Embattlement: The Undergrounders Series Book Two (A Young Adult Science Fiction Dystopian Novel)

T
he night air
hangs muggy outside the Council bunker, feathered clouds drape over a reluctant moon. I’ve barely slept in the hours since we took the vote that divided the Undergrounders. None of us know for sure if my brother Owen is dead or alive, but after the bombshell Rummy dropped about seeing my brother try to claw his way back up from the floor, we have no choice but to go back to the Craniopolis and find out. We can’t risk leaving him to the mercy of the Sweepers’ inhumane experimentation. Allying ourselves with Rummy and the Rogues is not something I ever bargained on, but Rummy’s right; we have a common enemy in the Sweepers, and our only hope of defeating them is to unite.

Of the eighteen Council members who voted for the alliance, seven bailed when it came time to leave, leaving me with a sour taste of disgust at their hypocrisy and a crew whose names I don’t even know. It’s the lowest form of cowardice in my book, abandoning your leader when he needs you most. They were all gung-ho to be part of the Council when Owen recruited them. But now I suspect that it was more a chance to relieve the monotony of bunker life than any willingness on their part to sacrifice for a cause. And they don’t trust me as his replacement.

The worst thing about it all is that Jakob, who led the Council team that rescued me from the Craniopolis, won’t even say good-bye. He thinks I’m a fool for trusting Rummy, and maybe he’s right. It
is
a long shot, hoping Rummy can persuade the Rogues to join us in our attempt to overthrow the Sweepers. And dangerous—a sign of our desperation—throwing in our lot with former subversives. But it’s our only option. We need to boost our numbers to have any chance of success. And we need
heavies,
as Rummy put it
,
men who know how to kill. Years of gang warfare in the reeducation centers have prepared them better than any of us Undergrounders.

I weave my hair into a thick braid and climb with my collie, Tucker, to the top of the trail that leads south to the Wilderness of No Return and the Rogues’ hideout. Filtered shafts of moonlight spill down between the towering pines. I breathe in the humid, night air and try to calm my mind for what lies ahead. The earth and air have begun to heal from the volcanic meltdown that destroyed the world as we knew it, but I’ve come to fear what’s inside the hearts of humankind more than any holocaust of nature. My own heart thumps with the cadence of that fear. I know firsthand how brutal the subversives can be.

I’ve learned that there’s at least one other subversive gang in the wilderness known as the Slicers. Rummy thinks he can rally them all—that’s if they haven’t wiped each other out by now. If it turns out the Rogues are dead, we could find ourselves at the mercy of a rival gang who won’t take kindly to us keeping company with Rummy.

I scratch the back of Tucker’s head until he’s had enough and jerks away from me. He trots off up the trail and flops down at a safe distance. He’s getting too old for this, but I won’t leave him behind. I’ll never leave anyone to die alone again, not after what happened with Owen.

“Derry! We’re loaded up and ready,” Trout says, coming up behind me.

I square my shoulders and turn to face him. “I want Rummy up front with me. If we encounter Rogues, especially Blade, they need to see he’s with us.”

Trout nods and yells down to a Council member standing at the bunker entry hatch.

I barely know Trout, but my gut tells me he’s the kind of kid who’d take a bullet for a friend if he had to. And right now, he’s the only friend I’ve got. More importantly, the other Undergrounders seem to trust him. He was Owen’s right-hand man on the Council, and that makes him a safe bet in their eyes. They have yet to put their faith in me. I can’t say that I blame them.

As for Sven, he’s an enigma I haven’t had time to fully unravel. I can’t deny his startling physical attractiveness, but that’s all it is, right? He’s a clone, after all. He’s proved himself loyal to the Undergrounders, despite their suspicion of him. After the massacre in the Craniopolis, I won’t question again where his allegiance lies. Naturally, Jakob doesn’t like him. He’s noticed that Sven pays me more attention than is called for. He says it’s creepy. Although it does send a shiver of something delicious down my spine to catch Sven watching me, it may be nothing more than a sense of duty on his part to protect me now that Mason’s gone. And yet, I wonder.

I hoist my pack onto my shoulders and grab my gun. “Any more defectors?” I ask.

Trout rumples his brow. “No. They’re all still in, with fear and trembling.”

I grimace. “The only fear I have is that Sven will expire before we bring down the Craniopolis. Without him to rally the clones on the inside, the odds will be against us.”

It feels wrong, morbid even, to be counting the life units Sven has left, but this is the existence the Sweepers have engineered, where death hovers constantly over the clones. Maybe it’s not that different from how we all live anymore—a day, an hour at a time, one step ahead of extraction, or extinction.

“We still have Doctor Won,” Trout says. “He could help us access the Craniopolis if Sven expires.”

I let out a snort. “I’m not stupid enough to trust a Sweeper. Even a deserter like Won. We’ll bring him along as collateral, nothing more.”

Trout nods. “Let’s hope Lyong thinks his former Chief of Cybernetics is worth bartering for if it comes down to it.”

Tucker sniffs around for a squirrel hole to dig in. I whistle him over. “Too late for that, old boy. We’re leaving.”

I turn at the sound of footsteps. Rummy stumbles up the trail toward me, tethered securely to Won. Sven strides behind the hostages, casting a hulk of a shadow over them. He’s not about to let them out of his sight, even for a second. Losing track of Lyong during the fire in the Craniopolis was a costly mistake. Sven blames himself, but none of us could have known about the mechanical shaft Lyong escaped through.

Rummy walks over and sticks his graffitied face up to mine, his foul breath rasping in his throat from the exertion of the climb. The piercing above his brow glints menacingly in the moonlight. “You want my help, you cut me loose. I ain’t traipsing all the bleedin’ way to our hideout tied to Ching-Chong here.”

I arch a brow at him. “Just because I’m giving you a chance to prove your worth, doesn’t mean I trust you. It wasn’t all that long ago you were threatening me with a Schutzmesser.”

Rummy spits in the dirt at my feet. “That’s ’cause I thought you left me there to die.”

“You’re still breathing, aren’t you?”

Sven jabs him in the back with his gun and Rummy turns and stomps off up the trail. I wish I didn’t have to put our lives in his hands, but he’s the only subversive with firsthand knowledge of what’s really going on inside the Craniopolis. And that’s what it’s going to take to sway the Rogues.

“Wait! I no run so fast!” Won yells, staggering after Rummy.

Trout cocks an amused eyebrow at me. “Gonna be interesting with those knuckleheads in tow.”

I kick at a pinecone at my feet. “I hate having to rely on people I don’t trust.”

Trout rubs his chin thoughtfully. “It’s best not to trust anyone.”

I shoot him a look of surprise. “You trusted Owen, didn’t you?”

He shrugs. “Until I found out about the snitches infiltrating the camps. Then I doubted everyone. Especially Owen.”

His tone catches me off guard. “What are you talking about? You knew my brother wasn’t a snitch.”

Trout presses his lips together. “I know that
now
. But, you gotta admit, Derry, that every place he showed up, people got extracted—Sam, Frank’s camp, your bunker, the Rogues at Fort Lewis.” He shakes his head. “I dunno. Undergrounders are talking.”

A prickling sensation runs up and down my spine. “About what?”

He stares at me intently. “They’re wondering why you’re the only survivor from your camp, you and Big Ed, that is.”

I carefully wipe the sweat off my face with my sleeve. A few moments ago, I counted Trout as a friend. Is he warning me to watch my back, or is he threatening me? “You make it sound like I’ve more enemies in the bunkers than in the Craniopolis.”

Trout sniffs. “All I’m saying is that you’re taking on the baggage Owen left behind. Some of the Undergrounders were starting to lose faith in him. That’s why the vote went the way it did. If you’re going to lead the Council in Owen’s absence, you should know what you’re getting into.”

I swallow a mouthful of lukewarm water from my canteen, my mind reeling. The snitches in the camps destroyed our faith, even in each other. How can I lead the Council if they don’t trust me? I thought my plan to destroy the Craniopolis and rid ourselves of the Sweepers would put things back the way they were before the world fell apart. But what if none of us ever learns to trust again? Even the sovereign leader and world government we voted in before the meltdown turned out to be rotten to the core. It was supposed to be a temporary solution until they got global warming under control. They fooled us all. The cloning program—the deviations it produced, the cybernetics—every lie they ever told us laid bare when a ring of volcanoes blew a motherload of toxic ash and fireballs clean across the globe, forcing the few survivors underground. We all presumed the sovereign leader was dead, like most of the world’s inhabitants, but sometimes I wonder if he could still be alive.

“And now Won’s telling the Undergrounders that Owen isn’t dead at all,” Trout continues. “That he
chose
to stay behind in the Craniopolis.”

The knot in my stomach tightens. I pull up hard and yank Trout into the brush to the side of the trail by his pack strap. I throw a glance over my shoulder at the Council members lagging behind. “Listen to me carefully. Won’s a liar. Owen almost bled out in the docking station. He wasn’t gonna make it. And he knew we weren’t either if somebody didn’t stay behind to launch the Hovermedes we escaped in.”

Several Undergrounders trudge by, deep in conversation. I fall silent, and wait until they’re out of earshot. “If Owen’s dead, he died a hero, and if anyone in this group calls him a traitor, I’ll send them packing. They’re useless to the mission if they doubt him, or me.”

Trout scratches his brow. “I’m not saying I believe the rumors. Just thought you oughta know what’s being said, that’s all. The Undergrounders are scared. They want answers.”

I rub my hand across my forehead and think of Big Ed’s shrewd, leathered face as he gives me one of his pep talks.

Everyone’s afraid, Derry. Find your courage and act anyway.

I miss him and his wise counsel already, but he’s too old and tired to keep up the pace. Anyway, there’s no one I can rely more to man the Council’s base and keep an eye on Jakob while I’m gone. It’s up to me to navigate this minefield and earn the respect of the Council. And find my brother before it’s too late.

“The Undergrounders trust you already,” I say to Trout. “Get out there and calm them down
before
we reach the wilderness. Subversives are like dogs, they get aggressive when they smell fear. We can’t whet their appetites.”

Trout stares at me for a moment, massaging his one-knuckled finger. “I reckon it’s fear keeps us vigilant. We’re only free as long as we run scared.” He slings his gun over his shoulder and strides off to catch up with the others.

A dull headache builds as Tucker and I trudge along at the rear of the group. All around us, the ebony boughs of trees stretch out like arms worshipping the night sky. I rub my temples intermittently to relieve the growing pressure. My brain feels like it’s about to burst, and at first I think it’s because I’m stressing out about what Trout said. Then I realize the gauze of cloud cover has congealed into a cast-iron pall, and the air has become unbearably sticky. I pull up and wipe the sweat from my brow with my sleeve. Tucker walks in circles whining for my attention. “What is it, old boy?”

He looks up and gives a sharp bark as several lightning flashes in quick succession illuminate the skyline. Instinctively, I flatten myself in the undergrowth and count to five before a sound like a giant fire cracker hits my ears. Tucker growls and burrows into the brush beside me. I wrap my arms around him to calm him and we lay there in a trembling ball until Trout comes running back and rolls in after us.

“That lightning’s only a mile away,” I say. “We’ll have to find cover until the storm’s over.” I scramble to my feet and grab Tucker’s collar.

Trout yells to the nearest Undergrounders and waves them in our direction. They shout up the trail to the others and make a beeline back toward us. I abandon the trail and crash through the heavy foliage scouring the area for a protected ravine or any kind of hollow where we can sit tight and wait out the storm.

We’re in a bad spot this high up, but there’s no time to get to lower ground where there’s less chance of a deadly strike. Big Ed said he saw a man cooked by a lightning flash once—burst all his blood vessels and blew the shoes clean off his feet, not something I’m eager to experience. Another streak of lightning forks down from the sky, followed by a horrendous crack that echoes through the forest. “Spread out!” I yell, leaping over a downed log in my path, Tucker at my heels. Out of the corner of my eye I spot Trout swerve past a half-buried boulder in his path and stumble on a knotted root. He lays there winded until I reach him. “You okay?”

He nods and sits up. “This storm’s getting worse. We need to find shelter before it’s too late.”

I reach out a hand and pull him to his feet, then glance around the heavily wooded grove, searching for the others.

“Over here!” Sven yells, gesturing at us to follow him as he disappears into a clump of trees.

We thrash our way through the tangled brush and slip between the trees. To my relief, I spot Sven a short distance away in the mouth of a lichen-covered cave frantically waving at us. Trout sprints past me, ducks below the overhang and scurries inside.

“This way!” I yell over my shoulder to several stragglers. Another flash of lightning, a foot wide, touches down and blows a lone Ponderosa pine on my left to smithereens. A terrifying roar explodes in my ears as I charge the last few feet and hurtle into the cave, trembling from head to foot.