The Other Side (14 page)

The
thrum of highway beneath tires lulls me awake. Something's itching at my eyes. The car's unfamiliar. And for a few seconds, so is its driver. A wig of shoulder-length black hair covers Colin's head; tinted glasses hide his eyes.

“How you feeling?” he asks.

Asshole. “Where are we?”

“Almost to Iowa. Your name's Jill,” Colin says. “I'm Mike. He's Justin. We're on a weekend excursion to the Badlands.”

I check my reflection in the rearview mirror. I've got blue eyes and a blond wig that's nothing like the one I wore for
Kissing Dragons
but reminds me of it nonetheless. I look more like that dragon queen than the girl I used to be. Will I ever get to be Melissa again?

I look away. A seat over, “Justin” wears an Ohio State University cap, tugged low to hide his CENSIR. No handcuffs anymore. Makeup conceals bruises on his face. Brown-colored contacts do not conceal the rage. He catches me watching him and shuts his eyes.

Rows of corn blur past my window; the memory of the torture video comes into focus. I want to ask James about his theory on Allie, but I don't know how to broach the subject without arousing his suspicion about my intentions. I don't know how to talk to him at all.

Colin turns on the radio. The silence intensifies.

I contact Grackel and Baby in spurts, but the distraction of their conversation only serves to remind me how empty it feels in the car. I do not know these people anymore. Colin with his secrets, James with his darkness.

We reach our first checkpoint a mile before the Illinois-Iowa border. No less than fifty All-Blacks monitor the highway control gates. Several patrol the queue of vehicles with bomb-sniffing dogs; the rest lurk in sandbag fortifications with enough weaponry to annihilate a mountain.

When it's our turn, an A-B sergeant orders us out. I cross my arms over my chest to control my trembles and lift my eyes skyward, praying he thinks me annoyed and not ready-to-pee-myself terrified.

While he scans our fake licenses into his tablet, another
soldier searches the car. Nothing in the glove compartment or center console except for some wadded-up receipts and loose change. From the trunk, he removes a pair of oversized backpacks. He lets the dog sniff at them, opens them up, inspects the contents. Colin's tablet, some MREs, a couple of canteens, three blankets that appear to be made out of aluminum, a set of binoculars, a bundle of rope. No ammo, needles, or flash drives.

“What are your intentions?” the sergeant asks.

“Headed for the Badlands, man,” Colin says. He's affected a dopey-eyed look. “Heard there are some killer dragon skeletons to check out.”

The sergeant scowls. “That's near the drone zone. That's off-limits.”

“No way, man. They're closing the frontier?”

“It is closed. You stay on this side of it. And no souvenir hunting.”

“We look like we want to do any dragon dancing, man?”

The scowl intensifies. “You know what I mean. Don't bring back any . . . mementos.”

“Only pictures and good times, man.”

“Stay alert, obey curfew, follow signs, and keep out of trouble.” He returns our IDs, we get back in the car, and I start to breathe again, though it's another ten minutes before my heart rate settles to anywhere close to normal.

On the outskirts of Des Moines, traffic slows to a crawl again. Signs along the highway indicate that all civilian traffic must take the next exit. Except for a herd of semis, most of the vehicles are already military. Drones crisscross the cloudless sky.

The semi in front of us switches lanes, giving me a view of the highway ahead. Hundreds of troop transports form a convoy that plods west, toward the evac territories. Beyond the trucks, I see tanks. Beyond that, I cannot distinguish, but the snake of vehicular blackness stretches to the horizon. I think of Sam, tell myself he's in some film studio somewhere.

“It'll be Armageddon,” James says.

“Isn't that what you want?” Colin says.

“The dragons never had a choice in the matter.”

“You did.”

James doesn't answer, his gaze returning to his window.

We drive on. North and west, muddling our way through checkpoint after checkpoint. Traffic thins until only that strained silence accompanies us. We reach Badlands National Park around sunset and pull off to a scenic overlook. Prairie dogs bark at us from afar.

“Pretend like you're tourists,” Colin says. He indicates the drone that circles overhead. It's the only one in our vicinity, but there's little else to observe other than us. “The
frontier checkpoint's a ten-minute walk from here. We wait for nightfall, then we go.”

“Won't it still be able to track us?” I say.

“The boy scout's got it all figured out,” James says, flipping his fake driver's license around in one hand. “That's what the Mylar blankets are for, right?”

“It'll block the thermal imaging for a short while.” Colin pops the trunk. “Long enough for us to put some distance between us and its cameras.”

James rolls down his window, flicks the license away. “You know, for a fugitive, you sure seem well connected.”

Similar thoughts have crossed my mind too many times.

I trudge to a railing that overlooks a canyon bulging with hills made of red-striped rock. I spot no dragon skeletons, though. On a nearby information placard decorated with a frontiersman (the nineteenth-century version) and a couple of prairie dogs, somebody's added a ravenous-looking Red to the mountainous backdrop.

James limps up beside me, sneers at the image. “They'll always be monsters. Better to play the part than to die a coward.”

There's no courage in what the Diocletians have done, I want to say, but I need his alliance. Colin stands a dozen feet from us, binoculars raised to his eyes. I lean closer to James. “I don't trust him.”

“Neither did Keith at first,” James says after a long silence. He stares off toward the horizon. “Thought maybe he was working covert ops. But he told us the location of another talker facility. This place called Banks Island. Polar bear territory. There were only three talkers there, dead, of course, but we recovered design schematics on a new CENSIR.

“Thing was,” he continues, “Oren already had those design schematics. Stole them two months before. Maybe the army already knew about the breach. Whatever. Keith believed him. Didn't hurt that Georgetown Claire was his sister.”

“That not enough?” I ask.

“Maybe. Blood doesn't necessarily mean allegiance.”

“Sam,” I whisper, his name out of my mouth before I can stop it. I glance at James, hoping he didn't hear, but he's looking at me.

“I'm sorry.”

“Doesn't matter. Just another thing they've taken from me.”

He nods. “There was one thing about Sarge's story that never really worked for me. He was supposedly a grunt in the U.S. Army, so how'd he know about that facility? He claimed to have served there, one of the pro-military talkers, but they send the scale-chasing talkers to more hospitable locations.”

I think of Colin's note.
There are things I want to tell you,
but I'm not sure how without making you hate me.

“There's been something bothering me,” I say. “I can't stop thinking about it.”

“What?”

“There was only one way in and out of that BoDA detention center.”

James nods. “The elevator.”

“Right. So he had to come in that way. But he didn't kill that secretary or that agent until we tried to leave.”

“Huh?”

I explain Colin's and my first trip up the elevator. “And there's something else. Colin was in Interrogator's control room before he rescued me. But I don't remember hearing any gunshots before that.”

James smirks. “They knew him. Or knew of him. They trusted him.”

I trusted him. “He told me that Keith didn't remove the tracer from my arm. He told me that's how he found us.”

“Of course he removed it,” James says. “I was there. I watched.” It was the day after we escaped Georgetown. The medics had performed the impromptu surgery in a cave somewhere in Argentina.

“You're sure?”

“Yes. Keith was worried they'd figure out the tracking frequency.”

“He's working with the government,” I speak the truth a part of me has known since Indianapolis. I warn Grackel about Colin's allegiance.

He is not our enemy anymore, human,
she says.
Kill emotion, human, and see his heart.

That doesn't make any fucking sense. I keep the thought to myself, but Grackel must pick up on it.

If he is our enemy, how come we are already not dead?

I ignore her, look at James. “We need to leave. Tell me the name of a Green. I'll call them—”

“You don't need to escape him, Melissa,” James says. “He wants to protect you.”

“Protect me?” I almost laugh.

“I don't know what he's about, but he came back for you, Melissa. He killed for you. That's who he is now,” he says softly.

I don't want to think about who he is. It doesn't matter anyway. Not anymore. “You remember when we first met?”

“Dragon Hill.”

“You told me there was another war coming. I think it's time I choose a side.”

“This isn't your war, Melissa.”

“Are you kidding? Look at me. Look at what they've done to me.”

“Oren won't accept you,” James says.

“Why don't we let him decide?”

“You know why I came back for you in Chicago?” he asks. “Because . . . never mind.” He sighs. “Grackel contacted me and told me what you were doing. Who does that? What sort of person takes on a Green with a Prius?”

I shrug.

“A fool,” he whispers, and I'm not sure whether he's talking to me or himself. “The Diocletians destroy fools.”

We
rappel into the Badlands swathed in aluminum foil. Well, Colin rappels. James and I struggle in our descent, groaning and grimacing the entire way, but finally make it into a canyon between the striated mounds of red rock.

We hobble west, Colin leading us with a flashlight and an old-school paper map. The expansive quiet, the Mylar blankets wrapped around our shoulders, and the ruddy landscape call to mind one of those cartoon shows Sam liked growing up. Something about explorers colonizing Mars, only to discover that the Red Planet was already populated by dragons.

An interplanetary war ensued.

Grackel, you guys come from Mars?

What is Mars?

A different planet.

She goes silent, and I know she's searching her memories, know that she'll find nothing. One of the few things that truly frustrates her. Fifteen years ago, over the span of several months, Reds, Greens, and Blues popped up across the globe. All in the same mysterious way—full-grown, lethal, and without any knowledge of the past.

Probably not,
I say.
How would Blues have gotten here?

She laughs, a guttural, awful sound. I like making her laugh.

Even if Blues could fly, it doesn't make sense. If dragons are from another world, why come to ours? Was their planet dying? That's the go-to explanation by the extraterrestrial theorists. Not the most harebrained theory, but close.

I don't know if that cartoon ever explained why the dragons decided to come to Earth. That wasn't the point. It was a boy show, full of bloodless battles that always ended in the death of dragons. Of course there were always more dragons for the next show.

The only dragons on this version of Mars are long dead. We came upon the first an hour in. Wingless. Definitely not suited for interplanetary travel.

Another dinosaurlike skeleton appeared, then another. Soon the foothills of red rock gave way to exploded prairie and foothills of dragon bone. They're everywhere, scattered among the detritus of savaged earth, though none are close
to complete. Fractured by war or dismantled by scavengers. Not a skull or claw in sight, the favored showpieces in cabin lodges around the world.

We pass through a broken barbwire fence and soon arrive at the epicenter. At least two dozen incomplete skeletons ring the caved-in remnants of a stadium-sized hole.

“Blue Rez One,” James mutters.

Colin walks the hole's perimeter, directing the flashlight beam into the dark spaces between the rubble.

“Is this field trip your idea of a lesson, Sarge?” James says.

Colin doesn't answer.

“Eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind, is that it?” James runs a hand along a stray rib bone wedged into the ground.

Is that why Colin's pit stopping at this erstwhile dragon “sanctuary”? For a visual comparison? Shrink down the bones, replace the broken rocks with broken buildings, and it's easy to see the similarity.

Colin drops to his knees, shines the flashlight into the abyss. Beneath those broken rocks lie the skeletons of dragon children.

“What the hell are we doing here?” I ask.

“We need to take cover.” He removes several glow sticks from his backpack, then a bundle of rope. He secures it to a
nearby skeleton and drops it into the crevice. “There's a cave down there. We'll be able to rest without worrying about the drones spotting us. Hurry now.”

“Clever, isn't he?” James says on his way past. I don't understand the comment until I look into the hole. The rope barely reaches a partially obscured cave, which sits off the edge of a ramp blockaded on both sides by collapsed earth.

An easy way in, a not-so-easy way out.

I'd hoped to escape tonight. Slip out while Colin's sleeping. I bet I could make it back up that rope. But no way James could. Not without Colin, healthy and strong, pulling him from the depths.

James goes down the rope first, Colin goes last. And I'm stuck in the middle.

Colin preps a dinner of MREs. He offers us some pills that he says are painkillers. We both refuse. James takes his meal to the front of the cave. I take the front corner. Colin joins me.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

My ribs ache. My legs are sore. “Fine.”

“I know you're angry. . . . I just can't have you doing something stubborn, Melissa.”

I stop nibbling at my pork ribs to glance up at him. The glow stick protruding from his shirt highlights his concern in yellow. Asshole.

“I don't want you to get hurt,” he says when I don't respond.

“You gonna drug me again? Put me in handcuffs? Lock me up? You gonna keep me safe?”

“You've been through a lot, Melissa. You need time to recover.”

Recover? I snort.

“What about Baby?” he asks. “You're the only one she has left.”

“She has Grackel. . . .” I look at him. Fuck, I hate him. Fuck, I love him. “She has you.”

“You know that's not the same.”

He's not gonna let it go. He's not gonna let me go. “You're right. Of course, you're right. It's just . . . I miss her so much, Colin. And I was supposed to protect her . . . and I didn't . . . I didn't protect her at all. . . .” I let myself go. I let him hug me, and I let myself cry into his shoulder.

I let him make a bed for me. I let him lie beside me, let him hold me. I pretend to drift off, and then I wait.

When I'm sure he's asleep, I tiptoe my way through the darkness toward the cave mouth. James is little more than an outline in the limited moonlight from above. Head dipped to his chest, he chews slowly on a granola bar.

“No,” he says as I sit beside him.

“But—”

“You know the biggest difference between Greens and Reds?”

“Thirty thousand dollars,” I say. A dragon-hunting joke that elicits a sarcastic snort.

“A Red will kill you because it has to. A Green because it can.” He shifts position, stifles a groan. “What would it be like to feel no guilt?”

He envies them. A part of me does, too. I don't want to think about that. “You mentioned that Grackel contacted you,” I say. “I didn't know you guys were still on speaking terms.”

“It was a one-time thing,” he says, which is similar to the answer Grackel gave me when I asked her about it.

“Good timing for me, then,” I say. “Give me a name, James.”

“No.”

“We'll both die if you don't.”

His jaw clenches. “The wrong memory, the wrong look, the wrong smell, the wrong direction of the wind . . . it doesn't take much for a Green to decide that you're better off in its belly than on its back.”

“Give me a name.”

He taps his CENSIR. “You're unprotected. They'll scour your soul—”

“Give me a name.”

“You don't understand what they're like, Melissa. What they'll do to you.”

“Dragon exposure, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I've been around plenty of dragons.”

“You don't get it,” he says.

“Are we going to have to do this all night?”

He scowls. “What about Colin? He won't make it.”

I do not hesitate. “He made his choice. Give me a name.”

And he does.