The Earth Dwellers (13 page)

I don’t have time to wonder as the truck shudders to a stop and I feel the scramble of the soldiers as they jump out. “What the hell happened?” a gruff male voice barks.

“She’s not one of ours,” a female voice answers, stopping my heart. It’s over already. How did they know? “Must be part of another platoon.” My heart continues beating, albeit twice as fast as normal. I force myself to breathe evenly. She just meant I’m not part of her squad.

“Scan her,” the gruff voice orders. My jaw clenches. I’ve got no chip.

“Shouldn’t we get her to medical first? She’s hurt pretty badly, looks like a blow to the head. They’ll scan her there.”

There’s silence for a couple of seconds. “Okay, move her.” My jaw unclenches and I focus on keeping my eyes closed, my body relaxed and rubbery.

Someone pries off my mask. Hands pull me from either side, sliding me along the truck bed and onto something hard. I’m tempted to tighten my arms to my sides, but instead I let them flop down, hanging lifeless over the edge of the backboard. Someone lifts them up and crosses them over my chest. “Soldier, accompany me with her to medical,” the female voice orders.

“Yes, ma’am!”

And then I’m floating, drifting through space, being spirited away. What’s my next move? They don’t know I don’t have a chip—that it’s been cut out of me by the “enemy”. They don’t suspect a damn thing yet. But when I get to medical things will cascade pretty fast. When there’s nothing to scan, they’ll have plenty of questions for me, and I can’t fake unconsciousness forever. Nor is there time to. The Tri-Tribes and Tristan are counting on me to make a difference as soon as possible, maybe immediately.

I need a new identity. A chip.

I risk opening my eyes, just slits, seeing only darkness through my eyelashes. Close them again.

There’s a slight jolt and a quiver as I feel my legs angling higher than my head. We’re going up a ramp or steps. My legs drop back to level, and the heavy black behind my eyelids gives way to a dull yellow glow. Lights. I sneak another peek and see fluorescent lights above me, stark white walls on both sides, and the green-brown back of a dark-haired soldier in front of me. The woman who temporarily saved me, her hair falling halfway down her spine.

Is she the one who has to die so I can live?

I grit my teeth and silently promise myself I’ll do whatever I have to do to stop Lecter. After all, could any of his followers really be innocent? Surely many of the citizens are, but the soldiers?

But the first thing I have to do is ditch my escort. We turn a corner, head down another bright hallway, lined with doors on either side. They have signs on them. X-Rays, Exam Room C, Administration, Maintenance, Electrical Room, Exam Room D, etc. It’s the middle of the night and this place is empty, save for us, the hollow footsteps of the soldiers at my front and back echoing away. Do I make my move?

I wait, like a spider, watching my web for the perfect moment to pounce on my prey.

We pass through a doorway, into a large room, sparkling clean and smelling sterile with antiseptic. “Where is everyone?” the male soldier behind me says.

“At night they’re on call, and since there hasn’t been much action lately…” the senior officer says. “We’ll get her to a bed and then call someone.”

No one’s here. Not a single person except us. This might be my only shot. The doctor will have questions. Hard questions. I have to act now. Now. NOW!

I snap my eyes open and kick my legs back, clamping them to the head of the soldier behind me. Then I whip my ankles forward, pulling him over my head and onto the gurney with me. He cries out as our combined body weight brings the board down on top of the woman soldier, who stumbles.

His head’s in my lap, and I don’t waste any time. Two hard punches to the head and his tongue lolls out, his eyes rolling back in his skull.

The woman scrambles, tries to roll, to kick and fight her way out from underneath us, where her legs are pinned. I easily twist away first, push to my feet, and shake my whirling head to try to center myself. Then I kick her solidly in the face and she stops struggling.

My mind is cycling through my options. If I don’t kill them, it could really come back to bite me. But what if they’re like the sun dwellers, mindless drones operating under a system where the only thing they know is their little world, following orders without question. Do they deserve to die the same way that President Nailin did? The way Lecter does?

Time’s running away through my fingers as I comb a hand through my hair. Think, think, think. I need a chip. Should I take hers? Will she be missed right away? If I don’t kill them, will someone find them?

First, I take the backboard and lay it in a stack against the wall, trying to buy time, my mind racing.

I withdraw my knife, approach the woman. Hold it close to her neck. Take a deep breath. Lower it to her right arm, where Tristan sliced me open. Withdraw the blade.

No. She’s the leader of her platoon. People will know who she is. Her soldiers. Her superiors. I’ll be discovered too soon.

I should probably kill them, and I may be making my second mistake, like when I chose not to throw up in the truck, but I can’t. Not with them lying here, defenseless, when all they were trying to do was get me medical attention. I scan the room, locate a locker with a large cross on it. Supplies. Medical supplies. I rush over and thrust it open, quickly reading the labels. I recognize some of them. For pain. For fevers. Ah! Anesthesia. Needles with plungers, full of the stuff. Perfect.

I don’t know where to inject the fluid, so I roll up their sleeves and pick out the largest vein I can find in each of their arms, jam the needles into them, and press down hard on the plungers. Then, for good measure, I give them each a second dose. I hope it won’t kill them, but I need them out as long as possible—it’s a risk I have to take.

Next I rip the sheets off one of the beds and use my knife to methodically cut it into strips. Bind their hands and feet, tie them together. Gag their mouths. Remove their weapons: guns and knives and grenades.

Now where to stash them? There are plenty of closets around, but surely those are used on an almost daily basis. Not a good spot. The other rooms in the hall we came from? Probably used regularly, too, except for maybe…Electrical Room. Unless there’s a problem with the electricity, no one would go in there.

Feet first, I drag the guy to the doorway, peek to my right and then to my left, up and down the hall. Quiet. Empty. I slide him out, across the bare, white tile. There! Electrical Room. I jiggle the handle but it doesn’t open, feels locked. In frustration, I twist it again and shove with my shoulder.

It gives way and I barge through into darkness. Except for…a green, blinking light with shining letters above it: Effective.

We’re in business.

I drag the soldier inside, stop, feel around with my hands. The equipment with the green light has plenty of space behind it. I stuff him back there and return for his superior officer, doing the same with her. When I close the door behind me, I take a deep breath, steady myself against the wall, close my eyes for just a second.

I can do this.

Next step: get a chip. It has to be one from someone who won’t be missed, who won’t be able to rat me out.

I stride off down the hall, as if I belong, stopping only briefly to collect the weapons left behind by the unconscious soldiers.

The medical building is eerie at night, even more so because it’s so brightly lit and yet so empty. Surely there’s illness and accidents in the New City. Surely the residents need medical attention sometimes, even at night. Perhaps this is only for the army, whose actions, according to Wilde, have been confined to searching for the Tri-Tribes. Nothing particularly dangerous. No casualties, no injuries. Thus, an empty army medical ward at night.

I pass through a wide room labeled Eatery. There are long rows of white tables, benches on either side of them, attached with metal piping. I’m partway across when I hear it. Music. Well, sort of. Someone singing, just loud enough for the sound to carry through the unoccupied hallways.

Do I run in the other direction?

It’s a woman’s voice and I need a chip.

I make for the singing, crossing the rest of the cafeteria on tiptoes. Down another passage, the singing getting louder, clearer:

Rest, my darling,

Sleep, my darling,

Dream your cares away,

Do not fuss,

Do not cry,

The night is here to stay.

It’s coming from one of the rooms branching off from the hall I’m now in, but I can’t tell which one, the echoes distorting the direction of the sound.

First room, door closed. Move on.

Next room, open. Peek inside. Empty, except for shelves of supplies. A bucket. A mop. Cleaning liquids.

Third room, also closed. Singing getting louder still:

Travel down roads of gold,

My darling, Charity,

Don’t be scared, for you are bold,

Find your way back to me.

A lullaby. I recognize it. My mother sang it to me when I was little. A moon dweller lullaby. Could this woman be…a moon dweller? Tristan said many moon and star dwellers were tricked into coming above, to be used as the servants of the earth dwellers. To do all the work that the migrant sun dwellers didn’t want to do—that they weren’t used to doing. Cleaning, trash collection and disposal, food preparation…

I peek in the fourth room and she’s there, holding a mop, dabbing it in a water-filled bucket, squeezing it out. Sweeping it back and forth in circles on the floor, until the surface shines under the fluorescent lights. Wearing white linen pants and a white shirt, blond hair spilling down her back. Clearly not a soldier. Her back is to me. A cleaner. A servant. A chip.

Would anyone miss this woman? Maybe, but not the same way they’d miss an officer. Has fate brought me to her to use for my purposes? Do I have it in me to cut her open, to spill her blood, to stain her brilliantly white clothes? My earlier silent promise to myself rattles through my head.
Whatever I have to do…

I take a soundless step inside the room and she goes on mopping the floor, whistling now.

My fingers tighten on the knife in my belt, brush against the gun strapped beside it. Hot blood rushes through my veins, my heart pounding.

I take another step, my shadow trailing behind me.

A noise, high-pitched but not overly loud, rings out. Sort of throaty.

I freeze, take two quick steps back into the hallway. Duck behind the doorframe.

The woman stops whistling, props her mop against the wall. “Hush, my darling,” she coos, stepping to the side and reaching down over the railing of a small bassinet on wheels that I hadn’t noticed while focusing on the woman.

She picks up a child, a baby, no more than a few months old. Gently, ever so gently, she rocks it in her arms, once more singing the moon dweller lullaby, whisper soft.

I hold my breath the whole way through, barely blinking, entranced. When she places the baby back in the portable bed, I empty my lungs, the sound louder than I expected it to be.

The woman turns sharply, startled. “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was here.” She looks embarrassed, guilty, like
she’s
the one who’s not supposed to be here, rather than me.

“I’m,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady, like a soldier, “just making my rounds.”

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. A grim smile. What is she so worried about? Surely being here is her job.

“I—I know I’m not supposed to bring Charity to work, but I—” Her voice trails away as she looks at the baby sleeping beside her.

“Rules are rules,” I say in the sternest voice I can muster. I realize my hand’s still on my knife. Was I really considering slicing this woman open, potentially killing her? Baby or no baby, have things gotten so far out of control that I’d do that? Hurt an innocent woman?

“My husband—he’s not well. He can’t look after her while I’m at work. He can barely look after himself. I don’t have any other choice,” the woman pleads.

Does it matter if this woman dies? I wonder. Like the rest of us, her life is falling apart. Is one life more important than another? If I’m destined for greatness, to save lives, to kill a corrupt president, to overthrow a dictator, does that make my life more valuable than a woman who does nothing more than raise a child, care for a sick husband?

As long as blood’s running through my veins and my heart is beating,
yes
, it matters. Maybe more than anything. This woman is exactly who we’re fighting for. The Tri-Tribes, yeah, them too. The dwellers below. But not only them. This woman. Her child. Her sick husband. Those who can’t fight for themselves.

“It’s okay,” I say, softening my voice. Her eyes widen like it’s the last thing she expected me to say. “I won’t tell anyone.”