by Kevin George
“Sky Person,” he whispered.
Emma also stopped to stare. “That’s always how I thought they’d look,” she said breathlessly.
They didn’t have long to gawk. As the Sky Person passed over One’s forces, guards began to hurl their spears straight up. Nobody was able to gauge the speed of the Sky Person and fighters from both sides ducked for cover as thrown spears rained down. Oliver extended his arm in front of Emma and forced her back, separating them from the battle as the Sky Person seemed to zero in on their location. Oliver and Emma both held up spears as the Sky Person landed in front of them, his wings appearing to retract into his back.
He looked normal. . . mostly, not much different than other humans except for generally sharper facial features and a few feathers sticking out of his cheeks and neck. Oliver heard a familiar voice cry out ‘Love!’ from somewhere within the crowd, but the Sky Person remained focused on the two people standing in front of him.
“Back away,” Oliver said, holding up his spear as he stepped in front of Emma.
The Sky Person’s head tilted to one side, his eyes focusing on the side of Oliver’s face. He began to raise a feathered hand toward the prince but thought better of it.
“I know another human with burns like that,” the Sky Person said, his voice lilting. “You are the prince?”
Love took a step closer, seeming genuinely curious when Oliver jabbed his spear in warning. Emma stepped to Oliver’s side.
“Oliver is King of the City Below,” she said.
Love swallowed hard, his eyes turning to Emma. “And you must be the princess? The queen? A Weller. . .”—his giggle was high-pitched and strange—“. . . wed to a Jonas?”
“What’s so funny about that?” Oliver demanded.
When the Sky Person smiled, Oliver could see how tightly his lips were pressed against his jutting teeth.
“Just the irony of history,” Love said. “I never would’ve expected the Descendant to end up marrying the enemy.”
Oliver and Emma glanced at each other with the same look of suspicion.
“The. . . Descendant?” Emma asked.
“Oh, yes,” Love said, his eyes growing wide. “The most important person remaining in the world. The true Jonas bloodline to make the Aviaries great again.” Oliver instinctively stepped back as Love stalked forward. “I must take the Descendant with me.”
“Help!” the familiar voice yelled again.
Oliver looked around the Sky Person and spotted a pair of One guards descending on a single woman. Paige’s eyes locked with Oliver’s, but she did not scream for his help again. Love peered over his shoulder at what was about to happen to the young woman he’d saved in the Dome.
“Please,” Oliver said, stepping forward. “You have to let me help her.”
“Of course,” Love said, stepping aside.
Oliver began to rush away, having a direct path to Paige and the One guards stalking toward her. He nearly reached them when Emma’s voice—clearly panicked—made it to his ears. He turned back and saw the Sky Person standing next to her, his arms wrapped around Emma’s waist, his expansive wings unfurling from his back.
“What are you doing?” Oliver called to Love. “She’s not a real Jonas, only by marriage.”
Love shook his head, a single lilting chuckle escaping his lips. “You’re not the real Jonas.”
Oliver’s brow furrowed and he had a split second to decide whether to rush back to Emma or keep heading toward Paige. He hesitated long enough for the Sky Person to take off, carrying Emma with him. Oliver didn’t give them a second glance before rushing to help Paige.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“We have to stop them before they reach the Mountain.”
Quinn turned to Sally and laughed. He looked to the other Swarmers, some of whom joined in his laughter, though they didn’t know what was so funny. In an instant, Quinn’s expression turned deadly serious and the laughter stopped.
“We dodged one catastrophe through sheer luck,” he said. “I’m not going to let you bring more trouble here.”
“But you of all people. . . I mean, of all Aviaries. . . you know how dangerous it can be at The Mountain,” Sally said. “You’ll be sending those people—or that person—to their deaths.”
Quinn shrugged. “Not our problem.”
“But it should be,” BabyDoll interceded, slowing turning to look at the rest of the Swarmers, many of whom shied away from the innocence in her eyes. “Love would have—”
“It’s time for everyone to wake up and realize he’s dead,” Quinn snapped.
Low, mournful chirps were shared among the Swarm.
“Unless that’s not true. . . unless he’s being held in The Mountain, too,” BabyDoll said.
The Aviaries perked up at that thought, many turning to Quinn for guidance. He sneered at BabyDoll and crossed his arms.
“Love knew the risk of living there,” he said defiantly. “He knew the risk of returning time and time again to do The Board’s bidding.”
“You are right,” BabyDoll said, lowering her head in apparent deference. “Love did know the risk, he knew it better than all, but he went back each time to catch us from our fall. He gave each and all of us a better chance to live, now I think it’s our turn to be the ones that’ll give.”
Plenty of Aviaries turned away, their squawks quiet with shame. Under Quinn’s watchful glare, BabyDoll circulated among the group, reaching out to squeeze the misshapen hands of every Swarmer.
“I understand your fear; I feel it, too,” she continued. “But you must know that helping is the right thing to do. . . it’s what Love would want us to do.”
“Enough!” Quinn yelled, his back rippling. “Seize her. . . and those two. Lock them up.”
BabyDoll backed away, taking Sally’s hand as members of the Swarm descended on them, most of them frowning as they did so.
“Please,” Sally begged. “Don’t do this.”
“Mountain. . . bad. . .” Lump mumbled sadly.
Other Swarmers squawked, unable to contain their fear at the mention of The Mountain. BabyDoll looked up at Sally.
“Remember before when I said we must wait?” the little Aviary asked. “That moment is now or else we’ll be too late.”
Sally nodded. BabyDoll turned to the Swarm and flexed her back, her tiny wings popping out. The Swarmers gasped, most recoiling at the sight, some in awe and some afraid. She zipped toward Lump, knocking into him, pushing him back into the Swarm and clearing a path to the hallway. Sally didn’t need to be told to run. The Swarmers were slow to react and Sally fought her way through several outstretched arms, crashing through the door until she and BabyDoll were in the hallway.
“After them!” Quinn yelled.
His screaming threats were soon lost among the Swarm’s squawking. Sally didn’t look back but knew the Swarmers were following. BabyDoll zipped ahead, her tiny wings fluttering so quickly that Sally only saw them as a blur. But the little Aviary didn’t make it to the end of the hall before landing, where she swayed on her feet and leaned against the wall until Sally reached her.
“Are you okay?”
BabyDoll nodded, forcing a smile though she was clearly exhausted. She reached for Sally’s hand and the two hurried toward Love’s room.
“How will we get inside?” Sally asked. “Is there a key for the door?”
“There is no key,” BabyDoll said. “But don’t worry, you will see.”
“Then why didn’t we go inside sooner?”
“Would you really want to miss a moment like this?” BabyDoll asked.
The squawks and footsteps grew louder behind them, but it wasn’t long before they reached Love’s room. BabyDoll pointed to the door handle and Sally tried it. The door was unlocked. With Quinn still calling for them to stop, Sally pushed it open and stepped inside. BabyDoll followed and together, they took a single step inside before stopping to look around in awe.
“You’re trespassing on the
sanctity of Love’s private quarters!” Quinn yelled. “This is the last straw! All three of them should be punished with death!”
Quinn entered first and grabbed Sally and BabyDoll by their wrists. He started to drag them out but couldn’t stop from looking around. The room wasn’t any larger than others in the comm building, but that was where the similarities ended.
“Please,” BabyDoll called out in response to the Swarmers squawking nervously in the hallway, “come in and come see just how Love came to be.”
Lump was the first one to come enter, his squawk long and low.
“No,” Quinn said weakly. “Nobody else. Everyone back away.”
But curiosity overcame the most loyal of Quinn’s followers and the room soon filled with Swarmers. Some stood still and quiet, their mouths hanging open as they looked around, eyes filling with tears. Others squawked in fear and muttered ‘no’ before rushing out. But it was Lump who reached his hand toward the wall, his pointy, feathered fingers coming inches short of touching the countless drawings.
“Home,” he squawked.
“What are these?” Sally asked.
“No,” Quinn said. “These are nothing and anyone that says otherwise is a fool.”
Lump was focused on the drawing of a room littered with toys and books. Other drawings showed a darkened hallway with sconces adorning its walls, a hallway with countless doors that led to a large opening with shining light. Sally’s eyes followed the series of hallway drawings to the end, where she saw an outdoor image that looked familiar to her.
“The Mountain,” she whispered, the two words still drawing squawks from the Swarm, but not as frightened as usual.
The Mountain drawings were many, the first from sky level just beyond the hallway opening, clouds shrouding most of the image. There were also views of The Mountain from ground level, including a giant door built near the base and a huge section of rocks covered with splotches of red. Other drawings showed The Mountain from farther away, some looking exactly like they’d been ripped out of Sally’s memories of the drive across the White Nothingness.
But the strange toy room and the exterior views of The Mountain weren’t the only drawings. Another wall was filled with different drawings: a massive storage facility, a huge dining hall, fancy bedrooms, a large meeting room with a long wooden table surrounded by many chairs, on top of which sat the shadowy outlines of what Sally assumed to be humans. Other drawings showed a variety of scientific labs and medical facilities, some with images of empty beds and innocuous-looking machinery, but most with horrific images of shattered needles and broken equipment, scenes of apparent torture and experimentation being done mostly on women.
The drawings gave Sally chills and she quickly turned away, but drawings that adorned the next wall were horrible in a different sort of way: cruel-looking humanoids wearing dirty white lab coats and hateful sneers, appearing less human than Sally but more human than the Swarmers, no two mutations alike though all of their respective eyes were wide and crazed. Other humans appeared more proper, their mouths taut, cruel in a different sort of way. Sally turned to the Aviaries to ask if anyone knew who these people were, but not a single member of the Swarm was looking at the same images she was.
BabyDoll joined the other Swarmers along the back wall. Choked sobs and quiet chirps spread among the group, as the tension in the room was replaced with calm. Sally eased her way into the crowd until she saw the wall covered in drawings of women’s faces. Some were recognizable from the images of the labs, but the women no longer appeared tortured or in agony. Still, the sadness and fatigue could be seen on all of their faces. As bad as Sally thought her life had been in the City Below, she could tell right away that nobody she’d ever known had it worse than these women.
“Host,” one of the Swarmers said, pointing a sharpened finger at one of the drawings.
Other Swarmers did the same, some of them pointing to the same woman before staring at each other in amazement. Some hugged; others offered deformed shoulders to cry or chirp on. Sally wanted to know what they were talking about but knew better than to interrupt this special moment. Lump hobbled to another drawing and stopped in front of it.
“Host. . . my host,” he cried.
BabyDoll sidled beside him and reached for his hand, which was three times the size of her own. When Lump looked at her, she reached up and stroked his face gently. Lump closed his eyes as if lost in another time and place.
“Not host. . . mother,” the little Aviary said. “My mother, too.”
Lump’s tears stopped and he threw his arms around BabyDoll, lifting her into a great big hug as she giggled and hugged him back. Swarmers flocked beside one another. Sally finally stepped away and studied another large section of wall dedicated to a blueprint drawing of the entire Mountain facility, complete with level by level details including security posts (of which there were very few) and the approximate number of occupants (also very limited). Sally had no doubts about the Swarm’s general fear of The Mountain—and some of the drawings would haunt her dreams for months to come—but the details about what—and who—was still inside weren’t overwhelmingly frightening.
“Now can you stand back? And ignore that? All these things that we see? Allow strangers to suffer the same way as we? Strangers who might take us to places like no others? Strangers who’ll suffer worse fates than our mothers?”
A few of BabyDoll’s closest allies chirped their agreement, but the rest scanned the crowd for their leader. But Quinn stood off to the side, alone, staring at the drawing of the large table and the shadowy figures sitting around it.
“Quinn?” BabyDoll asked.
“It was them,” Quinn said, his voice steely, his eyes not budging from the drawing. “They did this to me. . . they killed my parents, though my parents used to be part of their group.” His head lowered and he turned to the group, looking up for the Swarmers to see his tears. “My parents, who helped plan what happened to all of those women. . . to all of the failures that were thrown off The Mountain before us.” He shook his head and turned back to the drawing, the bottom of which was labeled ‘THE BOARD.’ “I just wanted to keep all of us safe here.”
BabyDoll patted Lump’s hand before letting go and hobbling to Quinn’s side. As she took his hand, one of her tiny wings brushed against one of his large ones. He leaned his head in her direction but refused to turn away from The Board.
“It is time we take care of not just ourselves, it is time to take care of others as well,” BabyDoll said softly. “If we never take the risk to give, it will be just like we’d never lived. I am going to The Mountain, I’ll remember those who died, even if that means. . .”—BabyDoll’s voice cracked and she swallowed hard, taking a deep breath to keep her shivers away—“. . . even if that means that I’m going back inside.”
A few Swarmers nodded hesitantly and stepped toward her, but they were cut off by James, who shook his head.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” he said. “The Mountain was built to be an impenetrable fortress capable of repelling an entire army, let alone a bunch of. . . civilians. What I’m trying to say is that intercepting whoever’s coming our way is our best bet. Enough of you can brave the cold to set up a perimeter well short of—”
He quieted under Sally’s glare. No longer were the Swarmers’ eyes full of fear at the mere mention of The Mountain. A few continued to mutter ‘host’ and ‘mother’ as they encircled James, who felt more threatened now than he had earlier. He hurried toward Quinn, who remained off to the side, alone, staring at The Board.
“Tell them,” James told Quinn. “Tell them how dangerous it would be to try entering The Mountain.”
Quinn kept his back to the Swarm. “He’s right, it would be dangerous for any of us to go there,” he said forcefully. “But not as dangerous as it would be for any man, woman or Aviary who’d try to stop me from reaching the humans that killed my parents.”
Quinn turned slowly, his eyes welled
with tears. He locked eyes with BabyDoll and nodded.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
For a long time, Julietta sat on the tunnel floor, her back pressed against the closed door to the elevator, coldness seeping into every part of her body. She didn’t have the energy or desire to stand back up, so she sat there and breathed, in and out, in and out, over and over, the stench of the beasts lingering long after she’d sent them Below.
Sent them to their deaths. . . but not before they cause plenty of deaths first. . .
She thought about Paige and prayed she didn’t still work in the white hallways of the Quarantined Zone. If she does, she’s probably dead already, Julietta knew. The thought filled her with shame, even more so since she hadn’t considered that possibility until long after she’d led the beasts into the elevator. For a long time, hatred of One fueled Julietta into continuing life Above. Had she had the opportunity in the past to unleash beasts onto the first section of city, she wouldn’t have hesitated.
But that was no longer the case. One guards may have seemed heartless, but Julietta had no doubt most of them were simply following the orders of King Edmond. Anyone the beasts killed would likely be innocent, while the Jonas King sat in the safety of his palace. All while I’m up here, following my own orders to kill, orders coming from another Jonas. . .
“You’re doing what’s needed to survive,” she told herself, her voice quiet and weak in the tunnel’s darkness. She’d waited nearly an hour for Henry or his followers to show up and check on her, but the tunnel remained empty. “You’re doing what’s needed to see Isaac one day.”
Speaking his name caused her throat to tighten. She dropped her head into her hands, telling herself that she was merely justifying the terrible thing she’d done in hopes of fulfilling a longshot. Why do you think your life—your happiness, your potential love—is more important than anyone else’s?