A World of Ash: The Territory 3 (7 page)

“How are you even going to find this girl?” Brick said. “My father told me there’s thousands and thousands of people in Alice.”

“I’ll admit it might be a little like finding a needle in a haystack,” Captain Pratt said. “It could be worse, though.”

“Could it?” Brick said. “It sounds impossible to find a needle in a haystack.”

Captain Pratt looked at him. “We could be looking for hay in a needle-stack.”

Brick wasn’t sure whether Captain Pratt was a little crazy or completely crazy, but there was definitely something wrong with him. He’d been making Brick fly the dirigible inward toward Alice for the past four days, claiming that would be the best place to find this girl Lynnette who he seemed to blame for everything bad that had ever happened to him. Captain Pratt had been ordering Brick around like one of his crew ever since he’d shot old Mr. West and dropped his body over the side.

Brick remembered the way Mr. West’s body had fallen through the air and landed soundless and heavy on the red dirt below. They’d just left him there, his arms and legs splayed out in the dust. Twisted. Broken. Then Captain Pratt had ordered Brick to clean up the blood on the pilot’s seat. There had been so much sprayed against the chair that Brick had had to wring out the old shirt he was using to mop it up when it wouldn’t soak up any more of the still-warm liquid. There were other bits on the chair too, mixed in with the blood, bits of something Brick didn’t want to think about.

He wouldn’t think about it. If he started thinking about all that he’d just start crying again, and he didn’t want to cry. He wouldn’t let those pictures back inside his head. Pictures of old Mr. West’s head snapping back with the sound of the gun. His body bent and broken in the dirt below. The blood. The bits.

He could feel hot tears. Why had they landed at that stupid crash site? Why hadn’t they just kept going like they were supposed to?

Brick saw Captain Pratt looking at him. He tried to hide his face but it was too late. The pirate had already seen his tears.

“I’m sorry you had to see what I did,” Captain Pratt said, “to the old man, I mean. I was in a desperate situation and did what I had to do to survive. If I’d been more prepared, healthier, more level-headed, I would have found another way to go about things, but alas, I can’t change that now. No one can undo the past.”

Brick didn’t say anything. He just continued staring ahead. He wondered if anyone had found Mr. West’s body. He wondered if any of the other boundary riders even knew what had happened. He didn’t suppose so. He hadn’t been able to tell anybody, and even if they found Mr. West that wouldn’t do any good either. You never heard from dead people again. No, there was no one who knew Brick was trapped with this crazy murdering pirate on a mission to seek revenge against some girl who’d escaped from him.

“Why do you even care about this girl so much?” Brick asked. “She’s just one girl. She can’t really have ruined everything for you.”

Captain Pratt looked at Brick. “Did I tell you that her brother was a Digger?”

Brick shook his head.

“And her father was a Digger, did you know that?”

Brick shook his head again.

“Even she was a Digger, if you can believe that. Ran away and pretended to be a boy, apparently.”

Brick didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if Captain Pratt thought this answered his question.

“Let’s just say I have a problem with Diggers,” Captain Pratt continued. “And she’s about as much Digger as there is left anymore. Even with the Diggers all dead they still managed to take everything from me all over again.”

“What do you mean
again
? What happened?”

“It’s a brutal world we live in,” Captain Pratt continued. “Quite literally a man-eat-man world where survival is all that matters. The sooner you learn that the better. When you start understanding that nobody will look out for you except yourself, the better off you’ll be.”

Neither of them said anything for a long while. Captain Pratt seemed lost in his own thoughts and Brick didn’t really understand what was happening any better than he had before.

“We were flying to Alice anyway, you know,” Brick said after a while. “All the boundary riders are. You think you’re hijacking this dirigible but you’re actually flying us on the mission we’re supposed to be doing.”

Captain Pratt laughed. “Oh, I know,” he said, “and I plan on making sure we get there before this so-called
horde
of ghouls does.”

“You want to warn the city?” Brick said, feeling momentarily excited. “Complete the boundary riders’ mission?”

Captain Pratt smiled and adjusted his hat, pushing the brim up with one finger until it sat high on his head. “You misunderstand me, Brick. I want to reach Alice so that I can find Lynnette before the ghouls do. I want to be the one to kill her, not let her die as the city falls, or starve behind the Wall.”

“That’s all you can think about?” Brick said. “Just your stupid revenge?”

That settled it for Brick. The man
was
completely crazy. The entire world was at risk and all he cared about was revenge against one girl, one girl they’d never be able to find. That, and he still thought he was a pirate, as if that even mattered anymore. There wouldn’t be anyone left to steal from if the Territory was destroyed.

“Has this creaking excuse for a dirigible got a name?” Captain Pratt asked pointedly. It seemed he wouldn’t rise to any bait.

“I don’t think so,” Brick said. “I don’t think boundary rider dirigibles have names.”

“Well, that’s just no good at all,” Captain Pratt said. “Dirigibles have got to have names. Especially pirate dirigibles.”

“This is not a pirate dirigible!” Brick yelled at the man. “I’m a boundary rider!”

“No,” Captain Pratt said, “not anymore. You’re my crew now. My only crew. I suppose that makes you my first mate, second-in-command of this airship. She’s a tiny, worthless bag of gas, but she’s ours, Brick. Welcome aboard the
Mary’s Revenge
.”

“What is he doing here?” Lynn repeated when no one offered an immediate explanation. She glared at the Administrator. She was in a state of sickened surprise. Suddenly, unexpectedly, she was face to face with the man who had killed her father, the man she had thought of with such all-consuming hatred that the hate had started to take on a life of its own.

The man who had once been the head of the Central Territory government looked forlorn. His skin was pale, his eyes sunken, his face battered, bruised, and broken. Where the skin over his cheeks wasn’t puffy with yellow and purple swelling it clung to the bone, gaunt and skeletal. It was clear he had been a prisoner of the Holy Order, and they had not treated him well. Still, even looking the way he did it was all she could do not to leap forward and gouge the eyes from his face. She could feel her muscles vibrating as if the rage within her really could take command of her body and strike the man down.

“Lynnette,” Knox Soilwork said, obviously trying to soften his voice and calm her, “the Administrator is on our side.”

“Our side,” Lynn said, spinning to face him. “He’s not on our side. You’re not even on my side. I can count the number of people on my side on one hand, and none of them is here.”

“We’re all on the same side now, Lynnette,” the Administrator said. “All of us in this room, you and Squid, everyone else who cares about seeing humanity make it through this dark time. I wish for nothing other than to take down the High Priestess and stop her wicked plans for my Territory.”

This time Lynn could not contain her aggression. She moved forward and shoved the Administrator in the chest with her good hand, catching him off-guard and causing him to take a stumbling step backward. “
Your
Territory?” she growled. “This is not
your
Territory. What have you ever done for the people who live here?”

“I have served the Territory since I was eight years old,” the Administrator snapped back. “I have given my life to this place.”

Lynn shoved the Administrator again. “You have not given your life for the Territory. The Diggers gave their lives for the Territory. You were the one who killed them, the entire army.” She shoved him again. “You care nothing for the people outside the walls.” She shoved him a fourth time. “You keep secrets about the world beyond the fence.” She shoved him once more, hard. “You had my father killed!”

“Lynnette,” Knox Soilwork said, trying to draw her attention back to him. “Let’s—”

Lynn turned to look at the man who had once been Chief Minister, pointing at him and cutting him off. “And you probably organized it for him, didn’t you, you snivelling worm? It’s obvious enough that you’re the one who does the dirty work around here.”

Knox Soilwork stood tall and unwavering. “I did no such thing, Lynnette.”

“What, then?” Lynn spun back to the Administrator. “It was all just you?” She pushed him again. He was moving backward as he absorbed each jolt. “Huh?” She shoved. “Huh?”

Lynn didn’t know what she intended to accomplish with this outburst but she couldn’t help herself. She pushed the Administrator again. This time the man grabbed her wrist. Despite his haggard state his grip was strong. She squirmed, pulling back and trying to free her hand, but she couldn’t.

“Listen,” the Administrator said, his voice a low growl, “I didn’t kill your father. I know you’ve been through a lot, but you will not touch me again.”

Lynn stopped trying to free her arm and looked up at the Administrator. She stared into his eyes with a burning heat, trying to detect the lie, trying to bore into him for the truth.

“Nor did I
have
your father killed,” the Administrator continued. “We may not have seen eye to eye, but I did not kill Colonel Hermannsburg. You have Her Holiness to thank for that.”

“The High Priestess?”

The Administrator nodded.

“You know this?” Lynn asked. “You know this for a fact?”

The Administrator nodded again and released Lynn’s wrist. She turned to look at Knox, hoping his expression would betray the falsity of this, but the dark man’s wrinkled face was as stony as ever. She had been sure of the Administrator’s guilt. It had been among the last things she was clinging to as a certainty in her life, a certainty of her world, and yet that too was now being shaken.

“How do you know?” Lynn asked.

“Those who committed the act told me of their guilt,” Knox said.

Lynn felt something flare inside her, hope and desire among the anger and despair. “You spoke to my father’s killers? Do you still have them? Are they here?”

“Yes,” Knox said. “I met your father’s killers, but no, they are no longer here.”

“You let them go!” Lynn felt the anger flood in to suppress that small spark of hope. There was almost nothing she wouldn’t do to have the chance to stick a spoon in each of her father’s killers and end them the same way they had ended the most wonderful man who ever lived.

Knox nodded. “In a manner of speaking.”

“What do you mean ‘in a manner of speaking’? Don’t be cryptic,” Lynn barked. “Where are they?”

“I met your father’s killers,” Knox Soilwork repeated, “but then, so did you.”

Lynn screwed up her face in confusion, her brow dropping low over her eyes. “What?”

“The High Priestess hired three men to remove your father and make way for Colonel Woomera, the Church agent she wanted to put in his place on the council. Colonel Woomera was used to manipulate—” Knox turned to the Administrator before looking back at Lynn, “– events. The men the High Priestess used to kill your father were mercenaries, men from the darkest corners of our society, men the Church had never used before and hired through proxies to keep the High Priestess distanced from the act. Your father managed to kill one of these men, but the other two escaped and eventually, when they realized we were looking for them, they found us instead. It seemed they wished to make amends, or at least the High Priestess had not been entirely faithful to their deal, and they wanted whatever vengeance they could have.”

“So you sent them on another mission as punishment,” Lynn said. “One that would let them make amends by helping to save the Territory.”

Knox Soilwork nodded.

“You told them to keep Squid safe and get him to Big Smoke, hoping he really would find the vaccine from the prophecy.”

Knox nodded again.

“Stix and Stownes,” Lynn said. “They killed my father.”

It was a statement rather than a question, but Knox nodded anyway, confirming Lynn’s suspicions. Oddly, she didn’t feel anything. She’d thought that when she finally learned the identity of those who had murdered her father, she would rage against them, the full force of her towering anger unleashed upon them like a torrent. Yet that was not how she felt. Instead she felt only an unexpected sense of closure, like somehow things had come full circle.

“They saved my life,” Lynn said, “more than once, probably.”

“As I said, I think they wanted to make amends for past actions. Perhaps they considered your safety as crucial as they did Squid’s after all?”

That hadn’t seemed to be the case when they’d been out there in the desert of the Territory and in the badlands beyond the fence, Lynn thought. Squid had said he needed to convince them to help rescue her from the pirates, but then, she had never really understood their motivation. That night, when she had sat and asked Mr. Stix exactly why they were doing what they were doing, she’d known there was more to the story than he was telling. Perhaps he had wanted to tell her more. Maybe he’d wanted to tell her they’d been responsible for her father’s death. Maybe they really wanted nothing more than to make up for their crimes, at least in some way.

“Now that my name is no longer mud in your eyes,” the Administrator said, “are you sure you don’t have any information about Squid?”

“Not mud?” Lynn said, turning her gaze back to the Administrator, determined to let her hostile glare reinforce her words. “Of course I still think your name is mud – worse than mud. I prefer to compare you with something else brown and mushy.”

“Lynnette, please,” Knox Soilwork said.

“You sent Squid and me into the east to get rid of us. You didn’t exactly make a secret of how much you wanted us gone, him in particular. Why?”

“The prophecy,” the Administrator said. “I did it because of the prophecy.”

“I don’t believe you,” Lynn said. She stepped toward the Administrator. “You wanted my friend dead. Why did you want my friend dead?”

Lynn pushed the Administrator again.

And then she felt the Administrator’s palm hit her full force across the side of her face. She stumbled, reeling from the unexpected blow, her ear ringing and her cheek beginning to burn angrily. She felt her eyes fill to the edge with watery tears. She told herself it was just from the force of being struck. Holding the side of her face, Lynn looked at the man in shock. “What in Ancestors’ sin?”

“I told you,” the Administrator said, his voice slow, his words deliberate and intimidating, “you will not touch me aga—”

Lynn balled her left hand into a fist and swung it with all the strength she had. She was usually right-handed so she was pleased with the amount of force she managed to generate. The crunch of the man’s nose, the shattering of cartilage, was loud enough to be heard by everyone standing nearby. In fact, everyone in the room had gone silent to watch the confrontation between the Administrator and the increasingly infamous Lynnette Hermannsburg. The punch hurt Lynn’s hand much more than she thought it would, and she held it cradled to her chest as the Administrator fell backward, catching himself awkwardly as he landed in a wooden chair.

“You little bitch,” he said, holding his nose. “I only regret not doing a better job of getting rid of you.”

Lynn’s anger gripped her and she went to pounce on him again but found that Clergy-General Provost had grabbed her arm.

“Lynnette,” he said, “look around.”

Lynn wrestled against him for a moment but then acquiesced, knowing it was futile. Besides, her curiosity was piqued. She looked at the faces of those watching her. Just as she had noted when she’d first arrived there were people from every walk of life the Territory had to offer. Holy Order clergymen stood beside men still wearing their Digger uniforms or who had pulled out old uniforms from wherever they had stored them when they retired. Men and women who looked as though they had never worked a hard day in their life stood beside those from the Gap, or maybe even beyond the Wall, whose hands were callused and worn. There were even children.

“There’re more of us spread around the city,” Provost said. “Cells of us. If all these people can come together, maybe you can find a way to put aside your differences with the Administrator, at least for now, at least until we achieve our goals.”

“And what exactly are those goals?” Lynn asked.

It was Knox who answered. “We want to stop the High Priestess and regain control of the Territory, but first we want to get those who have been left out in the slums inside the Wall before the horde arrives.”

This was exactly what Lynn wanted to achieve, and she knew she couldn’t do it alone.

“What do we need him for?” she said, pointing to the Administrator as he sat on the chair, leaning forward and trying to stop the blood dripping from his nose onto the floor.

“He is still the head of the rightful government of the Territory,” Knox said. “He has made some poor decisions and will need to live with the consequences of those actions, but he is a symbol of stability the people need. Will you still help us?”

Lynn looked at Knox.

“Of course,” she said.

“Good. Let’s fill you in.”

Knox led Lynn across the room to one of the stacks of maps and began explaining the layout of the city and possible entrance points. But even as all this was happening Lynn couldn’t help but turn her thoughts to Squid and Nim. Were they safe? Had they found the vaccine? Where were her friends? She wished they were here to help her with all this because despite Knox’s assurances that they were all on the same side, Lynn still couldn’t help but feel like she’d fallen into a pit of vipers.