The Earth Dwellers (28 page)

This might not be what I wanted or what I expected—what did I expect, exactly?—but it’s what I
made
. So now I have to live with it, whether I like it or not.

Gritting my teeth, I roll to the side opposite from Marx and start shooting.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Adele

E
very last instinct is urging me to run-run-run as far away from that voice as possible.

I run right at it, leaving my cart behind, and staying on my toes to ensure my approach is soundless. Down the hall past empty offices to the other side of the room, my feet carry me toward him.

Even as the voice gets louder, I wonder what I’m going to do when I reach him. Will I barge in, attack him, try to kill him on the spot? Presumably he has some form of security that will stop me. But I could try. Killing Lecter would end the war pretty quickly, and
quickly
is exactly what we need.

I slow my pace as the voice becomes softer and clearer, the sound slipping through a crack in a door to a corner conference room. There’s frosted glass on both inner sides so I can’t see a damn thing, but I can hear every word.

“We can’t find them, sir,” says a new voice. “It’s like they disappeared into the sand.”

“That’s the best excuse you have to offer me?” Lecter says, his voice rising once more. “That the desert dwellers have sunk into the sand?”

I creep close, right up to the door, stay to the left of the hinges, in case it opens. I might get lucky and have the chance to hide behind it.

“No, I’m just saying—”

“You’re just saying that you’ve failed to destroy the savages. Do you know what that means?” Lecter again, his tone once more full of the calmness he displayed during last evening’s announcement.

“Yes,” the man says.

“Do you?”

“It means they’re still out there?” the man says, like it’s a question.

“Wrong!” Lecter scoffs.

“They’re
not
still out there?”

“You idiot, of course they’re still out there, but that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that the people—my people—know that we’ve won, that we’ve done what we set out to do.
Cleansed
the earth so we can start over. What citizen of this good city is going to agree to ride out into the desert to be a part of the next city we construct if there are savages still running around somewhere?”

I’m pretty sure Lecter isn’t expecting an answer, but the man says, “No one.”

“You’re damn right no one. Look, we suffered the partnership with the Icers only because their king was…unstable…and because he provided us with a fair supply of wood and meat. But even had he survived their little rebellion, we still would have had to kill them all eventually anyway. For the good of the earth. His death was merely the perfect excuse.”

“I’ve heard Goff’s death wasn’t caused by a rebellion,” the man says, his voice filled with a little pride.

“Oh have you?” Lecter says, a sliver of sarcasm in his tone.

“I heard dark warriors came from the sea.”

“Dark warriors?” Lecter’s words are full of mockery now. “Sounds like you’ve been reading too many sun dweller novels, Gomez.”

“I’m just saying what I heard.”

“You think I don’t have all the same information as you? I’ve heard the same thing, only my sources called the eastern people
savages
, not dark warriors. Just more savages. Don’t give them more prestige than they deserve. One day our coastal cities will be built on the graves of these so-called dark warriors.”

A firm hand grabs the back of my shirt and I almost cry out.

“What do you want me to do?” I hear the man ask Lecter, even as I’m looking back at my attacker, preparing for a fight.

It’s my boss, her face like a red balloon.
Uh oh
. She doesn’t say anything, just points down the hall, to where I left my cart.

I walk away from the room, feeling her behind me the whole way.

Lecter’s final words hit me in the back. “Kill them. Kill them all.”

~~~

“What the
hell
were you doing?” boss lady says. I swear a wisp of steam escapes her ear. We’re down on the 50
^th
floor, where I was meant to go in the first place.

“I got the floor wrong,” I say innocently. “I’m sorry.”

“Why’d you leave your cart?” Big hands on big hips.

“I was looking for you.”

“So when you didn’t find me you decided to crouch outside of a conference room?” she asks. She doesn’t say “President Lecter’s conference room,” but I can tell that’s what she means. It was a major offense.

“No, I…see, the thing is…I saw a smudge on the glass, so I went to inspect. And when I got closer, there were more smudges, LOTS of smudges, so I was contemplating what to do about those smudges when you snuck up behind me.”

“I didn’t sneak,” the boss says. “I don’t sneak.”

I don’t doubt that. I must’ve been pretty engrossed in what Lecter was saying to not notice her approach. Building new cities. Cleansing the earth. Killing the savages. The themes of the conversation were anything but comforting.

But my conversation with my boss is going nowhere. Time to play the card under my sleeve.

“Look, it’s my first day, I was just trying to figure things out. I promise, it won’t happen again.”

She smiles at me, which scares me a little. I wither under the scrutiny of her gaze and the strangeness of her unexpected smile. “Oh, you’re right about that,” she says, and I can tell she’s not in any way, shape or form agreeing with me. “It won’t happen again because your employment here is terminated, effective at the end of the day. Your rations will be cut off starting tomorrow, until you are assigned a new position.”

~~~

That could’ve gone better. Not only will I be unable to get close to Lecter again after today, but boss lady is watching me like a parent watches their troublemaker kid on the playground.

First we clean the long hallways on floors 50 to 54, using strange machines that evidently suck the dust off the fuzzy, soft floors that almost look like blankets have been sewn into them. I think they had them in Tristan’s palace in the Sun Realm, too—he called them carpets. We stop there, leaving 55 to clean itself, I guess. So much for the smudges on the conference room glass.

Next we clean every last window on those same five floors. It’s truly backbreaking work, and I have to constantly switch the hand that I use to scrub with so my arms don’t get too tired. What am I doing? I’m on a clandestine mission to help stop a ruthless dictator and I’m scrubbing windows until they’re so clear you can barely tell they’re windows. It’s quite a different experience to when we took out Tristan’s father.

The day can’t go fast enough, because under boss lady’s scrutiny there’s no hope of learning anything else. And even the stuff I already learned is of no real value; it just supports what I already knew about President Borg Lecter: that he’s a good candidate for a bullet to the head.

Finally, my back aching and my arms sore and my fingers ready to fall off, we’re dismissed for lunch.

On the way out, boss lady stops me. “You know what? Cancel the rest of the day. You’re fired now. You’ll be able to eat lunch but not dinner. Report to the employment office immediately if you want to eat tomorrow.”

I don’t respond, just walk away, my muscles tight from the cleaning and anger. And frustration. I was right there, a pane of glass and a cracked-open door the only things separating me from him! So freaking close! I screwed up. I should have barged in, taken my chances with any guards that might’ve been inside, gone for Lecter’s jugular with my teeth. I should have sacrificed my own life for the greater good. Tristan might disagree, but only because he cares about me. Now I’m back to square one, the weight of regret on my shoulders.

When I exit into the alley, Lin’s already waiting. “What took you so long?” she says. “I’ve already lost ten minutes of my break.”

“I got fired,” I whisper.

“What?”

“Shh, I don’t want to make a big deal about it.”

As we walk to lunch, I tell her what happened.

“You got that close to Lecter on your first attempt? You
are
on a mission!” Lin says.

“Shh,” I say, “keep your voice down. I’ve lost my best chance—the chance that I was lucky enough to stumble upon—to get close to him. I messed up, Lin, went for too much, too soon.”

We stop talking for a few minutes as we scan our wrists at a different eatery than yesterday. Inside, it looks the same. The same food, the same guards in the corners, the same bored, expressionless citizens sitting and eating, barely talking. It’s really starting to creep me out. These people have lost the will to live.

“So what’s your next move?” Lin whispers when we sit down. A purple rectangle stares up at me from my plate. I mash it with my fork, mix it in with the yellow and green ones on either side. Maybe together they’ll taste better than apart. I take a bite.

Blech. Maybe not.

I ponder Lin’s question. It’s just a setback, not failure. I’ve still got options and my identity is still secure, which is the most important thing. But clearly I’m running out of time. The soldiers I left in the electrical room will be found soon, and then I’ll be presidentially screwed. I’m still convinced the fastest way to end all of this is to get to Lecter.

“Where does Lecter live?” I ask.

~~~

Lin insists on sharing her dinner with me, because, no matter how many times I try scanning my wrist, the food dispenser just looks back at me with a single red eye. She also wants to come with me to Lecter’s place.

“No,” Avery and I say at the exact same time.

“Why not?” Lin says. “I’ve been helpful so far, haven’t I?”

“You have,” I say. “But there’s a curfew?”

She nods.

“And they check that everyone’s where they’re supposed to be using their chips?”

Another nod. Avery’s nodding along with his niece, apparently in complete agreement with where I’m going with this.

“So you’ll be caught before you get half a block. The Enforcers will Taser you and haul you away.”

“What about you?” Lin asks. “You have the same problem.”

I take a deep breath, roll up my sleeve, and peel away the bandage.

“Yuck, what died in there?” Lin says, covering her mouth with the top of her shirt.

“What in God’s name?” Avery says.

I almost want to throw up, too. My arm’s a mess, the wound Tristan inflicted jagged and torn, filmed with black-red-brown dried blood, oozing with cream-colored scabbing, still moist. Beneath it is the small welt from the fresh chip injection I received on my first day.

“You want to help me, Lin? Dig out my chip.”

“You can’t be serious,” Avery says, still staring at my mangled skin.

“I’ll do it,” Lin says.

“Wait just a minute,” Avery says, “there has to be another way.”

“I’m listening,” I say. “If you know another way to trick the system, I’m all ears.”

He bites his lip, cringes, says, “I know someone who might be able to help. I could talk to him tomorrow.”

“I don’t have time for tomorrow,” I say. “I’ve got to do this tonight, keep things moving. The sooner I figure out whether killing Lecter is a possibility, the sooner I’ll be able to either end this or move on to the next option.”

“And what’s the next option, Adele?” Avery’s hands are in the air. “You going to smash through the Dome, destroy the city, throw grenades into the army barracks?”

“I’ll do what I have to do,” I say.

“Even if it means dying?” I’m surprised because the question comes from Lin, not Avery. She’s looking at me intently, watching for my reaction.

Meeting her gaze, I say, “Yes. Even if it means dying.”

Avery groans. “Don’t go filling her head with that suicidal nonsense.”

“It’s not suicide, Avery. My mother, my sister, my boyfriend, my best friend…they’re out there, counting on me to do this. They believe I can do this.”

“You’re one crazy girl, you know that?” Avery says, breaking the tension with a grim smile.

“So I’ve been told,” I say, quirking up the side of my lip. “Now will you let your niece dig out my chip?”

“No,” he says, and I’m about to protest, but then he adds, “I’ll do it.”

~~~

My arm hurts like hell, but at least the bleeding finally stopped. A thick bandage and a long-sleeved shirt hide any evidence of the ad hoc procedure. Avery had to use the tines of my fork to get the chip out, and the only thing that stopped me from screaming like a banshee was Lin stuffing a towel in my mouth.