Jet
slammed her back against the wall of the ruined warehouse, panting. Crouching
down by the moldy cement bricks, she fought to make her breathing silent. Her
sword dug into her spine in the middle of her back, but she barely felt it.
Panic
filled her, making her sweat even in the early morning air.
She was
too late. Surely, they’d seen her.
They
always said it happened this way. The older adults had been warning her for
years about this kind of thing, warning all of them. It never happened when you
were looking for trouble. It happened when you were going about your regular
business of living, just a few seconds of letting your guard down...a few
seconds of inattention...that was all it took.
Being
in the wrong place at the wrong time when your mind was wandering, that was the
real recipe for death. For being disappeared without warning.
Jet
hadn’t even heard the cullers when their engines glided overhead. Not until
they’d already gotten a lock on her bio-reading and slid lower in the sky for a
closer look.
She’d
been lost in her thoughts, thinking about what she had that she might be able
to barter with Everest to get some fresh eggs. She’d brought a few shirts her
mother made, nearly brand new, and she had some fish, some apples from the
orchard, even some plums that weren’t too moldy from the never-ending rains.
Everest wasn’t often tempted by fish, but the fruit might work, she’d been
thinking, if he was in the mood.
Like as
not, he’d want something from her she wasn’t willing to give...one of her knives,
maybe. Sword-fighting lessons.
Or he
might even try for something more personal, since she’d come alone.
It had
been stupid to come alone, but that was one of those thoughts it was easy to
torture yourself with in retrospect, too.
Jet had
been thinking about her little brother, Biggs, in between her more practical
thoughts about trading and bringing back some real protein for a change. She’d
noticed Biggs hanging around the docks a lot lately. It might be innocent
enough, but the fumes down there, especially this time of year, were bad enough
that she couldn’t help but be suspicious.
She’d
heard talk about meetings happening at the docks lately...secret ones, as well
as the more open, recruiting kind. She hoped like hell that Biggs wasn’t dumb
enough to get sucked into the rhetoric of the rebels, but she feared the worst.
She’d
seen that look in his eyes before. It had gotten more intense lately.
Anyway,
Jet knew how obsessive he could be, how single-minded. She’d noticed him
reading more, and a lot of the book covers were new, and didn’t come from the
library they shared with their longhouse families.
He did
his best to hide it from her, but she’d also seen him practicing more with the
bow, and even once with one of her old, wooden, practice swords. He was only
thirteen, but she knew they recruited a lot younger than that, these days. The
rebels had been coming by the camps more often, too, trying to recruit younger
and younger, likely because they’d run out of full-blown adults willing to
become cannon fodder fighting the Nirreth.
Jet
even understood.
It was
the same reason she practiced with her sword, day in and day out, even when she
had no reason to use it. Nothing was worse than sitting around, waiting to be
picked off like sheep. The rebels talked a good talk, about honor and sacrifice
and standing up for the race. They seemed like an alternative at times, even to
her.
But
she’d buried too many in their settlement to be all that convinced.
Anyway,
the more cynical side of her pointed out that a lot of those rebels were
smugglers. She’d heard tell that even Richter had been seen trading with the
Nirreth, and supposedly he had more rancor for the invaders than most. All of
the smugglers and bandits were known to cut corners, though...especially when it
came to dealing with the Nirreth and their ‘watch’ squads. Who knew if those
same rebellion leaders were selling some of the local kids to the cullers, to
get the authorities to look the other way?
All of
this had been going through Jet’s mind as she walked.
She’d
thought about how she might talk to Biggs about it, or at least get him to
visit the crumbling lighthouse near the sound, where old Chiyeko lived. Chiyeko
might get him to see reason. Biggs always got along well with the old woman,
better than Jet did, truthfully. He might even listen, if Chiyeko told him to
leave the rebels alone.
Jet was
lost in half-baked thoughts around this, as well as a made-up argument with
Biggs about the rebels, when she felt the wind of the culler’s hovercraft.
A warm,
hot wind. It had a distinctive smell, like the smell that followed lightning
after it struck the earth. Jet felt that whisper of wind and it seemed to crawl
down her spine like a living thing. Adrenaline flooded her bloodstream,
bringing bile to her throat.
After a
split-second of paralysis...she ran.
She
sprinted straight for the nearest cover, a narrow alley off the main street
where she’d been walking. She’d kept under the eaves of the buildings and out
of the center of the road, of course, but that alone wasn’t enough. It was
never enough to stay roughly out of sight...not when one traveled on a road
wide enough for the culler hovercrafts to patrol. Her mother drilled that into
Jet since she first learned to walk.
She’d
been watching her feet, instead of the skies like she should have. She’d been
listening to her thoughts, not to the birds, or the wind, or the rustle of
paper and dirt, or any change in direction in the shifting air of the street.
Otherwise,
she would have seen, a hair’s breadth sooner, that the paper had begun to swirl
and dance lightly from the hovercraft’s exhaust. She would have noticed the
birds had grown silent. Jet did
notice these things, but that small gap in her awareness was enough to make the
difference between ‘just soon enough’ and ‘too late.’
It was
enough for her to feel the wind of the hovercraft on the back of her neck.
Jet
sprinted to cover deep in the shadows of the alley.
Once
fully in the dark, she waited.
She
crouched there, unwilling to risk moving until she could see the ship. Fighting
to keep even her breath silent, she stayed where she was, peering up at the sky
to try and determine if the glider’s pilots had, indeed, spotted her. Movement
without cause was risky. She’d learned that young, too. Most people who got caught
did so because they panicked and couldn’t stop running. Running from the
Nirreth was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
If they
hadn’t seen her, they might just pass by.
If they
hadn’t seen her, running would only be more likely to get her noticed.
If they
had seen her, running wouldn’t save
her. Once she’d done that, they would give chase no matter if they were
trawling for skags or not. It was hardwired into the Nirreth’s instincts to
chase anything that ran.
Humans
who ran got culled.
These
rules had been hammered into Jet’s brain so frequently and so vehemently that
to think them was like breathing. They whispered through her mind like a
mantra, more of a prayer than even a reminder...a reassurance that if she
followed the rules, she just might get out of this alive.
Then
she saw the searchlight flicker to life.
Jet
held her breath, watching it as a mouse watches the stalk of a cat from where
it crouches in a hole. The shockingly bright beam seemed to follow a random
path at first, rolling over the ground near where Jet had been walking. It
paused in that general vicinity briefly, maybe to try and scare her, to flush
her out. Jet exhaled only when the swath of white light moved on, glancing over
nearby buildings and a metal drain cover before it searched the other side of
the street with equal care, lingering under the eaves.
Then
the sharp beam flickered directly towards her. It roamed the nearby walls, then
abruptly fell to almost exactly where Jet stood, even as she inched away from
the range of its glow.
Jet
cursed.
They’d
seen her. They were toying with her...looking at her with the heat sensors most
likely. They’d been trying to get her to run by skirting near to her, but
they’d known where she was all along. Which meant they were probably hunting,
looking to bring someone in.
Either
way, she had no choice, not once they had her in their searchlights.
Leaping
to her feet, she ran, full out, down the alley.
She
nearly slid on the slick ground, even with her heavy boots. Jerking herself upright,
she forced her mind back on the terrain, picking out the driest parts of the
stone to lay down her feet. The paving stones were slick from the monsoon
rains. Moss covered the hard slate, along with just enough water that when she
hit a patch, it was like trying to run on ice. She tried desperately to
remember where the nearest manhole opening into the sewers lived, but the only
ones she could remember were too far away, and in the opposite direction.
She was
outside her normal stomping grounds, deep in the ruins of downtown Vancouver.
She should have mapped the route to Everest’s new place with more care...or
taken a longer stretch of the underground passage, even with the rats, the
toxic fumes and the rot of the monsoon. She should have had Anaze highlight a
few more safe zones.
As it
was, all she could do was head for the narrowest streets and nooks and alleys
she could find, and hope she lost the hovercraft before it could trap her
somewhere in the open. So when Jet reached the end of that first alley, she
sprinted across the main street as fast as her legs would carry her, aiming for
another fissure between buildings on the other side.
She did
that a few more times, trying to zig-zag as much as possible, but not when it
meant spending more time on any street wide enough for the hovercraft to get
over her.
Despite
the water running everywhere, bleeding through brick and cement walls, the day
was already heating up under the heavy cover of low-hanging clouds. Jet left
the longhouse while it was still dark, but now the sun was warming the eastern
side of the city, heating up the air and water even through the thick cloud
cover directly overhead.
Within
seconds of first breaking into a full sprint, Jet’s clothes were drenched with
sweat. Her nylon pants clung to her skin like an oily paste.
Her
breathing got thicker, too.
She ran
harder, trying to ignore the increased pounding in her chest, wishing she’d
drank more water as she’d been walking down the road. Jet was in the habit of
conserving there, too, only drinking what she thought she absolutely needed and
no more. Clean water was hard to come by these days, even when they had fuel.
With all the bacteria and other problems with anything they left sitting for
more than a few hours, the water didn’t stay fresh for very long, even when
they boiled it. The hotter it got, the worse their problems were, until even
drinking it an hour or so after boiling left room for doubt.
These
days, they boiled every liter of water they used, even for washing clothes,
cleaning eating and sleeping areas...even watering plants. Pretty much for
everything except maybe cleaning the latrines. They boiled water more
frequently for anything to drink, especially during the monsoon, when all the
water tables rose high enough to mix with the contamination in the ground soil
and even run off from the sewage.
Since
the Nirreth had come, the weather seemed to get worse.
Her
mother told her that monsoons didn’t happen in Canada at all when she was a
child. She said it was something that used to happen only in faraway, exotic
places, like Thailand and Sri Lanka and Laos. The only monsoons her mother ever
heard of happening in North America before occurred in the deserts of the
Southwest, and those were just thunder storms...nothing like the mold-soaked
madness that started once the rain came day after day, heavy enough that an
umbrella was useless, heavy enough and hard enough to wear away rock and soil
and asphalt and make even the concrete sprout ferns. By the end of the three to
five month season every summer, they all felt like they lived in a massive
petrie dish.
They
lost people every year too, from the sickness that inevitably swept through the
longhouses, each strain more deadly than the last.
Every
year, it was hotter, too, it seemed.
But
even the ruin of their planet didn’t keep them safe. The Nirreth liked it hot,
so the increasing temperature only brought more of them.
It was
enough to make the remaining humans wonder if the Nirreth were engineering the
atmosphere to be more like that of their home planet. They now had processors
everywhere, even this far north, where it was borderline too cool for their
thick skins. The Nirreth claimed to be ‘fixing’ the Earth’s atmosphere, of
course, from the damage done to it by humans over the years, but Jet hadn’t
seen anything that would make her actually believe that.
The
reality was, they could be doing anything to their world, really.
No
humans she knew even understood Nirreth technology, so all the skags had to go
on were the Nirreth’s lies and the stories told by rebels and bandits.
No one
seemed to know the truth of what was really
happening.
Or if
they did, they weren’t talking.
Either
way, it really did seem that the heat crawled inexorably up the map. That had
been happening before the Nirreth too, according to her mother...but it seemed
to happen faster every year. The last of the summer ice had gone nearly twenty
years earlier from southern Canada and the northern United States. Now ice
barely formed at all, even in the deepest throes of winter, even for a few
weeks, as far north as Alaska and northern Canada.
Those
weeks seemed to grow shorter, too.
The
rebels claimed, of course, that the Nirreth were trying to cook them out, to
kill off the last of the skags by making it too hot for any humans to live
outside the shelter of the Nirreth cities. Jet didn’t know why they’d go to so
much trouble though. If they really wanted the skags gone, they could probably
bomb them to oblivion in a matter of weeks.
Anyway,
sometimes it seemed like the rebels knew a little too much about those mythical
Nirreth cities.
While
Jet ran, she wasn’t thinking about any of this, though.
Instead
she thought about how long she’d have these narrow alleyways to duck into
before she ran into a warehouse district, a freeway, a rotted city park, one of
the business areas, or the lapping water of the sound or one of the lakes. She
thought about how long she could keep up this pace before her legs or her lungs
gave out. She thought about how much time she would have before they landed the
hovercraft and came after her, if she stopped in one of the smaller alleys and
looked for an entrance to the underground.
While
Jet ran, it was difficult to listen for the culler.
With
its nearly-silent engines, the ship could be hovering just out of her
peripheral vision, nets hanging over her while the Nirreth grinned from the
hatch. She couldn’t hear anything but her own breath, the slap of her
rubber-soled boots on the wet stone, the jostle of her pack and the curved
sword against her back, the flap of the long coat she wore. She’d tied her
long, black hair in a knot at the base of her neck when she left the longhouse
that morning, but now found herself wishing she’d tied it with leather instead,
as the knot slowly began to unravel.
Given
all of this, Jet had no idea how close the craft was to her now.
She
wasn’t about to slow down enough to look, though.
If they
really were using heat-sensing to locate skags, then they were likely trying to
drive her to open ground where they could more easily pick her up with their
nets.
She had
to get off the road, and now.
Thinking
this, Jet forced her legs faster, wishing she’d left the backpack with her
barter materials and tools on the ground back in that alley. Everything but the
sword, she could afford to lose and replace. She had those few seconds of
breathing time; she could have come back for it later, maybe, if someone didn’t
happen along and take it.
Or she
could have just let it go. It was just stuff.
The
sword was different. Swords were difficult to come by. Anyway, her sword was different. It was a part
of her...like an extension of her hand and arm. The old swordsmith who made it,
Mishio, had died in the monsoon the year before, from complications around
breathing too much mold and having bronchitis and asthma and a bunch of other
things.
He’d
been one of the last who really knew how to make a good sword, at least of the
smiths Jet knew of in Vancouver. If she lost it now, she had no idea how she’d
ever replace it.
Her
sword even had a name. She called it Black.
Kind of
a stupid name really, unless you knew her name was Jet. That, and the handle
was blackened steel wrapped in black-dyed leather grips.
Before
he died, Mishio told her that the name ‘Jet’ actually meant black in Latin, too.
But the
pack, even with her knives and her tools, she could have replaced. Really, it
just showed how complacent she’d gotten, that it hadn’t even occurred to her to
dump it.
Either
way, Jet was unwilling to try and fling the pack or the heavy coat off her
shoulders now. The extra movement would only slow her down, make her lose her
balance. The mere fact of removing the bulky weight couldn’t help her enough to
make up for the ground she’d lose in trying. She needed speed, yes, but she
needed those extra seconds more.
She
looked up at the tall buildings on either side.
Some
were brick, but those of course were boarded up, and most would be impossible
to break into quickly enough to make her escape. Even if no one was using this
particular row of warehouses as shelter, most had been contaminated during the
first cullings, and there was no guarantee any particular one she chose would
have an entrance to the underground.
The
truth was, she didn’t know this side of town well.
She
should have brought Anaze with her, like he wanted.
Anaze
knew this part of the city like the back of his hand, having lived here for a
spell in his teens while his mother followed Richter. Anaze offered to come
along with Jet to see Everest that morning, but for some reason she’d said no.
It wasn’t Anaze himself; she liked his company well enough. He was one of her
best friends. Most days they went trading together, or mapping out new routes
in and out of the orchards so they wouldn’t be caught growing.
He was
okay with a sword too, but even better with a bow. And Anaze was a lot more
into the gardening stuff than Jet ever would be. She was much more interested
in finding ways to build new tunnels and structures underground...or learning
how to crack the few pieces of Nirreth tech that came her way.
So in
retrospect, Jet didn’t really know why she hadn’t invited him along.
She’d
really just wanted the time alone.
She
never got a moment’s peace these days, living in the cramped, underground
spaces of the longhouse, or even the wider settlement. It only got worse every
year, with the dangers multiplying aboveground and the more people migrating
north to get away from the heat and the burgeoning Nirreth enclaves. It was
part of the reason why Jet and the other builders kept trying to find ways to
heighten the caves, and to grow more real plants down there.
They
knew at some point, they might not be able to leave the caves. They might need
to stay down there and survive on what they had, at least for awhile.
Not
only did they have the Nirreth to worry about, but also the Richters of the
world, as well as the rebels and new immigrants. In the realm of more mundane
worries, the list got even longer: bad water and soil, rats and snakes and
feral dogs, diseases, diseased animals wandering into the camps and poisoning
the water, parasites attacking the few crops that would still grow, the
occasional bout of acid rain or wind blowing poisonous gasses from the ocean.
Jet
understood why she’d wanted to be alone. With that hanging over all of their
heads, people took every chance they got for a little quiet.
Now she
wished she’d made an exception for Anaze.
Jet
glanced up at the metal towers that also lined the streets.
The
brick buildings were preferable, if only because they were older and more likely
to have an underground entrance, but the glass and metal structures might do in
a pinch. Being inside their metal skeletons made it hard for the Nirreth to use
the culling nets; they’d have to come down for her, and might not want to
bother just for one skag.
She
couldn’t keep running down these alleys forever.
The
metal buildings were also infinitely easier to break into, if only because only
a few of their green-tinted windows remained...the rest had been smashed to
powder or knocked out by the sonic waves of the passing Nirreth ships. Those
that managed to stay intact in their metal frames stared out like oddly
reflective eyes, looking almost sentient.
The
Nirreth had promised to rebuild the human cities too.
But
like with the environment, Vancouver looked roughly the same as it had when
she’d been born, roughly nineteen years earlier.
Jet was
trying to decide if she should dart into the next of those rusted giants, find
a place to hide in the pock-marked walls and charred furniture, when she saw a
flicker of movement.
Her
eyes jerked immediately to the left.
A
light. Someone or something was signaling her.
Jet
tried to find the source with her eyes, but everything in front of her was gray
and green. Even here, in the swath of old metal buildings and concrete walls,
moss and mold covered every corner of the buildings and overgrown trees and
plants poked through the walls. Black and rotting plant matter covered most of
the street, as well, and trickling water from ceilings sagging from water
damage. Broken glass scattered the curbs and streets in a few places, but most
of the buildings looked like skeletons of long-dead beasts, with few of the
details intact.
Jet
could just see the remnants of rooms inside one or two of the larger metal
towers, but mostly all she saw was sky framed by rusted metal worn into odd
shapes by sea water and rain.
Darting
down another alley to get off the wider road, she ran across another wide
street and into a narrower one, paved with cobble stones. They were slippery,
but the road might be too narrow for the ships, too.
About a
hundred yards ahead of her, the flashing light repeated.
Whoever
it was, they were following her...likely using the sewers.
On the
second set of flashes, Jet located the source. Unfortunately, reaching the
opening in the ground where it originated meant breaking cover. It also meant
stopping, fully visible for at least a few seconds, in one of the widest of the
main thoroughfares.
Jet
wondered if maybe it was the Nirreth after all, trying to lure her into a net.
Still
running, she glimpsed a cracked doorway leading into the ground. Pale,
ground-dweller fingers lifted a metal cover a bare few inches. The fingers of a
skag.
Whoever
it was, they lifted the manhole cover just high enough to leave a dark, circular
crack, and for her to see a pair of eyes reflecting up at her.
She
could see nothing of the face itself.
“Over
here!” a voice whispered urgently. “Quickly!”
It
sounded like a man’s voice.
In
fact, it almost sounded familiar, but
Jet couldn’t be certain, not with everything else...
It was
irrelevant, anyway. She would have taken shelter from Richter himself at that
point, even if it cost her more than just a few apples.
That
being said, Jet knew full well that she couldn’t trust strangers among the
skags. Richter, the worst of the human bandits who regularly raided their
settlements, was certainly a case in point. He seemed to view the arrival of
the Nirreth as a personal business opportunity. Anaze told Jet that while his
mother had run with Richter’s men, he found out that most were ex-cons and
ex-military who’d survived the wars.
Most
had fought back during the first rounds of culling by the Nirreth, too.
According to Jet’s mom, those first rounds were what had really thinned their
numbers down to the bone. Since then, the Nirreth took a few, maybe every
couple of months.
Richter’s
men never let go of their hatred of the Nirreth. Neither did Richter himself,
if rumors could be believed. Disillusioned with their chances following that
aborted war, they’d gone mercenary in the aftermath, seeming to blame the other
humans for their failure as much as they did the Nirreth themselves. Richter’s
men viewed the rebels with scorn, along with the skags and anyone else
unfortunate enough to have survived.
The
only thing they had in common with the other humans seemed to be their hatred
of the Nirreth. While they seemed willing enough to raid the stores of others
among their own race, they still did most of their stealing from the Nirreth
holdings further south, coming north to hide and regroup, selling spoils to the
highest bidder. Their real crime was the extortion-type prices they forced the
skags to pay, especially for critical things like medicine and tools.
They’d
even take the odd job freeing slaves, it was said.
For the
right price, of course...and who wanted to trust their money to them?
Anaze
told Jet that if she ever ran into Richter or any of his people, she should run
as fast as she could. He didn’t say it outright, but she got the impression he
didn’t think females of her age were particularly safe with that lot, in
particular.
Anyway,
for as far back as she could remember, Jet had been hearing from her own mother
that having a common enemy still
didn’t make all of the remaining humans their friends, or particularly safe.
Her mother was also in the annoying habit of warning Jet almost daily that a
sword would only do so much, if she was ever really threatened.
Like
Jet needed to be told.
Still,
in this case, she didn’t have the luxury to be picky.
If help
was being offered by someone human, she would take it...especially if it got
her underground. When it came down to it, it was still a lot less frightening
to be caught by one’s own kind than it was by the Nirreth.
The
devil you know maybe. Or maybe it’s just that some skag wasn’t likely to eat her...or to turn her into some kind
of medical experiment while Jet was still breathing.
So
after a bare pause, Jet broke cover.
She
entered the main street, as there was no other way to reach that open manhole.
Once she
had, Jet threw every last ounce of speed she had left towards making it to that
voice. Staring at the lifted metal cover, she felt another surge of that hope,
jerking her legs even faster. The mere sight of that crack of darkness peering
out of the ground felt like a lifeline, her only chance to survive.
Nothing
could be worse than being caught by the Nirreth.
Just
then, a sound echoed off the row of buildings. It was soft despite the high
pitch, a bare murmur above Jet’s panting breaths, but she knew that sound. She
would know it anywhere, even though until that exact moment, she’d only heard
it from a distance.
With
that high, scream-like whisper overhead, came another warm flush of breeze.
The
culler was over her.
Forgetting
about her vague trepidation about who might be trying to help her out, she
started running even faster for the eyes and hands of the skag she’d seen
looking at her from the under the ground. Feeling the warm air wash over her a
second time, this time close enough to whip her hair in stinging strands
against her cheeks, Jet realized the hovercraft was descending.
She let
out a shriek, pumping her arms and legs faster.
Her
backpack and sword swung harder against her back and shoulders, in a rhythmic,
swaying pattern that was probably leaving bruises by now.
As Jet
ran, the eyes watched her from the crack in the ground, white fingers holding
up the metal plate. Jet noticed that the expression in those eyes looked
different now. They looked worried, or maybe just like they were assessing her
chances and not finding them good.
Whoever
they were, Jet agreed with them. The eyes and dim outline of a face looked too
far away for what she could feel behind her.
She
barely had time to think that much when something caught hold of her foot.
Yanking
abruptly on her ankle as it climbed up her leg, the vine-like appendage jerked
her backwards and up.
Jet
screamed as her feet left the paved road. She reached out with her arms, her
fingers and arms splayed to grasp hold of something, anything, to keep her from
leaving the earth behind her.
There
was nothing to grab hold of.
Jet
found herself being hauled backwards up into space, her leg and arms waving
ineffectively in the air as she ascended.
Throughout
the entire ascent, she didn’t stop screaming.
She
also didn’t stop trying to unsheath her sword.
Jet
landed hard on a metal deck. It felt as if she’d been thrown there bodily by
two large men, each holding one half of her arms and her legs.
For a
long-seeming second, she sat on the ridged metal floor, panting, gripping the
wall with one hand. She gripped the hilt of her sword in the other.
The
instant she could focus her eyes, blinking back the tears from the wind and her
screaming as she rose in the air, Jet lurched drunkenly to her feet, holding
the sword in front of her. Both of her hands gripped the hilt as soon as Jet
pushed off from the wall.
She
could barely see the creature in front of her, but she heard a hiss as it
backed off. She stepped towards the lit hatch door, moving sideways so that her
eyes never left the tall, midnight blue-skinned shape in front of her. When she
finally chanced a glance down, her heart sank. The hovercraft stood at around
the fifth story of the nearest building.
If she
jumped, she’d die. And she didn’t see a ladder, or even the vine-like rope
they’d used to haul her up.
“Let me
down!” she shouted, taking a step towards the creature with the sword.
He slid
gracefully back, moving with an incredible lightness for such a tall creature.
“Let me
down!” she insisted, louder. “I’ve broken no laws!
Which
wasn’t true of course. Just living underground, squatting in caves and growing
their own food was technically against the law. Much less the poaching they
did, or the bartering with others, including black marketeers. Really, the only
way to live outside the Nirreth cities and not
break the law was to work for the Nirreth directly and live in their assigned
settlements, what humans called the ‘Hamster Cage.’ Even those people starved
unless they cut corners.
Jet
knew that because her settlement traded with them for some of the staples they
had no other way to get locally. Like rice. Flour. Even sugar on occasion.
But the
laws were just an excuse. The Nirreth must know just like we did that everyone broke
them, pretty much every day. They picked up skags because they could.
“Let me
down!” Jet yelled again. “You have no right to keep me!”
She
tensed when the creature met her gaze with its large, black eyes. It gestured
towards her, in one of the few Nirreth signs she knew.
It was
a peace gesture, an offering to parlay.
“No,”
she said. “No parley! Let me down...right now!”
It took
another step towards her, it’s three-fingered, claw-like hands held out
carefully. When she didn’t move, it took another step, until it was in range of
her sword.
That
time, Jet moved, swinging the sword expertly towards the creature’s upper body.
The end of Black made a upward slash across the front of what would be a chest
on a human. She felt the blade meet flesh somewhere near its shoulder, and
sawed forward, throwing her weight forward to press it in deeper.
The
Nirreth hissed, louder and more angry-sounding.
Grabbing
the sharp end of the blade with its three-fingered claw, the Nirreth leapt
backwards and to her right. The sword cut its hand of course, so it let the
blade go, clutching its upper chest with its hurt hand. Jet saw a streak of
color in the dark, where her blade sawed through its skin.
Somehow
the fact that their blood was red, too, made the whole thing finally seem real.
She swung at it a second time, but the Nirreth moved faster, circling around
her to avoid the arc of the blade. Its eyes appeared concentrated now, as they
followed her sword.
Jet
adjusted to follow...
But she
hadn’t been watching its tail.
She had
just thrust the blade forward, narrowly missing its arm, when the snake-like
whip caught hold of her from the other side. Wrapping around her arm, it flung
Jet into the wall, smacking her head against the metal bulkhead. Stunned from
the hit, she straightened, but not before the tail uncoiled from her arm, then
re-coiled around her wrist.
Before
she could even try to free herself, it jerked the blade and her body violently
to the side. That time, it nearly threw her to the ground.
She
barely kept hold of the sword.
Struggling
against the muscled appendage, Jet tried to loosen its grip, wrestling first
with her own arm, then trying to pry the tail off her skin. The deep-blue flesh
seemed impervious to her jerks and grasping fingers. Solid muscle, even the
very end of its tail was as thick as her lower arm, straining with effort under
the dark-blue skin.
Jet
finally managed to twist her body sideways, gaining enough leverage and angle
to use the sword on the tail itself. Before she could slash at it, however,
another Nirreth approached from behind. It grasped hold of her free wrist with
a three-fingered hand.
She
struggled with both of them as they tried to force her to drop the sword.
She
started backing away, towards the open hatch door, when a third Nirreth, one
Jet hadn’t seen at all, emerged from the darkness of the deeper reaches of the
hold. Ignoring her limbs altogether, it caught hold of the blade with another
of those tails...
...and
yanked it straight out of her fingers.
Jet
watched it go in disbelief.
She’d
never let go of her sword in a fight before. Never.
Before
she could lunge after it, the nearest one, the one whose shoulder still bled
down its dark brown shirt, shoved her in the middle of her chest with one thick
claw.
It
wasn’t a gentle nudge.
Her
feet left the ground as Jet flew straight backwards.
The
creature’s muscled arm propelled her so quickly, she barely knew what happened
when her head and back slammed into the bulkhead a second time. That time, the
blow stunned Jet for real. The backpack crushed into her back, making her gasp
when it hit the bones of her spine.
The
wind knocked out of her, she leaned forward, clutching her stomach as she
fought in air in ragged pants. For a few seconds, she couldn’t move at all.
She was still sitting there when something grabbed at
the pack on her back, forcing it off her arms. She tried to keep hold of it,
wrestling them for it briefly, but they merely pushed her back to the ground
with a claw-like hand. They took her winter coat in the process.
Jet felt briefly naked with both things gone.
She rarely left the undergound without either. Anyway,
her backpack had her knives, even a small bow in a tube that she’d brought for
possible trade with Everest.
Without that or Black, she would be helpless.
But there were more of them now, a sea of faces she
could feel peering at her from the dark. Looking around at those reflecting
black eyes, Jet got the feeling not everyone they netted fought back, much less
managed to nick one of them with a sword.
She watched her pack and long coat disappear into the
darkness. She could hear claw-like hands going through it then, pulling items
out of the canvas and probably inspecting them one by one. Biting her lip, she
tried not to care when she heard the clatter and tug, the rip of cloth as they
found her mother’s shirts, the sound of the bow she’d made and arrows she’d
feathered fall out of the tube to the metal of the deck.
When she finally forced her eyes up, she found herself
staring at the midnight blue face of one of her nightmares. The creature stared
back at her. He continued to hold his shoulder where she’d cut him with the
Japanese-style sword, but she couldn’t tell if it was still hurting him. He
looked more puzzled than in pain. Jet watched the Nirreth take in the length of
her body with a slow stare, as if she were as much of an animal to it as it was
to her.
Black, opaque-seeming eyes scanned her hands and feet
where she sprawled, as if looking for more weapons, anything that might be a
threat.
After the faintest pause, it bared its teeth.
It smiled too wide, showing too much gum, ape-fashion.
The effect caused her to recoil even more, until her shoulders met the ridged
metal of the bulkhead behind her.
Her uncle Draven told her once that the Nirreth tried
to smile because they knew humans did it. They tried to copy other mannerisms
too, apparently, but she couldn’t remember much of anything else of what he’d
said about the specifics.
Her mind was too busy churning through the reality of
her situation.
Anyway, she couldn’t help but see the thing’s attempt
to reassure her as pretty superficial.
She’d been caught.
The Nirreth had caught her. Worse, they’d taken her
sword.
It was the unthinkable thing, the thing she spent most
of her waking days worried would happen to Biggs,
not her. She’d always assumed it would be him one of these days, if he didn’t
grow up a little and learn to pay attention. Biggs refused to follow all of the
precautions everyone else did. He wandered alone, at night. He explored the
overworld even when he didn’t have to. He was fascinated by the parks, which
everyone knew weren’t safe, as the Nirreth often spent time there too,
collecting samples and rooting out the squatters who tried to grow gardens and
orchards in the relatively clean soil.
He even tried to catch animals, not to eat but as
pets. He’d been found trying to rope a wolf once, down by the water. If old
Kimchee hadn’t been there, he probably would have gotten his throat torn out.
But it hadn’t been Biggs who got snatched by the cullers.
It had been her, Jet.
She’d
been the one who’d been caught off her guard. It would be her, Jet, who would
be taken to one of their floating cities and be experimented on, enslaved,
beaten...maybe even eaten, once they were finished doing whatever else.
Assuming they didn’t just drop her out the hovercraft
door to watch her body explode on the moss-covered pavement below, for the fun
of it.
Her mind went into a kind of static.
Somehow, that blank, empty state left her surprisingly
calm.
Rubbing her ankle, which hurt from the vine that
dragged her up into the air, she realized that the hovercraft still wasn’t
moving. They remained over the same section of street where they’d picked her
up, not far from what used to be the Gaslamp district.
She wondered again how high they were off the ground.
Maybe she really could jump, suicide or no. Her chances would certainly be
better now, from a stationary position, than they would be in a few minutes.
The thought was absent at first, almost a muse, but it
quickly turned more pointed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flat top
of a brick building. She couldn’t be certain, but it looked to be within landing distance.
It would be suicide to jump, her mind reasoned.
Anyway, they would only rope her back up to the hovercraft again.
But how much worse could it be than staying here?
Could she ever forgive herself for not at least trying to get away?
Jet pondered this as she tried to get a sense of the
layout of the small cargo hold. She didn’t fully take her attention off the
Nirreth’s face, though. She only took her eyes off him directly once, to look
quickly around the dark space in the back, where they presumably had her
things. Her eyes couldn’t penetrate that blackness though, not enough to locate
her sword anyway.
In the same motion, she glanced at the brick building
outside.
It would be a long jump.
Too long, she suspected.
Even so, Jet could feel the part of herself that
wanted to try it. Her heart beat louder, deafening her, so Jet knew she was on
the verge of making a dash for the opening.
But she’d already stared too long, shown too much
interest.
Even as she thought it, the Nirreth she’d stuck with
her sword kicked her with its two-toed, flat foot. It wasn’t a hard kick, or
even a particularly threatening one. But she found she understood it well
enough. He wanted her eyes off that hovercraft door.
Looking back into the dark, she saw more black eyes
staring at her, reflecting light.
A few bared teeth at her as well. Most only stared,
their faces unmoving.
Fear clenched her stomach, knotting it. Jumping was
crazy, but she couldn’t think of anything else...nothing else would come to her
mind as a solution. Breathing was difficult, but the static in her mind
remained. It didn’t seem all that realistic to try and fight them using only
her body. The one standing over her had a hundred pounds on her, if not more.
No, the sword had been her only chance at fighting
them. That chance had passed.
JC Andrijeski has published novels, novellas, serials, graphic novels and short stories, as well as nonfiction essays and articles, including the Allie’s War series and The Slave Girl Chronicles. Her short fiction runs from humorous to apocalyptic,and her nonfiction articles cover subjects from graffiti art, meditation, psychology, journalism, politics and history. JC currently lives and writes full time at the foot of the Himalayas in India, a location she drew on a fair bit in writing the Allie's War
books. Her book The Slave Girl Chronicles is available for purchase at:
Hi April, I’m glad to have you on my
blog. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
The Universe is a Very Big Place is the only
book that is currently published and it’s only been on the market for two
months. Already, I have three reviews, one from a fairly reputable site. It is
interesting to see how people react to the book, however. It is first and
foremost a comedy, and then a love story. If someone is reading it and thinks
it’s a straight romance they may be shocked to learn that there is also a lot of
quirk.
