Afterland (35 page)

              Veronica frowns and I can tell that Smaller Sally’s words irritate her.

“Who put you in charge?”

              “Would you like to challenge it?” Smaller Sally says coldly.

              “Maybe I would,” Veronica responds.

              “Go ahead.”

              Veronica’s jaw tenses and she looks like she’s about to lash out, but instead she relaxes and says, “We don’t have time for this.”

“Good,” Smaller Sally responds and they both stand up and move to the opposite sides of their respective cells. I stand up and move to face Smaller Sally. She clenches and unclenches her fists slowly.

“Hey. You good?” I ask.

“Yeah.” She shoots a glance over at the neighboring cell. “I just really don’t like her.”

“Yeah, she’s a bit of a
—
wait a second,” I grin despite myself. “Are you jealous?”

“Of
Veronica?
” She raises her eyebrows and crosses her arms. “Why would I be jealous of Veronica?”

“She said she saved Mike’s life once.”

“Oh! No, no of course not. That’s the one reason I tolerate her. I just think that she feels too entitled.”

“Hmm.”

“I would never be jealous of another woman because of Mike. He’s mine.”

“Hmm.”

“He was mine back then too, just so you know.”

“Hmm.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“No, I do, I just find you very amusing.”

“Do you know what, Molly?”

“What?”

Before she can answer, Cecilia comes down the stairs and slams her gun against the wall to get our attention.

“Oy! Keep your mouths shut in there, you hear me? Where the hell’s Chris? Is he sleeping? Chris, Jesus Christ, are you drunk again?” She addresses the sleeping guard with the bottles strewn around him. “Chris, wake the hell up!” she shouts and fires a bullet into the wall right above his head. The five of us jump and Chris jolts awake.

“What the hell?..” he begins to say, still in a drunken stupor.

“Do your goddamn job and watch the damn prisoners,” Cecilia says coldly. “Next time I shoot, I won’t be missing your head. And as for you lot,” she turns to us, “keep quiet and don’t test your luck.” She gives each of us a cold stare in turn, then storms up the stairs in a manner somewhere in between regalism and mass destruction.

“Christ,” Chris says smoothing down his hair. He picks up his gun and shoots us a dirty look.

“You be quiet, you hear?” he says acidly even though none of us are saying anything and he has never heard us speak. He pulls out a can of chewing tobacco, throws some some in his mouth and begins pacing around in front of our cell, occasionally muttering, “Be quiet, be quiet, ya nasty foreigners
.
”
I find it ironic. We all come from the same country, at least at some point in our histories. There hasn’t been any travel since the Blast so he couldn’t have come from overseas. And besides, his accent is local. We sit in silence, observing him in silent intrigue. He chews and spits out half a can of tobacco and finally settles back down into his chair and falls asleep again, still muttering to himself: “Nasty foreigners. Be quiet, be quiet, ya…”

I turn to Smaller Sally.

“Did you notice that they didn’t search us?” I whisper. “All they took were our guns.”

“Yeah. It’s strange.”

“Do you think it’s too establish dominance?”

“How so?”

“They’re sending a message: we’re not afraid of you, no matter how armed you are.” Smaller Sally considers this and shrugs.

“Could be,” she says. “Could be.”

We continue sitting in silence.

“What about them?” I ask in a whisper so that our neighbors don’t hear, nodding towards the neighboring cell. “What do you know about the Sternmenschen?”

“Those three individually or the entire group?”

“Both”

“I don’t know much,” she sighs. “Mike rarely speaks about his time as a Sternmann and I never ask. All he says is that it’s more of a cult than anything else and that he wishes he could go back in time and take his initiation back. He always spits over his right shoulder when he mentions them.”

“Wow. He must really hate them, huh? Did he ever say anything more...specific? You know, for example, what makes them a cult or what their core principle is?”

“No.”

“Not even to you?”

“Not even to me.”

“Hmm.” I scoot over to the other side of the cell. “Hey,” I call out.

“What do you want?” Veronica answers.

“What were you guys doing here in the first place?”

“You know, somebody once told me that asking the wrong questions is like taking lies and trying to pretend that they are truths.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“We had business here.”

“Business, huh?” I pause for a moment. “What do you guys even do? I mean, what are the Sternmen?”

“Sternmenschen,” Veronica corrects me.

“Yes, the Sternmenschen: what do you do?”

“I can’t tell you that,” she says turning away.

“Why not?”

“It’s against the Codes.”

“The Codes?”

James scoffs.

“The Codes are supposed to be the sacred laws of the Sternmenschen. They’re like the Bible and they dictate how you live your life. They also don’t exist, but some crazy, dedicated Sternmenschen, like Veronica here, follow them anyway based off of thirteen years worth of folklore and Augustus’s compilations of bullshit.”

“The Codes are real, James, they were created by the original Sternmenschen to make sure their traditions lived on for generations,” Veronica responds calmly. “How can you call yourself a Sternmann if you don’t follow them?”

“The Codes are a myth that was invented by Augustus to control us.”

“Listen, James, I know that you have problems with Augustus, but that’s ridiculous.”

“This is beyond my problems with Augustus.” James is getting progressively more irritable while Veronica keeps her cool. It seems almost like she has escaped into a different reality.

“I follow the Codes. If you have a problem with that, you can face the consequences yourself.”

“Maybe I will,” James says and turns back to me. “You want to know what the Sternmenschen are about? I’ll tell you. I got nothing to lose. The goal of the Sternmenschen is to live life properly and to the fullest.”

“That sounds like Buddhism,” Smaller Sally calls from her corner.

“I suppose at first it does. But it’s not. The thing about Sternmannship is that you’re supposed to follow a very specific set of rules. Supposedly, these rules originated with the Codes, but the truth is, they originated when Augustus got drunk on power. Most of them aren’t unreasonable at all. In fact, many of them are beneficial and many are just so specific and unnecessary that you wouldn’t ever encounter them. But the thing that bothers me about them is the fact that Augustus invented them because he
can
. He’s the only one of us who knew the original Sternmenschen and that gives him power to say what he wants. Supposed Code number thirty-seven: The truth is the truth no matter how and from whom it is uttered and a lie is a lie no matter in what form it is brought to the world. Code number nineteen: A lie will be discovered because the truth is the only rightful tenant of this world. Code forty-five: If a lie is uttered, you must ignore the lie and live life without it, because a heart of lies can not be a heart of life. Augustus is a liar and his lies are catching up with him.”

“Oh,” I say more because I’m not sure what else to say than because I understood anything that he said. We don’t say anything for a long time.

“Code number one,” Veronica says after what must have been at least an hour. “The first code. Everything has meaning and your life is one million chances to change the world. Code one hundred and twenty seven. The last code. From the stardust we have come, to the stardust we shall go.” Nobody says anything and Veronica repeats it again. The words sound strange in her mouth, almost as if she is realizing for the first time that she hates her favorite food.

“From the stardust we have come, to the stardust we shall go.”

CHAPTER 24

              Unwillingly, I begin to doze off. My sleep is restless and interrupted. My knife lies heavily on chest and my back protests the hard ground. But most of all, anticipation of the following morning keeps me up. This is the first time my life has been placed into my hands and I have such an easy chance to drop it. For the first time I realize how fragile my survival is. I always considered my existence a fact. I never really imagined it any other way. How could it be any other way? Of course, I understood and envisioned my own death constantly and the girl dying in my imagination was always me currently, but I realize now that I never actually believed in those visions and most importantly, I never saw my cause of death as preventable, Nothing I did would have saved me. Now, my next move dictates whether I live or die.

I had excused myself from death, in a way, by telling myself that my life and my death were on two different levels. But they’re not. Death is just as blunt and human as life.

I shift uncomfortably in the cell and doze back off.

I wake up about some time before Carviates come to sacrifice us and I don’t fall asleep again. I’m not sure what time it is because sunlight doesn’t reach the dungeons. Smaller Sally is awake as well. When she sees me stir, she squeezes my arm and mouths,
It’ll be all right.
I smile weakly and finger the chain that holds the knife around my neck.

I hope so,
I mouth back.

I promise,
she responds and crosses her heart.

The dungeon is silent except for the slow dripping of water in the distance and Chris muttering quietly in his sleep. Always the same words:
Be quiet, be quiet, ya nasty foreigners.
Time seems to drag on forever. I turn over my knife and make sure that it is in easy access, drawing it and out of its sheath several times. I watch the torches flickering and fading and wait for the Carviates to arrive.

My stomach rumbles. We haven’t eaten since yesterday and I’m hungry. The Rebellion must have noticed that we’re missing by now. I wonder if they’re searching for us. Their searches will never amount to anything, of course.

I think of Mike. What must he be thinking right now? Is he happy that I’m gone and that he no longer has to make decisions on my life? Is he relieved that I’ve effectively done his job for him?

I shiver a little and press farther into the corner.

After what seems like an eternity of waiting, we hear footsteps echoing down the hall. The priests. By then, Veronica and James have woken up. Drew hasn’t. He lies in a corner of their cell and coughs occasionally. I begin to doubt that he will ever wake.

“Rise,” one of the Carviates announces. His voice is deep and solemn and seems to raise the air pressure in the dungeon. The five of us are already on our feet, James supporting the semi conscious Drew, but we stand straighter at the Carviate’s word. My heart flutters in my chest. One of the Carviates pulls a heavy metal key from his belt and unlocks our cell doors.

“Come,” he says. We silently follow them out. Every instinct in my body screams to run away, but I quietly walk in the direction of my death, following the blind hope that our plan will work.

Drew drags his leg behind him. It looks worse than it did before. I cringe at how badly it is swollen. It needs to be treated as soon as possible, but before anything can be done about Drew, we need to get out of this city.

I raise my eyebrows at Smaller Sally as if to ask,
now?
She shakes her head.
Not yet.
We keep moving.

I take this time to examine our captors. Both of them are wearing thick black cloaks and walk in a way that makes it look almost like they are floating. They are shaved and tattooed just like the rest of the Carviates. I notice that they both have a diamond piercing in the cartilage of their right ear.

Everything about the Carviates is so efficient, so organized, so coordinated. That’s why they didn’t take away our weapons. They didn’t need to. Their plans, their rituals, aren’t endangered by us. All of that scares me more than the fact that they worship death.

We follow them through a maze of underground tunnels, all dimly illuminated by torches. I start to lose track of how many turns we’ve made and I realize that we won’t be able to find our way out alone. I shudder at the thought of dying here, forgotten in the dark. Smaller Sally seems to be thinking the same thing and she keeps her hands at her waist, not signaling us to attack.