Rise of the Scorpion Read online

  “All right, princess,” Jack says from the door. Damn, I can’t believe I let him sneak up on me again. “Too bad you missed breakfast, but I know you’ll suit yourself no matter how bad it hurts.”

  “What do you want, Jack?”

  “It’s time for Pilgrimage. Not everyone is invited to the final push off, but your dad wants you there. So, get up and let’s go.”

  I drag to my feet and follow Jack into the woods.

  The hue of dawn shimmers through the trees, dappling the forest floor in ever-changing spots of gold. It tries to change my mind, but I’ve already decided to leave.

  “Hurry up. No one is waiting on you,” Jack says over his shoulder.

  Jack leads as I walk behind wrapped in my thoughts, not noticing he stops until I bump into him.

  “Shhh,” he says.

  We’re on a rise overlooking a gathering of the people I met this morning. They’re standing in prayer, where the forest gives way to a treeless plain of wild grass. Tiny blue and white flowers speckle the expanse, and I can just make out a herd of low oxygen animals grazing in the distance. Like a great yellow-green lake, the plain rolls out for miles before lapping up into distant trees on the far side. It’s lovely and it’s deadly—a place no one can survive.

  I step forward, but Jack catches my arm. “Here’s fine,” he grumbles.

  “I can’t see anything through these trees.” I jerk my arm away and move up, crouching for a better view.

  Jack huffs, coming to kneel beside me. “This is the holiest thing the Utugi do…hell, come to think of it, it’s the only holy thing we do.”

  “Holy as a culling post,” I say under my breath.

  Cassandra is speaking, but her words are distant and indiscernible. She’s probably talking about duty and sacrifice—hollow notions meant to mislead. Johnathan is with her, standing next to Isabel and Dominick. The two holding hands must be Tessa and Noah.

  “Why am I here?”

  “Jonathan doesn’t think you believe him…thinks you’ll leave and put us all in a world of danger when you do.”

  “So?”

  “He doesn’t want you to go, none of us do, so you’re here to see.”

  “See what?”

  “Pilgrims go to a better place.”

  “Heaven,” I say in disgust.

  “Maybe,” Jack says, “but I don’t think so. In heaven you sit on your duff all day eating sweet bread, sipping tea, and having your feet rubbed. Those pilgrims are in for a hard life, a good one, a free one, but a hard one…at least that’s what I suppose. New Hope is what we named the settlement this time.”

  I glare at Jack. If my eyes were hatchets, he’d be a stack of cord wood.

  “Cut the crap,” I snarl. “Call it Pilgrimage, call it whatever you want, but don’t pretend it’s anything but a culling...disappearing people, a pile of bodies in the middle of nowhere, hidden away from the rest of the dupes. Whatever your demented reasons are for taking people, redeeming people, just to drop them Outside when the Slitter camp grows too big…well, you, Jonathan, Cassandra, and your precious Mary are no better than The Body…only more disgusting because you’re liars. You lie about what you do.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what I know,” I growl.

  He smirks and shakes his head. “Then tell me Princess Know-it-all, what’s your explanation for that?”

  He snaps his arm up from his side, pointing without looking himself. He fumes with impatience as his eyes drill into my face. It infuriates me, so I glare back a moment before turning to see what he’s talking about.

  He asked me to explain it, but I can’t.

  “What the hell?” I mutter, stepping up for a better look.

  Cassandra stands alone, watching as Jonathan and a few armed men lead the pilgrims out into the grass. Everyone moves slowly and deliberately. Their heads tilt forward as they trudge along without conversation. One of the men I recognize from sentry duty shifts his bow to his other hand, and puts his arm around the waist of someone struggling. They look ragged and worn out. “What is this, Jack?” I whisper.

  “I told you what it is.”

  “Is Johnathan taking these people Outside?”

  “Where do you think they are now?”

  I swallow as I watch Noah, Tessa, and the rest grow small in the distance. Someone stumbles, and someone else moves over to assist. Cassandra leaves, but I don’t see her go.

  “They’re not as ready as they should be,” Jack says, “but your dad will make sure they get where they’re going.”

  It’s stunning to be confronted with such a convincing lie. All you believe shifts underneath, and if you don’t act to preserve the truth, either out of faith or blindness, everything you think you are, or hope to be, crumbles and dissolves like sweetcake in milk. I push through the branches and walk down where Cassandra had been standing. I’m in no hurry, so I don’t run. Jack follows along.

  I approach the grass-line where I presume the Edge to be. I hold up my arm. Outside feels no different to my skin than the Ark does. It’s bewildering. Everything I’ve been taught contradicts what I see, and nothing makes sense. Only death—quick and sure—lies outside the Ark, so how can this be? I’m confused. I’m teetering.

  “This isn’t real. It’s a trick,” I mutter.

  “You think this is a trick?” Jack asks.

  I nod. “It is.”

  “Well, okay princess. Toes up, nose up.”

  Jack hardly gets the words out when he shoves me hard enough to make my teeth snap. My neck wrenches back as I sprawl over the Edge to my hands and knees. The blow knocks the wind from my lungs. I stagger to my feet. My diaphragm convulses as I strain to keep my body from sucking in Outside air. If I do, I’m finished.

  The initial daze clears away, and Johnathan’s training brings my bearings back quickly. Find something to reckon with…the trees, that’s the way back. I take a shaky step toward the Ark. I’m not out that deep. I can make it, but when I press forward someone grabs my wrist. I twist but can’t get free. My body takes its first breath.

  “So, this is a trick, huh?” Jack says. His grip is like oak. I jerk to get away, but my effort is surprisingly weak.

  “Your dad said you might not come around easily, but I didn’t believe him. I thought you were smarter.” I feel my eyes screwing in. How can he be talking to me? “Listen, princess, we’re not hurting anybody. We’re the good guys.”

  The lines in Jack’s scowl lose definition and his face blurs into the background of a blue sky. Darkness wells from inside out, and I think Jack asks me if I understand, but I can’t answer. How is he still standing? How is he here? How is this possible?

  “How is this possible?” I ask before I’ve surfaced to full consciousness. My eyes slide open. Jack is sitting on a log waiting for me to wake. We’re back in the Ark.

  “Conditioning,” he answers. “You got to get your blood accustomed, but that’s not all of it…you have to be careful...really careful, like smelling your way down an invisible road. Some places are a whole lot more dangerous than others.”

  I strain to remember what I asked. “So it’s true, the world is getting better, and those people really are leaving the Ark to start someplace else.” Jack sits stone-faced as the haze around me lifts a little more.

  “Teach me.”

  “Teach you what?”

  “To go Outside like the pilgrims?”

  “Maybe,” he scoffs, and turns away.

  “Please.”

  “Why should I?”

  “So I can help. Please. I want to help with everything.”

  16

  Will

  Dusk is falling through the trees, turning everything around me to silver, whispering shadows. The going slows with the lack of sunlight, and we won’t be back in Community until well after everyone else has gone to bed. The men cuss under their breath as they pick their way through brambles in the dark. They’re worn thin, griping to themselv
es, growing sloppy and more careless with every step. They take my training off like uncomfortable clothes instead of wearing it like skin as I do…as Tommy does. I’m not sure if it’s how quickly these men abandon all they’ve been taught, or their lack of respect for the night that agitates me so much, but I don’t chastise them. I can’t bring myself to care as every bad habit resurfaces and begins to blossom behind me. Resisting me and what I’ve tried to show them will be their undoing.

  We move through the night, coming to a gully slicing into the forest floor like a knife wound. The clay banks aren’t much taller than a man, but they’re slick and too wide to jump. A weak-willed stream flows anemically at the bottom with an occasional slow-moving leaf along for the ride. There are no reeds, stones or sand, just ankle-deep water without personality, cutting into the earth. The streambank is unnaturally uniform—it never shallows or widens—as it spans the entire width of the Ark, and even though it’s not much of an impediment for Scorpions or Slitters, this slick gully is death to Community. These are the things my dad lives for—literally.

  We’re not far from home. The men will know where we are now.

  The smell of timber hangs on the air, and there’s a feel of construction before we even arrive at the string of shadowy bridges reaching across the clay banks. Some are skeletons and others are sturdy enough for foot traffic, but they all look haunted in the failing light. I walk around the lumber and rope staged for tomorrow’s work to a structure we can cross. I lean on the rail and wait for my ragged Scorpions to catch up. They drag along until the first of them arrives, slowing to stop beside me.

  “What are you doing?” I snap. “This isn’t rest time. You know the way, so keep it moving.”

  He’s too exhausted to grumble, and a glare would be wasted in the dark, so he shuffles across the bridge without complaint as shadows of weary men file behind him.

  One after another the men pass, but I don’t recognize any of the dark faces except Starter…and only then because he touches me on the shoulder as he moves by. I lean on the rail until the last two stragglers move up and stop beside me. One gray silhouette is nearly my size, but the other is much larger. There’s nothing particular to say, I just want to walk the rest of the way home with Gas and Tommy.

  The forest lightens with intermittent silver as we stand, waiting on nothing, as the men ahead disappear into darkness on the opposite bank. The trees swallow them like black water, dampening the sound of their clumsiness in the murk.

  “Dammit!” one distant Scorpion snaps at another. “Don’t walk up on my heels, asshole!”

  “Then quit stopping right in front of me!”

  “I can’t see where I’m going!”

  “Shut-up, you two!” someone else barks. It must be Starter because the quarreling ends abruptly, and only the sound of feet unaccustomed to the woods at night, follow.

  “Crap! Freaking sticker bushes!”

  “Shut-up!”

  The tramping and bickering grow faint with distance until the last of the Scorpions fade from earshot. Gas, Tommy, and I are left alone.

  “It’s like they haven’t learned a stinking thing,” Tommy says.

  “They’re tired,” I say.

  He rolls his head like he’s working out a stiff neck. “You think you can really teach them?”

  “I think so.”

  Tommy sighs and runs his hand back through his hair. “Huh…well…after that game of Goose, do you think you should?”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “Well I do,” Gas pipes up, “and I’m not having any part of the crap we saw today. I’m not killing stuff for grins. These bridges here—your father designed them…showed me how to carry the weight to the foundation, and build them strong enough for a full-loaded ox cart. I had some ideas of my own, and he thought they were pretty good. He said I have a knack for this kind of work.” Gas puts his palms over his eyes like he’s trying to wish the day away. “I have a knack for this work,” he repeats to himself.

  He drops his hands. “These bridges will save people—a lot of people—and that’s worth doing. Getting chased around the woods by bears and slaughtering a bunch of defenseless animals, isn’t—at least not to me. I was happy enough before you guys dragged me out there, and now I want to get back to what I was doing. Your dad says I might even be his replacement. I told Ellie I was going to be a builder, and that’s what I’m going to be.”

  “No, Gas, you don’t,” I say.

  “Don’t what?”

  “You don’t have a choice. You’re a Scorpion, you follow orders. If they say build, you build, but if they say fight, you fight.”

  “Then I’ll quit,” he says. “If they don’t keep me on these bridges and whatever construction comes after the next move, I’ll quit.”

  “You can’t. Nobody leaves the Scorpions unless it’s feet first.”

  Gas takes a deep breath, mustering the strength to contain his smoldering temper. He brushes by me, steps to the center of the bridge, turns back and bounces on his toes two or three times.

  “This is good and strong. A couple more cross members, and it will be ready for our heaviest cart. Without these…” he shakes his head, “Community is in deep shit. So I hope whoever makes the orders, sees fit to keep me here where I’m the most good, or I’m done. If it’s like you say, and I have to go feet first, well, maybe I’ll take a few Scorpions with me. Just because I don’t agree with killing helpless animals, doesn’t mean I’m a pacifist.”

  Exhaustion has our feelings standing on end, and even though Gas’s naïve threat ticks me off, it scares me more. I bite my tongue. I don’t want to push him into doing anything stupid tonight. It will be better to talk him out of quitting in the morning.

  “Okay,” I say. “The Body wants Scorpions supervising construction, so maybe you’ll be back on bridges soon.”

  “I hope so,” he says, and with a few massive strides, steps the rest of the way across the bridge. Gas is a dozen paces down along the gully when he turns back. “Hey, you guys know there’s a construction path right here? It’s been clear for a week now. I guess your dingleberry Scorpions aren’t as bright as they think they are—walking through briars instead of taking the road.” He chuckles softly and raises a shadowy arm to say goodnight before disappearing down the easy way home.

  “Are they going to kill him?” Tommy asks. His flat question comes low out of the darkness.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “That’s not good enough. You got him into this. Hell, you tried to get me into this too, and now you don’t know?”

  “I know. I’ll talk to Starter when we get back, ask him to assign Gas bridge duty, only…I’m not sure he’ll do it.”

  “Let me tell you,” Tommy says in the same flat, uninflected tone, “if something happens to Gas, if they hurt him, it will be the last time any Scorpion that walks into these woods will be able to count on walking out.”

  His threat surprises me. “Wow, you jump to treason pretty fast.”

  “I’ve only ever loved three people besides my folks, and I’ve already lost Mim.” He swallows hard and drags a wrist under his nose. “If I lose Gas, what do I have left…except to blame you?”

  His words are like a knife in my heart. I bite my lip, resisting the urge to defend myself. He brushes by me and crosses the bridge.

  “Tommy,” I say. He turns back. “Do you think about her much?”

  “Not much...all the time. Why do you think I come out here with you and your butt-wipe friends? I look for signs, and when I don’t find any, I tell myself it’s because she is too good to track, when I know in my soul it’s really because she hasn’t been here at all. She’s gone-gone, but without dangerball, I have only the woods to help me remember…at least, remember clearly. You know what I mean?”

  “No,” I lie, keeping my dwindling hopes to myself. If I tell Tommy the sign on the tree could have been Mim’s, he’ll drop everything and go after her right now. He’
ll chase her ghost through this forest until he drops dead himself, and I can’t have that. Tommy needs my protection—at least that’s the lie I hide behind. “Out here I’m too focused on doing my job, but at night, in Community, I think about her.”

  “Not me. At home is where I lose her, but in the woods, like in the meadow with the bears, I can feel her…almost like she’s watching from the other side.”

  “You’re imagining things. Like you said, she’s gone-gone, and she’s never coming back.” I take a breath. “Why are you so desperate to remember?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m afraid to forget…or maybe because I might have lo…” Tommy breaks off, not wanting to admit what I think he is going to say. He pauses to collect his thoughts. “You were her best friend, so you should understand.”

  Tommy sighs, cocks his head back, looks up into the dark canopy, and changes the conversation. “Will, say you work a miracle and train your Scorpions well enough to catch Slitters like the girl with the bears, what then?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Come on, you know what I mean. What do you think will happen to her?” He waits for me to respond, but I don’t. I’ve had enough of his judgement tonight. Tommy scoffs in disgust. “Make sure you take care of this Gas thing,” he says coldly before turning along the creek bank and disappearing down the construction path.

  Enough time passes so I’m sure not to catch up with him, and I head for home too. I have to find Starter. I need to convince him to let Gas work the bridges, or the last friends I have in the world might do something they can’t come back from.

  17

  Will

  The construction path is an easy walk. It dumps me at the edge of Group 14 well ahead of the Scorpions, who are still picking their way through sticker bushes in the dark. I’m sure they’re not happy, but neither am I—having to wait on Starter. I need to catch him alone and ask him about Gas…after the men hit their bedrolls would be best…if the lunk-heads even make it back tonight. I won’t go to my tent just yet, I’ll hang here and give them a few hours.