From the Indie Side (15 page)

Meredith, sensing the unease within him,
said, “You’re not here for your mother, are you?”

“Yes.”

“But that’s not all.”

Cray studied her face, her eyes, her
expression, trying to see the intent behind them. He hesitated a
beat too long. She opened her mouth, inhaled deeply. Cray clamped
his hand across her lips before any sound could escape. Her threat
worked.

“Don’t,” he said. “I’ll tell you. Just—just
keep quiet.”

Eyes wide, she nodded as he slowly brought
his hand away.

“You know what you said about these people
not having a choice?”

She nodded again.

“I’m going to—
gods
—that’s what I’m
here to do. I’m going to…”

“To what?”

“Create a diversion, so I can get my mother
out, and maybe give all of these hopeless tripods something to live
for.”

Meredith pounced toward him, excited,
grabbing his arm with both hands, squeezing it. “Let me help.”

An emphatic “no” did nothing to dissuade
her.

“Please.”

“No,” he repeated. “It’s too dangerous,
and—and I shouldn’t have said anything.” Cray couldn’t help
himself. He chuckled. The sheer ridiculousness of the situation was
beyond rationality. He should’ve listened to Rowan. He should’ve
thought it through, found another way. Or maybe he should’ve just
forgotten the entire plan altogether.

Meredith said, “How were you going to create
a diversion? Tell me, and maybe I can help.”

“I…” Cray released a defeated breath. He was
trapped, with no means of escape, in too many different ways. “Can
I trust you?”

Meredith let another mischievous grin pull at
the corners of her mouth. “Do you have a choice?”

“I could just kill you.” His tone lacked the
sincerity for a proper threat, and she knew it.

“You won’t do that.”

Exhausted, out of options, Cray relented.
“I’m going to blow up the Consulate.”

Her reaction surprised him. Instead of fear,
outrage, and disgust, she replied with a simple “Good. Somebody
needs to.”

“You really think so.”

“Think so? Gods, I’ve dreamed about it.”

The moment of truth. The final bit of
information that would allow her to pass full judgment on his
actions. He said, “Inside my pack, there’s a small bomb, but it’s
strong enough to level the whole building. My plan—if you could
call it that, since it seems like it had more holes than a fishing
net—the plan was to get it inside, hide it somewhere, and then get
my mother out through the supply gate after the explosion. Whatever
happened to the government after that was none of my concern.”

“Hmm,” Meredith mumbled, as if thinking it
over, as if it were nothing more than an unassuming question of
“Deer or trout for dinner?” She rolled onto her side, twisting a
lock of hair around her finger. “You’ll never get inside the
Consulate.”

“Why?”

“You need an access code, and even if you do
manage to get inside, the facial scanners will mark you as
unauthorized. You didn’t think you could walk right in there on
your
two
legs and drop it behind some plant, did you? Gods,
you adults and your flawed logic. That’s why this place is so
horrible.”

A rat scurried across Cray’s hand. He shoved
it to the side. “If it’s the only way… do you have the code?”

“No, it changes daily, but I know who
does.”

Reluctantly, Cray allowed her to present a
plan, never intending to agree with her.

There has to be another option—one
without her involvement.

Meredith drew maps in the dirt with her
finger. Talked about timing and patterns. Cray said no so many
times he lost count. And, in the end, he understood that the girl,
with her limited winters, was smarter than he cared to accept. It
was dangerous, stupid, and total madness, but she was right.

Ten minutes later, after the nightwoman had
led Sarlen, the deaf sentry, off into the shadows, Cray and
Meredith crawled to the mouth of the hole. They glanced to either
side, saw the empty street, and then scurried out.

They moved in a rush to the other side, where
the shadows were longer and deeper. They backed up against a wall.
While Meredith stood guard, cool sweat prickled Cray’s forehead as
he pulled his right leg up, tied it to his upper thigh, and then
wrapped the brightly colored merchant’s smock around his shoulders.
To anyone that cared to give him more than a second glance, he
looked like everyone else down at the docking bays.

“Lift the hood, too,” Meredith said. “People
know people here. A strange face might get you more attention than
you want.”

“Thank you.” Cray flipped it up, then pulled
it low over his face.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now all you’re
missing is a dancing monkey.”

Cray smiled. He liked her, and hoped that she
would survive. “Last chance,” he said. “You can walk away now.”

“And miss changing history? Forget it. I’ll
be fine.”

“I just want to be sure—”

Meredith put a finger on his lips, quieting
him. “I’m not a child.”

Cray nodded.

“I’ll never be whole, like you, but doing
this? Maybe nothing will change. Maybe somebody will rebuild that
horrible place and we’ll still be a bunch of tripods hobbling
around here living our lives with these awful crutches that hold us
up every day. But, maybe, just maybe, if it works, we can all have
a better future. I haven’t seen many winters—I understand that,
look at me…
I understand that
—but hopefully I have a lot of
them left, and all I’d like is to wake up every day knowing that I
can make up my own mind.

“Why do you think my friends and I sneak out
so much? There’s more out there, Cray. You’ve seen it. You’ve lived
your life
whole
. Don’t you see? They took my right leg from
me and all I want is to live
my
life as whole as I can. What
I want, more than anything, is a
choice
, and leg or no leg,
that’ll make me just as
whole
as you.”

Cray chewed on his bottom lip, and agreed. It
had taken the words of a girl little more than half his winters for
him to see it. Being whole wasn’t about being a
physically
complete human being—something he’d often seen as a burden rather
than a blessing—it was about free will and options, like the people
in his secluded village who’d escaped the bounds of Tritan.

All the travelers who had come to marvel at
him as if he were a mythical creature hadn’t truly been envious of
the skin, bones, and muscles that made his body complete.

Deep down, whether they completely realized
it or not, what they envied most was his freedom.

They simply didn’t understand that by
escaping, they already had it; and he hadn’t seen that until now,
either.

Cray sighed. “Okay. Then all I have to say
is…be careful, and—and the luck of the gods be with you.”

“Also with you.”

He rested a hand on Meredith’s shoulder.
“Thank you for making me see.”

“And thanks for letting
me
choose,
biped. Nobody’s ever done that before.”

“I’m still not sure it’s the best idea.”

Meredith smirked and shuffled down the dark
alley, leaving Cray standing, watching her go. She glanced back at
him. “Two hours. Get her out.”

“If this works,” he called after her, “I’ll
remember this.”

“If this works,” she said, “maybe I’ll come
find you one day and let you know what happened.”

* *
*

Cray hid in the bushes outside Caran’s house,
back where the murky light concealed him. He’d made it unhindered,
the layout of the streets coming back to him like he’d only left
the day before. So much had changed, so much remained the same. A
single light burned inside, where he used to sit in the living room
and play with his toys while his mother made dinner, on the rare
nights she was home. It was on the opposite side of the house, the
light pouring through a bedroom window above, too high for him to
peek through.

He’d heard movement and knew she was inside,
but the wait, the timing, were important. He listened to the
ticking of his internal clock. Soon, the two hours would have
passed, and if Meredith managed to fulfill her side of the plan, a
massive explosion would shake the ground. Chaos would follow.

Caran would be shocked to see him, he would
explain as rapidly as possible, and then he would take her away
from this place.

What if the bomb didn’t explode? What if
Meredith got caught, or if she changed her mind, what then?

Then you run, he thought. Caran would want
you to, because to stay means dismemberment, or death.

It’s close. Two hours will have passed
soon.

Go. Go now. Go see her before, just in
case.

Cray peeked between the branches, saw two
tripods hobbling away from him, but far enough in the distance that
he climbed out, unafraid of being noticed. He put two crutches in
front of one leg, and swung down the sidewalk, around the front,
and up to the door.

He knocked, and waited. His stomach wobbled,
the nervous anticipation of seeing her after so long making his
skin tingle.

Cray nearly tumbled backward when the door
opened.

Rowan.

“Cray,” he said. “What took you so long?”

“Rowan? What—how—you’re
here
.”

“Come in, come in. We’ve been waiting for
you.”

“But what—”

The smile disappeared from Rowan’s lips.
“Inside. Now.”

Confused, stunned, and bewildered, Cray
obeyed. The door slammed shut behind him.

In the living room, Caran sat in the same
rocking chair that she’d brought home a week before he left. She
was much, much older. Gray hair pulled into a bun, wrinkled skin.
Hands folded neatly in her lap. Cheeks wet with tears.

Two armed soldiers stood at her sides. Tall
and unmoving. Intimidating statues.

Cray wanted to look around, to remember his
old home, but he could do nothing more than wonder why.

Why had Rowan betrayed him?

His mother whispered a soft “My boy,” and he
moved toward her.

“Hold still,” Rowan said. He yanked the
merchant’s smock from Cray’s shoulders and untied the rope. The
guards shifted and lowered their eyes when his leg dropped to the
floor.

Cray was so lost in the moment that he forgot
he was leaning on the crutches.

“You won’t be needing these.” Rowan used a
crutch to swipe at one, then the other, knocking them from Cray’s
hands, almost sending him to the floor.

Cray fought for balance, regained it, and
again stepped toward Caran. In one swift motion, the soldiers had
their weapons aimed at his chest. Cray held up his hands and backed
away. To Rowan, he said, “Why?”

Rowan waved a crutch leg around the room. “I
hated it, living out there. Hated it with a level of disgust that
you can never understand. I wanted to come back, to live here where
I could hobble around like a tripod is meant to do. I wanted it so
badly that I could see it in my dreams. I wanted a mindless life
and a warm bed, never having to worry about where my next meal was
coming from. These crutches, that giant wall around this
place…that’s
security
, Cray, and that’s all I ever
needed.”

“But you—you raised me. You were like—”

“A father? I was
never
your
father.”

Anger flushed Cray’s cheeks. “You stayed out
there with me for thirty years—
thirty
, Rowan—why didn’t you
just come back on your own? Why put my mother in danger?”

“I waited, patiently, like a fool, for
her
,” he said, jutting his chin at Caran.

“What?”

“Isn’t that right, Caran?”

She turned her eyes away, bottom lip
trembling.

“I
loved
her.” Rowan clenched his
teeth. “I said a quiet prayer of thanks the day your father was
crushed under that airboat. Finally, we could be together.
She
promised we would, as long as I took you away from here
and saw to it that you were safe and had a good life. She was
supposed to send word when she was ready for me to come back, after
she’d
mourned
your father long enough. Tell him, Caran. Tell
him the truth.”

Cray’s mother said nothing. She covered her
mouth with a liver-spotted hand.

“I waited, all those gods-damn winters for
her. Three long, long decades out in the wilderness. I made a
promise, Cray. I promised to look after you until you’d grown into
a man, until you were safe, and until she sent word that I could
come back to her. And unlike some, I
kept
my promises.

“It occurred to me after a while that maybe
it wasn’t going to happen, but I held on, because love blinds a man
to the sad reality of his situation. It makes him do stupid,
foolish things, like suffer in a cold hut, eating rancid meat for
thirty years. Then I thought, maybe…maybe she’s dead, maybe that’s
why I never heard from her, so when Arka said she was still alive,
it was just as much of a surprise to me as it was you. Then, I
knew—she never
meant
for me to come back. Isn’t that right,
Caran? Answer me!”

Caran subtly, almost imperceptibly, shook her
head.

Cray asked, “If you hated it so much, why
didn’t you leave on your own?
You
wasted those years.
You
could’ve come back here and had your security.”

Rowan pointed a crutch at the two soldiers.
“Would you come back, knowing there was a chance these bastard
steelfeet would be waiting on you? I hoped I could slip back inside
and just pick up where I left off like nothing had happened. I
always knew the risk—there were ways around it—new identities from
some underhanded merchant, but if that wasn’t possible and I was
going to die, I wanted to see her one last time. But since I
thought she was dead, what was the point?”