From the Indie Side (13 page)

Most of the time he would politely decline
their requests, telling them that they would have to be satisfied
with their slack-jawed stares, as if he were on display, a thing to
be admired, like a picture in the history books from long ago: the
ones that had survived centuries, secured away in an airtight
museum.

Books. The things he barely remembered.

Some were satisfied. Others left
disappointed.

Then, on a warm spring afternoon, when the
sun had turned the air thick and muggy, making Cray sweat through
his shirt as he hauled yet another load of wood for that evening’s
meal around the fire, a lone tripod shuffled into their
encampment.

The emaciated man was exhausted, his hands
bloody and blistered. His left foot was swollen, the boot missing,
and the skin on the bottom worn so raw that he cried when their
healer tried to soothe it with a poultice and fresh bandages.

His name was Arka. He’d escaped from Tritan
months earlier, and he’d never heard of Cray, nor his two legs.

But he knew Rowan. He knew him well.

Arka had leaned back against a maple tree and
lifted his wounded leg onto a sack of acorns, while Cray and Rowan
stood near.

“How long has it been, Rowan?”

“Thirty years. Maybe more.”

Arka took a sip of water offered by the
healer. She tried to adjust his foot, but he hissed and shooed her
away. “I thought you were dead.”

“Good.”

“And who’s this? The whole one,” he said,
flicking his chin toward Cray’s legs.

Rowan looked sideways at Cray. He sighed,
lowered his head. “I knew this day would come, eventually.”

Cray waited, wondering what the old man
meant.

“Who is he?” Arka asked again, more insistent
this time.

“I suppose it’s a good thing you don’t know,
but the truth can’t stay hidden forever,” Rowan offered, then
turned to Cray. “It’s been long enough.”

“What do you mean?”

Rowan ignored his question. To Arka, he said,
“Do you remember the Hallory woman? Worked in the factory? Her
husband died on the docks that day when the airboat came
unmoored.”

“Caran?”

Cray winced at the sound of his mother’s
name. He hadn’t heard it from someone other than Rowan since they’d
left Tritan. “You knew my mother?”

“I saw her at the market the night before I
escaped. She looked good. Doesn’t get around as well as she used
to, but she’s healthy.”

Cray blinked, shook his head. “No, she died
when I was little.”

Arka shrugged, held up his hands, the thin,
white cloth wrapped around them already soaked through with blood.
“I’ve stood beside Caran Hallory on the assembly line for the last
decade, son. I probably know her better than I knew my wife before
she passed. That was Caran, flesh and blood.”

“And now
you
know,” Rowan
whispered.

* *
*

Standing on the hilltop, overlooking the tall
buildings and busy roads of Tritan below, Cray reeled from Rowan’s
revelation, angry and even more determined than before. “She was
right,” he repeated. “But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t have told
me all of this sooner, ages ago. You told me she was dead, and now
you say she didn’t
want
me to know? You took my choice away
from me. You
both
did. Coming back here, coming back for
her, no matter how stupid it was then, or now, that was
my
decision to make.” He pounded his chest. “My choice, Rowan.
Mine.”

Rowan rocked back and forth on his crutches.
“An apology will never make it right, but you—”

“Just shut up. You’ve said enough.”

“You have to understand, it was for your own
good. Cray? Cray, listen to me. I took you out of that miserable
hole and I raised you like you were my own. I didn’t have to.
I
didn’t have to
. ‘Take him, get him out of here,’ she said.
‘Find somebody to raise him, whatever you have to do, just make
sure he stays whole.’ She made me promise, and I did it, I got you
out of there, but I didn’t trust anyone else to make sure you were
safe. You—you—” He paused, the words catching in his throat.
“You’re
my
son, too, and my lies are why you’re standing on
your own two feet, instead of hopping around like another one of us
pathetic tripods. My lies kept you from coming back here and
getting yourself killed.”

“But why? Why should I get to keep my leg?”
Cray insisted. “I’m nobody. I’m not special. I wasn’t then, and I’m
not now.”

“You were to her…and are to me.”

Cray relented. He walked over to a massive
pine tree and leaned up against it, the rough bark digging into his
arm. He felt the weight of the bomb against his shoulders, pulling
him down. The trip to Tritan shouldn’t have taken as long as it
had—a month on foot if you went in a straight line—but as Cray had
marched forward without a plan, Rowan struggling to keep up behind
him, they’d met a man who knew of another man, a merchant with
smuggled weapons who would trade for vegetables and fruit.

Out here, in the thick forests where food was
hard to come by in the long winters, a potato free from mold and
rot was more valuable than a gun with limited ammunition. A potato
might keep someone alive long enough to find their next meal, but a
gun, without proper training, could be dangerous, or a complete
waste. Once the rounds were gone, you had nothing more than an
awkward hammer.

They’d gone a hundred miles out of their way
and found him tucked in a cave, hunched over a small campfire,
warming his hands. His name was Ollen, and he’d been so mystified
by Cray’s
wholeness
, and what he planned to do, that he’d
offered the bomb for free, barely accepting a hunk of cured deer
meat when they begged him to take it.

“If she’s as old as you say, you’ll never get
her out under the wall. She won’t make it. She won’t be fast
enough. You’ll need a distraction, a big one, and this should do
it. Go for the Consulate. Take them down,” he’d said, his voice
hoarse and gravelly. “Take them all down.”

Cray looked up between the tree limbs at the
waning afternoon sky. “I’m going,” he said. “As soon as the sun
dips over the ridgeline, that’s it. I’m bringing her back with
me.”

Rowan nodded, understanding that further
arguments were futile. He hopped over to a fallen maple tree and
sat down, leaning his crutches against the log beside him. “You’ll
have to go without me. I’ll slow you down.”

After all this time, so many nights arguing
over whether or not this was the best plan, bickering about the
foolhardiness of Cray’s intent, the idea that Rowan might stay
behind punched a hole in Cray’s stomach. Regardless of the man’s
lies and misinformation, Rowan had more claim to being his father
than anyone, and Cray regretted his harsh words, and the need to be
apart.

Rowan was right. He wasn’t fast enough. If it
was going to work, Cray would need to move with speed and stealth,
and Rowan had neither.

Cray walked over, sat on the trunk next to
him. He apologized for his outburst, then said no more.

They sat in silence until the shadows
encroached and the air left a chill on their skin. Cray removed a
thick shirt from his pack and put it on, followed by the supple
jacket that Eryn had made from deer hide and given to him on his
birthday. She’d been so proud of her work. He missed her so
much.

If the plan failed, she wasn’t too far away
in the Beyond. They could be together again.

“Sun’s down,” Rowan said, breaking the quiet.
“Remember what I said. Wear that merchant’s smock that Ollen gave
you and tie your leg up. You walk in there on your own two feet a
grown man, you’ll be in chains before you get past the gate.” He
patted Cray on the knee and stood. Balancing himself on his
remaining leg, with one hand on an errant limb, he arched his back
and stretched. “And take these. Don’t waste time looking for a
set.” Rowan bent, grabbed his crutches, and shoved them into Cray’s
chest.

“What? No, I can’t leave you here without
these. What if the perimeter patrol finds you? You won’t be able to
get away.”

Rowan lifted his arms, tied his white hair
back, and hopped to steady himself. “I’m old, Cray. Tired. Let them
come. And if they don’t—this is the best place to watch.” He
smiled. “Go, now, save her.”

Cray nodded, leaned over and hugged Rowan. “I
understand, old man. I do. And…thank you.”

Rowan raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For keeping me whole.”

Cray walked down the hill, stepping sideways
on the steep embankment to prevent himself from slipping—a
privilege he was grateful for—picking his way through the
low-growth underbrush, winding his way through the thick cluster of
pines. Thirty yards below, he glanced over his shoulder, hoping for
one last gesture of reassurance.

Rowan was gone.

Strange, he thought, then assumed that the
old man had hopped away to find a more comfortable spot.

Darkness settled in while Cray navigated
through the forest, deftly climbing over stumps and easing around
moss-covered rocks. An owl hooted overhead and he paused to listen
to it. He hadn’t heard that sound since the night he and Rowan left
Tritan at their backs. The subtle sounds of the woods, alive but
subdued, its occupants having settled in for the evening, were calm
around him. A breeze sighed through the tree limbs and a stream
gurgled nearby.

He’d been a part of the forest back home for
nearly three decades, but it’d been so long since he’d simply
stopped
in the middle of it all. It was hard to appreciate
the beauty, to revel in being part of something bigger than a
single man, when his arms were laden with firewood logs or when he
crept silently along, trailing game to feed hungry mouths.

Cray took a deep breath, inhaling the
dampness of the leafy floor: an earthy hint of rotting wood and the
distinct stench of some unfamiliar plant that smelled like a
corpse. He scrunched up his nose and moved, then dropped to the
ground in a panic, rolling into a small patch of rhododendrons.

Up ahead, a single flashlight swept through
the trees. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but Cray could make
out the dark uniform with green stripes, the ones he remembered
from his youth.

A perimeter patrolman.

Life within the forest sensed the unwelcome
intrusion as well. The owl fluttered away. The wind died down. The
ambient hum of nature quieted. The only sound remaining was the
booming heartbeat in his ears.

Cray’s chest tightened. He risked lifting his
head to gauge the distance between them. Thirty yards or less. To
his right, twenty feet away, the forest floor dropped into an open
crevice, carved by the stream over time. If he could just get to
it, quickly, silently, he could crawl down, duck low, and slip by
unseen.

The patrolman strolled along, coming directly
at him. He whistled, unconcerned, unsuspicious, as the flashlight
swept from left to right. Left to right.

Cray watched as the man stopped, trained the
beam up the eastern hillside, and then broke into a run. “You
there,” he shouted. “Stop!”

Giggling. Laughter. It sounded like a group
of young girls and boys, caught sneaking into the woods. Teens
daring to be caught.

Unless the Consulate had changed the laws,
climbing under the wall and entering the perimeter without the
proper certifications was a crime punishable by death. Mother had
told him that once, long ago, but in words that a child could
understand. He couldn’t recall what she’d said exactly, yet it was
enough to keep him from allowing his curiosity to take over if he
was ever permitted outdoors.

The night when Rowan led him to a spot
covered by a thick cluster of pine saplings and shoved him
underneath the scraping concrete, shaking, terrified of what lay on
the other side, he’d nearly wet himself in fearful
anticipation.

That same urge returned as the patrolman
chased his quarry. He’d been so close that Cray could hear the
fading sounds of the knee and ankle gears of his mechanical leg as
he scrambled up and over the hillside.

Cray rolled onto his back. He swallowed hard
and stared at the winking specks of light peeking through the
canopy. If he’d been so frantic over a single patrolman, miles away
from the nearest section of the wall, how would he ever manage to
sneak back into Tritan and plant a bomb somewhere within the
Consulate?

Old fears, he thought. You’ve seen worse.

Trying to reassure himself had little effect,
but just as he’d done in the days, weeks, and months after Eryn’s
death, he got up, brushed himself off, and pressed onward. There
was work to be done.

For an extra measure of security, he climbed
down the stream’s embankment and crept along, crouching low so that
only the top of his skull was visible; any lower and he would be
crawling. The water was cool as it swirled around his boots,
seeping inside, soaking his feet. He walked with precision—yet
another luxury—careful not to slip on a slimy rock, or roll an
ankle. Rowan’s crutches dangled from the straps across his back,
providing a small measure of security in the event of an injury,
and he was glad that Rowan had forced him to take them.

He walked stealthily, concealed by the high
banks, until his back ached from stooping and the stream ended,
emptying itself into the sluggish Tritania River. The water was
low, revealing dried layers of dirt and roots along its banks, and
it flowed lazily along. It’d been a dry summer, thank the Gods,
which was a rarity that gave him easy passage across.

Cray held the pack high above his head,
protecting the bomb inside, as the river pushed around his shins.
It seemed silly, holding it so far away from the water, but he
couldn’t afford the risk. If he happened to slip and go down on his
back, his mission would drown along with the contents inside.