The Earth Dwellers

It’s too much—more than I can handle. A raft of emotions fills my chest: a burst of happiness, a swallow of guilt, an icy stab of pain and sorrow.

“You can’t say that,” I say.

“I just did.”

“I mean, you can’t say that now.”

“Then when?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly.

“Too late,” he says.

“I love you, too,” I blurt out, and when his lips form a huge smile I almost feel giddy, which isn’t right because of what I’m about to do, and what might happen and because…

“This won’t be the last time you say that to me,” Tristan says, serious again. “It won’t. Don’t think it for one second.”

I nod. Swallow. Replace my mask. Go back to gazing at the New City. Where I have to go.

We lay in silence for a while, watching the city from our hiding spot behind the large boulders. The sky grows darker and darker.

When only a sliver of sunlight glows over the horizon, Tristan says, “My father once referred to Borg Lecter as a snake.”

I glance at him and our eyes meet. “Takes one to know one.” He can’t see my smile beneath my mask, but I think it reaches my eyes, because I see his cheeks lift.

“I just mean to be careful. That’s high praise coming from my father. He hated and respected Lecter. He must be impressively evil to have wrested power from a Nailin.” The way Tristan speaks of his father is so clinical it’s like he’s discussing the molecular composition of granite. What his father did to him…

“Tristan, I wish things could’ve been different with your family…” That I didn’t have to kill your father, that you didn’t have to kill your brother, that your father didn’t kill your mother, my father, Cole. So much death—it’s almost unbelievable.

“You’re my family,” Tristan says, still sounding remote, detached. He’s got a wall up around his heart now. “Roc’s my family. Your father was like a father to me, even if only for a short time. A real father.” His voice breaks on the last word, as if the wall around his heart has a crack in it.

I feel my own heart start to crack, too, so I say, “You know, it’s fu

“They shouldn’t have,” Tristan says.

“You were the goodness amongst the evil,” I say. “You and your mother. Flowers amongst weeds. That’s why she brought us together. Remember? She believed you could change things, and you have. We both have. Only we’re not done yet, okay? There’s still a fight to be fought.”

“But I’ll be fighting out here, and you in there.” Tristan gestures angrily at the glass dome, glowing now with city lights.

“Perhaps you should be fighting from somewhere else,” I say.

“What?” Tristan says, glancing at me sharply.

I point at the ground. “Maybe Wilde was right. Maybe one of us should go back, try to unite the dwellers, gain support for the cause above.”

Tristan shakes his head. “I’m not leaving you up here alone,” he says.

I take his hand. “Once I’m behind that glass, I’ll already be alone. There will be nothing more you can do for me.”

“I can fight with the Tri-Tribes. Fight my way inside, back to you.” The intensity in his eyes and tone tells me he would. Or at least try. But no.

“They need you down below. You’re the one to unite the Tri-Realms.”

His head won’t stop shaking. “I’m a Nailin who went against the Nailins. The sun dwellers will call me a traitor, and the moon and star dwellers will call me the enemy. I’m an outcast from my own people.” It’s like an endless chasm has opened in his chest, sucking his soul into a pit of despair. I need to pull him out of it.

I grab his shirt by the collar, pull him toward me, hug him fiercely. Whisper in his ear. “Your mother believed you could make a difference. My father too. And so do I. Just think about it, that’s all I ask.”

When I release my grip to look at him, one of his eyebrows is raised, and even beneath the mask I can see the cockeyed look of amusement I fell in love with the first time I saw it. He’s back. Maybe not all the way, but at least partially. I only hope that’s enough.

~~~

Eventually even the city lights begin to wink out, one by one, casting the buildings under a blanket of shadow. The edge of the glass dome shines slightly under the lights of the moon and stars.

It’s time to make my move.

Will I ever see my mother again? Elsey? Can’t think about that now. Need to focus.

First I need to check out the security situation. I tried to explain it to Wilde, but the idea was foreign to her. “What does ‘security’ mean?” she asked.

“Like protection,” I said.

“Guards?”

“Definitely. Probably electricity and guns and other things, too. Security. I’m just warning you not to be alarmed if you see and hear some crazy things tonight,” I told her.

“Okay,” she said, but I’m not totally sure she understood.

In any case, it’s time to find out what I’m up against. With Tristan watching, I pick up a medium-sized rock and run my thumb and forefinger along its sides, trying to get a feel for it. Tense my muscles in preparation. I pop up, widen my stance, and chuck the rock with everything I’ve got. Crouching, I watch as it arcs, reaches its peak, and then starts its descent downward, skittering off the hard ground and bouncing short of the dome. I swear under my breath. I’ve never had that good of an arm. Give me something to shoot—a gun, a slingshot, a bow—and I’ll do just fine, but make me throw something and it usually doesn’t go that well.

“Sure you don’t want me to come along for situations like this?” Tristan says. His comment pisses me off a little, but at least he’s joking again, smirking. Himself again.

He picks up another rock, one a little bigger than mine, and crouches beside me. Leans back, his long arm whipping behind his head, and then launches it. We huddle together, watching its flight as it careens farther, farther, farther, and then co

Sparks fly as the angry snarl of electricity rips through our ears. The rock is flung back and away from the dome, and a huge spotlight bursts through the glass, illuminating the desert just outside the city.

We duck behind the rocky outcropping, jammed together. My heart’s racing, my breath sucked heavily into my lungs. I don’t dare to breathe. The light passes over us, cutting a bright arc around the shadow cast by the boulder.

And then it winks off, returning the night to its natural state of moonlit darkness. My breath comes out in a whoosh, but Tristan’s is even heavier. Maybe now Wilde understands what I meant by security.

“Guess you’ll have to use the door,” he jokes.

“Damn. That’s so not my style.”

We wait in silence for what feels like an hour before risking another peek at the city. Inside the dome, nothing moves, nothing breathes. Silence.

Then we hear it.

A cough.

We look at each other with wide eyes. The cough becomes a hum, then a snarl. A vehicle. Approaching fast. A fire chariot, as Siena would say.

It comes into view when it bursts over a mound, its headlights cutting through the night. It roars down the hill, not fifty feet from us. As it passes, I see them in the truck bed. Earth dwellers, wearing uniforms and masks, not unlike my own, toting black guns. A loud hum fills the air and the black, metal gate swings open, either automatically or because someone is watching for them. The truck enters through the gate and then stops in a glass tube just inside. We can see it through the transparent dome. The metal door closes behind them. There’s a rubbery suction-like sound that lasts for a few minutes, and then a door at the opposite end of the glass corridor opens. The truck drives through.