Rebels (16 page)

Kane and I crouch behind a mound of scrap and wait for the signal. We left our air speeders outside the tunnel entrance and trekked down here on foot. My hand mutes the earfeed. “What were you thinking?” I spit.

“Calm down,” he says, covering his own.

“Now we'll both get bad placements if you survive this.”

“I don't care,” he says. “Do you understand?”

I've never heard Kane like this. His intensity shuts me up quick. “I don't care about my placement, Lex. Don't you get that? I never have. I could have gotten myself kicked out of the Academy long ago.”

“Why didn't you?”

He doesn't say anything back. He doesn't have to. I can see the answer in his eyes.

I don't need you
, I want to say.
I don't need anybody.

The earfeed buzzes a mission update alert.

“You will infiltrate the headquarters and take recon. Other cadets, take positions bordering the area. Cadet Lex and Cadet Kane, we will await your signal. Understood?”

“Absolutely,” I say.

Silence.

“Kane?” says Cassina.

“Copy,” he repeats, though his silence already said everything.

“Good. Then stabilize and await four count,” says Cassina, having regained a measure of self-delusional swagger. Kane and I stare at each other, both holding our breath.

“Four . . . three . . .”

Instantly, we rush for the target, our bodies hunched low in the dark. We stop, push up against a slab of rock. I check coordinates
on my wrist monitor. “Less than ten feet around this corner,” I say. “You ready?”

“For anything,” he says.

Then he grins. The lip curls. It's exactly what I need. The power surges up through me.

We sprint from cover and don't stop until we reach a tall building jutting out from the side of the tunnel. It's then I realize the tunnel is a wide boulevard. There are thousands of tracks trampled into the earth, all migrating here. Most of them are fresh.

The building was white once, in the long, long ago, and the front steeples up. At the top hangs a large, rusty bell. If you rang it, it would probably fall and smash through to ground level—that's what condition this place is in.

The dirt scavengers hide in this house of worship. Wooden shingles hang like broken teeth. Dust storms have torn gaping holes in the roof. What remains was blackened by fire.

Just like a Rock Bottomer
, I think.
Taking something nice and sucking the beauty right out of it.

Kane and I could sit here and let time solve our problem for us. One blast to the bell and it would fall, maybe destabilize the whole structure. Seal the scavs and their blasted leader inside.

That's when we hear the grating notes. Clanking and banging so loud I think my ears might split open.

I freeze for a second.

“Are you okay?” says Kane

“Of course,” I say as my blaster hums to full power. Kane has his at the ready, too, as we skirt the perimeter until we find a broken window along the side.

I clear away the glass shards with the butt end of my blaster—the racket coming from inside so loud you couldn't hear a transporter landing—then sling my weapon back over my shoulder.

I reach up, bracing myself on the edges of the opening.

“Wait,” says Kane. I feel his hand on my back. “I'll go first.”

I turn around. “No way,” I say. “I have to go first, you know that. That's the assignment. I'm First Cadet.”

He nods but doesn't take away his hand. I look straight in his eyes. “I'm glad, though. That you came with me.”

Kane nods and boosts me up.

I drop down into the pitch-black. He lands beside me and we stay crouched on the sticky floor.

“I can't see anything,” yells Kane. The music—if you could call it that—is louder. I feel my teeth vibrating. “Should I turn on our beamers?”

“No,” I say. “It'll give us away. Just follow me. And stay close.” He rolls his eyes like he always does when he thinks I'm being bossy. “And don't make that face either.” He almost grins.

We scuttle along the ground, pushing through garbage and debris. My hands are coated in a thick, sticky fluid. I cut my leg on something sharp. Straight through my uniform. I see the blood rising through my silitex. I know the wound is deep.
This must hurt
, I think.

All I feel is electricity running through my body.

Kane tries to give Cassina information through his earfeed. It's useless. We can't even hear ourselves think, that's how loud it is.

The clanging and grinding is overwhelming, inescapable. My temples throb.

Kane grabs my foot. He means
stop
. I know him that well. I turn to look at him. Something is about to happen. I know that's what he's thinking.

Be careful.

Light bursts from the monstrous gaping hole in front of us, a fiery mouth blazing inches from our faces.

Kane and I look at each other. His eyes are wild, his face lit up bright.

I trust you more than anyone in the world
, I think.
And I hate that. That I need to depend on anyone.

We rise to our feet at the same time, blasters aimed.

Now or never.

Together, we rush into the light.

◊  ◊  ◊

It's too much to take in all at once. I feel something snap in my brain. I circle the room with my eyes, trying to get my bearings, trying to keep my cool when everything I see is horrible and new. They never taught us about this.

I wonder if I'm going crazy.

The screeching music is coming from the top of the huge cavern. An enormous pipe organ hangs from the ceiling, a man pummeling the keys like he's committing murder.

They're all dancing. Horrible, disfigured bodies writhing together. If you totaled up all their missing limbs, you could probably build a dozen more of these scavs. An old man is speaking to a half-naked woman. He opens his mouth wide, showing rotted teeth and half a blackened tongue. The woman is huge, her fat gathered in strange, uneven lumps on her body. She laughs at us through bright pink lips. Her laugh sounds more like a backfiring speeder.

Someone passes a bottle to a man with a scarred face. He gulps it down, then smashes it on his companion's head. Bright red blood squirts from the wound. No one takes notice except us. The scarred face erupts into cackles and moves on.

Over his head sails a firebomb.

A bare-chested man with an exoskeleton mutation hunkers nearby, parts of his heavy bone structure outside instead of in. The firebomb breaks on his back. Instantly, he's on fire. He makes a hollow, shrieking sound and the flesh melts beneath his bones.

Above, the man continues to play music. Below, everyone keeps dancing.

Next to me, Kane tries to keep his breathing steady. I can't unsee this either—the true face of the scavs, the savagery of Rock Bottom—but I can make it no longer exist. Which one is the leader, I couldn't begin to guess. If we are to survive, we'll probably have to take them all down.

Then a loud moan echoes through the room. Loud enough to hear over the music. It doesn't seem human. Everything stops. Heads turn in our direction. We've been spotted.

Everyone is looking at us. The ones with no eyes stare through empty sockets.

Then they're coming. For us. All of them. All at once.

“Now,” I say to Kane, our blasters already aimed. Our blasters are the loudest music of all.

If that organist doesn't stop playing, I'll go mad. Kane's shooting at their feet, keeping them away, while I aim at the organ on the balcony. It's so patched together, the support struts are calling my name. I'll feel stupid if I don't do this, and probably die, too. You have to take advantage of every opportunity your environment affords.

I blast the first strut and the rusty metal snaps. The organist plays a harsh cord as the balcony shifts, and that might be enough to bring it down, but I'm not interested in half measures. I blast the other strut and it doesn't take but one second for the organ's massive weight to bring it all down. Kane sees what I'm doing and he's backpedaling with me.

The organ tears a hole through the floor, and the sound of its destruction—of colliding metal and rending and groaning—is the best thing I've heard so far. Except now the scavs not caught under the organ are running crazed out of their minds straight for us.

I take out the closest one and the blast sends him flying through the cloud of devastation.

For a second, I feel sick. Until I remember they aren't human. They're Rock Bottom. And it's them or it's me.

I hear a blast and an enormous man stops suddenly, so close his hot breath fogs my face shield. He's covered in hair, even his face. The hair on his chest is smoking and smells like burned rations. His eyes roll backward, and the rest of his body follows.

I turn. Kane's face is a mask of fury, his blaster fuming. He gives me a look. “Careful, Lex!” he says, just as two blistered arms wrap around his waist.

They belong to a shriveled old lady. She's strong—only survivors live long down here—pulling him to the ground. Instantly, two men are on him, kicking and bellowing. Spittle launches from their mouths. Kane groans. A bodysuit and face shield can only protect him so much. I aim my blaster, but something's got me by the arm.

I spin, coming face-to-face with my attacker, only his is half a face. He screams and Kane screams, and my miscalculation—my appetite for destruction—has put my best friend at death's door.

I slam my head against his half face, and pus and blood smear against my face shield. His scream's cut short by my blaster. The guys pummeling Kane are next to fall. Kane rolls over, pretty ragged, but manages to get on his feet with my help. I won't let go.

“Welcome to the Lower Levels,” he mutters.

The chaos I've created has done something right. The scavs have turned on each other. They haven't forgotten us either, but they're willing to kill anything within reach to . . . to . . . I don't understand them. Any of this.

Back-to-back, the weight of each other propping us up, Kane and I blast full force at everything in sight. We give it everything we got. As soon as one falls, another is coming.

“What do we do?” I say.

“Mission Captain! We need backup!” shouts Kane into the earfeed. “We need backup!”

No answer. They won't come without the signal. Maybe the earfeed has been compromised. Or maybe they're ignoring us. After the head butt to pus face, all I get is static in my ear.

The room is roaring. My head throbs like it might explode.

Then I get it
.

“The sound paint!” I scream.

“The what?”

I turn to him, still blasting. The blaster's energy bar is flashing red. I'm going to run out of a charge real soon. I flip open my face shield. “
Sound paint!
” I shout.
“Sound! Paint!”

His face lights up through the drying blood. He always carries some, even here. Even though we're prohibited from carrying personal items. How he snuck it in past the instructors and the sensors, now that's a secret he'd delight in not telling me.

My blaster stops firing, and even spent, I can use it as a club. I crack a scav in the head, but another rips the dead blaster out of my hands. Kane hands his off in my gut, and I shield him and keep firing. Hope still lives in this hopeless place. The blaster is the only instrument I've ever played, but I'm sure it's the most beautiful in all of Indra.

I look over at Kane. He's the same twelve-year-old I met, with the same face, aged some but more confident. I think he's even having fun. He's always known how to do that.

His arm is lifted high and he takes a deep breath before he starts spraying.

Instantly, there's color.

Not the colors of my laugh, no purples or blues. Not the swirling reds and amber on his
Book of Indra
, but colors I've never seen. Colors I hope never to see again.

The color of rot and decay. Infected yellows and festering greens.

The first sound cloud rises. I hold my breath because the mixture of the sight and the smell is enough to make my eyes bleed.

Fists freeze in midair, and finally, there's dumbfounded silence.

I love this silence so much. . . .

At least until mayhem returns. It turns out even scavs get scared. Or maybe they're screaming in excitement. Or just for the sake of screaming.

Kane keeps spraying. The painting becomes more putrid and cancerous, a sickening feedback loop between artist and subject.

No one knows what's happening. There's no art down here. Nothing worth living for, so they devote themselves to destruction.

We can't see in front of our faces, and the scavs are swiping their deformed hands and half limbs at the colors, bellowing in confusion and amazement.

As the volume increases, new clouds erupt and spread. Kane is a craftsman. The room is thick with color.

“C'mon,” says Kane, grabbing my hand. I blast a hole in the church wall and we charge through. We keep running, me leading the way because Kane's eyes haven't adjusted to the darkness yet. We stop and Kane tries his earfeed.

“Mission Captain?” says Kane “Hello? Anyone copy?” He looks at me. “Forget this. We gotta go. Before the colors die out. I only have one canister. There's hardly any left.”

“Wait,” I say. “We didn't take out the leader.”

“We can't go in there again. Not without backup.”

“No!” I say. “We have to!” He grabs my arm.

“Stop, Lex. Don't be an idiot.”

I shake him off. “We have to finish the mission!”

“We did our part!” he screams in my face.

We glare at each other. He won't back down and I won't either.