by Jeff Sweat
The End. It’s like the haze.
If Tommy said it to see if she knows something, now he knows she does. She has to tell her friends what she remembered.
“I think I heard something like that,” she says. Saying otherwise will just make him wonder.
“Do you think they can see things that are gonna happen, too? Like a dream?” His voice is light, his eyes are clear, but something in them tells her: He saw me in the vision. When I imagined him, I wasn’t actually imagining him. He was in the haze somehow, watching me. And he knows I was there.
He’s just making sure.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE GOLF CART OF THE APOKALIPS
Pico has them meet in the shed where he and Grease work, and he can see that Lady and Jemma are as agitated as he and Grease are.
“We gotta get out of here,” he says.
“I know,” Jemma says. She tells him about her talk with Tommy, her story of Apple’s End.
“Wait, you told the cannibal how the End works?” Pico says.
“Well—not completely.”
“Oh, puta,” Lady says, shaking her head. Pico’s still not used to the sight of her without her curls. But he’s starting to like it.
“I thought I could trick him into helping us.”
“Ha!” Lady says. “Not that pendejo. He’s slippery.”
“You wanted to save him,” Jemma says.
“Yeah,” Lady says, “but I wasn’t the one who gave our biggest secrets away.” And that’s the end of it. Maybe back in the Holy Wood, they would have fought about this. But they’ve both been through too much to care about anything that doesn’t help them survive.
“He sees the haze, too,” Jemma says.
“Shit,” Lady says.
“I think others do, too,” Jemma says. “Pilar had a vision at the Waking, I know that. And the way Apple talked about Pablo, I think Pablo had them. I think the haze convinced him to start the rebellion.”
“So the haze isn’t good,” Lady says.
“It ain’t good or bad,” Pico says, beginning to understand. “It just wants someone to talk to. It picks someone who will listen and then shows them what they need to survive.”
Jemma starts to tell them about her dreams. “We know about them,” Grease says.
“You don’t know how they happen,” Jemma says. She explains how the buzz in the ears tells her she’s seeing things, how the haze sculpts the visions to life. Then she tells them how the wires sharpened her visions, made them bigger. Pico imagines the wires, humming with living dust. He sees Grease take apart the words in his head, inspecting them, putting them back in place.
“Maybe they’re Lectrics,” Grease says. And then Pico tells the girls what they learned about the End.
“I used to think it was the gods talking to me,” Jemma says. “That it was magic.”
“We used to think Lectrics was magic—till Pico ruined that,” Lady says. Pico nods. So does Grease.
“I told Apple about the haze, what it felt like, what it looked like,” Jemma says. “After the Betterment … before the End … he told me that—that the haze and the End was the same kind of thing. Except he saw it in gold, not blue.”
Pico and Grease react strangely. They smile. “How’s that?” Lady says.
Grease answers first. “We think the End might be made of machines. Lots of tiny machines. And if it’s made from the same stuff as the haze, that means Lectrics and means maybe we’re right.”
“You saying that the haze and the End are caused by the same kind of thing?”
“Not just the same kind of thing,” Pico says. “Exact same thing. Whatever caused the End is the same thing that’s helping you.”
She understands how that could be important but doesn’t know why. The pieces won’t fit together in her mind. “What does that mean?”
“It means, Jemma, you can see into the End.”
No one speaks for long seconds.
“You think the answers really at this Camp place?” Lady says.
“If there’s any answers left.”
“Then we gotta get there soon,” she says. And that’s the moment Pico knows she’s made herself a part of this. She’s no longer stuck in the Holy Wood.
“So … just gotta wait for the fight in Night Mountain, then?” Jemma says.
“We can’t let you go in there,” Grease says. “Because of the unfortunate fact that we still need you alive.”
“We leave the night before the feast,” Pico says.
Grease says, “They’ll be roasting cows and preparing for the feast, and maybe they won’t notice us as easily when we leave. Maybe.”
“What about the fight, then?” Jemma says.
“Keep fighting and learning to ride,” Pico says. “That still gives you five days more to train—in case things don’t work.”
“We don’t got a way out,” Lady says. “They’d catch us on their horses.”
“We thought of that,” Pico says. He opens the rotting tarp they’ve set up in the corner of the shed like a curtain. They pulled the frame in by horse like a wagon and brought the rest of the cart in piece by piece, from seven different carts. No one noticed when Grease brought it in, just thought they were his usual piles of motor junk. It’s going to be harder to smuggle out.
The cart is no longer white. Pico came up with the idea to paint it gray and green, like old soldiers’ cars, so that it would be harder to see and shoot. They found cans of paint still intact at the skyplane place but had to dig through a layer of plasticy paint to get to the color. Grease covered the open doors with steel plates from an old road repair, and spikes from a gate line the front bumper. Baskets in the back will hold gas cans, hooks hold everything else, and a stand will mount a gun if they can get one.
“What the hell is that?” Lady says, not sure what it is but seeming to like what she sees. She walks her hand around the edge, then climbs in as if they’re leaving right now. When the cart first ran, it moved at walking pace, until Grease found a switch that kept the cart from speeding. Once they removed it, the cart traveled faster than a bike—more important, faster than a horse over long distances, with more people.
“This is your way out,” Grease says.
Pico runs his hands along the steel plate, pleased. He’s still awed by what he and Grease could do. Has the world seen anything like this in a hundred years?
“The golf cart of the apokalips,” Pico says.
* * *
Tashia has been training with them for days. Even though they’re leaving before the Night Mountain, both Lady and Jemma keep fighting. It helps them to avoid thinking of the things they don’t want to think about. Except for today—today, it jars the memories.
They never talk about why Tashia is helping them, because it’s grown from just training. There’s a subtle shift of allegiances—from a Kingdom of boys to a friendship of girls, from ruler to subjects. Tashia wants what they want: to be free, to live long, to pick her own boy. They haven’t tested that bond, but Jemma thinks it would go a long way.
Today Jemma fights while Lady watches. Lady has proven herself a fierce fighter, with knuckles as sharp as her tongue. She doesn’t back down, even after she’s been hit. Jemma and Tashia are better matched—both strong, with arms that reach past Lady’s defenses.
But Tashia is faster than Jemma.
That was Jemma’s weakness, she knew even from her training with Apple. She can rattle jaws with her punch—but she has to catch the jaw first.
Tashia moves like a waterfall. Fury and force flow without effort, her blows touching almost the second they leave the shoulder. She lands three punches for every one of Jemma’s.
Jemma circles around Tashia, noting the way that Tashia’s right hand dips for half a second when her left strikes. Tashia’s right eye is open and vulnerable. Jemma winds up and swings hard. Tashia ducks, so close that Jemma can’t correct and falls into the dirt. Tashia kicks at her with those sharp boots of her
s while she’s down but stops just short.
“Just broke your ribs, honey,” she says.
“Too fast,” Jemma pants.
“Othello’s faster,” Tashia says. “Just trying to keep you alive, honey.”
Just keeping you alive, Jemma. That’s what Apple said when he used to spar with her. No, not spar. He hit harder than Tashia does. And Jemma never beat him, either.
Suddenly Apple is here, just like he was then. Every time a fist breaks through her defenses and crashes into her face, Jemma thinks of Apple. She hasn’t wanted to think of Apple, but the pain won’t let her shut him out. The fight echoes with fights, with taunts, that she’s had with him before.
A fist to the cheekbone. “Where’s your guard?” Apple would say.
A punch to the gut. “Why you giving me such a big target for such a skinny girl?” Apple would say.
A blow that falls short. “Don’t swing for my face. Swing through the back of my head,” Apple would say.
Apple. You should be here. I left for you.
A tear falls down Jemma’s cheek, and Tashia must think it’s from the pain. “Suck it up, honey! It’s gonna hurt a lot worse!” she says.
“Shut up,” Jemma says, teeth gritted. Talking to Apple. Trying to get him out of her mind. She’s pushed him away so far. She can push more if she needs to.
“It comes from your hips, not your arms,” Tashia says, “like this.” And Jemma sees the flex of Tashia’s hip the second before she feels the pain in her ear. She sees Apple’s hip as it presses close to hers. What did we think we would find out here, Apple?
Jemma swings, connects, but Tashia doesn’t look as if she’s been hit.
The last night with Apple, feeling things that the Children stopped finding words for a long time ago. Holding everything in the world, right there. What did we think we could find?
That’s not quite right, she knows. She didn’t leave for Apple. She left to live.
Can you still do that, chica?
Get out, she thinks, and her mind goes clear. All she can see is Tashia and the haze, which outlines her like a cloak.
The haze is supposed to show her what she needs to survive. Well, haze, she thinks, I need a way to be faster.
The haze blurs, Tashia’s outline getting less crisp. Jemma’s not sure exactly how the haze has changed at first but starts to make sense of it. It’s like a shadow of Tashia, trailing her—no, it’s like a shadow in reverse. Every time Tashia moves, the haze goes first. When Tashia swings, it swings first. As if it wants Jemma to know where to hit. Because that’s what Jemma needs to survive.
She watches the haze, and it’s half a second in front of Tashia. A full second. It knows where Tashia’s going to go, Jemma thinks. Or it’s really good at guessing.
Tashia taps her again and again, those rapid punches that would have been impossible to dodge. But now Jemma lets them land so she can study the haze and start to use it.
Tashia hits with her left again, and the haze says she will go high, will open herself up for the flash of a second. Jemma ducks to the right, her body tightening up like a corkscrew, like a Long Gone clock, tighter and tighter until the only way out is through Tashia’s face in that moment, like threading a needle. Jemma pushes through her thigh, her hip, her shoulder, and her fist, and Tashia goes down, surprised to see the dust so soon, feels the blood rising on her cheek.
“How’d you see that hole?” Tashia says when she gets her breath.
Jemma doesn’t answer, just thinks of the way the haze showed her the future of her fight, and how powerful it made her feel. It almost makes her wish for a chance to fight in the Night Mountain.
* * *
There are people coming out of every building. More than Lady’s ever seen in the Kingdom. Before the feast, wagons go in and out of the Kingdom all day. Whole cows, to be roasted behind the Castle; vegetables from the parking lots to the south. The Mono goes back and forth without stopping. The usually placid cows towing it are showing signs of exhaustion and annoyance.
Grease’s plan to get them out is pretty simple: They’re going to walk out through the midst of all those people getting ready for the feast. A motor on the cart would attract attention. Put a horse in front of it, though, and no one will notice.
They load the back of the cart with crates and cover the crates with fenders and auto parts. Outside it looks as if Grease and Pico are hauling out trash to one of the dumps just outside the Kingdom. But Lady and Jemma can ride inside the crates until they’re out of sight of the castle. By the time the Round Table realizes Grease is gone, they’ll be miles down the road, untraceable because of the rubber tires.
It’s almost dark when they meet Grease and Pico in Grease’s shed. A horse is tied up outside, a sturdy dappled female that can pull the weight of the cart on her own. She’ll find her way back to the Kingdom walls once they’re free.
Jemma climbs in first and lies on her side, and Lady nestles in front of her like a spoon. “Don’t fart,” Jemma says, and Lady laughs.
“You gonna have to be quieter when we go,” Pico says. And they’re off.
The cart is taller and skinnier than a normal wagon, so Grease has to walk the horse slowly. Lady hears noise all around her as they move through the crowds. She can tell, even through the crate, a change in the energy of the Kingdom. The Children are excited about the feast—and more than that, she realizes, the fight. We ain’t gonna be here to give you a show, she thinks.
The cart stops in front of the gate where the guard is watching traffic in and out. Grease says something in greeting, and the guard grunts back. The cart lurches forward again, and they travel twelve steps. Lady counts the hoofbeats. She hears the swearing of the closest kid as he pushes on the strut that rolls the gate open. Another kid joins in.
“It’s a feast,” one of the kids says. “They should just leave the gate open all day.”
That’s when the bells ring. Lady has never seen or heard them, but they seem to surround the cart. They go on for almost a minute, dozens of handbells, until she can feel them in her chest.
“Jesucristo,” she says so low that only Jemma can hear. If they’re caught, they’ll never make it to the Night Mountain. They’ll be put to death on the spot.
The bells stop. Before Lady had been aware of the irregular sounds of a crowd, of kids padding back and forth. Now all the feet seem as if they’re running in the same direction, the sound rushing toward them and washing over them like a wave.
“Hold up, Grease!” one of kids at the gate says. He keeps speaking to Grease, but Lady can’t make out the words through the walls.
There’s a thump against the side of the crate, as if someone is testing to see if it’s hollow. Lady tries not to breathe. All she can think of is how everything—her clothes scraping, her heart beating—makes too much noise.
But the thump isn’t followed by a second.
“Biters!” she hears, from a place high above them, somewhere on the wall. “Biters in sight!”
The cart suddenly starts and swerves, and Lady and Jemma tumble together, Lady pressed flat against the wall. They straighten out, and Lady can tell they’re rolling over the leftover stones in the Main Street. Shouts are everywhere. Then they’re in the shed, and Lady hears the door slide shut.
The crates open and they’re back, too soon, in the garage. Pico looks frightened, for once, and Grease looks serious.
“We under attack?” Lady says.
“The bells are for sightings. If there’s an attack, they bang the drums. They spotted a bunch of Biters in the streets beyond the Kingdom,” Grease says. “In a second I have to go to make sure the defenses are set.”
“That ain’t good,” Lady says, but thinks, What are a few Biters to this place?
“We don’t know if they’re spies or the front of a raiding party. It doesn’t matter. When those bells go off, everyone comes in. The cows, the kids in the hotel, everyone.”
“I saw this in the haze.
They don’t catch us at the gate,” Jemma says, confused.
“No, they don’t catch us. But they shut the gates. Nobody comes in. Nobody goes out. Not until at least after the feast.”
Ah. Lady understands.
“I’m sorry,” Grease says. “You’re going to have to fight in the Night Mountain.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE NIGHT MOUNTAIN
“Ain’t they going to go get the Biters?” Jemma says. She keeps thinking of those Biters out there, watching, just out of reach. She saw them herself from atop the wall.
Tashia shrugs. They are walking toward the feast. “We get a lot of Biters knocking on our door. We can’t go chasing all of them.”
They turn the corner and the Night Mountain rises in front of them. Jemma’s shoulders spasm briefly, uncontrollably, the way they do at night when you’re just starting to fall asleep.
“I’m sorry,” Tashia says under her breath.
“Why you doing this? Helping us?” Lady says.
“I’m not helping you,” Tashia says.
“Yeah you are,” Lady says.
Tashia pauses. “The Kingdom is the greatest thing in this life and our last one,” Tashia says, that phrase edged with exhaustion. “It’s great. But it ain’t good.” That momentary lapse into Angeleno speech makes Jemma smile.
“We’re going to have to change a lot of things here if we’re ever going to be good,” Tashia says, “starting with how we treat the people who walk through our front door. And that means putting more girls in charge.”
“Like you?” Jemma says.
“Well, no one’s quite like me,” Tashia says, smiling.
They haven’t been back inside the Night Mountain since the first day. When they walk in tonight, Jemma realizes how much she missed the first time, and how much more terrifying it is even than she remembers. There’s steel twisting everywhere.
The feast of the new moon is set in a vast room that they didn’t see the first time in the dark. It’s at the base of the Night Mountain, where they used to launch the rollertrains. The trains are all gone, and a wooden floor has been constructed over the tracks where they ran. The wall between the launch room and the rollertracks has been torn down so that everyone feasting can see inside the mountain.