Children of Eden (16 page)

Why on Earth then do some people have so much, some so little? It makes no sense. The inner circle people don't need exotic nightclubs, decadent food, and luxury clothes. If they had a little less, the people out here would have a little more. Around me I see broken windows, skinny children with empty bowls outstretched, begging for a scrap. There's a crater in the road that looks like a bomb fell. There are no cleanbots, no securitybots . . .

Why doesn't EcoPan divide the resources equally?

I'm distracted from my thoughts by a group of people moving purposefully along the street. There are six or seven, all dressed in bone-white decorated with a dotted pattern. They look so clean against the grime that I'm immediately relieved . . . until they come closer and I see that what I took for abstract polka dots are really splashes of blood. It is bright and fresh.

“Lost, little girl?” one of them asks in a tone of slimy concern.

“Found, now,” a woman says, and they all laugh at the weak witticism.

They start to crowd around me.

“What do you have in your pockets?”

“She doesn't have pockets.”

“Must have something good hidden
somewhere
,” one says with sly insinuation. “Let's have a look.”

I feel a hand on me and something snaps. I punch the closest one in the nose, sending out new decorative sprays of
blood and hurting my own hand far more than I anticipated. An elbow takes down another one, and that method feels much better to me. For a second they hardly react. They must not expect an inner circle girl to be capable of much. Some of them are even laughing at their comrades' injuries. They're that confident that I'm not a threat.

I'm not. But neither am I their plaything to rob or torment. I do what I do best. I run.

They must have had a long night. I smell alcohol and synthmesc. They make a token show of chasing me down, but even with my ankle screaming, my gait gimpy, I lose them within half a mile.

I feel the tears starting again, only this time they're tears of frustration. Is this my life now, being alternately accosted by Greenshirts and thugs until one of them finally wins? Isn't this supposed to be a nearly perfect society, a preserve for the last of the humans? Why are humans friendly and happy and easygoing and rich near the center, and trying to assault one another out here?

Someone is approaching. “Get the hell away from me!” I scream, only to see them cower and slink away. It's a middle-aged woman with a bundle under her arm. She wasn't a threat (was she?) and I treated her like a monster. What's happening to me?

I need to find the building the ragged second child told me about. If that's in fact what he meant. Most of the buildings aren't marked. A few have numbers with gaps where some have fallen off. Others have numbers spray-painted on them, half-obscured by graffiti championing one gang or another. That one says 5994 in dark green paint. I wander until I find another: 6003. I'm headed in the right direction, at least. It is a small victory, and my heart feels the tiniest bit lighter. But what awaits me there? An ambush from another gang, or
Center officials, or the strange old bum himself? Maybe he makes a habit of luring lost girls . . .

People look at me, either in curiosity or hostility or evaluation, and I glare back. Finally, though, I see the building he must have been talking about. It is gray and squat . . . and crowded. I smell food, and my stomach gives a growl. How is it that my body still thinks something like hunger is important?

It's a charity house, dispensing food to the poor. In other words, to every outermost circle resident who isn't strong enough to take, or keep what they need. Barefoot children emerge with flatbread smeared with a bland but nutritious basic algae paste. I think of the huge variety of flavors available in my home circle. The food there tastes (so they assure us) exactly like pre-fail food, even if it isn't actually made from fruits and vegetables. Here, it seems, taste doesn't matter. The children wolf their bread and algae down as if they're worried someone might snatch it away.

Then, on the periphery, someone does just that. A scrawny girl cries as a bigger boy yanks her dole out of her hands. She looks down miserably at the crumbs she managed to salvage in her fist. Suddenly the bum is there, moving swiftly through the throng, his motley rags flapping dramatically. No unsteady shuffling this time. He whacks the boy across the shoulders with his cane. The boy drops the bread and runs. It lands algae-side down. The little girl obviously wants to pick it up and eat it anyway, but the bum takes her hand and gently pulls her back toward the charity house. He's gotten a new pair of glasses since our meeting. With his free hand he raises them, flashes me a wink of his bright golden eye, and heads inside. I'll mingle with the crowd and wait for him to return. He has to be able to help me.

I watch mothers standing on the dole line with children
who scamper and cling and laugh and cry, all the things children do when they're bored and waiting. Though the mothers' clothes are worn and torn, though there is despair in the back of their eyes, when they look at their children they're exactly like my mother. They're so full of love and care and worry. They'll do anything for their little ones. My eyes get hot, my throat tightens, as two small children play tag around my legs. The mother examines me curiously, but doesn't seem to condemn me. She calls her kids over and gives me a little smile before turning away. Apparently I'm not a threat, but none of her concern. I relax just a bit . . .

. . . which, I'm learning, is generally a bad idea.

A murmuration goes through the crowd, and it starts to close in around me. I don't know what's happening, but they move like one entity, a multicelled animal with a mysterious but frightening purpose. I'm being closed in by a wall of people. No one is looking at me, but I can feel the heat of their bodies as some twenty people subtly move nearer to me.

Then I hear the voice, loud and commanding. “We're looking for an inner circle girl. Have you seen anyone who doesn't belong?”

They're trapping me! They're holding me for an easy capture, for the reward! I shove my way through, shouldering mothers and children out of the way, and break from the crowd.

“There!” a Greenshirt shouts, and I'm limping away again, a slow and painful half run. I look quickly over my shoulder. Behind me, the people move once more, like a school of fish, a flight of starlings, to get between me and the two pursuing Greenshirts. It is so smooth it looks accidental, circumstantial. The Greenshirts shout at them to move and force their way through after me. By now, though, I have a decent head start.

Then I hear a bullet hit the wall beside me. Without meaning to I skid a brief stop and look at the groove it gouged. That isn't an electrical charge. That's a real solid bullet that will tear apart my flesh!

There's nowhere for me to go but in a straight line. The Greenshirts will have a clean shot at me. Another bullet streaks by my side and I dodge, zigzagging in what I hope are unpredictable turns. I might as well be a difficult target.
Bikk
! Isn't there a place to turn? There are no alleys, no open doors.

“Hold your fire!” someone shouts. The voice is familiar. I hear feet pounding far behind us . . . but not far enough. They're closing in!

I'm too tired to run any faster. Before long, I won't be able to run any farther. My side cramps as if a claw was gripping my ribs, my swollen ankle throbs, and I can hardly catch my breath.

I have to get out of this open space. Finally I see a little side road between two buildings. I dodge sharply in and stagger against the wall as I run painfully on. But the walls get closer together! The road narrows into a dead end filled with piles of stinking garbage.

I whirl around, but it's too late. The two Greenshirts are blocking the entrance. One of them levels his weapon at me. I press against the wall, fall to my knees, curl up in a ball . . . and hope the end will be quick.

There's the sound of a tussle, a thump. I look up to see one Greenshirt standing, the other sprawled at his feet. The one who is standing holds a gun . . . but he's pointing it at the unconscious Greenshirt on the ground, not at me.

I recognize the burly young blond Greenshirt from my first venture into the city. Rook, was that it? He looks scared. Of me? That can't be. Could it be
for
me?

He beckons, but I stay cowering in the garbage.

“Come on!” he whispers urgently. “The others will be here soon.”

Cautiously, I rise and approach. His face looks so young. It doesn't match his burly body and menacing uniform. “Do you have a safe place to hide?” he asks.

I shake my head. He looks down the road in the direction we came from. “Where
is
he?” he asks aloud to himself. “Look, I can't take care of you. It's going to be hard enough covering this up.” He gestures with his gun to his unconscious comrade. “Just go and hole up somewhere. But come back to the breadline after dark. He'll find you.”

“Who will find me?” I choke out, completely confused. “Why are you helping me?”

Apparently the answer to both questions is the same. “My younger brother.”

His brother is another second child?

Before I can ask any more questions he curses, and hisses, “Run!” I see other Greenshirts approaching, marching swiftly in tactical formation. I stagger off, clutching my aching side, while Rook squares himself in the line between me and the other Greenshirts so they can't fire at me.

He fires, though. And he misses, deliberately, each time.

I turn toward the only place the Greenshirts might not follow me: the wasteland beyond Eden.

EVEN THOUGH ROOK
is helping me, I know I'm far from safe. I have one ally, compared to the entire might of the Center, all of the Greenshirts, the securitybots that will cut me down, even the little cleanbots that will alert all the rest of my whereabouts.

But no, I think as I limp away at a half trot. There might be other people on my side. There's Rook's brother, whoever he is and wherever he is. Though I can't expect any help from him unless I can survive the day and sneak back to the breadline tonight.

And then there's the hobo in rags, his second-child bright hazel eyes twinkling mysterious advice at me. And what had happened at the charity station? When all of those people—mostly mothers and children—crowded around me, I was sure they were part of a conspiracy to capture me. But then when I was spotted, and fleeing, they seemed to step between me and my pursuers. Did I just imagine that? It casts the first occurrence in another light. Though I'm a little incredulous, I think maybe when they closed around me they were trying to hide me, to protect me, to shield me.

But why? I'm a stranger from an inner circle. A second
child who threatens the very existence of Eden. Why would
anyone
help me?

The part of the outermost ring I've seen so far is dirty, crumbling, a place of desperation and squalor—but still, apparently, habitable. As I move outward, though, what was bad becomes so much worse.

Entire buildings seem to have been knocked from their foundations and lay sprawled across the streets like disheveled drunkards. There are huge holes in the road that look like bomb craters. I've read about the wars people fought back in the days before the Ecofail. They slaughtered one another for the flimsiest reasons: disputes over nuances of myths, or ownership of the toxic forms of fuel that gave the world energy back then. But these craters must have been caused by something else, right? Collapsed water pipes or faulty infrastructure. There's no way that the last remnants of the human species could engage in anything like a war.

Whatever the cause, this stretch at the extreme outer edge is like another world, an alien landscape of tumbled masonry and exposed pipes, of shadow even in the brightness of morning. Of loneliness. I don't see a living soul anywhere out here. The wind makes a mournful sound as it wanders through the wreckage of a city.

But alone is good. Alone is safe. Surely somewhere out here amid the devastation is a place where I can hide until nightfall.

Then I hear voices behind me.

“There she is! Get her!”

I dodge behind what was once the wall of a clothing store. A faded sign still clings by one bolt to the lopsided masonry, advertising the latest fashions at a reasonable price. Just as I disappear behind the cover, a spray of bullets embeds
itself in the wall. I have the impression that this time the miss isn't deliberate.

“Take her alive!” I hear someone shout, but I can't tell if it's Rook. There are reasons other than compassion why the Greenshirts and the Center might prefer to have me taken alive rather than gunned down in the street. Torture. Interrogation. A public example to the citizens of Eden . . .

I break cover to dash as fast as I'm able to the next crumbled edifice. A quick backward glance shows them moving slowly in tactical formation, as if they're expecting to be attacked themselves. Maybe out here in this outlaw place they have more to worry about than me. I thank my lucky stars. I'm so slow now that if they pursued me at speed, I'd have no hope. But as long as they move in that cautious, stalking, defensive way, I can limp fast enough to stay ahead of them.