The Wounded

I knew it.

I stormed back to the fighting, pushed past the people snapping at each other like ducks fighting over a crust of bread. I climbed the stage and stood in front of the group. My hands on my hips held me up. Don’t give in to fear now. The leaders coughed behind me, and I moved to the side, addressing them and the curious group below me.

I searched for Joseph, we locked eyes, and he beamed at me. I felt myself grow. No longer holding myself up, I stood tall. I felt surer with every breath that I was right.

I cleared my throat and spoke. “I think we’re looking at this wrong,” I said, wavering a little as everyone’s eyes turned to me. Joseph nodded, encouragingly. Keep going. “We’re trying to use the information in these images; we’re trying to find some flaw in the Woodlands’ security. I don’t think we’ll find anything.”

Pietre glowered. “What’s the point in telling us what we can’t do?”

I ignored him and continued. “The fundamental flaw of the Woodlands is their arrogance.” I felt like I was sixteen again, shakily holding my report in my hands and waiting for my teacher to stop me. But I wasn’t in the Woodlands now. Everyone was waiting. “They would never dream the people could turn on them. A while ago, I wouldn’t have believed it possible either.” I started to smile. It was coming together in my head. I could see it happening. “But now, as a parent, I understand something.” My eyes flicked to Pelo. He was looking at me curiously, like he didn’t recognize me. I leaned down, picked up one of the discs on the table, and threw it in the air, catching it and giving myself time to snatch a breath. “Instead of trying to use the information in the images, we should use the images themselves.” Someone let out an ‘ah’ of recognition. But everyone else still stared at me like I was from another planet.

I held up the disc, turning it over in my fingers, thinking about the power of this tiny piece of plastic. “We have to show the people of the Woodlands what the Superiors have been doing to their children.”

“How?” asked the man with the plait, his eyes narrowing on me like he was trying to tell if I was pulling his leg or not.

Joseph said it before I could.

“We need Deshi.”

I had their attention now but my idea was just that, an idea, and I hadn’t had any time to formulate a real plan. I tripped over my words as I spoke them. “We, er… Can we adapt the projectors that hide our settlement to play moving images?”

Matthew tapped his chin. “It’s possible but, yes, I think Joseph is right. We need someone like Deshi to accomplish this.”

“Ok… so assuming we could somehow get Deshi… I think if we could stick these images into the projections and show them on a night where everyone is outside…” I said, pacing, feeling eyes on me.

Rash jumped up. “Signing Day! Everyone has to stand outside for the piss-weak fireworks.” Mumbles and agreements vibrated across the room.

Joseph excitedly called out, “Yes Signing Day, that’s perfect.” He clapped Rash on the back.

My excitement was building, galloping towards the solution. But when a man stood and said, “Wait, wait, everybody slow down. This is all very well and good, but who is going to volunteer for this suicide/rescue mission?” Nobody said a word, and my body crashed into a brick wall of their fear.

Pietre laughed at me, an unpleasant noise like he was coughing up a two-by-four. I kicked the side of his good leg as I passed him, which only made him scoff harder.

The same man, greying and round, shuffled towards me and put his hand on my shoulder condescendingly. “I’m sorry, young lady. It’s a great idea; it’s just missing some key components to make it feasible.” I tried to sharpen my bones so he wouldn’t continue to touch me, but he kept his damp hand there as he shouted to the rest of the group, “We have just returned to a wounded and hurting settlement—do we want to leave on another mission? All in favor of continuing to search for a more plausible plan, hands in the air.”

We were outvoted, overwhelmingly so. It seemed people were about as willing to take off on another rescue mission as they would be to jump into the crater with their fallen comrades.

I appealed to everyone, my eyes searching for sympathetic faces. “But we can’t stay here, they know our location now. What’s to stop them from coming back and finishing the job?”

“She’s right about that.”

I waited for more but they turned inwards, playing with the projectors, trying to come up with a better plan. The noise swallowed my resolve; the bravery I knew the Survivors for was shrouded in sadness and loss and it was holding them back.

And in the end, they gave up trying to find a better plan.

They put it to the entire settlement.

The decision was made to leave.

The door rattled. I gripped Joseph’s arm, only half awake. A part of a familiar nightmare started to creep under my skin. He grumbled, but didn’t wake. It was still dark outside. I shook his shoulder. “Joseph, there’s someone at the door.”

He slapped at my hand like it was a mosquito, rolled onto his back and started snoring.

I peeled back the covers and moved to the rattling door, my imagination conjuring ghosts and demons, tigers battering my screen door with their enormous heads.

“Rosa, let me in.” Careen’s shouts coasted through my early morning fog.

I pulled open the door, the faint glow from our living room pulling Careen’s face into fuzzy focus. She looked dark, her usually perfect face shadowed.

I rubbed my eyes and yawned as she pushed past me.

She slid across the floor elegantly, flicking on light switches as she went. My eyes followed, but my brain was struggling to keep up.

“What the hell are you doing?” I said, mid-yawn.

The floor creaked and sighed under Joseph’s weight, and I turned to see him leaning against the doorframe to our bedroom, his hair raked up on one side. He looked adorable this time of the morning, messy with sleep. I tucked my hair behind my ears self-consciously and gazed at a knot in the floorboards. I knew I looked like a crow had made a nest on my head. Joseph folded his arms across his chest and said, “Careen, slow down. What’s going on?”

Her eyes danced in excited panic. “Pack up your things. We’re going to the Monkey City.”

Monkey city? I awoke like a shot of coffee, following Careen’s frantic movements as she picked up a pile of my clothes and searched for a backpack. “Why now?” I asked, my eyes hurting from following her around the room.

She swung her head to face me, her beautiful hair sliding over her cheeks like silk. “I don’t know. I just know it was voted in this morning. I think… I think they just don’t want to stay here any longer. Too many people have died. It’s not safe.”

I agreed with her there. “Uh, we didn’t get a vote.”

She shrugged. “It wouldn’t have mattered. It was a huge lot of hands, you know, a minority,” she said, the cogs twitching and stalling in that strange head of hers.

“You mean majority?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

Joseph chuckled in the background.

“Joseph, can you help me get Pietre down to the train station? We’ll leave from there.” Her face was flushed like the pink graze on a peach from the movement.

“Sure thing, Careen. Rosa, just throw some clothes in a bag for me, and I’ll meet you down there.” They strode out into the dawn, leaving me alone. My thoughts stripped like a birch at the end of winter.

I nodded, moving mechanically, still a little shocked we were leaving. The decision had been made so quickly and without us. I packed a small bag for each of us, changed into jeans, a shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt, and laced my sneakers haphazardly. Outside, I could hear the collective voices of thousands of people moving through the streets. I placed a sleeping Orry in his carrier, put him on my back, and slung the packs over my arms.