Whisperworld
Chapter 25
Always efficient, Jacks had taken care of gathering our supplies during the night. So when Kiyu and I emerged from her cave the next morning, everything was pretty much ready to go. Kiyu went through the packs and pulled out a long, dust-colored cloak. The cloth had the slightly sticky texture of the Whitefinger’s insulating resin. The cloak was faded, but otherwise in good condition, even if the hem was permanently dusted white with salt. Kiyu handed it to me and showed me how to work the fastening.
Jacks approached as I tied the cloak off under my chin. I wore my mended fatigues — now cleaned — with my knife on my belt and a full canteen. I’d taken the night-lens goggles and settled Zach’s wide-brimmed hat down over my auburn hair. The hat was a little too big for me, but I couldn’t let it go. Jacks looked me up and down, dressed as half Blackthumb and half Whitefinger. Finally, he held out the crossbow he had confiscated from Zach. Was that really only a week ago?
“Take this. You know nothing about using a spear,” he said, then hesitated. “If you were going to stab us in the back like your partner, you would have done it by now.”
It was better than being punched, but not by much. I guess that was acceptance.
“This is Sidney,” Jacks said.
He whistled and motioned to one of the other Whitefingers. The man was taller than Kiyu, though only by a few inches, with curly hair and skin covered in brown freckles. I thought I recognized him from the communion. Sidney left Ahmet packing the last bags and walked over to me. He extended his hand and I shook it.
“I’m your yin. Lekan was my brother,” Sidney said. “I’ll finish what he started. I hear this is your plan.”
“It’s our only chance,” I told him, then laughed. “At least, the only one I can think of. Don’t suppose you have any ideas?”
Sidney smiled and shook his head. “Not that I think are any better than the one we’ve got. This Gregory, will he have a strong mind? How hard will it be to pull the activation codes from his thoughts?”
“Gregory?” I scowled. “The only trouble you’ll have is finding a thought in his head at all.”
Jacks called a start and we shouldered our packs. I groaned. They were incredibly heavy and crammed full of supplies, but Kiyu assured me that we would cache a lot of it on the way out for use on the return journey. If there was a return journey.
We climbed up the spiraling and crisscrossing warren ramps all the way to the top of the fissure. The whiteness of the Pacific Desert stretched out all around us. I fitted the goggles over my eyes and the Whitefingers tied cloth across their faces.
“Let’s move,” Jacks said.
I was pleased to note that I slowed the Whitefingers much less now than on the trek to Lago Warren. This time, I wasn’t recovering from being high on engan, had a full stomach and my leg was mending. If any dangerous mutants gave us shit, I was going to show my new team just how useful I could be.
I didn’t get the chance, though, not for a while. Sidney was able to sense anything hungry or angry enough to be a problem long before we got close. Once, a warning rattle brought us to a halt, but the snake was a little thing, only a few feet long with no visible mutations. They could still be dangerous — it was a snake like this that had killed Lekan, after all — but Kiyu just picked it up from a distance and broke its neck. We ate the snake for dinner.
Kiyu and I slept close together and made love under the cover of our cloaks. We couldn’t do all the things that we wanted to, but we were happy. I had been with other women before, but Kiyu was unlike any of them. She was so alive, so beautiful. So willing to risk her own life to save others.
On the second night out from Lago, I may have gotten a bit carried away. The next morning, Ahmet gave me a cross, bloodshot look. Kiyu and I kept a little quieter after that… but it was hard to feel very sorry.
It’s a much swifter trip from Lago Warren to Angel City when you don’t get lost, have a well-trained yin to warn you about monsters, and plenty of supplies. But on the morning of the fifth day, Jacks pointed out north, to the low line of black and bilious green shadows — a sandstorm. Ahmet doubted that it would hit until after we reached the Whisperward, but we ate breakfast on the move and increased our speed anyway. We didn’t want to risk getting caught out in the open.
When we neared the husk of the original Angel City and could see the Whisperward walls, I slowed. The storm line had moved again. A lot. The clean perimeter of weathered rubble and standing ruins was gone. Now they were sandblasted and etched by wind. There was at least one new fallen building that would change the skyline from the Whisperward. Everything right up to the walls belonged to the sandstorms now. How long did Angel City have left? A year? A month?
“What’s our approach?” Jacks asked.
“With all of the refugees in the city, most of the Blackthumbs should be busy either keeping the peace or guarding the Stormsphere,” I told him. “But with the storm line closing in, that’s going to drive mutants right to the city gates when that sandstorm hits. There will still be Greenguard on the walls, maybe patrolling outside until that storm gets closer.”
Jacks considered my answer and then nodded. We moved between crumbling bits of cover, running hunched over as we crossed the open spaces. Each time we stopped behind a weather-beaten section of wall, Sidney concentrated, listening and searching for any Greenguard’s wandering thoughts.
“I feel fear,” Sidney said.
“That doesn’t sound like a Blackthumb,” I said.
“That way,” Sidney told us. “A lot of people. A lot of fear.”
With his head down, the yin pointed toward the nearby Whisperward’s western gate. Maybe there was someone staked out for the oncoming storm. I took the lead and steered us closer to the gate, trying to keep the leaning husks of old buildings between us and any watchful Greenguard. But even moving cautiously, it didn’t take us long to find the fear that Sidney had sensed. I didn’t need to be a yin to see them.
The gate stood open and a crowd of people gathered around it. But the uniformed Greenguard weren’t letting them into the city. They were shoving the frightened throng out. Men and women clutched bundles and sacks of everything they owned. They were shouting and crying, but the crossbows pointed out at the crowd pushed them further into the dusty wasteland beyond Angel City’s walls.
“What the hell are they doing?” Jacks whispered harshly.
“Pruning,” I said. Acid burned in my throat and I felt like I was vomiting up the words. “There are too many people in the city. So Thorn is cutting the numbers.”
A woman broke off from the mob and made a dash back toward the Whisperward. A Greenguard on the wall shouted an order and then a bolt was quivering in the woman’s chest. She ran a few more faltering steps and then toppled face-first into the sand. A cry went up from the crowd, but the metallic glitter of arrowheads held them back until the Blackthumbs retreated behind the walls once more. They pulled the gates closed again, sealing Angel City.
My blood was on fire. This was not the Whisperward Zach tried to save.
“Julia!” Jacks hissed.
I had drawn my loaded crossbow without thinking.
“We have a mission,” Jacks said. “If we do it, we can save them all. But if we fuck it up now, they all die.”
I felt the urge to growl, but nodded and slung my weapon again. Kiyu put her hand on my arm and some of the tension faded. Jacks was right.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s get over that wall, then.”
