Across the sand, p.9
Across the Sand, page 9
“Why are we sneaking around?” Jonah asked.
“We aren’t. He is. I want to know what he’s doing here.”
“So let’s go ask him.”
“I think he’ll lie to me. I think he’s been lying to me for a long time. Wait. Look.” She pointed to the rock the men were beside, which was opening up. One side split open, a hole the size of a door, the bottom half falling to the ground to form a ramp. A giant figure rumbled out. Her father. She heard loud voices; it sounded like an argument.
“I want to get closer,” she said.
“Follow me,” said Jonah.
He took a path around the hauler and appeared to be heading out into the open workshop bay, where for sure they’d be spotted. But then he descended into the ground. There were steps here that led down to lower repair bays, where men could stand beneath vehicles to get to the undercarriage. Each repair bay seemed to have one, and a narrow hallway connected them. Anya followed Jonah through a second repair bay. They stopped at the end of the next passage, just outside the bay the big rock things were sitting over. Anya could make out more of the argument now.
“—not for this kind of turnaround. And I don’t have the manpower right now.”
“We are your manpower,” she heard her father say. She not only recognized his voice, but his impatience. He sounded like he got when she was being obstinate about curfew. “Put us to work, and we’ll get out of your hair all the faster.”
“Well and good, but I need requisition forms from your boss, signed and sealed, before I release any hardware—”
“Have you got ore for brains?” someone else said. Anya thought it was one of the guys with her father. She crept forward for a better angle. “The city center is leveled. We’re limping along on emergency power. An evacuation order has been made—”
“That’s not my department. I’m supposed to get everything with wheels to Kaans. Those are my orders. Look, it sounds like you’re trying to make sure you still have a job on the other side of this. I’m doing the same. I know how bad things are right now, but in a month, the only question I’m going to get is why I signed out these vehicles to someone without the proper paperwork. I’m not losing a future job because you feel like standing here shaking your fist at me.”
“Forms?” her father said. “Those forms are ash. The building they’re in is rubble. The people who would file them are dead. And this hardware belongs to my department. I own these. You’re just the guys who change the oil—”
“And who have the auth codes for the diesel pumps. I assume you would’ve stolen it by now were that not the case.”
“Damn straight,” someone said.
“Look, let’s all settle down.” Anya could see her father pacing. She crouched down and clung to the shadows. From this angle, she could see the bottom of the rock machine directly above. It had fat rubber wheels and axles and shafts. It was some kind of vehicle. They all were, and they formed a kind of small train. “You want to cover your ass,” her father said. “I get that. Give me a sheet of paper, and I’ll sign my life away to cover yours.”
Silence as the offer was considered. Anya felt like her breathing was loud, like for sure they would hear her and Jonah down below them, maybe even hear the pulse pounding in her ears. She flashed back to the Pickett boy hiding on the roof, the thunder of tin as he was discovered and had to take off running, and she felt the thrill of old games, of spying on her father, of defying his attempt to send her away. A part of her felt like jumping out and waving her arms and shouting “surprise” and throwing herself into his great bear hug, where she could imagine him laughing and being glad to see her. An equal half felt terrified of being discovered. Her entire body quivered and vibrated, caught between the two extremes.
“You sign your life away, and you and your boys do all the fueling and loading,” the gruff voice said. “And then you’re out of my hair, you got it?”
“Deal,” her father said.
She saw two silhouettes move closer, probably to shake hands. Then all the figures moved their way, and she pulled Jonah back against the wall. They both froze as the men walked along the edge of the maintenance pit, would see them if they just looked down. Anya kept her gaze on her feet, fearing that looking up would make the men feel seen and glance their way. She and Jonah clung to each other until the boots receded into the distance.
“What is that thing?” Jonah asked. Once the men were gone, he and Anya had snuck up the ramp leading to the main floor to inspect the row of vehicles.
“A train, but it doesn’t go on tracks.” Anya approached it and ran her hand down its side. “It looks like it’s made of stone, but feels like ceramic. Definitely synthetic.”
“Definitely.” Jonah stuck his head into the open hatch. “Whoa, there’s a kitchen in here!”
Before Anya could warn him not to, Jonah hopped inside the machine. She stuck her head in and saw him filling a mug with water from a sink. He drank it all down and ran the tap for more. “Here,” he said, holding the cup out to her. “Totally drinkable.”
She accepted the offer and looked around the interior. It was a small kitchen with a little booth that might sit four. There were open doors to either side leading to other cars. Through the passageway to the left, she saw a compartment with two chairs facing a bank of monitors and glass windows. The other direction led down a hallway through the other three cars.
“Are you sure this thing moves?” Jonah asked.
“It’s in the motor pool,” Anya said. “It’s got wheels. Pop said he needed diesel. Yes, it moves. And you heard them, they’re trying to get permission to fuel it up and take it somewhere. Maybe it’s some kind of new mine transport? Imagine being in this during a cave-in. You could just live in it for days or weeks until they dug you out. It’s like . . . safety equipment or something.”
“Yeah, but how would they find you?” Jonah asked. “It’s camouflaged. It looks like a bunch of big rocks.”
Anya had no answer. She walked down the hallway to the right. There were doors on either side of a narrow hall. She opened one and saw a narrow pair of bunks inside. There was a small bathroom attached. It smelled like soap and detergent, like the room had been cleaned recently. Across the hall was an identical room. She checked the door at the end of the hall, and the bedroom here was the full width of the vehicle. There was a desk and chair on one side, bolted to the wall. Shelves ran along the other side. On one of the shelves, a row of books was held in place by elastic cords. Anya froze when she saw a picture of herself on the shelf above this.
“Jonah,” she said. She reached for the picture, but it was glued down to the shelf somehow. Of course—the entire thing must move too much to just leave things lying about.
“What the hell?” he asked when he joined her.
“This is where he goes,” she said. “These are my father’s things. These books. That’s my mom.” She pointed to a framed picture of a woman in a leather coat. An identical photo sat beside her father’s bed.
Jonah ran his fingers across the spines of the books. “What’s this language?” he asked.
Anya looked closer. “Sand,” she said. She read one of the titles aloud: “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the . . . Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. Not sure what ‘nuclear’ or ‘Damascus’ means.”
“Sounds like science fiction,” Jonah said. He looked around the space. “This is like a second home. A home that moves. Where do you think he takes it?”
“West,” Anya said, realizing this vehicle wasn’t meant for the mines at all. “Far west.” She steadied herself with a hand on the shelves, felt herself sway as she realized what her father was doing. Or at least, where he had been going these last few years. “They made this thing look like the earth out there. And that’s why it’s on this side of the gorge. My father . . . he thinks the people who live in the pens are the ones who set off the explosion in town. I think he’s going to get revenge.”
Jonah scoffed. “Arrivals can barely take care of themselves. They’re locked up. How could they do something like that?”
“I don’t know, but my dad thought they could. He knows them. I told you, he used to run the pens when I was younger. I spent a lot of time in there. I’ve listened to him explain over and over how dangerous they are, that they pose a threat to the empire—”
“The people in the pens. A threat to the empire. You aren’t serious.”
Anya waved her hands at the room. “Does this look serious enough to you?”
She felt herself sway again, but this time Jonah lost his balance as well. The machine rocked to one side, and there was a banging noise and shouts outside.
“They’re back,” Jonah said, a master of the obvious.
There weren’t any windows in this car to see what was going on, so it was impossible to know what the men were doing outside. Then the vehicle rocked again as someone stepped inside. They could hear voices down the hallway.
Anya moved to the wall by the door and risked a peek. One of the men she’d seen with her father was setting down a big plastic bin in the kitchen car. He turned and accepted another and stacked this on top. They were loading supplies.
Anya couldn’t begin to imagine how much trouble she’d get in if her father found her. She no longer felt the half of her that thought this was a fun game and that he’d be thrilled. Her father still thought she was on a train, hours down the track, on the way to go live with his cousin. He was going to be pissed when he found out she had stayed behind, and he would be even more pissed because she was seeing something he’d obviously never wanted her to know about. It felt absurd to her that she was here now, on the other side of the gorge, how one little decision that had seemed logical in the moment had led to another and another and another.
“What do we do?” Jonah whispered.
Anya was wondering the same thing. Getting out unnoticed seemed impossible.
With a growling noise, the floor started vibrating, a gentle hum she could feel in her feet and bones. Looking back around the corner, she saw that bins were being loaded at a heavy clip, passed from one person to the next. Then she saw her father at the end of the passageway, sitting in one of the chairs, his hand reaching overhead and doing something with the ceiling, before leaning forward and doing something with the dash in front of him.
“I’m staying,” she told Jonah. She glanced at the closet, which was plenty big enough to lie down inside. She could also crawl under the bed. It was the same as jumping off the train: she only needed to hide until it was too late to make her go back. Or better yet, they’d find her, and her father would stop this nonsense and stay home with her. “You should go announce yourself and get home. Just don’t tell them about me. Say you were hiding out after the explosion, that you were scared and looking for shelter. Whatever you want to say. But now’s your chance to get out of here.”
“I’m staying with you,” Jonah said. Like there was no other option.
More shouts between the men, and Anya heard the hatch door slam shut, the racket of the loaded boxes being organized. The room moved, and she and Jonah lost their balance, arms windmilling to keep from falling. The vehicle had started up and was underway. Whatever Anya had been considering, it was now decided for her. She was going with her father, across the sand.
Part IV:
The Plunder
I saw it coming, the end of all things, like a star descending from the heavens.
The gods desired to smash my people.
So we stepped aside.
—Nomad King
To dine on our foe
strengthens our bones. To dine on
family, our hearts.
—Old Cannibal haiku
12
Sins of the Father
Rob
Three weeks later
ROB DREAMED THAT he was flying. He weighed nothing, and the wind was beneath him, lifting him up and driving him forward at incredible speeds. He couldn’t see—all was black—and then he realized his eyes were closed. He felt the brush of rough fingertips across his cheeks, through his hair, down his spine, the touch of flowing sand. He was diving. There was sand all around him, but softer than water. Softer than air. He was pulled along as though in a vacuum. He wanted to open his eyes and see who was doing this to him, but he knew from testing busted visors that all he’d see was more black, and he’d get sand in his eyes. He wanted to take a breath, get more air in his lungs, but he knew he’d swallow sand.
His boots! Rob pulled his knees to his chest, got into a tight ball, felt himself wobble his captor’s flow. He reached into the side of his boots to power them up, but the switches were already on. Of course—he’d had them on for the testing, had never powered them off. Hopefully they had enough charge left. He grabbed the headband from his left boot, uncoiled the wire, brought the band up on his head.
When it settled against his temples, he had a feeling like a mechanical bolt sliding into a receiver, like an audible click of correctness as the contacts touched the right parts of his forehead. Rob could feel the sand moving now, and he pushed back, tried to come to a stop. But nothing happened. Except a feeling. The feeling of having his wishes canceled. Had something broken in the band? No—this was the act of some other person.
A feeling of helplessness washed over him, worse than frozen sand, worse than not being able to breathe, this feeling of being subject to another’s will. Rob felt a wave of anger and fear. He pushed against his captor again, but this time with a hammer blow, an eruption, a fist of stonesand.
The response was immediate, and for a moment Rob thought he was dead. The feeling of an entire dune landing on his chest, and then his stomach dropping as he launched upward, through the surface of the sand above, really flying now, arms waving for balance, actual wind on his face and in his hair, trying to not come down on his head, his neck, a flash of star-filled sky and silver moonlit dune, gasping for a breath of glorious air. He braced himself for impact, but the sand accepted him like water again, like it wasn’t even there, back to racing forward, and Rob felt dazed, what little air he’d managed to get in his lungs nearly gone, on the verge of suffocation. He had tried to hurt whoever was doing this to him, had put all his effort into the attempt, and had been slapped aside like a sand flea. Little more than a pest.
He began to black out, could feel the compulsion to take in a deep breath that would only fill his mouth and throat with flowing sand, and then the movement stopped. He felt wind against his skin. He was lying on sand still warm from the day’s setting sun. He tried to sit up—every bone and joint sore—and eventually made it to his hands and knees. Opening his eyes, he saw shoes. Three pairs of shoes facing him so close he could’ve reached out and touched them were it not for the vertical bars of sand in his way.
Rob grabbed the bars for support, tried to get to his feet, but collapsed back onto his butt in exhaustion. One of the three figures knelt down as Rob realized he was in a box, a cage, solid stonesand above and below and to all sides except the one that had only stonesand bars. Some small part of him marveled more at this construction than his predicament.
“I’ll have those boots,” someone said.
Rob could only see by the moon and the glow of their dive lights, but that was enough to tell that the man talking was probably Palmer’s age. Young, but with a face weathered by a thousand noons and as many dives. Rob leaned to one side and spat sand out of his mouth. The man frowned—sneered—in response, and Rob realized clearing his lips had been taken as some kind of refusal. Fine. He let it stand. It was better than anything he could think to say, and his ribs hurt too much to talk.
“They’re coming off you with or without your feet in them,” the man said. “Your choice.”
“Easy, man, look at him. He’s just a kid.”
Another of the figures crouched down so Rob could match a face with the voice. Another diver, visor flipped up, but even younger. Rob wasn’t sure if he liked being stuck up for by someone who called him just a kid.
“Hey, what’s your name?” this second guy asked.
“Where am I?” Rob said. His voice was weak and raspy.
“You’re about a klick north of that dump you call a town. Seen better days, hasn’t it?”
A kilometer. On a breath of air. That wasn’t possible. How fast had they been moving? Rob leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the bars to try to get a look at the third person standing there, but the roof of his sand-made cage blocked his view, and the moon made the figure little more than a silhouette.
“What’s your name, kid?” the second guy asked again.
“My name’s Rob,” he said, realizing these people weren’t going to kill him, only wanted to steal from him. “What’s your name?” While he stalled them, he tried to flow the sand of the cage, break it up, but nothing happened. He looked back at his shoes and saw the red glow in the soles that meant dead batteries. He had used whatever juice was left in his previous attempt to get free.
The younger guy turned to the others. “See? He’s reasonable. I’m Dyvan, this is Rook, and that’s Shana.” He turned and jabbed a thumb up at the diver who was still standing. When his headlamp washed over her, Rob could now see it was a girl with hair knotted kind of like Vic’s. A wave of sadness and homesickness hit him. Rob put his head in his hands and began to sob.
“Yeah, good job, moron,” the one called Rook said.
“Holy shit, I just told him our names. Hey, kid, just give us the boots and you can walk back to your dump. We don’t have time for this.”
“What’d you do with Graham?” Rob asked through gasps for breath. He swiped snot from his nose, could barely see through the tears.
