Green Jack (2 page)

The scents of
stables, rain, and mint was a relief; a combination unique to the
Enclave. No one else could afford to grow enough mint in back
gardens to scent the air. It chased away the last of the anxiety
nibbling at the back of her neck.

The family
rickshaws waited for them, all swirls of frosted glass and gilt
paint like a row of cupcakes. The solar lamps swung from the posts
as the runners shifted. Jane’s mother looked past her with a sharp
nod. Someone grabbed Jane’s arm. “Come with me, Miss Highgate.”

The torchlight
glinted off the metal leaves of a soldier’s mask. “Where are you
taking me?” Jane asked, her throat dry and papery. Some Oracle she
was. She wasn’t supposed to be taken by surprise, not like this.
The tea leaves from her morning cup should have warned her with
images of horses, or swans for deceit, arrows, something.

“Don’t
embarrass me, Jane,” her mother snapped. “Drive on.”

The rickshaws
pulled away, leaving Jane behind.

Directorate
before family.

Chapter 3

Saffron

As the darkness
fell, Saffron didn’t reach for her flashlight. Batteries were too
precious to waste watching desperate idiots fry. It was the same
every time. The City went dark, and people hurled themselves at the
Wall. There were always guards, and their rifles had lights. And
they were always on the other side of the darkness, no matter where
the darkness ended.

And Saffron and
the other Elysians were always here.

It would take a
few moments for the guards on the Wall to switch on the solar lamps
and from the sound of the Taggers’ voices, they were across the
street now. Saffron edged out, relief and adrenaline making her
skin prickle.

Until the
Protectorate soldiers came around the corner, sitting straight in
their saddles, uniforms and weapons gleaming. There were four of
them, with a man riding in the centre. Leaves wound through his
hair and over his forehead.

A Green
Jack.

Saffron stepped
backwards into a splintered storefront window. Glass crunched
loudly under her boots but the Taggers had forgotten her as every
green thing around the Green Jack grew lush in his wake. Vines
stretched out, dandelions flowered, lichen seemed to glow. The
grass thickened so quickly the cement shifted apart like a series
of miniature earthquakes. The trees grew tiny green buds.

Saffron grabbed
at dandelions and stuffed them in her pockets. The smart thing to
do was to run as far and as fast as she could. You couldn’t go
three feet without running into a Green Jack shrine, all painted
oak leaves and gilded tin; but while actual Green Jacks were
paraded around on feast days, they were otherwise kept hidden away.
They must be bringing him in to be tested in the laboratories. The
Directorate was always trying to find more effective ways to
harness a Jack’s power.

Back when the
temperatures first rose and the crops first started to fail, a
Green Jack walked out of a forest and everything he touched grew.
For a few years, everything seemed hopeful. Until the Cataclysms
and the Lake Wars, and the closing of the cities. The Directorate
was formed, and now Jacks spent most of their time on the farms,
walking the fields, and sleeping under the glass domes to helps the
crops grow that fed the City.

But the
Directorate still hadn't figured out how their magic worked, not
really. No one had, not even the Collegium, which was created for
that very purpose. They might train the Numina to work plant numen
and predict crops, but they couldn't explain it either. It was just
mysterious enough, and necessary enough, that a kind of religion
had formed around the Green Jacks. And as long as the Directorate
came first, they didn't much care what the Elysians believed in,
old gods or new ones. Still, the Order of the Green Gods had
Woodwives praying in their leaf-cloaks in every cella and all over
the City. If the Green Jacks had originally been prayed out of the
forest as was believed, then even the Directorate couldn't be too
safe.

This Green Jack
was still half-wild. He was the colour of rich earth and holly
leaf. They got as much water to drink and food to eat---real food,
not the stuff the Core got. The tomatoes in the Core had more mouse
DNA than actual tomato. All the new food sciences were tested in
the Core first and usually they were so hungry, they didn’t
care.

A beam of light
swung wide and gunshot splintered the air. The beam swung again,
harsh blue light falling relentlessly over the bodies. There were
already half a dozen of them sprawled out with dead eyes and bloody
holes in their chests. Some people spent their entire lives lurking
by the Wall, just waiting for the rain to do its work.

The Green Jack
leapt off his horse as if he could fly. The Protectorate
flashlights tried to pin him down. Saffron already knew he wouldn’t
make it.

The Wall was
lined with an electric fence, but it wasn’t the only safeguard.
Saffron heard snarling. There were flashes of acid-green eyes.

Cerberus.

Genetic
mutation and experimental science had combined the ferocity of wild
boar, the strength of bull, and the viciousness of a cornered
badger with wild dogs. They were only released when the power went
out. They killed anything they found, whether or not they were even
attempting to scale the Wall.

Protectorate
guns shattered the air above the Wall. They didn’t know what to do.
Green Jacks were too precious to kill. The Wall flung him away like
a rag doll. He landed in the street and was almost immediately
cradled in leaves, moss, and weeds. He was near close enough that
Saffron could see his teeth when he made a sound of pain. She could
sense the Otherness of him. It was disconcerting. There was a smell
of cedar under the mud and blood. The beams of light stabbed at the
darkness.

And then he was
gone.

The leaves
started to wilt. That kind of growth didn’t last long when there
was no Jack to sustain it, especially this far into the flood
season. The Cerberus growled. Someone screamed.

Saffron was
wondering if she could reach the rusted yellow school bus and leap
onto the nearest balcony when she saw the leaf mask. They said a
Jack weakened without it, but this one was long gone anyway. And
with a leaf mask she could finally pay back Argent. Never mind
him---Oona would never go hungry again. Saffron grabbed it as she
swung herself up onto the metal carcass of the bus. It creaked
under her weight.

A Cerberus
spotted her and the growls turned to barks. She jumped, her fingers
clamped around the rusty metal, slick with rain. She dangled
precariously as the beast below spat out a mouthful of tulle torn
off her hem.

Saffron
couldn’t help but think stupid reckless thoughts about climbing the
Wall, just there where the mortar was crumbling, and then under the
barbed wire.

It wasn’t the
blood running out of the people scattered below that stopped her.
It was the thought of her Oona, alone in this world. Killian would
look after her, but he was barely getting by as it is.

So she turned
away from the stupid temptation, a mask of leaves wrapped around
her wrist as she ran the bridges of rotting ropes that connected
the Core.

Chapter 4

Jane

It was a great
honour to visit the cella temple, even at three o’clock in the
morning, but Jane would have preferred to be almost anywhere else.
Even on watch on the parapets in the cold rain. The guard took her
past clusters of administrative builds, squat and brown as
toadstools. He didn’t stop at the Collegium temple which glowed,
candlelight and lamplight shining through jeweled glass. Jane had
only ever visited for her Naming Day omens. The Enclave citizens
went to the outdoor porticos for readings and temple duties, it was
rare to be allowed inside the private cella if you weren’t a
Numina. Mostly it was reserved for Woodwives at their prayers. She
could hear them chanting, even this late into the night.

The soldier
took her to the main garden dome, where condensation gleamed on the
inside of the glass. The air was humid and thick between rows of
scarlet peas, cucumber vines, and the leafy tops of beets. This
dome grew most of the food grown for the citizens of the Enclave.
It had an intricate watering system, and specialized glass that
filtered the sun when it was too hot and regulated the temperature
when it was too cold. It was impervious to hail, ice, and
bullets.

There was no
earthly reason why Jane should be here.

Paths radiated
out from the centre, which was basically a cellar transformed into
a prison. It had a four poster bed, a television, music system,
even a bathroom with running hot water tucked into an alcove -- but
it had no windows, no doors, and a ladder lowered down only when
the Green Jack was needed elsewhere.

It was one
thing to learn about it in school and another thing entirely to see
it in person. The weak light from a dangling lantern showed the
whites of his eyes behind his mask of entwined leaves. He lay on
his back on a plush mattress, ankles crossed as though he was
bored, but his every muscle radiated tension. He was the reason the
plants in the dome thrived, the reason Jane and everyone she knew
had food to eat.

And he was
dying.

All captive
Green Jacks died. No amount of science or numen or green prayers
were able to prevent it. Certainly not an Oracle with crushing and
unexplained headaches.

A door opened
behind a cluster of orange trees, displacing the humid air. A woman
joined them; her face was stern though tiny laugh lines bracketed
her mouth. She wore a band embroidered with bright red flowers in
her short black hair. “You must be Jane Highgate.” Something about
the way she was smiling made Jane even more nervous. “I’m Tia,” she
continued, oblivious or uncaring. Probably uncaring. Jane had never
been particularly good at hiding her emotions.

The Green Jack
bared his teeth. “I’m going to eat your liver one day, Tia.”

“Charming,
Hudson.” Tia motioned to Jane. ‘This way.” She ducked under an
arbour dipping with grapes and wide flat leaves like hands grasping
at them as they passed by.

Jane followed
because she didn’t know what else to do. And the nudge from the
soldier’s rifle in her back was rather persuasive. “I didn’t know
Green Jacks were cannibals.”

“Oh, they’re
not. Hudson’s just Hudson. Keep up now, you’re late as it is.”

“Where are we
going?”

“It’s not far,”
Tia replied, which wasn’t an answer. She led them down a back
stairwell stinking of antiseptic. Red security lights blinked in
neat rows beside locked doors. There was a small auditorium at the
end of the hall with ropes squaring off an area in the centre. Jane
joined half a dozen other students waiting in an uncertain clump.
She recognized a few; Blake and Lee looked as surprised as she
felt. Well, Blake did. Lee didn’t look concerned, but then she
never made any kind of expression, even the time she caught her
thumb in the door and nearly broke her knuckle. “What’d you do?”
Blake whispered. He was so tall he had to duck down slightly to
talk to her. “You don’t seem the type to get into trouble. Despite
the haircut.”

Lee had shaved
her head entirely. Her parents owned an entire block of houses
they’d connected with elaborate covered arched bridges, like a koi
garden. Jane’s mother envied their houses almost as much as she
hated Jane’s ‘common’ hair. Which was, of course, the main reason
she’d grown it out.

“No talking,”
one of the administrators snapped. Lee stared straight ahead like
she was training to be in the Protectorate.

Jane noticed a
camera suspended from the ceiling, and rows of test tubes and
vaguely scientific-looking equipment. None of which made the
situation any clearer. Or less intimidating.

Neither did
Asher, strutting through the door. He saw Jane and snickered. “What
the hell are you doing here, mouse?”

Jane forced
herself not to react. He only fed off of it.

“Silence,
please,” Tia called out. Three Directorate administrators with an
imposing collection of embroidered leaves on their sleeves stood
behind her. Their rank was enough to make Jane’s mother drool on
herself. It became a tiny bit clearer why Jane was here.

Especially when
Cartimandua strode into the room, effectively holding every ounce
of attention. Jane had only ever seen the Legata on feast days and
in victory parades when a new Green Jack was brought into the City.
She wore a leather tunic and the mark of the Protectorate tattooed
at the base of her throat. Her eyes were very blue. She was in her
early thirties but she’d already been Legata for the last seven
years, trained by her father who had been one of the first
Directors.

“As you know,
The Directorate was formed to keep order during the Lake Wars and
the Cataclysm. We work tirelessly to safeguard the Green Jacks, and
grow the food that keeps you and your families alive. But even with
our system, there are more people than plants. The weather,
regrettably, resists any attempts at dependable regulation, even
with the Numinas and the Order. The City is plagued with rebels and
rats, with Elysians who would always rather take than give. But the
Protectorates keeps us safe and the Directorate keeps us well. We
owe them our loyalty and our allegiance.”

Jane had heard
versions of this speech since before she could walk; in public
announcements on the train, on the screens in the Rings before
movies, and between shows on the televisions in the Enclave. From
her mother before every meal. Pamphlets were handed out on feast
days. Oaths were required when you entered the Collegium and again
when you graduated. Jane shifted, her mind racing and skittering.
There was a pressure in the room, the kind that builds and builds
until it shatters into a storm that sweeps through streets and
sewers.