The Other Side (17 page)

He gives me a slow once-over, and I wonder if this is the first time he's ogled me. Or just the first time while I've been halfway conscious.

“Where is James?”

“Old John didn't like the way you and him were treating. Thought you might be getting him soft, which is the last thing we need right now, ain't it?” He glances at his tablet, grins at the sight of my shredded mattress. “How 'bout you?
You still got the itch in ya?”

I shrug.

“Divine intervention, this thing.” He flicks his bandanna, eliciting a dull, metallic echo. I squint, notice that it bulges in a circular pattern along his brow line. He smiles, a crooked thing. “We all wear them. Well, not the berserkers. Those are Oren's elite—”

Another explosion detonates. More cans fall. I cringe, pull my knees to my chest.

“Don't sweat it, we are straight impenetrable down here,” Double T says. “Army's just blowing the sin outta the mountains. Idiots don't know nothing about nothing. Old John says even if they knew our position, they'd have to go bunker nuke on us to reach this far down. Could you imagine? Nukin' your own country?”

I wait for the next explosion, shudder. “I don't feel safe here. Is there somewhere else we can go? I bet you've got somewhere safe you could keep me. I'd be very appreciative.”

“Rules are rules. A few more days before you're right, though James thinks it might be taking longer with you.” He whistles. “Mind merging with a Green like Praxus without a CENSIR to slow the flow.”

He pulls a strip of beef jerky from his jeans, offers it to me. “Old John says it's my nicotine patch. Gets me through the tough bits.”

“No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” He rips off an edge with his teeth, grins between bites. “Something about the texture. Nothing to compare with tripping the Green fantastic, mind you.” He takes another bite of meat, speaks through it. “How're your memories? Any coming back? James told me to ask for your mother's name.”

“Don't recall.”

“You know your name?”

I don't answer.

“Can't say I'm surprised. It'll just be blankness for a while. That's the way it always goes. The dragons blare their music into you so you can't hear nothing else. Bam, bam, bam.” He snaps his fingers in fast succession. He claps loudly, taps his CENSIR. “Then the music dies, just like that. All you wanna do is get it back. But they're not there to give it to ya, so you gotta get it yourself.” He starts snapping again, though I don't think he's aware of it. “It's that itch. Oh, and you wanna scratch it so bad. Keeps us sharp, Old John says.”

He notices his fingers, reddens as he clamps them into a fist. He stuffs the last of the jerky into his mouth. “Just got out of a second stint of detox myself.” He beams. “Two weeks without an incident. Old John says it's best for us recent graduates to work the rooks because we're wearing the same shoes, only a little more worn in.”

“It's nice that he trusts you with breaking me in, but . . .”

“But what?”

“Well, what if you get an itch?” I hold up my manacled hands. “I'm completely vulnerable.”

He shakes his head, adamant. “You got nothing to sweat from me.”

I sigh with exaggerated relief. “You know, I think we can be friends, Double T.” I soften my voice and smile. “Very good friends.”

Blushing, he pulls out another stick of jerky, thrusts it at me. “You best be having this. Old John says the lady drive goes through the roof during detox. The man drive, too, but that's always there, ain't it?”

He chuckles, blushes deeper.

“That so?” I say, grinning.

He rubs the back of his neck, lets out a whistled breath, glances toward the door. “Old John's right dubious about you. Says you caused problems in bear country. Says you're dangerous.”

“Isn't that why you're here?” I ask. “For danger?”

He checks his tablet, and I see some of the blood drain from his face. “You got the itch.”

“I got a lot of things.” I recover several ravioli lids from beneath the mattress and fling them at his feet. He dances out of the way as if they're bullets. Laughing, I arch my back. “I
am very dangerous. James couldn't handle me? Can you?”

He looks over his shoulder, back to me. Sweat beads his brow. “Goes against the rules.”

“You're in charge, right?” I ask. Batting my eyelids, I gently rattle the manacles to remind him.

He hurries toward the door, trips on the leg of a cot. For a moment I fear he's going to chicken out, but instead he closes the door. He returns with a goofy grin. “You are trouble, aren't you?”

“With a capital T,” I say, emulating his accent. “Double T.”

He chews on some more jerky. “No, no, no. I can't. James would kill me. Told me he would if I tried anything.”

I roll to the left half of the bed, pat the open area beside me. “I won't tell anybody if you don't.” I lick my lips. “Come on, Double T, I can see that itch of yours growing.”

He sets the tablet on a desk and crawls in beside me, his gaze locked on the foot of space between us as if it's a crocodile moat. I look at the square of paper that sticks out from his bandanna. The words written on it are upside down.

Me, Darryl Thompson, aka Double T.

I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan.

And something else I can't read.

He glances at me and I smile, which sends his focus back
to the shredded sheets. I reach for his face. He flinches as I grab the square of paper wedged in his bandanna and pull it free.

I am a vegetarian.

I flip the paper over. It's a close-up picture of him, complete with bandanna and goofy grin. There's a hand on his left shoulder, but whoever it belongs to has been cropped out.

He's looking at me all sheepishly. Coward.

“You should smile more,” I say. I give him back the picture.

He tucks it back into his bandanna and grimaces. Or maybe it's a smile. Hard to tell.

I move closer. He tenses.

“I've never done this before,” he whispers. His breaths come in short, pathetic bursts.

“Neither have I.” I pry the jerky from his fingers and take a bite. Doesn't help the itch. “I'm a vegetarian, too.”

He scooches over an inch, stops.

Another explosion.

The bed trembles. Not as much as him.

I grab his head between my hands and pull him to me. I press my body to his and kiss him with the full force of my desire.

His cowardice quickly gives way to lust. God, he has all
the skill of a blowfish. A blowfish with breath that stinks of cured meat.

I force him onto his back, throw one leg over his hips to straddle him. I rise up onto my knees, draping my chest over his. Calloused hands fumble beneath my shirt. I kiss him harder, reach beneath the bed for the ravioli lids I didn't discard. I grab two for each hand, slide them between my fingers. I poise my hands on either side of his neck, clench them into fists.

I clamp on to his tongue, twist hard, taste a rush of blood. He lurches forward with a scream stifled by my teeth, and I drive my talons deep into the soft spots of his neck. Scarlet life pumps over my knuckles, sprays my face. His fingernails dig into my skin for a second, and then it's over.

I rock back and tug out my talons. I shove him off the bed before he can further stain it. He flops about, gurgling and gasping, but soon enough Double T is done talking.

I search his pockets for a key to my manacles, discover only a handful of jerky strips, a Velcro wallet, and a miniature Swiss army knife with a dulled blade shorter than my pinkie.

Using a length of sheet and two unopened ravioli cans to weight each end, I fashion a crude grappling hook. Thirty or so tries later, I catch the leg of the desk and pull it toward me. I crank the lamp, then turn my attention to the tablet.

Password protected.

I check Double T's wallet for clues, find four more pictures inside, each encased in a plastic sleeve. Cropped to hone in on single faces, they display the rest of his family. On the back of the first three, he's written their names, their relationship to him, their birthdays, and the day they died.

Mom and sis long ago in a
Botched drone strike in Knoxville
, according to the note beneath their death date. His father three weeks back in
Chicago—the Blitz on the Bears
.
Sic semper tyrannis
is written beside his birthday, the letters thick and dark, as if retraced several times.

The final photo shows his older brother in an All-Black outfit. Besides resembling Double T, he looks vaguely familiar, though I can't say why. According to the back, he's apparently still alive. At the bottom is a phone number and more retraced words.
NEVER CALL.

I try various name and birthday-death day combinations for the tablet password. I try simple variations—0000, 1234. Random ones. Alphanumeric words. Nothing works.

“You're starting to piss me off,” I say, looking at him. Blood spatters his face and the square of paper is still lodged in his bandanna. I tug it free, check it over again to see if I missed anything.

Useless. But maybe the little squirrel's got something else in there.

I jerk the bandanna free.

Red hair.

I shudder.

I don't want to look, but I can't help it.

Beneath drooped lids, the green eyes are slack.

“You know who I am. Dammit, look at me! Would you do it?” I scream at him.

In a heartbeat. Is what he's supposed to say, but he doesn't say anything.

Because he's dead.

I crash to my knees.

He threatened to kill me, but I killed him.

I killed him.

I killed him.

I killed him.

I hug him and cry into his shoulder. “I'm sorry, Sam. I'm so sorry.”

The
explosions end, the walls stop rattling.

Real?

I approach the heap of crimson-soaked blankets in the corner, lift the edge of one enough to see the body. Still there. Still dead. I study the face a second longer, just to be sure. Not Sam.

A Diocletian. That's who I killed. An evil dragon rider. A bad guy.

Why couldn't you have been a bad guy?

Fuck.

At least he's not Sam.

Fuck.

I wait until the crank lamp fades, crank it back up, check again. Real. But not Sam.

Fuck.

Fade, crank, check.

There. Always there. Never Sam. But always there.

I should close his eyes. At least I should do that. Say a prayer for him. Something.

But I can't.

Why can't I?

Fuck.

I throw the sheet back over his face. “Why couldn't you have been—”

“Don't feel bad.”

I spin around. A man watches me from the doorway. He looks one part king, one part gangster, one part psychiatric patient. Dressed in white scrubs, he's got a brownish-red beard that belongs on a lumberjack and a devilish grin that belongs on the Cheshire cat. He's wearing a CENSIR. A gold-plated Beretta protrudes from his shoulder holster.

I quickly wipe at my eyes.

“I'm O.J. Double T the first dandelion you . . .” He makes a
tsk
ing noise and slashes a finger across his throat.

“Maybe.”

“Don't be shy. We were all quite impressed.”

He walks over, still with that grin. From his pants, he pulls a key, which he uses to unlock my handcuffs. He taps my CENSIR. “This stays on. I'm sure you're fine with that.”

I nod.

He heads for the exit. “You coming?”

I glance over my shoulder. “What about . . . ?”

“Double T? We'll get somebody in here to clean up that dandelion. Not your problem anymore.”

“But . . .”

The grin falters. “You coming or not?”

Coming.

Beyond the thick steel door is an underground highway. Flickering lights run the length of the arched ceiling, illuminating four lanes that extend into darkness in both directions. Doors are recessed into the tunnel walls every couple hundred of feet. Stenciled letters indicate their purpose. Directly across from us is Prayer Center U5-372. The room in which I spent the last several days is Shelter U5-2153.

This is an understate. We took a field trip to a prototype my freshman year, built deep beneath the streets of D.C. A relic. Our guide told us it was the only one in existence, a quarter complete before construction got scrapped.

“Thought there was only U1,” I say as O.J. directs me to an armored SUV—military, I think, but painted white and with
#1
inscribed all over the hood and doors—idling in the access lane.

“Learn that in your history books?” His voice goes theatrically gruff, his face dramatically stern. “Last defense
against the dragons? Worst-case scenario?”

“Something like that.”

“Yep. And they wouldn't tell you differently.” He pulls onto the road with a smirk. “A devil they don't want you to know.”

I give him a questioning look.

He laughs. “It's like when we armed the Afghans against the Russians. That's what my G-Pop said. Yep.” He adopts an old-man voice. “‘A circle of screw-you gratitude.'”

I glance at him. He's back to the grin, his eyes fixed on the empty road ahead. Fixed, but half glazed, like he's reminiscing. Or batshit. Completely.

Wish I'd brought a ravioli lid with me. Or ten.

We speed past more blast doors with faded markings and numbers on the adjacent walls.
Dragon Shelter U5-2149. Supply Depot U5-371. Mess Hall U5-148
. . . there's nothing to indicate where we are, no signs of Allie anywhere. Or anybody, for that matter.

“Where exactly are we?” I ask.

“Down below.”

Double T said something about bombing mountains. “The Rockies?”

“Could be.”

A few minutes later, we pass a prayer center with the words
Klyv's Klan
written beside it in hand and a graffiti picture
of a cartoonish Green hugging some smiling white-cloaked teenagers. The next prayer center belongs to Praxus's Posse. Praxus looks meaner than Klyv.

O.J. makes a left turn down an access road. The tunnel presses in around us. The flickering decreases, the lighting brightens.
Restricted Zone
is written in large red letters every hundred or so feet.

“You good at anything?” he asks.

“I can shoot.”

“That's what all the dandelions say.”

I force a smirk, mimic the throat-slashing gesture O.J. made. “I can kill.”

He touches his nose, points at me. “Got me there.” His grin widens. “We'll see how that works when you're not surfing scales.”

We approach a guard station. A metal gate lies crumpled off to the side. White-cloaked soldiers lurk behind sandbags. Half have their machine guns and rocket launchers aimed in the direction we're headed, the rest have them trained on us.

O.J. slows, flashes his lights in a sporadic pattern. The soldiers lower their weapons. He flips them off as we pass.

The tunnel terminates at a pair of blast doors, each as big as a Blue. They appear to be jammed, open wide enough for a couple of people to fit through. A faint green glow comes from the other side. A dozen armored SUVs are haphazardly
parked near the opening.

As we get out, a guard emerges from the shadows on our right. Young face. Sane eyes. “This her?”

O.J. nods.

“Thought she was taller.”

“Thought she was cuter,” another voice calls from the left.

“Where's Double T?” somebody else calls from the darkness.

O.J. inclines his head at me, makes that slashing gesture again. I feel sick. “Ravioli lids. Turned him into jerky.”

They offer compliments.

I ignore them and follow O.J. through the blast doors into another tunnel that's clearly been widened by dragons. Broken concrete and shredded mannequins clutter the sides. On a fragment of wall still intact, I discern what appears to be a three-pronged propeller inside a yellow triangle. Up ahead, mixing with the sporadic growls of Greens, I hear something similar to gunfire, but it doesn't sound quite right. More of a soft hiss than a metallic purr.

Around a bend, the tunnel splits in two. A pair of Diocletians guard the one to the left. Behind them, the tunnel narrows to its original size, unrenovated by dragons. I spot more of those yellow signs. These have words beneath.
DANGER
:
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
.

We go right, toward the Green glow, the growls, and that strange gunfire. The broken walls and broken floor shift to solid stone. I smell something unpleasant, but it's too faint to place. A breeze swirls. Cold, but I refrain from hugging myself, because O.J. keeps glancing at me with that stupid grin.

The tunnel opens into a cavern stockpiled with weaponry and split in two by a gargantuan wall. White and lumpy, as if made of giant interconnected seashells, it's covered in graffiti. The wall stops a few feet short of the ceiling. The green glow emanating from the other side illuminates overhead sprinklers that cast a mist of fine spray in the dragons' direction.

On this side, beyond pallets of machine guns and rocket launchers, two dozen or so teens in white scrubs and bandannas are shooting up mannequins. A spindly man paces back and forth behind them, shouting instructions about breath control and muscle relaxation.

“Welcome to the arena, dandelion.” O.J. says, ushering me toward the shooting range.

Their guns resembles pistols, but blockier. With one shot, heads explode, limbs sever. With two, torsos crumble. A conveyor system brings up the next mannequin while the shooter reloads. A digital scoreboard that hangs from the ceiling tallies each kill.

I do a quick survey of faces, but don't recognize anybody
except James. He's near the far end, no longer in his sling. He fires with rhythmic precision, every shot a head shot. His name's at the top of the kill list.

He is a killer, I remind myself.

Just like me.

A couple of people notice our arrival. James glances my way. It's the briefest thing.

But his next shot doesn't hit the head. It doesn't hit the mannequin at all. It pulverizes a chunk of the cave wall behind the conveyor system.

“Cock bait crawls in here, and you skipped right over the rusted rails, pretty boy,” the instructor says. “Get your mind right!”

James nods once and resumes decapitating dummies.

“Ready for some fun?” O.J. grabs one of the blocky guns from a pallet and tosses it to me.

It's got two switches. I recognize the safety, but not the bottom one. I eject the clip. The bullets resemble sharpened rectangles. Thin. The clip probably holds forty rounds.

“New scale-chaser joy toy we ransacked in a raid a couple weeks back,” O.J. says. “They call it a railshot. Meant to penetrate dragon hide. They come with toxins and stuff you dandelions played with in Georgietown. Our engineers modified it for our purposes.” He indicates the switch beneath the safety. “Adds a plasma burst. A miniature chain
reaction that liquefies your target from the inside. Only thing it won't melt is the sun.”

I start for the nearest open mannequin. O.J. grabs me. “Where you going?”

“To have some fun.”

“Shooting stuffed dolls doesn't mean anything. You said you can kill. We'll see.” He points toward that seashell wall that separates us from the dragons.

“Are you taking her riding, O.J.?” James asks.

“Back in line, pretty boy,” the instructor says.

O.J. holds up a hand, spins around.

Everybody stops shooting, and I'd swear the dragon growls quiet a notch, that the glow in the cavern brightens a couple of notches.

I look over my shoulder. This time James's eyes do linger before shifting to O.J. “You can't do this. She's not ready.”

O.J. smiles at him. “You said something, dandelion?”

“She just got out of detox. You can't send her out.”

I switch off the safety, wheel around, and blow the head off the mannequin behind him. A couple of people whistle. Others laugh. I grin at James. “I'll do just fine, thank you very much.”

He ignores me. “You know I'm right, O.J. Praxus could berserk her if you restore any part of the connection this soon.”

“I don't plan on restoring it. I need to know how well she flies.”

“You can't be serious. The sky's crawling with DJs.”

“Good talk. Get back in the line before I berserk you. Vincent, I expect this from the dragons, but not these little dandelions.”

The instructor's features tauten as he gives a curt nod.

He looks at me. “Come on, let's see if you can shoot anything besides dolls.”

We head for the seashell wall. Closer, I see it's made of armor plating—a mishmash of destroyed vehicle hulls fused together.

That unpleasant smell intensifies. My nose wrinkles. “Roses?”

O.J. indicates the misters above the wall. “Helps mask our odor. You allergic or something?”

“No. Just don't like them.”

“That's unfortunate,” he says, like it's not unfortunate at all. “Why do you think we wear white?”

I'd never thought about it before. “Because they wear black.”

“Yin and yang, huh? That's how your government sells it.”

“Not my government.”

He shrugs. “Greens are a feisty bunch. White soothes them.”

I imagine a Green basking lazily in a field of white roses and can't help laughing. O.J. looks at me like I'm the crazy one, which gets me laughing more.

We pass a stairwell that drops into a causeway beneath the wall and come to a U-shaped bank of lockers. Each has initials taped to it.

I follow O.J. to a locker marked
D
.
T
. It contains a white cloak, body armor, a helmet, some goggles, an oxygen mask attached to a breath pack, several Confederate-flag bandannas, and a perfume bottle.

Affixed to the inside of the door is a palm-sized mirror with the word
You
written in black marker. Pictures cover the rest of the space. They show Double T and his family, their names written on each one. He's the only one smiling in any of them.

O.J. uses a black magic marker to cross out
D
.
T
. Beside it he writes
25.

I grit my teeth and pull out the body armor.

“Not your size,” he says as I screw with the buckles, “but we'll get that worked out . . . if necessary.”

Too big, the heavy vest digs into my shoulders. “It's fine.” The helmet's got a couple of dragon-jet stickers affixed to it. They're scored down the middle. Kill tokens, I assume. I put it on, tighten the straps. Smells like Double T. I think of Allie.
In nae.

I slide the goggles over my eyes, tug on the white cloak and breath pack, then head for the stairwell. I glance over my shoulder at O.J., who seems slightly bemused. I push out a grin. “You coming?”

“You forgot this,” he says, tossing me the perfume bottle.

I sniff it and blanch. But it's better than Double T's scent.

“Don't be shy now,” he says.

I douse myself in the rose stench.

We pass under the wall and ascend the stairs at the opposite end of the causeway. “Getting scared, dandelion?”

I ignore him.

This part of the arena is larger. Can't see the ceiling, not even with the glow of four Greens providing generous amounts of light. Each dragon is contained in a cage of forearm-thick steel grating that disappears into the darkness overhead. They prowl close to the bars, snarling and smoking and growling at each other nonstop.

A dragon zoo. Or rodeo, given the harness and saddles mounted on each one. And I'm the cowgirl up next. I take small comfort in the bulky collars that encircle their necks. Similar to the ones the military used on the dragons in the battle room to control their fire and punish them when they got out of line.