The Neo-Spartans: Altered World (11 page)

              Quinn walked for hours along the Sanctuary wall keeping her eyes peeled for a weak point. So far, “the system” didn’t seem willing to agree with Kilbert’s ideas. As gnarly and old as it was, it still worked as an impenetrable fortress. Not a hole in the wall, not even a chip. She kept walking with dogged determination, repeating Kilbert’s mantra. She was past exhaustion, at that point when legs are numb and keep moving as if they are part of some mechanical device. Quinn focused her eyes on the tips of her moving boots, and the rhythm of her pace put her in a comfortable trance where she wasn’t think about the mission or about her father. The irregularity that broke her concentration was almost imperceptible, making her wonder whether she hadn’t been paying sufficiently close attention, or perhaps confirming Kilbert’s words that the minute you stop resisting something it actually lets you in. There, right in front of her eyes was a stretch of wall pockmarked by eroded holes, about two inches deep and covering almost the entire length of it. The acid rains had chewed up the cement and to an untrained eye it translated to decay and ugliness. To Quinn, it was a thing of beauty—a naturally created climbing wall, the eroded indentations serving as grips.

              She took off her boots, tied their laces together and slung them around her neck. With bare hands and feet, she found the first set of cement holes and pulled herself up the wall. Quinn moved from grip to grip like a spider, her body fueled by new energy that sprang from the sheer excitement that she might be able to penetrate this fortress. She was halfway up the wall when the erosions became sparse and she had to plan her upward path more carefully. Muscles coiled and sprang to reach the further grips, and on occasion she had to hang briefly by one arm before she could get to the next grip. The burn in her muscles felt like acid but there was no time for rest. She had to reach the top and figure out how to maneuver around the edge that was jutting out at an angle. Even if she got a good hold of it, she had to lean at a wide angle, abandoning herself entirely to the forces of gravity.

              This was a tough task even for a fit Neo-Spartan. She decided to deal with the challenge when she got there. But the issue was forced on her earlier than she expected. Quinn was about six feet away from the top when the gruff voices of men wafted down to her. She stopped climbing and glued herself to the wall. She stood there still, toes digging into the cement holes, arms trembling from exertion. After an eternity, she dared to look up and spot the heads of two Bangers, settling comfortably for what seemed to be their shift. Quinn cursed under her breath—sentries. What were they doing posted on this remote part of the wall? There goes Kilbert’s theory. She quickly ran through her options: climb fast and let herself be grabbed, because there was no way she could get around the jutting edge without being noticed, then quickly dispatch the sentries with her toxin-point technique, or quietly climb back down and look for another “weak point in the system.”

              The first option was temping, but it would guarantee complete failure of the mission. Within two hours the whole place would be buzzing with the news that a Neo-Spartan had made a break-in attempt on the Sanctuary. The last thing her community needed was yet another enemy. Quinn swallowed her defeat and carefully made her descent down the wall. Dusk was already pushing daylight away, and with it Quinn’s hopes of getting in. She dropped noiselessly to the ground and slinked away along the weed overgrown outer wall of the Sanctuary. When she thought she was out of the sentries’ sight, she quickened her pace, determined to find an opening before night settled. Her determination quickly turned into discouragement when she noticed the regularity with which sentry stations started appearing along the wall. Did somebody send a memo about her arrival?! Her mood was turning sour, she was hungry and tired and the thought of quitting started eating away at her resolution. Quinn knew it was time to take a break and rethink her strategy. She walked some more until the murky light made it impossible to see where she was stepping and settled down among some soft wild growth near the wall. It was the perfect spot—she could hide in it and stretch her legs. The pouch Kilbert had given her provided much needed nutrition. She was ravenous, but Quinn didn’t succumb to the temptation to stuff her face with the highly nutritious snacks she had in her backpack. She forced herself to slowly chew on a bar of herbs-and-nuts, losing herself in the quiet of the approaching evening. A wild and desolate terrain stretched for miles outside of the Sanctuary wall, and it was eerily quiet; no buzzing of insects or screeching of night birds and animals. A bizarre, one-sided universe, bearing the stamp of destructive human presence. People take the works of nature for granted, but only when its beautifully intricate design is disrupted do they notice the missing links and the terrible gaping holes left in their place. The silence of her surroundings gave Quinn a weird audio memory; she could hear the soothing buzz of bees, the intermittent oscillation of beetle wings and those tiny raspy noises the bugs’ legs produced when they crawled on the harder leaves in the co-op farm. Their quiet vibration stilled her mind and relaxed her body, and before she knew it, Quinn drifted off into pleasant slumber.

              She didn’t know how long she had slept. That wasn’t her plan, it had just happened and now she was awakened by an angry voice that commanded attention. She shook off the last dregs of drowsiness and admonished herself for being sloppy when on a mission. She sank deeper into the tall vegetation and looked up toward the wall where the voices were coming from. It was pitch black except for the flickering flames of the torches the two men were holding. This was probably another sentry station, thought Quinn, and it struck her that the Bangers were quite obsessed with security, especially for people who didn’t care much about life. She gave an ear to the conversation, or rather the riot act one of the men was reading the other. The voice sounded familiar and after tuning in to its cadence and pitch, she was almost certain this was Grisner.

              “We went over this and you said you’d have your best men take care of it. Is this some kind of joke, or are your standards so low that you don’t know better?! He was asleep, on his post, for hours!”

The larger man Grisner was yelling at didn’t show any signs of intimidation. “Standards be upped, boss.” The puckish note in Julius’ voice was barely hidden. “You have to keep in mind that these guys have a different attitude toward danger. But don’t you worry, I’ll kick his ass and put a better one here.”

              “A lax attitude can make even the strongest fortress collapse,” said Grisner.

              “Fear can be a good guardian but I’m not sure about paranoia. Look out there, an open wasteland. Who’s nuts enough to march up here and try to break into the Sanctuary? Anybody who is, is already in.” Quinn saw the big bulk of the second man bring the torch close to his face as he lit up a cigar. She was looking at Julius, not knowing who he was or what role he was going to play in her mission, but admiring the fact that he was completely unfazed by Grisner’s authoritative manner. Grisner looked at him, and then turned to the darkness spreading outside the wall.

              “It’s not about craziness, it’s about integrity. You have no idea who these people are. The myths we spread about them barely scratch the surface. They are smart and inventive, with resilience beyond what anybody can imagine. But that’s the least of it. What is remarkable about these people is their spirit and loyalty. They care about family, and if one disappears the whole tribe will come after you.”

              “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you have thing for them.”

              “Yes. Hatred. But failing to acknowledge the virtues of your enemies puts you in a disadvantageous position. So, don’t call me paranoid. I know what they are capable of, and if we are not prepared, they’ll take advantage of it.”

              Quinn listened to this bizarre rhapsody about her own people with a deepening sense of confusion. Who was this man who understood them so well? One might get the impression he was one of them, yet he harbored such profound hatred toward them? He scared her and intrigued her at the same time. She knew he was going to be the greatest danger to her mission, but she couldn’t deny the nagging instinct that he was also the man who had the answers to all those confounding questions that had arisen in the last twenty-four hours. She watched the two men walk off into the night as soon as the more reliable sentry took his spot, armed with vigilance. Quinn decided it was better to resume her search for an entry the next morning.

* * *

              Daybreak found Quinn slinking along the wall. The barren terrain had given way to a bleak swamp, a pool of standing water created by a hole where one part of the Sanctuary wall connected to another. Both sections were crumbling. The collected water must have made things worse, but who was going to care about that anyway? She ventured closer and peered into the water, green with algae and filled by slimy pieces of debris—testimony to a broken city.

              “Great, Kilbert. That’s inviting, I’m really screwed,” she said, as she studied the impassable combination of swamp and mud. She was about to turn away when suddenly the overgrown trees and bushes around the wall began to shake. Soon they parted, and a filthy urchin appeared. It was a little girl, six or seven years old. Quinn ducked and watched her. The urchin tried to skip stones along the disgusting surface of this algae-plagued pond. She reared back, really getting some wrist into it… and promptly fell into the pond. Running only on instinct, Quinn rushed forward and pulled her out, getting herself soaked in the process. As soon as they got onto dry land the urchin wriggled away, distrustful. She ran a short distance.

              Quinn called after her. “Is that it? Is that the way you welcome newcomers?”

              The girl stopped and turned back. “Why are you new?” she asked.

              “Well you’ve never seen me before, have you?” said Quinn.

              “But you’ve never seen me either,” said the girl.

              “See, we’ve already got something in common.” The girl edged her way back, sizing up this strange new person. As she arrived Quinn leaned down and whispered, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone I saw you here.”

              A smile blossomed through the crud on the urchin’s face. “You smell nice,” she said.

              “I wish I could say the same.” But she extended her hand. “I’m Quinn.”

              The urchin looked at the hand. Quinn mimed shaking. The urchin laughed, extended her hand and said, “I’m Marisol. Want to see something special?”

              “Very much.”

              Marisol guided Quinn a short distance to where a single tree populated the barren cityscape. Its roots had broken through the concrete so that pieces of it remained in place, but were easy to apart, like an anatomy doll with its easy-lift skin and removable organs. Marisol carried out what amounted to a surgical procedure, removing a long chip of concrete and producing from beneath it a raft of precious objects: an exotic, one-of-a-kind collection of elements of time past. Toys, or at any rate, parts of toys. Tiny tractor wheels, plastic horse legs, yo-yo halves, bubble gum and chocolate wrappers smoothed out and carefully stored, treated with the same care as the shroud of Turin.

              Quinn watched Marisol displaying and admiring each of her treasures, and to her great surprise she was overcome with wistfulness. Marisol had a genuine childhood… it might be a shabby stench-filled childhood, but it was free of the discipline and strife that anchored her and Gabriel’s lives. Quinn strangled a sigh of regret and smiled at Marisol who flashed her a glance.

              “Where did you come from?”

              “Outside the walls,” answered Quinn.

              Marisol looked at the hundreds of yards of wasteland that were once city. “Outside is big,” she said, “and bad.”

              Quinn studied her. Did she argue with her? Update her? Or let her believe what somebody had clearly taught her as truth?

              “Yep. Very bad,” confirmed Quinn.

              Marisol’s eyes widened as she remembered something. She quickly replaced her treasure stash under her breakaway concrete. “I have to go.” She popped to her feet and started off. Quinn hesitated, but Marisol quickly filled the void, offering Quinn her hand. “Well, come on.”

              “One second.” She pulled up a larger hunk of breakaway concrete and secreted her pack there. She wrapped her hand in Marisol’s and allowed herself to be guided through a well-hidden but narrow slash in the Sanctuary wall, clearly created by the water rushing underneath and wearing out the foundation. Eventually the wall would give way and somebody would come out to fix it, but for the moment it was the exact access that Quinn had set out looking for. As they moved through the slash Kilbert’s voice filled her head: “The notion that yielding overcomes force is known to all but practiced by none.” He’d repeated the words of the Chinese sage often enough, thought Quinn. Finally, the saying made sense to her.

              Marisol led her to the other side and the familiar stench stung her nostrils. But somehow it was more tolerable now. Quinn guessed it was true: a person could get used to anything. A concept borne out by the fact that they emerged from the wall into the Sanctuary dump. From a considerable distance a woman’s voice was heard calling Marisol’s name.

              “Is that your mom calling?” asked Quinn. Marisol nodded, grabbed the garbage pail she’d left when she’d been distracted by her wall access, and skipped off. “See ya.”