Yes, I am Spider. This is Two, Eighteen and Twenty-Two. Quickly, now, we have to leave before they come back.”
“You really think the pigs would face you with your guns?” Tango asked, accepting Whiskey’s help as she clambered from the fire truck onto the rescue vehicle.
“They may try and block the road with spools of razor wire,” Spider said. “If they want you badly enough. I don’t want to be caught out here overnight.”
He nodded and stepped over, then helped Charlie. Xícara came last, frowning into the darkening gloom where the pigs had vanished.
“Are they ever going to stop chasing us?”
“I hope so,” Spider muttered. “Last thing we need is a war.”
Sugar huddled on the ripped seat with Charlie pressed to his side. The Evens remained standing, holding on to the framework of the truck to stay steady even as they bounced over the worst of the terrain. Their rescuers hadn’t brought any food, but they did have water, and Sugar was grateful for it, even though a bump in the road managed to slosh most of it down his front. Though, if he weren’t so exhausted, it would have been terrifying. Bumping along much faster than they could run, almost like falling, with the wind rushing against them and the gloomy scenery flashing by.
He hadn’t been sure they were going to survive this one. Fox had promised to come back, but as the tribe had vanished from view, Sugar had suspected he’d never see any of them again. And he wouldn’t have blamed them. He might not have even cared, while he still thought Charlie was dead or lost. She had been all that mattered. Now she was in his arms again, he was glad his brothers had not given up on him.
They saw the lights half an hour before they reached the village. But more impressive was the speed they covered the distance. He assumed the village had been close by, but Fox explained over the rushing wind that they had walked a full day. The truck crossed the same space in only a few hours.
As the truck reached the edge of the village and slowed, the buildings rose up around them. Not derelict and gray, but full of life, light and color. Children as old as ten summers and as young as three peered from windows and ran along beside the truck. There were dogs and goats, chickens and cats that watched them from windowsills and rooftops. He saw a corral of horses, creatures he had seen in pictures but never in person. He saw two patchwork cows and ropes hung with clothes from the world before. He smelled cooking meats, fish and fowl and game.
In the center of the village was a large, open space festooned with lights. At its center was a throne, blue and white and as tall as a house. Here the remainder of the Kai had gathered, and the mom
ent the truck stopped it was engulfed with the enthusiasm. Bottles of water, food and clean clothes were thrust into Sugar’s line of sight. He ignored them in lieu of his daughter, gathering her close and breathing in the addictive, fresh smell of baby.
“Is she okay?” he asked, meeting India’s eyes.
“She’s fine. We’re safe now, those of us who remain. Eat, drink. The Numbers have been very generous to our people.”
This time Sugar conceded, letting Charlie take their daughter and joining the rest of his tribe in the town square. The Numbers tribe were coming out, gathering around the open space in the twinkle of the lights, sharing food and conversation. Sugar thought it was to meet them, at first, but while there were some curious glances, it seemed the newcomers were old news now and most people were simply relaxing, waiting, playing with their children.
It wounded him to see how many of them there were. It didn’t look like they had lost many of their original fifty-two and they had added to that number with a healthy dose of children. It would be a long time before the Kai were back to their original numbers. If they ever got there at all. It seemed now they were to just be absorbed into these people. Made part of this community, their old lives cut away like knotted hair.
Spider mounted the steps of the throne, taking her seat there, looking down on them like an eagle in a tree.
“Children of Eden,” she started. Many of the Kai startled. Her voice came from all around them, too loud. Sugar looked around alarmed and spotted the black speakers nestled in tree branches and under eaves. It had been a long time since he had seen tech working like this, knitted into a community.
“Fate has brought us new brothers and sisters,” Spider said. “And here we kneel and give thanks.”
And the Numbers did kneel. All but the youngest of the children fell silent and got down on their knees. Confused, the Kai did not copy them. Spider continued, unheeding.
“I told you I would bring the faithful. That we would preserve the servers, and the servers hold all worldly knowledge. From their truth comes divinity, and I am their divine soul. I foresaw the coming of others, and so here they are, to build our community, to protect the servers, to see us flourish into a city, a divine community, to rival the world before.