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"Todd will be there, of course," he says.
I open my eyes wide. Another wave rises from my chest, bringing the tears again and surprising me so much I hiccup. "Really?"
"Really," he says.
"You mean it?"
"I mean it," he says.
And then he opens his arms to me for an embrace.
11 SAVED YER LIFE
***
[TODD]
"WE GOTTA NUMBER 'EM," Davy says, getting out a heavy canvas bag that's been left in the monastery storeroom and dropping it loudly to the grass. "That's our new job."
It's the morning after the Mayor wished me a late happy birthday, the morning after I vowed I'd find her. But ain't nothing's changed.
"Number em?" I ask, looking out at the Spackle, still staring back at us in the silence that don't make no sense. Surely the cure shoulda worn off by now? "Why?"
"Don't you never listen to Pa?" Davy says, getting out some of the tools. "Everyone's gotta know their place. Besides, we gotta keep track of the animals somehow."
"They ain't animals, Davy," I say, not too heated cuz we've had this fight before a coupla times. "They're just aliens."
"Whatever, pigpiss," he says and pulls out a pair of bolt cutters from the bag, setting them on the grass. He reachesi n the bag again. "Take these," he says, holding out a handful of metal bands, strapped together with a longer one. I take them from him.
Then I reckernize what I'm holding.
"We're not," I say.
"Oh, yes, we are." He holds up another tool, which I also reckernize.
It's how we marked sheep back in Prentisstown. You take the tool Davy's holding and you wrap a metal band around a sheep's leg. The tool bolts the ends together tight, too tight, so tight it cuts into the skin, so tight it starts an infeckshun. But the metal's coated with a medicine to fight it so what happens is that the infeckted skin starts to heal around the band, grow into it, replacing that bit of skin with the metal band itself.
I look up again at the Spackle, looking back at us.
Cuz the catch is, it don't heal if you take it off. The sheep'll bleed to death if you do. You put on a band and it's yers till the sheep dies. There ain't no going back from it.
"Then all you gotta do is think of 'em as sheep," Davy says, standing up with the bolting tool and looking out over the Spackle. "Line up!"
"We'll do one field at a time," he shouts, gesturing at the Spackle with the bolting tool in one hand and the pistol in the other. The soldiers on the stone walls keep their rifles pointed into the herd. "Once you get yer number, you stay in that field and you don't leave it, u
They u
"Just get a move on, pigpiss," he says impayshuntly. "We're meant to get thru two hundred today."
I swallow. The first Spackle in line is watching the metal bands as well. I think it's female cuz sometimes you can tell by the color of the lichen they've got growing for their clothes. She's shorter than usual, too, for a Spackle. My height or less.
And I'm thinking, if I don't do it, if I'm not the one who does this, then they'll just get someone else who won't care if it hurts. Better they have me who'll treat 'em right. Better than just Davy on his own.
Right?
(right?)
"Just wrap the effing band round its arm or we'll be here all effing morning," Davy says.
I gesture for her to hold out her arm. She does, staring at my eyes, not blinking. I swallow again. I unwrap the packet of bands and peel off the one marked 0001. She's still staring, still not blinking.
I take hold of her outstretched hand.
The flesh is warm, warmer than I expected, they look so white and cold.
I wrap the band round her wrist.
I can feel her pulse beating under my fingertips.
She still looks into my eyes.
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
Davy steps up, takes the loose ends of the bands in the bolting tool, gives it a twist so sharp and hard the Spackle lets out a pained hiss, and then he slams the bolting tool together, locking the metal strip into her wrist, making her 0001 forever and ever.
She bleeds from under the band. 0001 bleeds red.
(which I already knew)
Holding her wrist with her other hand, she moves away from us, still staring, still unblinking, silent as a curse.
None of 'em fight. They just line up and stare and stare and stare. Once in a while they make their clicking sounds to one another but no Noise, no struggles, no resistance.
Which makes Davy angrier and angrier.
"Damn things," he says, holding the twist for a second before he bolts it off just to see how long he can make 'em hiss. And a second or two longer than that.
"How d'you like that, huh?" he yells at a Spackle as it walks away, holding its wrist, staring back at us.
0038 is next in line. It's a tall one, probably male, ski
"Put the band round its neck," Davy says.
"What?" I say, my eyes widening. "No!"
"Put it round its effing neck!"
"I'm not--"
He lunges forward suddenly, clonking me on the head with the bolting tool and ripping the metal bands outta my hand. I fall to one knee, clutching at my skull and the pain keeps me from looking up for a few seconds. And when I do, it's too late.
Davy's got the Spackle kneeling in front of him, the 0038 band twisted tight around its neck, and is using the bolting tool to twist it tighter. The soldiers on the top of the wall are laughing and the Spackle's gasping for air, clawing at the band with its fingers, blood coming from round its neck.
"Stop it!" I shout, struggling to get to my feet.
But Davy slams the bolting tool shut and the Spackle tumbles over into the grass, making loud gagging sounds, its head starting to turn a cruel - looking pink. Davy stands above it, not moving, just watching it choke to death.
I see the bolt cutters Davy set on the grass and I stumble to 'em, grabbing 'em and rushing back over to 0038. Davy tries to stop me but I swing the bolt cutters at him and he jumps back and I kneel beside 0038 and try to get to the metal band but Davy's twisted it so tight and the Spackle's thrashing so much from suffocating that I finally have to force him down with one fist.
I cut the band free. It flies off in a mess of blood and skin. The Spackle takes in a rake of air so loud it hurts yer ears and I lean back away from him, bolt cutters still in my hand.
And as I watch the Spackle struggle to breathe again and possibly fail and as Davy hovers behind me, bolting tool in his hand, I realize how much clicking I'm hearing ru
***
The first punch glances lightly off the crown of my head. They're thin and they're light so there's not much weight behind the punch.
But there are fifteen hundred of 'em. And they come in a wave, so thick it's like being plunged underwater-More fists, more punching, scratches across my face and the back of my neck and I'm knocked farther to the ground and the weight of em presses down on me, grabbing at my arms and legs, grabbing at my clothes and hair, and I'm calling out and yelling and one of 'em's taken the bolt cutters from my hand and swings it hard into my elbow and the pain of it is more than I can actually stand-