The Earth Dwellers (16 page)

“Yes…please. My chip was malfunctioning, you see, and I—”

“Name?”

“Uh…Tawni. Tawni Sanders. I went to the medical center and they—”

She silences me with a finger in the air, typing with her other hand. “There’s no Tawni Sanders listed. Spelling?”

“My chip was malfunctioning, deleting inform—”

“Spelling?” she repeats, as if I hadn’t been talking.

I spell it for her and she taps at her keys, with both hands now. “No. Not here. Proceed to the right, to malfunctioning chips.” She goes back to her screen. I take the whole experience as a win.

The door to the right doesn’t have a window. The room beyond is—surprise, surprise—white and sterile, without even a splash of color anywhere. And empty, save for a little window with a circular hole cut in it.

Behind the glass, a balding man with two chins and a bulge in his neck looks up at me. “Name,” he says.

“I already told the other lady my—” I start to say.

“Name,” he repeats. I’ve really got to stop fighting this, just go with the flow.

I sigh. “Tawni Sanders.” I spell it for him before he can ask.

“You’re not in the system.”

“I was,” I say. “My chip was—”

“Your chip must be malfunctioning,” he says. “Doesn’t happen very often, but it does happen. The specialist will call you in shortly.”

He goes back to his screen, but I can’t imagine what he could be looking at considering I’m the only one here. For all I know he might be sending a message to security, who could crash through the door at any moment, fully prepared to shoot me on the spot, a team of cleaners behind them, ready to mop up the blood and gore before it even hits the mirror-like tiled floor.

I sit down thinking about my blood and guts on the floor and wondering whether someone will come by to clean the plasticky chair the moment I remove my butt from it.

Probably.

As I wait, I remember what Avery said, about how this might not be the best place to live, but that it’s better than living in darkness in the Star Realm. Is it really better here? I’ve been to both places, and, although it took some getting used to, I still might choose the Star Realm. At least the people there are real. Dirty and messy and real. Everyone here, except for the cleaners I’ve spoken to, are more like clones…or machines. Inhuman. Fake.

But if Avery likes it here enough to prefer it to his old life, would I really be helping him by removing Lecter from power? By helping the Tri-Tribes win the war?
Yes
, I think, nodding to myself. Why can’t the people have
everything
? A good place to live and a life they enjoy, one that makes them truly happy. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Giving all people what they deserve?

A door opens next to the window and a tall man with a long neck sticks his head through. “Tawni Sanders?”

“Yes,” I say, standing.

“You’re not in the system.”

“So I’ve been told,” I say sarcastically, drawing a strange look from the guy. Blast my loose tongue. “I mean, I know. My chip’s malfunctioning.”

He nods. “Come with me.”

I follow him through the door and down a wide hallway. He leads me into one of a half-dozen rooms off to the side. Gestures for me to sit on a paper-covered cot.

“What seems to be the problem?” he says.

I consider pulling up my sleeve and ripping off Tristan’s makeshift bandage, but I think better of it, and explain things first. “My chip wasn’t working, it was—”

“Malfunctioning,” he says, nodding, as if he’s already two steps ahead of me.

“Yes. Malfunctioning. Wouldn’t scan. Kept deleting my information, my identity. So I went to medical.”

“That’s not protocol,” he says.

“I didn’t realize,” I say, “but that’s what I did. They cut the faulty chip out of me, and then sent me here.”

“That’s not protocol either,” he says.

“I know, but the guy was new and I’m new and we messed up.”

“Messed up?” he says, cocking his head like I’ve just said something so impossible that he can’t comprehend it, like I’m a hundred and twenty years old, or my father’s President Lecter.

I shrug. “It happens, right?” I say, trying to smile, trying to get him to smile.

“Not really.” No smile. No expression. “You’re a star dweller?” he asks, like it’s a foregone conclusion given the mistakes I’ve made.

“A moon dweller,” I say, holding my right fist with my left hand. If I let go, I’m afraid I’ll punch the blank look off his face.

“Hmm,” he murmurs. “Show me.”

So I roll up my shirt, peel off the bloodstained bandage…

“Oh my God!” he cries, covering his mouth with a hand.

“I know,” I say, silently relishing the effect my ragged wound is having on him. “I had to report him to his superior. I hope they never let him near another human being.”

He nods, his eyes wide, and I feel like we’re bonding over my made up story. “I’m sorry for my reaction,” he says, as if it was a terrible offense. “I just wasn’t expecting…”

“It’s okay,” I say, reassuringly. Suddenly we’re best friends. “Can you fix it?”

“We’ll have to recreate your identity on a new chip, implant it in the same spot. Wrap your arm and let it heal.”

“Good, good, whatever you have to do.”

And then he does it. Like there’s no way I could be anyone but who I say I am, because how could I be? Who would sneak into the New City? Who
could
sneak in? He numbs my wound, cleans it, activates a new chip, and inserts it, capping the procedure off with a fresh, white bandage. The whole thing takes twenty minutes.

Then he says I’m too new to understand the system, so I’ll have to fill out a bunch of forms by hand. He promises to enter everything in the system as soon as I complete them. Drowning me in a mountain of paperwork, he leaves me alone to complete the forms. Who I am, who my parents are, siblings, friends, date of birth, my whole history. And since we’re best friends now, he explains how it’ll be programmed onto my chip, how if I have any problems I should come right back to him.

Everything I write is a lie, but because I’m starting from scratch, theoretically their system won’t know that. I’m an orphan; the rest of my family is dead. I was recently selected to come above to the New City. I haven’t made any friends yet. I haven’t had time—been working too hard at my job. Little white lies.

I leave as a new person, literally. Legal and accounted for. Oh, and in the occupation section, I checked the box for “Presidential Cleaner.” I don’t know exactly what that means but I suspect it’ll help me at some point along the way.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Siena

S
kye tries to take off down the hill, chasing after the trucks like she has any chance of catching ’em, like she’d be able to make any difference even if she could, but Wilde grabs her from behind, pulls her back, screams at me and Tristan to help her.

We do our best, clutching at my sister, who’s fighting like a Killer, thrashing and screaming and scratching at us with her nails. “Let go of me! Burn you all! It’s my choice…mine!” And the whole time I’m pinning my sister to the ground, I’m staring at the desert in front of me, unable to look away, as the Glassies and their fire chariots and their fire sticks tear through the Icers like a dust storm through a village.

And I’m crying, tears streaming down my face, ’cause I see him, Dazz. Buff, too. They’re at the front and they’re fighting, using the Glassies’ weapons against ’em, but it’s not enough—not nearly enough—and they fall. And the chariots keep going, into the fleeing villagers, women and children and men, fathers and mothers and sisters, like Jolie, who we fought to save, nearly died to save. I know their screams will fill my nightmares for the rest of my days. They’re all cut down, until none are left standing. Not a single one.

And Skye, even though she can’t see it—thank the sun goddess she can’t see it—knows it, too. That it’s over. That they’re all…

I can’t even think it.

We’re wrapped up t’gether, Skye and Wilde and me, broken and sobbing, falling apart, ’cause they were our friends and to Skye, maybe more’n that.

I feel a firm hand on my back. Tristan, his mask ripped off. “We have to…go,” he says, his voice a shattered-whisper. I look up. His cheeks are wet, too. He didn’t know any of the Icers, but still he hurts for ’em, for us. He ain’t no spy. “We have to go,” he repeats. “If they realize we’re here…”

He’s right, and as much as I want to lie ’ere all day, want to dig a hole and crawl into it, we have a whole village of people that are depending on us. We hafta be strong for ’em, even if we’re broken inside.

Wilde stands first, her cheeks shining. She helps me up. The three of us try to pull Skye to her feet, but she resists, the opposite of ’fore. Then we had to force her down, now we can’t get her up. “No, leave me,” she says. “Just leave me.” Her voice is weaker’n a sick Totter’s, barely coming out, like it’s stuck in her throat. Seeing her like this stabs through me like a knife. But I can’t listen, can’t let her have her way, or she’ll die.

“Get up, Skye. Get up.” I pull harder, and t’others do too. We force her to her feet, although her legs are as wobbly as a newborn tug’s. “Yer not dyin’ on us,” I grunt, pushing her arm ’round my neck. “Carry her,” I say.

Wilde takes her other arm and Tristan grabs her feet, and we start down the opposite side of the mound, but ’fore we’re even halfway to the bottom, Skye’s twisting outta our arms. “I still got two feet,” she mumbles.

So we let her down, let her walk on her own, but I keep close to her, ’cause she’s stumbling, not lifting her feet high enough, and muttering under her breath, tears continuing to trace meandering streams down her cheeks. And she’s making soft, whimpering noises, but no, that’s not her. It’s me. I’m sobbing as I walk.

Broken. So broken. And yet only half as broken as Skye must be.

~~~

When we’re far, far away from where it happened, we sit down in a cluster, Skye and Wilde and me. Trying to pick up the pieces. Trying to remember why we hafta keep going. Tristan has replaced his mask, hiding his expression. He gives us our space, sitting a little ways off, just staring at the red sky above us. Every now and again he wipes a tear from the corners of his eyes.

Eventually, the tears stop, for all of us, like we’ve run out. Is that even possible? To run out of tears? Another time I thought so, too, when I’d believed I’d lost Circ. That was the worst of the worse, every bit as bad as things are now, and yet I picked myself up and came out stronger. And then my mother died. With almost her last breaths, she saved me. Did it break me, destroy me, end me? No. Again, I came out stronger.

But Skye, she ain’t crying anymore, but the hurt’s still there, in the dark brown of her eyes, in the quivering curve of her lips, in the clenched lines of her face. Will she come out stronger? She’s already the strongest person I know, so what does that mean?

I tuck a hand ’round her head, pull her into my chest. For once, I’m the stronger one. I hafta be, for her. She lets me do it for a little while, until I feel her body tense up. She squeezes her fingers into fists, releases ’em, squeezes again.

And when she looks up, well…I’ve seen Skye hardened and raw and rougher’n prickler skin plenty of times ’fore, but I ain’t never seen her like this. Her eyes are dark and her chin like stone. Even with the dried tears on her cheeks, she looks unbreakable. And yet beneath the impenetrable fortress she’s desperately trying to build ’round herself, I sense she’s more broken’n shattered glass. I don’t know what to do for her.

“I’ll kill every burnin’ Glassy baggard there is,” she growls. “They started this war, but we’ll finish it.”

~~~

The trek back to New Wildetown feels longer’n it is. It’s like what we saw is sucking us back with each step. Three steps forward and two back. But still we soldier on. Skye’s starting to scare me with those eyes of hers, darker’n ever ’fore with her angry eyebrows so low over ’em it’s like they’re a part of ’em.

I feel awful for having given her a hard time ’bout Dazz when we were trudging through the desert ’fore. Even if it was just a bit of fun, I still shouldn’ta done it.

When the familiar three-peaked tower of rocks comes into view, I heave out a ragged breath and will my legs forward one at a time. Everything is suddenly catching up with me as I see the place I called home for a short time ’fore we left for ice country. It wasn’t that long ago, but it seems like miles and miles and miles and years and years and years. Lifetimes. Tears blur my vision as we pick up the pace.

All I want is to see him, to have a soft place to land, to have a shoulder to fall into, to cry into. Skye can have my shoulder, but I want his. I need his.

And then he’s there, emerging from a hidden break in the rocks, running, sprinting. Circ. Graceful and perfect and mine.

Feve’s right behind him, and as they approach I can see in their expressions that they can tell something’s wrong. Probably ’cause the tears on my cheeks are shining from a mile away.