Chapter Nine: Elusion and Discovery
A little while later, he asked me a question that wasn’t a question.
“You seem awfully concerned with your…what did you call it? Undeath?”
“It is my job to be.” prolific
“But it’s more than that.”
“Well…”
I sighed.
“My…mother and father were…with me when they caught sick. My mother killed him, then…then herself, to save me…so…I know what it…I don’t know. I know that it’s something I’d rather not see again.”
“Oh, wow, I’m…I’m so sorry.”
It was the second time he had enough sense to pretend.
“It’s alright.” I shrugged and cleared my throat.
It wasn’t alright.
“I was fourteen when –”
“You were fourteen!” he exclaimed, sitting back.
He looked about almost wildly.
“Have – have you been keeping this place?”
“Since their deaths, yes.”
I remained looking at my work. He was watching my face for any movement at all, and I felt myself blush. I looked up.
“Mr. Dark –”
“Ollie, princess. Just…just Ollie, alright?”
“Fine, then. Ollie.” I smiled wearily at him. “I’m eighteen. I –”
There was a knock on my door. I dropped the cloth suddenly, splashing myself, and foreboding took me faster than the set of the sun. The cold medicine woke me, and I shook away a chill. There was another knock, more insistent and ever more insidious.
“Oh, man…”
“MYTH!” a voice boomed from the front.
I stood immediately, almost at attention. Bumps rose and fell all over my arms. I felt the bruise again, how it suddenly throbbed and pained me in more ways than one. It was my uncle at the door.
“Who is that?” Ollie asked quickly.
Paige woke beside me at the noise.
“Hey!” she cried.
There was a sleepy smile on her face.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“He’s here,” I whispered softly to myself.
I tried to steady my breath. It had all started the day before, only the yesterday of a better time.
“Was it only yesterday?” I muttered, putting a hand to my head.
I wished that I had actually conceptualized what would happen between Rhyme and I when he found out of my business of the night. That way, they would probably all be dead, and I would have been safe in my own bed, unharmed, not waiting for a bruise to come. Still, I knew I had to hide them until such a time was decided by me that this was no longer necessary. Until that moment, the four Outlanders were to remain my hidden charges.
It still resounded though, the knowledge that I had done something and that I was about to be punished for it.
He knows, I thought desolately. He knows. He knows. He knows.
“Hey, princess!”
I didn’t know why he kept calling me that, but it made me upset. Tears blinded me. Ollie grabbed tried to grab my wrist, but I twitched away. He seemed to become even more distressed.
“What’s the matter?” Ollie asked.
He made to sit up, as if to defend himself, as if to defend me.
“No.” I put a hand out. “You need not protection.” I glanced at the light in the door. “You may be unwelcome, but little more. Safety and peace, Outlander. I will hide you yet.” I glanced behind my shoulder. It was a desperate plan, mine was, but it just might get me out of trouble, I thought.
“Look, this might sound strange, but I need you to…make me bleed a little.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the others, who all appeared to be watching apprehensively, and I handed Ollie the knife.
Ollie just blinked, stunned.
“What?” he finally asked, as if what I’d asked him was an extremely personal request.
Then, I saw the whites of his eyes. It made him afraid. He looked around a little, almost as if to plea with invisible forces.
“I can’t cut you – I don’t know how.”
By the way he said it, I could tell he did know how.
“Just do it really fast!”
“No!”
“Please, I can’t do it myself!”
“Why do you even need it?”
There was another knock, louder, more menacing.
“You’re not supposed to be here!” The banging was getting louder and more persistent. “Just cut me, dammit! You are a secret!” I looked over my shoulder. “You’re my secret! Just – please, he will beat me, Ollie, but he might not if I’m –!”
He finally put the knife into the skin on my arm, skillfully, fast. It was a deep cut, deeper than I would have thought he was capable of, and the familiar lump of pain welled there instantly to make the wound its new home. Tears came to my eyes, and the blood that began to pour out of me caused me some alarm.
“I’m…” Ollie saw my tears and it was clear he was distressed beyond words. He looked out of place. “Are you…” He stopped this too. I just hissed, snatching my knife back from his limp hand.
He tried to say something to me, but my uncle interrupted him.
“MYTH!”
I cleared my throat and organized myself. I wiped my falling blood onto my pants and pulled a better shirt over my shoulders from the clothes pile. I pressed the cloth to the edge of my wrist, where the slit was, and I waited until blood was stained there. I did, in fact, look injured enough to avoid – blood was dangerous in my land.
“What is it, sir?” I finally called, walking to the front and covering the back room with the thick curtain by my bed.
“You know damn well what it is!” he shouted, banging loudly. “Open this door!”
Panic shot through me.
He knows, my thoughts taunted. He knows everything.
But I could not yield.
“I take no orders from you, uncle!” I said it boldly. “This is my home. You will not charge it!”
I did not understand how he had found out, and I was sorry that he did. I had wanted to tell him. I did not plan on him finding out without my consent.
“MYTH FISHER!” He was booming. “I know damn well what you did last night!”
I felt hurt. That lump of pain in my wrist extended to somewhere under my lungs and between my stomach and my bladder. This was a different kind of pain. I thought of Chess.
He’d revealed what I’d done to my abuser. The night before, he’d seemed so sweet, so loving. That he would act so much like Foot crushed something inside of me.
Rhyme was not patient enough for my thoughts.
“You will come out with your hostages at once!”
“They’re injured – and were they hostages I would guess you had a better way to bargain for them!” I felt distraught, but my anger shone through admirably. “They are Outlanders. Do not you recall, uncle, that you were the one that wanted me to wait for them? Or was this too a jest?”
“You fool! You should do nothing without permission!”
“They required rest and shelter. It matters not to Hand who gives it to them! What would you have me do? Wake the entire village?”
“You may bring plague unto us all, Myth!”
“I would not threaten Hand, sir, you know this,” I said sternly. “I am a Cartographer. And I am immune. You know this too, sir. I don’t understand why you’re so angry.”
“Who are they?” he asked after a moment of weakness.
I glanced back.
“But two men and women, sir. They are the Outlanders I expected. Little to no threat to anyone as of yet.” I heard the young woman laugh.
Goose bumps chilled me for the millionth time that day. They did think that they were threats. They were weapons, tools of destruction meant to cause harm. They really were murderers.
I began to regret my decision then as I peered into the face of my worries and not into reality.
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“I demand to see them!” Rhyme shouted through the door.
I hesitated, knowing what came next, and then I quickly opened the door. He barreled in pompously and looked about, saying,
“If they were received in a home of importance –”
“I showed them every courtesy I could, sir, as I was the only one on watch last night with the expertise to help them.”
I didn’t like him in the house, but I took it as a gift that he did not hit me upon entering.
“Well?” he asked, finally honing in his beady eyes on me. “Where are they?”
I stood in front of the curtain behind which they all laid, and the noises of their breathing all became quiet at my shift, like they knew I was trying to hide them.
“They’re safe…but…I don’t recommend being here, sir. Your vulnerability to –” and before I could finish that he was in danger of catching Undeath, he was out my door.
“You send them to us when you see they are safe,” he said.
I looked to floor as I said,
“That was, naturally, my intention, sir.”
I closed the door behind me and re-entered my back room. Ollie was standing well, considering his injury, and the rest had followed suit. It made the room seem oppressively crowded, and they were all taller than I.
They looked down on me.
Their eyes showed me hunger and expectation. The burden of what I had done sunk into me as I saw this, and I began to feel fear and irritation. To keep the Outlanders in my house, I would have to feed and harbor them like children. I was never very good with kids.
“This is Myth Fisher,” Ollie said quickly, nodding to me with that scowl.
He nearly rolled his eyes as he pointed to the people across from him. He didn’t like them, I saw.
“This is Paige, Pierce, and Ali.”
I bowed my head to them slightly. I still asked, “How do you do?” as it was a custom in my land.
I received only cold stares now – or blank ones. I couldn’t tell. I turned to the others.
“You are in the town named Hand,” I said quietly. “You are unwelcome to some, maybe most, but there are among us kinder folk, I think. They’ll need…time. To adjust to you.”
“Where are we?” Pierce asked with narrowing eyes.
“Hand,” I said exasperatedly, slowly.
I hesitated before throwing up my hand like I had done for Ollie, and he smiled victoriously, winningly, because he was not the only one to misunderstand. I rolled my own eyes at the childishness, but it brought me small humor, so I stayed my anger. Paige walked forward a bit and leaned in close to my face. She spoke something back to the other woman – Ali. Ali nodded with a scowl.
“Where are your parents, Myth?” Paige asked.
The answer to that question made all the difference to her, but I just didn’t understand why.
“I’m not a child,” I said automatically, eyeing her warily.
“She said she’s descended from Bad People,” Ollie abruptly cut in.
I squirmed at the cool judgment in their gazes at this. I hated telling people that, but it was apparently important to them. They sought an answer, so I offered,
“Yes, it is said I am a descendant of some.”
I kept my nose to the ground to avoid their eyes.
“I hope this doesn’t offend you.”
They were silent and still. Paige, who’d been standing nearest me, finally turned back to them, and I had the sense to look up. Their faces were ashen.
“Does that mean what I think it means?” she asked them.
None of others answered her. Paige, who stood close to me, circled me, eyeing me like I was for sale. I felt humiliation, and I didn’t know why.
“Who are these Bad People?” Paige asked me.
My face flushed.
“There was a war long ago between the people and Bad People. They lost. We won.”
“We?” Ollie asked nastily. “If you’re from the Bad People, can you reasonably suggest you’re part of ‘people?’”
This stung.
“I’ve eaten and drank and grown up with these people,” I finally said in supplication. “I’ve laughed and cried with them. Lived with them. I’ve done this all my life. I am as much a part of the Colony as…the dirt on the ground or the gate above.”
Ollie chose not to reply to this, but I had an inkling he wasn’t convinced so easily.
For whatever reason, something about the Bad People made him act differently. Say different things.
“Besides,” I finally said, “nobody knew who the Bad People were after the metal fire birds came from the sky.”
Paige’s eyes lit up.
“What do you mean, Myth?”
“The metal birds brought the war to us, but they ended it when the metal fire birds made the land like this.” I kicked the dust beneath my feet dolefully. “After that, nobody knew who the Bad People were and who everyone else was. We just…were. Together.”
I shrugged. This seemed like a story everybody should have known, but they acted like I was a bad liar in the face of a serious accusation.
Finally, Ollie snapped, like he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Let me just address what everyone’s thinking and throw it away! Bad People aren’t Deviants.”
“Sure sounds like it,” Paige said back.
They spoke too quickly for me to understand, and by the fervent glances I got from them, they seemed to be taking advantage of this fact.
“She says she’s eighteen,” Ollie said back. “She has parents. A family. Deviants don’t. She has history and feelings. Deviants don’t. She exists here in the group. Deviants don’t. They aren’t inherently pack-oriented. They’re efficient to a fault.”
“Maybe we were wrong,” Paige offered.
Ollie didn’t reply.
“So where are your parents?” Ali asked me seriously, tearing me from searching their lips to understand the murmured words they exchanged.
“Dead,” I said quietly.
“But you did have them?” Paige asked, narrowing her eyes.
“What?”
“Parents, I mean.”
“Yes, people usually do,” I replied coldly.
“Oh, yes, of course, I know that,” she said dismissively, and so I was quiet.
“What’s this about?” I finally asked.
I looked to Ollie, but turned away after I saw him. Ollie’s face had turned up to me and his eyes and mouth were suddenly twisted with a mixture of confusion, sadness, and anger. I was glad Paige was between us to create a barrier, for that scowl etched – burned – a hole into my face. He looked at me like I was something he’d never seen before and couldn’t quite understand. Like I was something to be reviled and spit on.
“Maybe this is why we’re here,” Paige whispered. “We’re all here to die because the Masters knew they’d be here. They’re going to level it with us inside.”
“That’s impossible,” Pierce finally said intelligibly. “This doesn’t make sense. If the Masters knew Deviants would be here, then they must have known about the humans too. They wouldn’t send us to kill humans.”
“Maybe all of them are Deviants,” Ali suggested.
Ollie shook his head.
“You heard her. She just said people and Bad People lived together, then and now.”
“Yeah, but then what?” Ali asked, scowling. “They grow old. They die. They’re infertile.”
“Well, they obviously aren’t infertile,” Paige said, shaking her head seriously. “Unless you think Myth is more than two hundred years old.”
This thought silenced them.
“My God, they’ve been reproducing…” Pierce said quietly, running his hands through his hair. “What does that mean? Is that even possible?”
“Apparently so,” Paige said back.
“What does that mean?” Pierce asked again.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ollie said. “We’ve killed
them before. We’ll kill these too.”
“She saved our life!” Paige cried.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“But she was born! She had parents! That’s got to mean something to you.”
“I came here to do a job, and that was to make sure everything inside of that gate was dead!” Ollie said louder. “I obey Probe’s commands, and if you want to live, so should you!”
“Murder or die?” Paige nearly shouted back. “Living the dream, right, Ollie?”
“If she is what you think she is, then it’s not really murdering. Not really. More like a recall of bad product.”
“Bad product?” Paige repeated dumbly. “She can feel and has a family! You just said it!” She’d backed him into a corner, and they both knew it. “Are you willing to destroy so coldly the person who went well out of her way to save your life? All our lives?”
“If she’s a Deviant…then yes,” Ollie said back.
“The High Council wouldn’t have allowed the species of their creation to reproduce,” Ali said. “It would be like allowing a weapon to think for itself.”
“You mean like the High Council letting a bunch of computers build other computers?” Paige said back. “That’s just stupid, but they do that.”
“Paige!” Pierce cried, as if she was denouncing something sacred.
“The High Council is made up of supercomputers that wouldn’t know the difference between a clothespin and a human being,” she continued angrily.
“That’s blasphemy to talk about the High Council like that!” Ali cried.
Paige snorted.
“Being old computers doesn’t make them smart computers!” Paige said vehemently. “Just because they say the Deviants can’t procreate doesn’t make it true. Look at her! Look where we are! Look what she’s done for us!”
“She must have found us useful somehow,” Ollie said dismissively. “She wouldn’t have saved us of her own free will. They don’t do that. That’s the rule. Humans and Deviants are simply incompatible. We’re their prey. They can’t…” Finally, he revealed some of his internal frustration, letting out a deep breath. “This doesn’t make sense! It’s impossible!”
“Whatever your worry is,” I offered, “don’t let it bother you. I mean you no danger.”
I held my palms to the ceiling, glancing at Ollie. But he was afraid of me. It was a fraction of a second that I saw it, but it was there. I was surprised. The surly, belligerent man wasn’t as awful as he’d have me believe, or he’d know nothing of fear.
“You have a mark,” Paige said abruptly to me, breathlessly. “A mark somewhere, don’t you? On your skin? Where is it?”
“Paige, shut up!” Ollie nearly yelled. “The High Council has always said that reproduction is impossible. Always! It isn’t in their genetic code! They’re infertile!”
“They’ve been wrong before!”
“The High Council told us when they made the Deviants that they rebelled and started killing us for absolutely no reason! None! And the virus we had them weaponize was suddenly their greatest tool, which they used – repeatedly – on us!”
The first flicker of doubt came to Paige’s eyes.
“Yes, this is true, but –”
“What? You want her to be different? Why?”
“She saved our lives!”
“She found us useful!” Ollie corrected. “That’s what they do! They calculate! That’s all!”
“How have we been useful?” Paige shot back.
“Look, it doesn’t matter!” Ollie said back louder. “A Deviant is still a murderer, no matter where we find it. That’s what they were made to do. That’s what the High Council designed them to do.”
Paige still argued.
“But what if the Deviants had something in their immune system that rejects Necrosis, something we can use?”
“It doesn’t matter!”
“Of course it matters!”
“They’re Deviants. Beyond use or reason. They exist to be purged now. That’s all. Deviants are incompatible with our race. Period. It’ll only be a matter of time before –”
“They’ve lived for two hundred years without killing each other, humans and Deviants both. Maybe that’s why they sent us here. To silence any chance of proving there can be peace.”
“Peace?” Ollie shouted. “You don’t get it, do you, Paige? It doesn’t matter. They won’t care! A Deviant, no matter where, is like a tick. It needs to be burned. And, since we’re out of bullets, we’ll just have to call in an air strike. They’ll want it this way, Paige. Deviants are the lowest of the low. And even if we brought her back, it would be pointless. They’d kill her there anyway – and she’d die in agony. Is that what you want?”
He was nearly shouting at her. I heard the anger there, and I shivered for it. Paige continued to search my body.
I waited. And slowly, ever so slowly, I put together what they had said. There were still large parts of it that were misunderstood, but I thought that I had gathered that, at least, they were definitely dangerous. They intended to do us harm if they deemed us hazardous, which it seemed as if all but Paige had deemed me so. I wriggled out of her grip. I felt sheepish regret that it had taken so long.