Whisperworld
Chapter 22
I was grabbed, tied up and dragged away. I resisted only because they were trying to take me away from Zach. I fought and screamed and bloodied a few noses, but it didn’t take long to get me under control. The Whitefingers dumped me into a lightless cave where they had bolted an actual door into the entrance and left me there alone. They brought me just enough water and food to keep me alive, and occasionally emptied my bucket. Each time, they kept me at spear point until the door bolted shut again.
I think I was there for two days, based on the number of visits to feed me, but I wasn’t really counting.
Zach was dead. My partner. That was something that happened to other Greenguard, not us. Zach and I were smart. We were good together. We were careful… Okay, not as careful as we could have been, but when things turned stormy, Zach and I were always there to get one another out of trouble. Always. No questions, no quibbles. We could tease each other, but Zach was always there to save me. How could my world keep going with Zachary Dias dead?
But he was gone. Zach was my rock, the wall I could always put my back against when things got stormy. The only person in the Whisperwards I cared about… He died and left me alone.
Zach had kept secrets. He had betrayed me. The thought was too big, too ugly. It made the whole world twist in on itself, but drew me back again and again with its terrible gravity. Zach had been holding that little blinking device and I knew instinctively that the red light brought the robot. It was some kind of beacon… No wonder Zach had dismissed the distant metallic shine as unimportant, too far in the wrong direction to investigate. Of course Diesel had felt no malice or danger. Robots didn’t hate anyone. They just followed orders.
When did Zach get the beacon? I didn’t think he had it when Woods and the rest were staking us out.
But then we were separated. I remembered the indistinct figure being dragged back toward Angel City. Two of the Greenguard had come after me. That meant five to chase down Zach. I just assumed he was good enough to take on those kinds of odds… But what if he wasn’t…?
They must have caught Zach. Then why didn’t they kill him?
And what had he shouted at the robot? My eyes felt full of glass sand and it hurt to think, but I couldn’t forget. Not her. Thorn said…
Zach had cut a deal with the High Gardener. What was it? Kill the Whitefingers and all was forgiven? But not me. Zach would never hurt me. I sobbed in the darkness. Zach’s deal wasn’t just for his own life. It was for mine, too. I hated and loved Zach so much that I felt like it might tear me apart.
He never believed that the Whitefingers could help us, or help the Whisperward. His faith had always been in the Gardeners. Zach and his fucking unshakable faith…
How could I have missed it? The food, the extra water… It came from the Gardeners. And Zach’s hat. He hadn’t been wearing it when Woods dragged me into Thorn’s office. But I was so used to seeing Zach in it that I never questioned its presence.
It was all Zach’s idea to find the Whitefingers… I should have known. He always hated the wastelanders, feared their alien ways and dangerous dreameaters. He believed in the Gardeners and the Whisperward. But I had clung to the idea so eagerly, accepted their ways and life so much more easily than Zach, that I almost forgot the plan had been his.
Now I knew why Zach had kept checking his pockets. I understood and I had never wanted my curiosity satisfied less. Zach had betrayed me. He had tried to save me. I grabbed the bucket and heaved into it. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t fed me much. My stomach went on convulsing, trying to vomit out this feeling long after the thin, acidic spittle stopped coming up.
When the door opened again, I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to eat or drink anything. But spears prodded me to my feet and someone bound my hands once more. Whitefingers marched me out of my cell and I blinked even in the shaded interior of Lago Warren. I wanted to screw my eyes tightly shut, but not to keep out the light — I didn’t want to see what had become of the warren.
I didn’t want to see what Zach had done.
But I couldn’t walk with my eyes closed and my Whitefinger escorts set a brisk pace. I had to look. The air was clear of smoke now and there were no more fires, but the scars of the attack were terrible. Most of the rubble had been swept away, but there were blackened and melted holes in the stone. Caves had collapsed and severed bridges hung from the ravine walls like dead limbs. There was a rough gash of pale, fresh stone where Kiyu and the other yangs had ripped down tons of rock to bury the robot.
There were fewer people, too. I saw only a handful of Whitefingers repairing and crossing the remaining bridge. The hum of voices that had so reminded me of the Whispers was nearly silent now. The survivors of Lago Warren moved quickly, without speaking. I didn’t see any children playing anymore.
The Whitefingers led me deeper into their warren. We had to climb down ropes in places where the ladders and bridges were gone. It grew darker as we descended. Only a handful of their blue-green algae lights glowed here, illuminating more black craters and melted scars. How many people had died? How many homes were destroyed?
Water hissed beneath us, as black as tar in the thin aqua light. There was no one fishing, no children splashing in the shallows. Was the robot still down there in the remains of the sea? Would I be sent to join it? Was that how the Whitefingers executed traitors? I remembered floating in the bathtub and wondered if drowning would hurt.
We edged along a broken path. The stone ground ominously beneath my feet and I worried it was going to save the Whitefingers some trouble by unceremoniously dumping me down into the salty water. But the ledge held and the Whitefingers pushed me through a cracked hole in the rock, into a cave.
It took me a moment to recognize Diego’s home. There were fewer watery lights in here, too, but I could still see that something was wrong. Only four of the aged Whitefingers sat in the dim cave now. Diego was there, but the old man sat crookedly, propped up with the empty floor cushions. One half of his face hung slack and the eye on that side drifted, unable to focus.
Jacks stood beside Diego. The unburned side of the huge man’s face was twisted with pain and he held the crossbow he had taken from Zach. It was loaded.
I didn’t see Diesel anywhere.
Kiyu waited just behind Jacks. Her mouth opened and she took a half step forward when she saw me, but Jacks shoved her back. The girl’s face was stricken and pale, her beautiful eyes rimmed in red.
“What happened?” I asked. My words were withered to a croak by too little water and too much crying.
“Your robot interrupted the warrens’ communion,” Diego said. “The deaths tore through us before we could make contact with the Stormsphere. Fifty-seven elders are dead across the desert. More are damaged.”
Diego raised his stick-thin fingers to the sagging side of his face. Hundreds were dead in Lago. Warrens all across the salt desert had lost their elders. And we knew nothing more about the Stormspheres than we had before. I fell to my knees on the cave floor. I wanted to go back to my cell.
“Are the Whisperwards going to war with us?” Diego asked. His words were slurred.
I shook my head slowly. My hair was hopelessly tangled and appeared black in the wan blue light. “Not the ‘Ward.”
“Then why were we attacked?” It may have been hard to understand Diego’s words, but not his question.
“The people of Angel City probably don’t even know that this happened. Zach said… I think Thorn did this,” I said. Diego waited, head wobbling on his thin neck while I cleared my throat painfully. Even saying Zach’s name hurt. “Only Thorn and Gregory have the codes to activate the robots. One of them must have given Zach the device that the robot tracked.”
“Did you know?” Jacks growled. The rage and pain on his face was far uglier than the twisted burn scars. “Did you know that… thing was coming?”
“Does it matter?” I stared down at my hands. “No, I didn’t know. But I should have. Zee…”
My eyes stung and I pressed my fingers into the lids until they ached, but my tears remained in check. For now.
“Leave Julia alone!” said a strained voice. “This isn’t her fault!”
“Shut it, Kiyu,” Jacks barked.
I opened my eyes again and found the remaining Lago elders regarding me in the wavering blue light.
“We believe her, as well,” Diego said. “She didn’t know.”
The other elders all nodded together. They had communed so much over the years that they didn’t need the engan or yins joining their minds to think alike.
“Will you still help, then?”
I didn’t even realize that I had asked the question until Jacks snarled at me. “Help you? Why shouldn’t we kill you now? More than a thousand people died! Diesel’s dead–”
“Jacks, please.” Diego’s mushy voice silenced the big Whitefinger. “What do you mean, Julia?”
“People will die,” I said. The ropes around my wrists chaffed as I shifted my weight. “More people. You can kill me, but it’s not going to change what’s happening to the Whisperwards.”
“Let the Gardeners protect their cities,” Jacks said. Zach would have agreed. “If Thorn commands things like that robot–”
“Robots can’t stop a storm. And sending a machine was Thorn’s decision,” I argued with passion that surprised even me. I had left Angel City behind, but I couldn’t just abandon the people there. “All of the ‘Wards are failing. Don’t condemn entire cities to die because of Thorn and Zach!”
“She’s right,” Kiyu said.
She stepped around Jacks fast enough that he couldn’t grab her this time and came to stand beside me. Still down on my knees, I stared up at Kiyu. So many of her own people were dead. Why would she defend me?
“None of the warrens are nearly big enough to take in all of those people if the Angel City Stormsphere fails. Can we really just let them all die?” Kiyu asked.
“Their Gardeners would do it to us,” Diego pointed out. “They didn’t even wait for the storms. They sent their machines to kill us in our own homes.”
“And what about the cry for help? Even if you don’t care about saving the people of the city, what about the thing in the Stormsphere?” Kiyu asked. “It needs our help, too.”
She stood her ground with hands on her hips, half Jacks’ size and utterly defiant. Had I ever looked like that when I argued with Thorn? The elders traded long looks and then nodded together once more.
“We will try again,” Diego decided. “But all of the warrens have lost their most powerful yins. We’ll need more minds to make up the numbers. That means you, Kiyu.”
She gulped audibly, but she set her jaw and nodded. My heart sped. The communions were dangerous at the best of times. Diego said that the mysterious entity in the Stormsphere presented unknown threats. And what if there was a second attack while they were communing?
“What about Julia?” Kiyu asked.
Diego regarded me with his one clear eye.
“She’s free to go,” the elder mumbled. “For now. But I want her here tomorrow when we try to communicate with her Stormsphere again.”
Kiyu nodded and waved back the two Whitefingers guarding me. She knelt and untied my hands. I flexed my fingers a few times. They hurt, but I just couldn’t care that much.
“Come on, Julia.” Kiyu helped me to my feet and led me out of the cave.
