Rebels (36 page)

As the scavs thin out, my focus is drawn through the fog to the creature wading through the strangers, a head taller than any of these cave dwellers.

I have never seen a more hideous creature, not in the Archives, not even in my imagination. Perhaps somewhere in the layers of time, its genetics started off as human, but it has mutated into a nightmarish beast. Its face droops and is swollen and bulbous, its hair only stringy patches. Its flesh is riddled with sores from the shoulders down. It opens the cavity of its mouth—a black cave of spittle and rot—and screams again.

The scream is answered by another. And another. Their fractured voices have shattered the Safe Zone with thunder. They're hunting us. Always something is hunting us.

Move
, I think, yet my legs won't obey. The first creature spots me, its motions no longer aimless. It holds a rust-eaten harpoon, which it lifts over its shoulder as it aims.

A mutation. That's the word for this thing. That is the name on the scavs' mouths, the same as the name of my death. Blaster fire erupts, and I can only assume it is Zavier and the rebels coming to
our defense. But this blaster sounds unlike any I have ever heard, booming through the cavern. Rock blows out from the walls and the surviving mutations roar even louder.

I should draw my zinger. I should. I really should.

The harpoon goes flying, quicker than I can grab my next breath. It will spear me, then drag me back to its feet for . . . feeding?

My legs give out as someone shoves me down from behind. Woozy, I pull myself to my feet. The harpoon has missed me and plunged deep into the chest of another. The mutation drags its victim toward it, leaving a trail of blood behind. The creature roars. The body bumps across the rocky terrain.

I dash toward the harpoon line. I grab the line in front of the body and pull it with all my might.

The mutation howls at me defiantly, the other end of the line held in its grasp. The cord burns my palms as we struggle for control.

I pull the zinger from under my cloak and strike the taut line.

The creature falls backward, landing with an impact I feel under my feet. It moans and tosses itself from side to side, a writhing mass struggling to get back on the disfigured stumps it uses for feet. It will get there if I let it. It has survived this long in the toxic wastelands; it will always find a way.

I sprint at the fallen creature. The zinger plays furiously, my first full melody, a moment for which I should feel accomplished, as the mutation's monstrous head separates from its body.

Lex
, I think, as it rolls over toward my feet,
what have I done?

Hauser's ventilator nearly deafens me. I see him light up a mutation, and it explodes along an upper ridge. I quickly draw my blaster and get him in my sights. Hauser, you can't miss him, is drawing down on another mutation, marching along the same boulevard that we entered from. It's long and lean and its face is all exposed bone. I could take it out, but this might be my only chance at Hauser. I've got him right in my sights.

I pull the trigger.

My blaster doesn't fire. I keep pulling the trigger and nothing's happening. My blaster's got no charge left. In fact, it doesn't even have an energy clip. Someone must have . . .

Hauser . . .

He's already blasted the second mutation when I hear the third's death cry. It distracts me, and Hauser sees that I intended to gun him down and he's in the wind. I made my choice, and now, someone has paid for it. I wasn't there to protect her.

The scav cowards crawl out of their hiding holes. They all want to get a good look. The harpoon is still lodged firmly in her back, and I can't remove it until I'm sure how badly she's hurt. The rocky soil collects the blood leaking from the wound, and the puddle keeps growing larger.

Samantha.

The best I can do is roll her onto her side. I take her pulse and it's weak, but I swear I can feel something.

“You're fine,” I say. “We'll get you patched up and . . .”

Her eyes start to close.

I yell Livia's name. She's knocking past the gawkers and fighting her way to me.

She kneels beside me and lays her hands on Samantha's body. I hold Samantha's head in my lap. Blood leaks from her mouth to my hand. She's growing colder. Livia's hands won't stay still and I know something's not right. She takes the harpoon out slowly and . . . I can see Samantha's life leaking out. Livia gets her hands right in and she's trying to help, tears of frustration working up, but, “She's dead.”

I push her out of the way and lay my hands over the wound. There must be something I can do, some way to pull her back together. The only warmth I feel is her blood

Then I'm crying. Out there for all to see. I don't care. I'm crying and I don't try to stop.

Livia wraps her arms around me from behind. “I am so sorry, Lex,” she whispers into my ear.

“No!”

“Yes,” she says. “You have to let her go now.”

Samantha believed there was beauty here. She was wrong. There is only death. There is nothing worth saving.

I bury my face in Livia's cloak, sobbing like a child. She rocks me.

“We need . . . to take the . . . body,” I blubber. I can feel the scavs approaching. I won't let them take more from her than they've already got.

“We will,” she says. “We will do it together.”

Through my tears I see one, a small one, stroking Samantha's hair. It's the little girl with one arm. She pushes 374's hair back with
her one hand. She cleans the blood from Samantha's lifeless face with a rag.

There are others who gather around her body, seeing to her appearance. Children, all of them. One takes the cloak from his back and wraps it around her. These disfigured children see to her dignity in a way I didn't think possible.

They all have genetic flaws. One is missing an eye. A ruby scar winds across the bridge of another's nose to the side of her neck. There are misshapen teeth in their cracked mouths and one has a cleft palate. Freckles and birthmarks, more than I can count.

In the Islands, this is all cosmetic work. But these guys never had access to that tech. They wouldn't have lasted a day in the Orphanage. In fact, they probably didn't. Maybe they were sent back here, just like Samantha. Maybe they never got to leave in the first place.

The adults stay away, but the children keep coming to pay their respects. How many has she helped?

The one with one arm takes my hand and strokes it with her soft little thumb.

“Don't worry,” she tells me. “We'll take her somewhere she liked. A pretty place. She'll rest there forever and ever.” She stares at me and her eyes are very clear and blue.

“Don't cry anymore. She wouldn't have wanted that, Lex.”

I look down, shocked. “How did you know my name?”

“Samantha told us you were coming. That you'd be able to help us more than she could even hope to.”

The Safe Zone is deserted now, which makes our escape faster. It's still horribly unwelcoming, and we must watch out for more mutations.

At the far border, the neon dies and the dark caverns hide evidence of old settlements and the old battles fought over them. There are still residents, but they don't emerge as we pass through. They live alone for reasons we don't need to question, and it should be left that way.

Zavier moves quickly. I race to keep up, grabbing Lex and pulling hard, afraid we might lose him for good.

Lex doesn't argue. She's gone somewhere else.

And I know, if I don't distract him, Zavier could leave us as well. He's taking Samantha's death about as well as Lex. We cannot keep running. We have already lost Kane and Roscoe and the rest in our flight. We're left to hope for the best, but already I prepare for the worst.

“How did it become that way?” I ask.

“Chemical contamination. Toxic waste. Where do you think Indra sends it? Every day more are corrupted and babies are born with defects. That mutation was probably just born that way, their broken genetics damaged long ago in their lineage. The way they fight, I almost feel they were here first. I can take you to see them if you're so concerned. But even Samantha didn't have the heart for that.”

“Indra has clean-burning fuel. Radioactive materials have been banned since the Great Catastrophe,” I say.

“You can eat up all that make-believe you like. Your air may be clean, but the core is getting hotter. The earth's just dying from the inside now. That way, you can't see it as good from up in the air. It's time for you to stop thinking about yourself for once.”

“I wasn't aware.”

“So let me make you be more aware. Anything undesirable goes here. And the people who live here? They matter even less. And that, citizen of the great and honorable Indra, is the gift you've given us.” His hate tires him out. “Does that answer your question?”

Before I know it, Lex snatches Zavier up by his collar. “What do you know, you arrogant, pompous ass? What do you know about
my
people? Or me, for that matter?”

I have never seen her this furious, and Lex, as I have come to realize, does not save her fury for special occasions.

“I know what you're capable of,” he says, screaming right back. “I know that you kill without batting an eyelash!”

“In cold blood, yes, exactly as we were taught. We kill Emils and Alicias and Samanthas without regard.”

“Exactly!” he bellows. “Finally! You admit it! You'd already blown his craft to pieces, but it wasn't enough. So you landed right there—”

“You're a maniac.”

“In fact,
stole
one of our crafts, after you'd already broken treaty in
our
territory.”

“Your territory?!”

“He's protecting the only territory we have and you and your rebel-hating compatriots take him out. By the time you land, he's trapped in his own craft, and what do you do? Someone gives the orders to blast him right in his scav head!”

They stare at each other.

“Hey,” I say, seeing my chance, “perhaps it would be wise to take a moment and—”

“I wasn't there,” she says, ignoring me. “I didn't give any orders. I was an apprentice on monitor. I saw the ship lying in wait and told them where it was. Before
they
got blasted. I didn't pull the trigger! End of story.”

He glares at her, and I sense him wanting to believe what she's saying. But there are old wounds rising to the surface; he cannot trust her, even if he wants to.

I realize she's forcing herself to remain calm and reasonable. “An enemy craft? Look. An apprentice doesn't plan missions. I didn't even know who the enemies even were yet.”

“You should always know your enemy.”

“I would've done things differently, okay? If I'd planned that mission.”

“Exactly,” he says. “
That
mission. There's been more since. They're probably planning one right now. To come down here and do away with anyone who crosses their path. Guilty or not. That's the mission, isn't it?
Your
mission.” He shakes his head. “You have a lot to be proud of, Lex. You can kill without remorse.”

So much for being reasonable.

“Do you think you're the only one who's ever lost someone?” She pummels his chest, but he's stronger, gripping her wrists and holding them to her sides.

I feel her pain course through me, watch her fight against restraints she cannot break. I want to run over, jump between them.

I use every bit of strength I have not to.

I have battles I don't want her to fight for me, and she doesn't want me in this one.

This had to happen
, I tell myself,
and now you must allow it to run its course.

“Samantha,” she says, breaking down. “I had her, after all those years. I had her back. And now she's gone.”

“I lost her too, okay?” says Zavier. “I lost her too. . . .”

Lex stops fighting, and he eases up his grip, but doesn't let go. “Lex,” he says. She turns her head away. He chases her gaze until she has nowhere else to look. I can see where there should be a bond deepening between them, to be filled with grief that they can share. But they are too hardheaded to acknowledge that neither's pain is greater, that each is dealing with the same thing.

“She was my friend,” Lex says.

“She was my sister,” says Zavier softly. “Once we found each other, I always looked out for her down here, and now she is gone, gone forever.”

She was my sister.

“How's that possible?” I say, pulling away from Zavier. “Siblings are illegal.”

“This is Rock Bottom,” he says. “Nothing's illegal. There's no EX2 pill. Some siblings even have different fathers or mothers. And some are just left on their own. There's no
Book of Indra
telling us what to do. We already know what to do. Survive.” He shakes his head, his face hard. “You are so naive,” he tells me.

I can't think of anything to say. I hate that he's right.

After that, he doesn't speak. Neither do I. Livia starts to say something, but one look from me shuts her up quick.

The tunnel we travel on eventually becomes a street, just like I saw in the Final Sim, except no church, and the residents are right out in the open. It looks safe, but I hold my blaster like a club just in case. Hauser's out there, I know it.

We follow Zavier, past places with signs like “Old Town Electrodes” and “Bargain Rations and Blasters.” We catch the curiosity of everyone we pass.

“Ignore them,” Zavier says.
You had a sister
, I think. “They won't bother us. They're sympathetic to our fight.”
You had a sister, just like me
.