The Other Side (21 page)

Two
mornings later, T-Clef wakes me up by yanking out my earplugs and yelling, “Vincent says you're better!” She jerks me up and lets me out of my handcuffs. “We'll see!”

She punches me hard in the face. She'd warned me about it the night before—said it would have to be real, enough to draw blood—but it's still an effort to apologize as she stands there over me, celebrating her performance for everybody in the barracks.

“What was that? I didn't hear you!”

I lick blood from my lips like I'm supposed to. “I'm sorry.”

She helps me to my feet and gives me a hug. “We're on the level now, Missy C.”

I get some nods and handshakes from the others. James,
sitting cross-legged on his cot, reading
The Art of War
by Sun Tzu, seems oblivious. Except for a few cursory hellos and a not-a-big-deal shrug when I thanked him for the earplugs, he's acted like I don't exist.

I don't understand him.

In the arena, I'm given a railshot and allowed to shred mannequins with the others. It's soothing, except when Vincent's giving me tips. He doesn't sound or look a thing like Colin, but it doesn't matter. . . . It takes a little longer each time to look at the mannequin at the end of my gun and not see him.

I try to contact Grackel, but she remains unresponsive. “Kill emotion,” I remind myself, and fire off my next shot.

Kill shot.

Today, we pair up on our dragons for what Vincent calls blitz runs, where the gunner shoots at targets affixed to stalactites and outcroppings with a machine gun armed with digital tracers. Scores are based on accuracy and flight time.

Since there's a new element in Praxus's Posse—me—Vincent mixes us in and out to find the best combination.

I'm hoping for T-Clef, but we both are good fliers and not so good at shooting shit on the fly. I do better with Grizzly B, though he shouts percussion beats between gunfire riffs that annoy both Praxus and me.

On my fifth round, I'm paired with our fastest flier and
most accurate shooter.

James gives me the token high-five he gives everybody. “Let's do this, Callahan.”

Callahan? That's a new twist. “Fast,” I say, striding into the cage.

I fly. He shoots. For once, I refrain from taunting Praxus, from encouraging him at all to make haste. Vincent insists that we do all our training unlinked—practicing blindfolded, he calls it—but even though Praxus can't read my thoughts, he must somehow sense them, because that vengeful fucker goes warp speed the entire way.

Good job,
Praxus says to me, glowing with delight as James and I swap seats. For our second run, I shoot at everything but the targets. Worst score of the day. Doesn't matter. Our previous one set an arena record.

That night, my earplugs in but unable to sleep, something occurs to me. In our first run, knowing that we'd be paired if things went well, James didn't miss a single target.

We more or less repeat the same routine every day. Breakfast, shoot, fly, lunch, tactical training, workout, dinner. The tactical stuff involves games of laser tag in the arena or skulking through darkened prayer centers to take out lurking dummies. The workouts—running down the understate or carrying/dragging mannequins around the arena between
sets of push-ups and lunges and bear crawls—suck in the best possible way.

It's all an addictive roller coaster of adrenaline and exhaustion that kills emotion better than alcohol ever did. Except when I get off and look around, I'm in the same goddamn place I've always been.

Lost.

Fucked.

After dinner, we return to our respective barracks. Most play games, a few read. I stick to the card group, because they're the most talkative. Even though it's mostly banter, bragging, and flirtation, I have picked up some information along the way: it's been more than two months since they've gone on an op, Klyv's riders are still down south because they're “bonding” with a new dragon, O.J.'s struggling with detox. . . .

Nothing about Allie, but I keep playing because it's better than the quiet.

Tonight Fattie's in a foul mood, in part because I just put him in the basement in our hearts game by shooting the moon. Also shot him dead a couple of times in our laser-tag elimination match this afternoon.

Doesn't help that T-Clef keeps reminding him. “How's it feel to be in last, Burly B . . . again? Better pick up the pace, or you gonna be running janitor on the halls while the rest of us are lighting the fires.”

“Imaginary fires,” Grizzly B says, thrumming his cards against the table.

“Waiting for the storm to die down,” Skinny says. He looks over his shoulder. “Appear weak when you're strong, right, bro?”

James doesn't look up from his book, but gives a thumbs-up. I focus on my cards.

“Come over here so I can whoop your ass,” T-Clef says.

“Maybe next time,” James says, which is what he says every time.

“He wants you to ask,” she says to me.

I kick her under the table. “Maybe next time.”

Skinny passes me three cards, gives me a wink. Even before I look at them, I know one is the queen of spades. It used to be a barb, but now we're an alliance against T-Clef and Grizzly B. Tonight, however, I'm playing for me.

“I miss the sky flies,” Fattie says, playing the two of clubs.

“The acoustics in the tunnels are kickin',” Grizzly B says.

Fattie flips him off. “Don't give me your silver-lining horseshit.”

“Missy C ruined it for the rest of us.” T-Clef stands up, hips on her fists, head turned sideways in a superhero pose. “I'm Missy C. My first flight out, I'm going to attack an entire squadron of dragon jets. Because I am awesome.”

I laugh. “It wasn't my idea.”

Skinny rolls his eyes. “That's right. Blame Praxus.”

Fattie frowns. “Praxus just wanted to get his shine up for a pretty girl.”

T-Clef mimes sweeping the floor. “Can't blame a brother for good taste.”

“O.J. would let us out there,” Fattie says.

“O.J. gets things got,” T-Clef says.

“Technically, it was Dragon Slayer over here who got Klyv,” Grizzly B says. I flip him off.

Fattie leads with the ace of diamonds. “I'm not here to play laser tag.”

T-Clef dumps a king of hearts on Fattie's ace. “You're here to pick up the cards, Burly B.”

“If Vincent thinks he can distract us with some stupid games—dammit, Missy C!” he says as I throw my queen of spades on the pile.

“That's gonna put you out.” I grin at his scowl. “You owe me a picture.”

“Right now,” T-Clef says. She stands on her chair. “Hey, posse, we're gonna add a plus one.”

Most everybody bounds from their beds or leaps up from their chairs and files out the door.

“You coming, flyboy?” T-Clef says.

James gives a slight shake of his head to her, then a slight nod to me. “Good job, Callahan.”

“Thanks, Everett,” I say.

“When you guys gonna stop being awkward?” T-Clef says, pulling me out the door.

“When you gonna stop asking?”

“You like him, right?”

I shrug.

“What would your CENSIR say?” she asks.

It doesn't matter. We fly well together, we make a good team whenever we're in the same tactical group, but the rare pleasantries we exchange come at a distance.

I need to keep my distance.

We join the others outside the prayer center, where Fattie's already at work. He sucks at cards, he's a middling flier on his best days, but he's a wizard with the spray cans. People shout out suggestions for poses and expressions.

My graffiti self ends up crouching besides Graffiti Fattie, my head right at his waist level in a somewhat provocative manner; otherwise, Graffiti Melissa is rather badass. Arms folded across my chest, a stylized oxygen mask covering the lower half of my face, a miniature dragon jet cradled in one hand, a railshot with
Klyv
inscribed on the barrel (T-Clef's suggestion) in the other.

Fattie is adding in shading around my face to make me look extra menacing when the dragon sirens mounted to the understate ceiling blare to life.

The only thing louder is the cheers erupting all around me. A quarter mile down, Erlik's Eviscerists are pouring out of their prayer center. SUVs come blazing by from the other direction—Bakul's Banshees—honking and flashing their lights.

We're going to war.

T-Clef drives us to Dragon Shelter U5-2127, where dozens of SUVs are already parked. Several have logos painted on them. Inside, dozens of Diocletians are gathering at tables. Place cards tell everybody where to sit. Signs in the middle of the tables match some of the logos on the SUVs. At the front of the room, Vincent preps a projection screen.

I'm looking for my name when T-Clef lets out a loud squeal beside me.

“Joto!” She pushes her way forward. The crowd parts enough for me to see him. He's at a table for six near the back of the room. The sign in the middle has a black-and-white silhouette of a dragon and a soldier kissing. Behind it, surveying the room with a slight smirk, sits Evelyn.

I don't think she sees me. I start to turn around.

“Twenty-Five, you're with us.” Her voice is saccharine and evil.

Of course I am. I turn back around. We exchange frozen smiles. The fates must hate me.

Which is why James is in our group, too. He shows up after almost everybody else has found their places, taking a seat between Grizzly B and T-Clef. He says a few perfunctorily pleasant things to them and Joto, then exchanges a curt “hey” with Evelyn that makes his nod of acknowledgment for me seem jubilant.

Vincent activates the projector. The room goes silent. Oren appears on the screen. He's in some cave that shines a bright green from all the dragons behind him.

“Hello, brothers and sisters,” he says. “The time has come.”

A boisterous cry goes up.

“. . . sacrificed a lot to get here,” he's saying when the shouts die down enough for me to hear him again. “I appreciate all that you've given. . . .”

The screen shifts to a news clip labeled “Victory in Tahoe” that shows snippets of a massive battle, ending with the aftermath of a broken and burned forest littered with dead Greens. All-Blacks escort a handful of smoke-stained Diocletians into prison trucks.

“They kicked our ass,” Joto says as calls for retribution ring out.

The screen returns to Oren. “We lost many of our bravest brothers and sisters in this attack, soldiers and dragons who understood that their sacrifice will ensure our victory.”

Vincent and several other Diocletians pass out tablets to each table as Oren continues to speak. “The government believes this last attack has crippled us.” He waves at the dragons behind him and grins. “It is time for us to rise from the shadows and unleash hell. Sic semper tyrannis!”

The video cuts to black.

Everybody in the room rises to their feet with shouts of “Sic semper tyrannis!”

Mine's a half beat late, but except for a sidelong glance from Evelyn, I don't think anybody noticed.

“Your instructions are on your tablets,” Vincent says. “You will find—”

“These are just coordinates with a time stamp!” somebody yells.

“Enter them into your GPS,” Vincent says. “You will be given further instructions once you're under way. Make sure you arrive within the allotted time. All the gear you need should be in your vehicles. Be swift.”

Once we've all packed into the SUV with the logo of the soldier and the dragon kissing, Evelyn fires up the nav system. I take a peek as she punches in the coordinates from the tablet. I was right. We're somewhere beneath the Rockies.

“Saint Louis,” she says.

“How much time we got?” Grizzly B asks.

“Ten hours.”

“Are we flying?” Joto says, incredulous.

Evelyn starts the car. The tablet screen goes white. She sets it on the dash so everybody can see, then hits the play button. A slideshow starts.

It's titled
Kissing Humans
.

T-Clef's
singing again.

I peek through my eyelids. It's 3:17, according to the clock in the SUV dash. The understate shifted from paved highway several hours ago. The headlights show the edges of a smooth rock tunnel and an infinite stretch of blackness ahead of us. We're headed straight to hell. No signs, no markers. But that's where we're headed. As fast as we can get there.

We speed by another offshoot.

I'm reminded of ants. How far does the Diocletian colony extend?

“Come on, slackers, I'm tired of going solo,” T-Clef says. “We're a team.”

She sings louder.

Evelyn grunts something unintelligible from the driver's seat. Joto, riding in the back with our gear, joins in but doesn't know the words. James is immersed in a military history book, which he's reading by penlight. Grizzly B, little more than a shadow next to me, air-drums halfheartedly for a couple of lines, then fades away.

The song ends.

T-Clef sighs and leans her head against the window. It'll be a couple of hours at least before she tries again.

I shut my eyes. I'm exhausted, but sleep won't come. I can't stop thinking about what I'm supposed to do in a few hours. What I'm going to do.

Prove myself valuable, prove myself ruthless, and maybe it gets back to Oren, maybe I work my way into his trusted circle. Plan B is to get Evelyn alone and torture her for information. She was with Oren in Dillingham. Maybe she knows where he is now, where Allie is.

Way too many maybes, but I don't know what else to do. I feel like I'm running through a maze, blind and breathless and out of control, looking for a way out. Is there a way out?

The others seem to find sleep here and there, but it looks too peaceful to be real. How can this be real?

At 9:45 a.m., the GPS indicates we've reached our destination. In an alcove off the side of the tunnel, lights illuminate a narrow, open-air elevator with a waist-high railing
around its perimeter.

Grizzly B and Evelyn go up first.

Thirty minutes later, it's Joto and T-Clef's turn. She wraps an arm through his backpack and around his waist, grabs a railing with the other. It wobbles. Joto looks ready to be sick. She presses the up button and kisses him on the cheek. “Wanna get frisky?”

He gives a tense shake of his head, his gaze fixed forward.

“He afraid of heights?” I ask once they're out of sight.

“Claustrophobic, too,” James says.

“Chose the wrong occupation.”

James smiles ruefully. “Side effect.”

“Huh?”

“From his reconditioning.”

I frown. “He was in Georgetown?”

“No. They escaped Krakus.”

Him and T-Clef? I become intensely aware that James is looking at me in a way he hasn't looked at me in weeks. A pang stabs my chest. I look away.

“Krakus . . . um . . . that's where . . .” I try to compose myself. “When we were leaving Indianapolis, he . . . Colin . . . he said that we were the Krakus transfer. Where is it?”

“It's a mobile intercept base. The location changes all the time.”

“Oh.” I glance back at him. He's still looking at me like
he gives a damn. Who are you? I take a deep breath, ask the question I can't seem to shove away. “Did you beat the CENSIR in Georgetown?”

“Sometimes.”

My next question's out of my mouth before I can stop it. “What about when we were shooting the show?” When his CENSIR was off? When he was nice to me.

He laughs. “How hard would it have been to get a kiss?”

“A simple peck?” I say, which is what Hector the director told me to give James after I'd failed to fake anything better.

The elevator arrives. We board. He's shaking. I don't know why. He swallows hard a couple of times as the platform lurches up.

“Nothing's simple anymore, is it?” James says, then kisses me fiercely. My knees buckle and tears well, but I pull away before they slip free.

“I'm sorry. I can't.” I wipe my eyes and focus upward. We don't talk after that.

The elevator ends on a ledge twenty feet beneath a hatch. We take a ladder the rest of the way up, exit into a forest of towering pine trees. Our topside vehicle, a black Escalade, is parked nearby. Evelyn closes the hatch. Joto and Grizzly B use a pair of shovels to cover it with dirt.

Midday, we reach the outskirts of Saint Louis. As we funnel to a checkpoint, we put on our wigs, Rice University hats
and T-shirts, then pop in our vid lenses.

“Roll time, people,” Evelyn says. “Stick to the script.”

“What script?” Joto says.

T-Clef smacks his shoulder. “This is gonna be on TV in a couple days, jackass. So don't act like a jackass.”

“Mean like this?” He flicks his tongue in a suggestive manner at her.

“That's the special-edition cut,” Grizzly B says. He and Joto laugh.

Newly instituted retinal scans identify us as a group of college students from Houston, here for the football game. After searching our SUV, the A-Bs wave us forward.

Beyond the checkpoint, an electronic billboard on the side of the highway broadcasts a news clip of the battle in Tahoe.
VICTORY
! flashes at the bottom.

Joto snarls at the next billboard, which advertises
Kissing Dragons
with a montage of Frank, Kevin, Mac, and L.T. on various dragon hunts. Frank, the fab four leader, drives a sword through a Green.

The billboard switches to a promo for
Kissing Dragons: The Other Side
. The left half shows a trio of Greens igniting Chicago. An insurgent with a monocle over his left eye fires his machine gun over the side of his dragon at the streets below. On the right side of the board, the same insurgent stalks a padded cell with a maddened grin.

“They caught Red Eye?” Grizzly B says. Red Eye's the focal point of the advertisement, but my attention's on the other two dragons. Both are riderless. Both are wearing collars. Neither seems to have trouble navigating the black maze of buildings. That dragon that chased me in Chicago—Thog—was riderless, too.

Where are you? Talk to me, you treacherous human!

In the Georgetown battle room, the military had us communicating with collared dragons from afar in various covert missions. Oren must have implemented a similar strategy.

We pass billboards with PSAs about the blackout policy (
BLACK IS STYLISH
,
BLACK IS SEXY
,
BLACK IS SAFE
) and dragon exposure (
IF YOU SEE ANYBODY TALKING TO THEMSELVES
,
REPORT IT IMMEDIATELY TO THE BUREAU OF DRAGON AFFAIRS
).

And then my brother's glaring down at me, along with the five other members of
Kissing Dragons: The Frontlines.
A portion of the billboard runs a clip of Sam leading a charge through the woods toward a Green that's laying waste to a squadron of All-Blacks.

Real?

“Fucking family,” Joto says, and I almost lash out at him, but stop when I realize he's looking at the only girl in the group. I check the other TV soldiers, recognize the boy at the end. Double T's brother.

Following the map we retrieved from the SUV's glove compartment, we exit the highway in the industrial district and wend our way to an abandoned tract of warehouses. We reach the third one on the end. The bay door retracts.

An All-Black standing beside a Humvee waves us in. A balaclava covers his face.

“Locked and loaded,” he says as we exit the Escalade. He nods to Evelyn, hops in the SUV, and drives away.

In the back of the Humvee, we find five sets of All-Black uniforms, railshots, and several backpacks.

“How much you think Oren paid him?” Joto asks as we change out of our fake student clothes into our fake soldier clothes.

“He didn't,” James says. “His brother was in Georgetown. Fourteen.” He shakes his head, his gaze unfocused. “He sounded just like him.”

Joto whistles, laughs. “Fucking family.”

We have to pass through another checkpoint to get into downtown Saint Louis. We swap out our vid lenses. We're now new recruits, here for Dragon Defense System Training. The checkpoint guards don't give us a second glance.

Loudspeakers command people to remain vigilant, report anything out of the ordinary. The instructions echo everywhere, without much interference. It's late afternoon, but except for A-B patrols, the streets are practically empty.

We park in front of a missile launcher squeezed between
two hulking skyscrapers. An electrified fence surrounds it. I watch Evelyn enter a passcode. The gate opens. A stairwell between the legs of the launcher leads down to a fortified control station.

“Turn your plasma shots on,” Evelyn says.

“Maybe we shouldn't,” Grizzly B says.

“Those are our orders.”

“It won't look good if we're all getting sick on camera.”

“You didn't get sick when Klyv got mushified by the queen of spades over here,” Joto says.

“Joto,” T-Clef snaps.

“I'm just saying. Dead is dead. What's it matter?”

He's right. What does it matter? I draw my railshot and switch on the plasma effect.

“Trouble understanding instructions, Twenty-Five?” Evelyn says. “You stay back. Look pretty. Or try.”

That's my role. Wait for others to do the blood work, then come in and be recognizable. I have no delusions that Oren is concerned about my welfare. He just doesn't trust me. Which is maybe why he put Evelyn in charge of our little propaganda team.

Playing tame won't get me anywhere, though.

“Shoot me,” I say, and shoulder past her.

“She mean that in the video way or the bullet way?” I hear Joto say behind me.

At the bottom of the stairs is another door. I enter the passcode.

Inside, three soldiers are monitoring touch consoles. I nail two of them in the back of the head. The third makes it around halfway in his chair before somebody else drills him in the neck.

Their bodies shrivel. The reek of overcooked meat floods my nostrils. Grizzly B runs out of the bunker. T-Clef retches but keeps it in. Joto doesn't.

My stomach twists, my heart, too, but then I think of Georgetown and how these bastards could have been in a control bunker there, monitoring my or Allie's reconditioning. How they could have been the ones responsible for executing Lorena and the other talkers when rescue came.

I grab the explosives pack from James, who regards the corpses with cold indifference, and set it the middle of the room.

“Pretty enough?” I ask Evelyn on my way out.

We keep the plasma off for our other four targets. Then we head a few blocks over to the riverfront, take some touristy videos, and drop off our remaining backpacks.

We're on our way out of Saint Louis when the loudspeaker message breaks from its automated loop for an “important announcement from the Black House.” The billboards shift to live video of the president's press secretary.

We lower our windows.

“Good afternoon. The Bureau of Dragon Affairs has captured the Los Angeles terrorists, and we are hours away from catching the New Orleans bombers. If you think to help them, if you think to ignore them, you will be considered one of them.

“As always, we ask for your prayers for the victims, and we demand your vigilance to help us prevent further atrocities. United we are strong. God bless America.”

“God bless her,” Evelyn says. “Get me the tablet.”

“Blew up New Orleans?” Joto says, opening the glove compartment. He hands her the tablet. “Damn. Never got to go to Mardi Gras.”

“We're supposed to wait,” Grizzly B says as Evelyn powers up the tablet.

“Oren would appreciate this. Better theatrics,” she says, and taps the screen.

Four fireballs rise from downtown Saint Louis. We pull off to the side of the road and get out. Evelyn sets off the final explosives. They detonate in rapid succession near the bank of the Mississippi. It takes a couple of seconds before the Gateway Arch breaks from the earth and crashes into the river.