By the Feet of Men

by Grant Price

  The vision of the white city in flames appeared once more and obscured the features of the room. He’d seen it more than once in the desert, as he’d looked out at the horizon, and he’d believed himself to be hallucinating. Now he wasn’t so sure. He saw the people fighting on rooftops, unfurling their flags, shooting drones out of the sky. Their cries of rebellion rang in his ears. Despite the processed air, he could smell only acrid smoke and urgency. Even now, having rested for only a few hours, he wanted to be with them, caught in the slipstream of revolution, helping people like Wyler break rank and wrest control of the beautiful state from the Koalition. Novus was the real key to humanity’s survival, not a machine.

  The matter was clear. When Cassady had recovered his strength, he would ask his friend to take him there in Warspite. It would not be an easy sell, but they had no future at the base, not that he could see. Both of them were done as Runners now, too. And he, at least, had a bigger part to play. If the struggle was still happening when they reached Novus, he would fight. And if it was over, he would help to shape its future.

  Fingers burned a deep brown by the sun reached into the metal box and withdrew the blue-tipped match. The head scraped along the rough edge of his sleeping cot and a perfect flame burned brightly for an instant before slowly eating the matchstick. Ghazi brought the flame up to the cigarette and lit the end, and then pulled until his throat was scratchy and his head swam and his blood danced and there was nothing left of the cigarette but the yellowed filter and another memory.

  12

  He was sick of looking at the walls. Rough, grey-brown, covered in some kind of chicken wire to stop them from collapsing and killing everybody. He’d looked at them for so long they’d started taking on different shapes. A pantech crushed on one side, a three-legged dog, a skull. It was enough to make a man go crazy. There wasn’t even anybody else in there with him. The last patient had shaken his hand and walked out two days ago, fully cured.

  His head itched like hell. He wasn’t allowed to touch it, but he’d found that pressing on it with the base of his palm helped. A tube snaked out of his arm, down by the wrist. He’d pulled it out a couple of times in confusion, but they always put it back in. Whatever was in the bag hanging from the hook above his cot made him drowsy, gave him nightmares he couldn’t wake himself up from no matter how much he screamed. He saw them all: Renfield, Kaja, Wyler, Brandt, Hearst, Tagawa and Victor. They stared back at him through eyeless sockets, heads blackened, blistering or bleeding, mouths contorted into silent screams. They blamed him for failing them. He did not want to sleep anymore.

  A woman in a blue tunic appeared by the side of his cot. She was the only one who spoke the same language as he did. He felt the warmth of her smile on his skin.

  ‘How are you feeling today?’

  ‘Like a piece of meat being left out on a hood to dry.’ Her brow wrinkled. She didn’t understand. ‘I feel fine.’

  She nodded. ‘Good. Soon you will be okay again.’

  ‘I’m okay now,’ he protested.

  ‘No, no.’ She waved a finger at him. ‘Soon.’

  ‘It’s always soon.’

  ‘You should be happy. You are healthy again.’

  He pointed at his body. The ribs stood out clearly under his darkened skin.

  ‘Does this look healthy to you?’

  The woman simply pursed her lips. She busied herself with his tubes before handing him a small control attached to a wire.

  ‘Click if you need anything.’

  ‘I need to get out of here.’

  She flashed him a smile and left the room. That woman. She was something. If he ever managed to get out of the medical wing, they might have a nice time together.

  He settled down, trying to get comfortable. His head prickled again, but he ignored it, focusing instead on the walls and their hidden visions. There was a low chime and the door slid open. A man entered. Clean-shaven and dark-skinned with a grey strip of hair that ran the length of his otherwise stubbly scalp. He approached the cot and stood at the foot of it.

  ‘Hello, Cass,’ he said.

  Cassady’s mismatched eyes saw every line on the man’s head. The itching sensation in his own head ceased.

  ‘Ghazi?’

  ‘How are you doing, dostem?’

  ‘Is that really you?’

  A thin smile appeared on the serious face. ‘Yes, it’s me.’ Cassady raised himself into a sitting position. Since he’d woken from his coma, neither the medical staff nor Omero, La Talpa’s coordinator, had told him any news about Ghazi, and he’d been too afraid to ask, so he’d buried it deep within himself. Even so, the question of where Ghazi was had hung over him and followed him into his dreams each night. And now his friend stood before him in the medical wing, not a scratch on him, looking rested and well-fed and as immaculately presented as Omero.

  Ghazi chuckled. ‘Surprised to see me?’

  ‘More than a little. Have you been here the whole time?’

  ‘Yes. Kicking my heels underground for the past two weeks. I heard you were up and about.’

  ‘For four days now.’ He left his next question unspoken, opting instead for a pointed silence.

  The mechanic understood. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been by before. I don’t know. I wasn’t sure if I could.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Ghazi hesitated. And suddenly Cassady knew the reason. ‘It’s because of them, isn’t it?’ he said quietly.

  Mournful eyes looked him over. ‘Yes. I didn’t want to be reminded.’ Ghazi rounded the side of the cot and sat on a stool usually reserved for the medical staff. He rubbed the strip of grey hair. ‘And how we left things at the end, when it all fell apart, I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me again.’

  That surprised him. He shook his head. ‘You saved me, Ghazi. You got us over the finish line. Not me. I was out of it.’

  ‘But the others.’

  ‘Whatever happened out there happened and there’s nothing we can do about it anymore.’ There was an edge in his voice. ‘Everybody did as they were asked, but we were luckier than the others. They didn’t do anything wrong, didn’t drive any better or worse than we did, didn’t make any decisions that were stupid. Luck. That’s all it is. Theirs ran out, ours didn’t. So did La Talpa’s when they lost their genius.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’ve had time to think about this. It’s all I’ve been doing, lying here, waiting for my body to recover. I don’t believe in anything else, not like you do. As far as I understand it, life’s just a random series of events that we adapt to as best we can. And we go on like that until the circumstances overwhelm us. You can be the best Runner in the world, but you can’t anticipate a blowout when there’s nothing on the cards.’

  He hadn’t meant to summon the memory of Hearst, but there it was. ‘I don’t blame you for anything that happened. And I don’t hold any decisions against you.’

  The two men held each others’ gaze for long enough to relive the convoy’s painful disintegration. The silence in the room was broken only by the hum of the machines next to Cassady’s cot. Ghazi bowed his head and extended his hand. Cassady took it.

  ‘Glad we’re back on the same side,’ said the mechanic.

  He smiled. ‘Better that way. You’re all I’ve got.’

  ‘Have you seen anybody else besides the doctors?’

  ‘Omero has been by a couple of times.’

  ‘He comes to my quarters every day. Updates on your recovery, information about this place, that kind of thing. He likes to talk.’

  ‘He’s filled me in. Pretty impressive specs. And he’s desperate to learn about the north.’

  ‘I know. But I haven’t been in the mood to answer all his questions.’

  ‘I don’t mind them. Makes me feel pretty useful while I’m lying here like this.’ Cassady paused. ‘What do you mean by not in the mood?’

  ‘I’ve had something else on my mind.’

  ‘Do I have to ask?’

  ‘It’s
complicated. I was going to wait until you were back on your feet.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘My mind is working just fine.’

  ‘Okay. But then hear me out.’ Ghazi leaned forward in his seat, a fire already being kindled in his eyes. ‘I want to go back to Novus. I can’t get the image of that city out of my head. I’ve tried, but it won’t shift. The fire, the struggle, the banners, the drones, all of it. It’s so alive inside me it’s like I’m there every time I think of it. More than that, I remember the mountains and the green and the ice-cold water all around. It was alive. I mean truly alive. No clay, dust or desert anywhere. This is something I never thought I’d see, and it was hiding behind a wall the whole time. I just want you to think for a minute about what Novus means. About what we could do in a place like that. It’s a second chance. For us and for whoever wants it. We can join the people fighting against the Koalition and help them take control. Then we turn Novus into a sanctuary for anybody prepared to help keep it that way, and roll out the technology and the infrastructure to the surrounding areas. It’ll be a new beginning. We can turn the world into a place worth living in again.’

  He sat back. Cassady looked on, incredulous, trying hard to stifle a grin as he digested the words. He ran through a handful of arguments, but settled on a few words to sum up how he felt about the matter. ‘You’re crazy as hell.’

  ‘Am I? What’s crazier: returning north to run cargo as though nothing ever happened, or seeing if we can shape some kind of future from all this?’

  ‘I thought that’s what we did by coming here,’ Cassady said quietly.

  ‘Yes. But our work isn’t done yet. In fact, it was just the start.’

  ‘How do you know the Koalition hasn’t crushed the resisters since we’ve been down here?’

  ‘Omero. They listen to the shortwave and keep tabs on what’s happening. The fighting is still going on, but the people are on top. They’ll win.’

  Cassady decided to be blunt. ‘Emotion’s clouding your judgement. I said this to you before – you don’t even know what they stand for.’

  Ghazi waved the statement away. ‘We’ll find out. What else do they want but to live free and not have to struggle every single day?’

  ‘Maybe they want to control Novus. Maybe they’ll build higher walls. Maybe they’ll kill you before you get the chance to open your mouth.’

  A trace of irritation was evident on Ghazi’s face. ‘Yes, maybe. But if we thought like that, we never would have come here in the first place. We were right to make this run. Now I’m making that leap again. I’ve made up my mind. Either I go with you, or I go alone. I’ve already agreed things with Omero. They’ll give me a vehicle to get me to the border. I have to do this.’

  Cassady sighed. The determination was unmistakable. He’d seen it in the man more times than he cared to count. He didn’t have to agree with Ghazi’s plan, but he would accept it. And now it was time to have the conversation he’d been rehearsing since he’d emerged from his drug-induced mist. ‘You don’t need to take one of their rides.’

  Ghazi brightened. ‘You’ll come?’

  ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘You can take Warspite. She’s yours.’

  The liquid eyes became wider. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m giving her to you. I’m all done. The road nearly killed me. That was my last run. I told you I wanted to prove I wouldn’t flinch when my time came. That I’d have both eyes open. I did it. But I’m not going back out there. I’m staying here. When you feel the fire of hell on your back, you don’t turn around. You run in the other direction.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Straight down the middle.’

  Ghazi groped for the right words. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘You’re not the only one who’s spoken to Omero. He’s offered me a job. He wants me to take over as head of their scout and barter units. Says I know more about the road than all of their crews put together. I’ll get back in the driver’s seat, but it’ll be short haul. And I’ll have a place to come back to each night.’

  ‘You’ve never needed that before.’

  Cassady offered a thin smile. ‘But I need it now. I don’t want to die. Not yet, anyway. And not in the same way the others did. You might not believe it, but I found peace out there, at the end, when I thought it was over. I wasn’t scared anymore. You know how many years it’s been since I could last say that? And the feeling was still there when I woke up in this damn bed.’ He paused. ‘That’s got to be something to hold on to.’

  Ghazi made a steeple with his fingers and nodded his head slowly. ‘It is.’

  ‘I knew you’d understand.’

  ‘You’re really not going to come with me.’ He said it with finality.

  ‘You don’t need me for this.’

  ‘But Warspite’s yours. She’s always been with you.’

  ‘We all have to move on some time or other.’

  Ghazi stood up and held out his hand, which Cassady took. ‘I accept.’

  It was done. And it had gone as he’d hoped. There was just one more favour to ask. ‘Can you wait a day or two before you leave? I want to say goodbye to her.’

  Ghazi’s features softened. ‘Of course, Cass. I’ll wait for as long as you need.’

  Warspite sat at the bottom of the tunnel, her nose directed towards the incline that would take her back up into the world. Spotlights splashed yellow-white lustre onto the hood and roof until she glowed. Every faulty or broken part had been replaced with the newest variants in La Talpa’s inventory. Her cargo bed was laden with water, food, clothing, weapons and other amenities that the people of the underground base had urged Ghazi to take with him on his journey. Her silhouette had changed slightly to incorporate the upgrades Lupo had promised the convoy an eternity ago in the Gaean stockade. She was ready.

  Ghazi was standing by the cab, speaking to one of the vehicle scouts, when Cassady, wearing a robe that stopped above the ankle, hobbled out of one of the side corridors with Omero and a cluster of bodies in tow. His head was still bandaged and he was sweating with the effort, but he was out of the medical wing and that was all that mattered.

  Ghazi broke into a grin. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Like I should still be lying in that clean bed being waited on like a prince.’ He smiled weakly. ‘But I didn’t want you to have to sit around forever. How does she look?’

  ‘They’ve done a job on her. New armour, new batteries, new tyres, new everything. They even switched out the wind turbine for a hybrid solar-wind unit. Like the ship of Theseus.’

  ‘Can’t change her spirit,’ said Cassady.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Got everything you need?’

  ‘Yes. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Good. I’ll ride with you to the top.’

  Omero stepped forward and gave a short bow. ‘You’ll always have a place here if you ever decide to come back. Thank you again for all that you’ve done.’

  Ghazi accepted the invitation with good grace. ‘How about getting him back down from the surface?’

  ‘We will send a transport up for him when he’s ready,’ replied the coordinator. ‘Our cameras will see him.’

  Cassady laughed. ‘You don’t need to worry about me anymore. Now let’s get this over with.’

  While Ghazi made his goodbyes to the group of people in the chamber, Cassady went to the front of Warspite and pulled himself slowly up the metal steps. He fumbled with the handle, but finally managed to prop open the door and slide into the co-seat. The cab was just as it had always been: worn, cramped, home. He reached over to touch the bruised housing of the steering wheel, and his hand drifted over the levers and dials before coming to rest on the gear stick that served as proof of the Old Lady’s great age. His foot brushed something under his seat and he leaned down and pulled it out. His cap. Spotted, faded, bent out of shape. He thought he’d lost it. He stuffed it into a pocket in his robe as Ghazi ju
mped aboard.

  The Runner ran through his checks in silence before slotting the key home, punching the ignition and easing the vehicle onto creaking metal ribs that kept the ground from cracking under the weight of the tunnel’s traffic. Cassady stared in wonder. The oesophageal structure contracted as they climbed, its walls and ceiling drawing closer as though collapsing in slow motion. They passed checkpoint after checkpoint, each station manned by grim faces that nodded when Warspite rolled by, and then the metal ribs gave way to dull concrete and the creaking ceased.

  At the top of the tunnel, Ghazi touched the brake and the Old Lady trembled. Great cogs built into the wall squealed as they rotated, and a gate concealed in the rock face opened to reveal a sky of vivid blue glass. A brutal late-afternoon sun hammered an unbroken desert landscape that extended to the horizon. Hot, heavy air overpowered the artificial climate inside the tunnel and forced its way into the cab, and for a moment both men were back out there, leaning into the guts of their broken vehicle as they tried to coax her back to life in time before they, too, expired. A quiet strength ran through the pair of them. They were still alive.