Zillow Stone and the Unholy One

by Brindi Quinn

  He looped my finger into the notch. “Slide it.”

  With only minimal force, the wall slid to the left and the space flooded with light.

  Inside was an enormous cavern, at the center of which, a large brassy contraption stood. Firelight from a dozen torches flickered against the walls, showing off piles of scrap welling in the corners, mats strewn about the floor, and shelves that had been stocked with kindling, containers and other wares. But that wasn’t all. Illuminated by the bouncing torchlight, three people were standing unnaturally stiff, faces disfigured by shadow.

  One of them, a brawny man visibly older than either Theo or me, and with scars up and down his right arm, stepped forward. “Hand?”

  Theo held up his mark and nudged me to do the same. “Peck’s making sure our trackers are off,” he said.

  “You know him?” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth.

  “Mm.”

  With our green light validated, so-called ‘Peck’ and the other two strangers eased up. The one on the left, a girl with short, choppy hair, pushed past brawny Peck. “Theo!” she cried. “You’re back! Did you make it to Zelpha all right?”

  “Yup,” Theo said coolly. He placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Was there ever a doubt, Jozy?”

  ‘Jozy’ wrinkled her nose.

  Theo scanned the room. “Where’s Kipper?” he said.

  “His tracker went off a little while ago,” said the girl – Jozy, apparently – tilting her head and letting her hair swish. “I told him he could use one of my gambits. I still owed him one from that time at the gorge, but he said he’d run it off instead.”

  “Psh. Who knows when we’ll see him again.” Shaking his head, Theo set his eyes on the final stranger, a scrawny girl with black hair. “Who’s she?” he said.

  It seemed not all of them were former comrades.

  Jozy folded her arms. “Oh her? Just a newb. Wandered in from the Southern City ruins.”

  The scrawny girl cleared her throat. “My name’s Alaranda,” she said, voice much stronger than her appearance. “And I’m not a newb. I’ve been out for over a month.”

  There was something familiar about her. I let myself stare without fear of offense.

  Likewise, she set her stare on me. “I know you,” she said.

  Alaranda. Yes, that name was familiar. I’d run into an ‘Alaranda’ around campus; even spoken to her a few times. She was from one of the top-floor classes; B or C, if I remembered correctly. But she looked different now, bony and pale, and with a fierceness to her expression that hadn’t been there before. Her eyes had always been piercingly black, but now they seemed to cut through the air viciously.

  At the sight of her, my stomach jarred. Seeing someone from the real world, out here in the wasteland, was unnerving. Even so, I gave her a nod of acknowledgement.

  Theo gestured to me. “Right! This is Zillow, but she prefers Zillustrious.”

  “Zill is fine,” I corrected, unamused.

  “Ah,” said choppy-haired Jozy. “This your sap, is it, Theo?”

  Sap?

  Neck craning jerkingly, Theo sent a crocodile smile at me over his shoulder. “Eh-heh.”

  I wasn’t keen on being addressed as Theo’s ‘sap,’ but I let the matter fall for now. Three more prags meant three new sources of intel. I allowed myself to study them for a quiet moment as they studied me, and as Theo awkwardly reprimanded Jozy under his breath.

  The one called Peck was suited in a sleeveless shirt that showed off strong, muscled arms. As I’d noticed upfront, his right arm had been cut and slashed from wrist to shoulder at some point, and now harbored deep scars where the flesh had healed. His hair was light, though his skin was dark, and his eyes seemed to catch the firelight no matter where he looked, in a way that made them gleam intimidatingly.

  By contrast, Jozy’s eyes were transfixing under the influence of the firelight, a pretty shade somewhere between purple and blue. Her skin was smooth and even, her face soft and round. With full hips and a full chest, the girl appeared somewhat squishy all over, despite a small frame. But of all her traits, it was her hair I’d noticed first. Choppy, I’d called it, but really, it looked to have been hacked off by a dull knife. The color was sandy, like mine, and might have suited her if it had fallen just a little longer. If I’d ever seen her around campus before, I didn’t recognize her now.

  Maybe that’s how it is, I considered.

  Peck . . . Jozy . . . Alaranda – all three were clearly worn in some way. Hardened, malnutritioned, or damaged – the wasteland had gotten to each in turn. Those people I’d seen at Zelpha – maybe it wasn’t that I’d never seen any of them before; maybe it was that they, too, had changed extremely enough that they were no longer recognizable at first glance.

  While I considered these things, Jozy slid over next to me and cocked her head to the side. “How long have YOU been out here – ZILL, was it?”

  I opened my mouth but then closed it again. I wasn’t ready to admit that I was much more of a ‘newb’ than even Alaranda.

  Unlucky for me, my partner wasn’t so coy.

  “GET THIS!” He beamed. “This is only Zillumbo’s second day. Unbelievable, right?”

  I sent him a scowl but let it fall as I laid eyes on his dirty face and wondered how much he had changed in the four months since his dispatch. I suspected that his lean frame was a byproduct of living in the wilds. He certainly didn’t seem the type to have taken his training seriously at the University. Did he, like Peck, have any battle scars embedded into his skin? Had he started out even softer than he was now?

  “Dang, Zill, you’re totally checking me out right now.”

  My gaze, which had been eyeing at the muscle behind his sweatshirt, snapped upward. “It’s not what you think,” I said unequivocally.

  “Second day, huh?” Jozy stuck her nose into my personal space. “Not buying it.”

  “No, it really is!” Theo insisted. “I found her last night – her first night.”

  I wouldn’t say one way or the other. I’d let the girl think what she liked. It was Peck I wanted to interrogate most anyway, as he seemed older and hardier than the rest. Surely he’d gathered a fair amount of knowledge in his days in the outlands. After all, something had given him those scars, and whatever something it was, he’d managed to get away with his life. Whether luck or skill or strength, I wanted to know more.

  But as I made a step toward him and Alaranda, Theo took my elbow. “You can get to know everyone later. For starters, I’ll show you how the water works, just in case one of our trackers goes off. The sooner you know, the better. Come on.” He wheeled me to the side of the brass contraption. “Underneath this thing–” Theo tapped its side– “There’s a natural hot spring. Each waterwheel’s built around one.”

  “Hot spring?”

  Theo waved at the thing, willy-nilly. “I don’t know. I’ve come to think of them as hot spots under the surface of the ground where water pools. The water in an underground spring is hot enough that it boils. This clunker here catches the steam from the boiling water, cools it off, and sends it out the spout. If you turn this knob, you can access the water. See?” Theo twisted the knob and a small stream of water fell out. He caught it in his hand and splashed it over his face.

  “It’s safe to drink?” I said.

  “Yup. Heating up the water and catching the steam seems to clean it somehow.”

  “Distillation,” Peck grunted.

  I studied the facets of the machine. “It’s different from the chemical cleaning the city does,” I muttered.

  While I analyzed the mechanism, brawny Peck was analyzing me. “She’s sharp,” he said, and looked to Theo.

  “Right?” my partner said in agreement.

  I ignored them and continued to study the contraption. If I had the parts, it might be possible to construct something similar that could be used with the heat from a fire. Out here, a portable water purification device would be advantageous, t
o say the least. I resolved that I’d make a sketch of the machine before leaving the waterwheel.

  “Yoohoo!” Theo waved his hand in front of my face. Again, my eyes snapped upward. He lowered his voice. “They’re going to think you’re weird. I mean, you kind of are but . . .”

  He was talking about the girls. Jozy and Alaranda were also watching me intently. “Sorry,” I said to them. “My mind’s moving faster than my body at this point.”

  “It spoke!” Jozy cried dramatically, to which Alaranda pursed her lip in disapproval. So far, it seemed like she was far more my type out of the two. Her piercing eyes scanned my face before sliding down to the green of my hand.

  “Has he caught up with you yet?” she questioned in a quiet voice.

  I didn’t need to ask for clarification. Of course she was referring to my Marker. I shook my head. “Has yours?”

  She nodded, but because she didn’t offer up any elaboration on her own, I let the matter fall. “You’ve only been out here a day,” she went on. She wasn’t asking, merely stating.

  “Nearly two,” Theo piped.

  Alaranda was quiet a moment, and then her gaze shot to mine again in a penetrating way. “Thirty-six,” she said quietly.

  “Days?” I said, and she nodded, unblinking. The scrawny girl had been out for thirty-six days, and she looked worse for the wear. “How are you faring?” I asked.

  She folded her arms and the bones of her elbows poked out unnaturally. “I manage.”

  The distiller in the center of the room let out a hiss, and after, there was quiet that ended all too soon.

  “Well, me? I’ve been out for EIGHT months. So take that!” Jozy flicked her uneven hair with flamboyant haughtiness that clashed with Alaranda’s intensive manner. It left a stale ringing in the air.

  Even Theo shook his head. “No use bragging with this guy here, Jo,” he said, pointing to Peck with his thumb. At that, all eyes fell on the scarred man. Within the limelight, his stare found the wall, shifting away from the rest of ours, either uncomfortably or irritably – I didn’t know him well enough to tell which it was.

  Not caring to read the situation, Theo leaned over and started, “Peck’s been out for–”

  “581 days,” Peck finished, clearing his throat.

  I stared at him evenly. So it wasn’t that he was much older than us; he just looked that way from months of wildland living. Over a year and a half – that was how long the brawny man had lasted. No, that was a lie. Lasted wasn’t the right way to put it. 581 days was how long he and his Marker had been playing cat and mouse. I wouldn’t be out here that long. 581 days was too long, plenty of time to end the game. So why, then, wasn’t Peck dead by now or back in the city, living the comfortable life of one who’d passed his exile?

  Though internal, Theo anticipated my qualms.

  “Peck’s a masochist and his Marker’s a sadist,” he said out of nowhere, grin rampant.

  “It’s the other way around,” Jozy countered with a giggle.

  “Fuck off,” Peck grumbled. He looked away stonily. It didn’t offer much explanation at all. I gave Theo a frown to show I didn’t understand, so he expounded,

  “Basically, the pair of them have a weird fetish for each other. They derive some twisted pleasure from beating the crap outta each other.”

  “It’s true!” Jozy said, holding up her finger. “They’ll beat each other to near death but never have the balls to finish the job.”

  “Not this again,” Peck growled, expression dry.

  Jozy looked at him slyly. “Admit it. You get a hard on every time your tracker goes off.”

  Peck’s jaw flexed. “Fuck you.”

  Meanwhile, Alaranda appeared uncomfortable by all of it. Her countenance turned even icier. Because I felt something of a kindred spirit in her collected manner, I decided to steer the conversation.

  “What’s all that?” I asked, pointing to the shelves filled with jars and kindling.

  “That’s where you stow the stuff you don’t have room to carry with you,” Theo said. “Once it’s on the shelf, though, it’s a free-for-all. If you’re in dire straits, you can take whatever you need from there, but only if it’s an emergency, and know that if you take something, you’re expected to bring back two things to take its place.”

  An honor system, I noted. To think, there was something worth honoring out here in the desolates . . . The world was much more complex of a place than I’d ever guessed.

  “Anyways–” Theo pawed at me– “Are you hungry, Zillentine?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then you should rest up. We’re leaving at first light.”

  The air fell uneasily quiet.

  “You’re really gonna do this, huh?” said Jozy. “You’re really gonna take on that plant?”

  “Hell yes! I got myself a shiny new partner and all, didn’t I? And one who happens to be wicked fast and tactical, at that. If not now, when?”

  I was his new partner? . . . Then what had happened to his old? But I would save that question for later. Jozy had a look of malaise about her. She eyed me up and down before making her case: “Look, I get that whatever’s down there is worth a crap ton of points, but if even Craig’s gang couldn’t get it out . . .”

  “Psh. Craig-schmaig. That guy’s a tool.”

  “You’re just jealous of his beard.” Jozy swished her hand toward Theo before leaning to Alaranda and me discreetly. “Craig’s got a sweet beard.”

  “Right, like having a hairy face takes any amount of skill,” Theo said sarcastically.

  While they continued to bicker, I noticed that again, Peck was studying me. Alaranda was too.

  “Do you have a plan?” I asked her.

  She answered almost automatically: “Stay alive.”

  “Besides that,” I said.

  She didn’t need to answer. A flicker in her drilling stare betrayed that she had none. Solemnness fell around us, and we were both content to let it linger but were interrupted as two arms flung themselves obtrusively into our conversation. Jozy stood in the middle of us, elbows hooked around the back of our necks. “Ugh! You newbs are all the same. You’re out HERE now. It’s all right to let loose, you know.”

  Let loose? It was the same attitude Theo sported.

  “Leave them alone, Joze,” Peck called to her, “and quit pestering Theo about his face.” In a way, he was reprimanding her, but he didn’t seem as stony as before. The gleam in his eye was more of a twinkle now.

  At the University, none of us were friends, not really, because there was always that fear of loss. But out here . . .

  Again, I wondered, was making friends really the only way to survive?

  Peck massaged at his shoulder and rolled it backwards, as though he’d just finished lifting something heavy. “I told you, kid, you can come with us to Paradise.” He was speaking to Alaranda – his answer to her planlessness.

  Alaranda flicked her stare to him and then to the floor. “Maybe.”

  Theo perked. “So you guys decided? You’re heading back to Paradise?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Jozy.

  “Paradise?” I asked.

  “It’s a prag fortress,” Theo said.

  “Not like this dump,” added Jozy.

  “It’s a real bastion,” said Theo exuberantly. “With walls to keep out the Markers. You don’t even need to worry about your trackers going off in there. They’ve got extensive defenses to keep the Markers away.”

  “And that’s not all,” added Jozy. “They’ve got trees and fields and endless water!”

  A paradise like that existed, with food and water and safety? “So why aren’t you there now?” I asked, unconvinced.

  “Simple.” Jozy stuck up her finger. “Me, Kipper, and Theo left to earn SP. Peck, on the other hand . . .”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Peck left to beat up Pennington,” Jozy finished behind her hand.

  The brawny man scowled at the floor. I gathered that P
ennington was the name of Peck’s masochistic, or sadistic, depending on who you asked, Marker.

  “Paradise, huh?” Theo chewed his lip. “I’ll meet up with you guys there. After Zillbert and I finish our task, that is.”

  “Your task.” Peck shook his head. “If you’re really set on doing this, you two should tuck in for a few hours.” He nodded to me. “Her especially. I’m not even going to start on what a bad idea it is to take someone as raw as her into the pit.”

  Theo mauled at the air playfully. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Jozy shook her head and her hair swayed. “I still don’t get why you’re hoarding so many dang points in the first place. It’s not like you NEED the points from that mission.”

  Theo put his finger to his lips. “It’s a secret,” he said with a wink.

  A secret. It seemed Theo had his fair share.

  Peck exhaled loudly. “I suppose I’ll keep an eye on your trackers so you can both get a full night.”

  Theo reacted with gusto. “Hear that, Zill? We can sleep together!” He threw his arms out at his sides, but Jozy’s under-the-breath, “Perv,” made them fall. “Well, not TOGETHER together, but you get what I mean.”

  But I didn’t much feel like sleeping, with or without Theo. This was a prime time for gathering intel, and with everything that had happened, my heart rate was far from resting.

  “It’s adrenaline,” Alaranda said quietly. Her arms were folded into herself and she was staring at me deeply, as if to assess my thoughts.

  “Yeah,” Jozy piped. “You’ll crash the minute your body hits the floor. Not to mention, you’ll need all the rest you can get if you’re gonna be with this loser all day. He CAN be tiring.”

  Alaranda flicked Peck a look that surely said Jozy should speak for herself, though neither of them said it aloud.

  I didn’t want to sleep. I had things to do, so before I let them get to me, I sketched out the great machine in the center of the room; I organized my pack, updated my map, and collected my wits, before at last giving into their prodding and retiring into a shadowy corner of the room. I’d packed a thick blanket, which had been spared from the rain by my backpack. I was grateful. Sleeping atop moist cloth wasn’t appealing. Using my backpack as a pillow, I settled into the blanket and watched one of the lit torches dance. Sleeping in the presence of others wasn’t anything new. At the University, eight to ten girls slept within one dorm room. Still, I anticipated that falling asleep in the presence of people I’d only just met would be easier said than done.