The Boy at the End of the World (11 page)

CHAPTER   19

The travelers crested a ridge, and from a valley of reds and browns and tans rose a city. Like monumental mushrooms, soaring domes enclosed the buildings, their glassy surfaces igniting with the light of the rising sun. Fissured sections of the domes sagged, like eggshells, dented and cracked.

“Is here,” Zapper said, leaning on her stick. “Is finally here.”

Click hummed, processing. “That is the prairie dog colony?”

“Ai.”

“But it is clearly a human city.”

“Colony is below city,” said Zapper. “Is clever place for colony. City is full of good technology for scavenging, and prairie dogs is good scavengers. Come, Zapper show you.”

“Where's the Ark?” Fisher said.

“Is not visible from here,” Zapper said, showing her teeth. “And is still up to Greycrown if prairie dogs tell you.”

Protein snuffled unhappily but followed Zapper down the trail. Fisher took a step, but Click wrapped his plastic fingers around his arm, holding him back.

“I advise you again, Fisher, that placing your trust in the prairie dog is risky.”

Fisher stared into the robot's face. The gap left behind by his broken eye was dark and dusty.

“We shared a frog,” said Fisher.

“It must have been an unusually tasty frog.”

Fisher shook off Click's hand and started down the trail.

Another hour's walk brought them to the city. Shadowed towers loomed behind the domes.

“Is secret entrance here,” Zapper said, retrieving a short sliver of metal from one of her belt pouches. She inserted the sliver into a hole set inside one of the glass panels, and the panel slid open with a grinding noise. Zapper motioned them through and then used the sliver to shut the panel behind them.

Fisher realized he'd never been in a city before, only the ruins of them. Here, the buildings stood whole and intact, and he could never have imagined such a variety. Brick. Glass. Steel. They came in single stories and in soaring towers and in everything in between, stretching far into the distance. How many people had lived here? There must have been swarms of them. The thought both excited and unsettled him.

Between the buildings ran roads made of some kind of black stone painted with white and yellow lines. Cars lined the roads, or sat in fields of the black stone, or were stacked inside concrete structures. All sorts of signs were posted along the roads. Signs saying
STOP
. Signs with numbers. Signs saying how long the cars were allowed to park. Fisher imagined they'd gone over their time limits by millions of minutes.

Click read one of the signs. “Phoenix, Arizona, America's Most Comfortable City.”

And the place might have seemed comfortable to Fisher, were it not for the still air. Breathing felt like drinking water that couldn't quench thirst, like eating food that still left his stomach empty. Though the buildings stood, whole and firm, this place seemed as dead to him as the destroyed Ark where he'd become born.

“Follow me,” said Zapper. “Is this way to secret colony entrance.”

Their footsteps seemed unnaturally loud as they made their way over to a complex of box-shaped buildings surrounded by a broad field of cars. An elaborate sign rose high on a pole:
VALLEY GALLERIA
.

Zapper let them inside through glass doors. Strange rooms lined the corridor. They were like caves, three walls each, with wide openings. In one, rows of chairs stood before basins of some kind. The sign over the room said
LE CHIC HAIR AND NAILS.
Another room contained strange, flimsy footwear.

The travelers continued on, into a vast, open space. Three stories and elevated walkways rose above them, lined with more of the cavelike rooms marked with signs.

“Ah, I see,” said Click. “These are stores. This building complex is a shopping mall.”

“What's a mall?” asked Fisher.

“Is place where human apes keep much stuff of all sorts,” answered Zapper.

“More accurately, it is where humans would gather to shop,” added Click. And then he had to explain that shopping was a way to gather supplies that involved entertainment and eating.

Protein handed Click a yellowed plastic cup he'd picked up from somewhere. Brittle, it cracked apart in Click's hand.

Fisher asked what kind of supplies.

“All manner. For example, clothing, both practical and for fashion. Fashion is a way of using garments to make oneself more attractive. It involves social rank and mating rituals. It is complicated.”

Fisher's clothing helped keep the sun from burning him. It helped keep cold at bay. It protected him from scratchy plants and thorns. He couldn't even begin to fathom using clothing for social rank and mating rituals. Civilized people must have been so different in their brains.

“Old prairie dogs pass down stories,” said Zapper, gesturing the group to keep moving down the mall. “Humans in this region change very air they breathe with their factories, make it poison. So over this city, they build dome, keep poison air out, keep making good air inside.”

“Why didn't they just stop poisoning the air?”

“They is. They not all the way stupid. But is like cutting flesh with dirty knife. Wound isn't healing once cutting stops. Wound takes longer.”

“The dome was cracked,” said Fisher.

“Ai. Something happened. Dome breaks, good air mixes with poison, people in this city is dying. Air heals eventually, but too late for people. Should have put down knife sooner.”

Fisher and his companions continued on in silence through the mall until Protein's ears flared and he raised his head. Click put a hand on the mammoth's shoulder.

Zapper stopped and sniffed the air. Her eyes narrowed.

“Is strange that we is not seeing guards by now. Prairie dogs is always posting sentries here to protect colony from intruders.”

A high, chirpy voice rang out: “Zapper, take cover!”

Fisher's gaze shot up to one of the elevated walkways. A group of prairie dogs stood balanced on the rail. They wore belts draped over their shoulders, brightly colored strips of cloth around their arms, necklaces of feathers and small bones. All of them were armed.

“Wait …,” Zapper said, as a big prairie dog launched a clawed cable from a shoulder-mounted gun.

The claw hit Click dead center in his chest. With a sharp electric crack, the robot crumpled to the floor. Bitter threads of smoke rose from pits of melted plastic where the claw had struck.

“No, wait—,” Zapper barked again, displaying her sharp teeth.

Dozens of prairie dogs showed themselves now, rappelling down from the walkways. They came at Fisher in a rush, brandishing their weapons. He swung his jawbone-hacker at them, but they nimbly dodged his attacks. Sharp little claws raked his hands, and three prairie dogs snatched his weapon away from him. He collapsed beneath a swarm of furry bodies and fists, and even when a bag went over his head, cinched in place by a tight length of rope, he continued to fight.

But he knew he was fighting uselessly.

He was the weaker animal here, and he was failing.

CHAPTER   20

The prairie dogs bound Fisher's hands behind his back so tightly he lost feeling in his fingers. He couldn't see anything through the stifling hot bag.

“On your feet, human ape,” said one of them. When Fisher didn't comply right away, he got poked by a stick in the ribs. Electricity jolted him with a loud snap. Fisher got to one knee, then stood.

“Zapper …?”

“Zapper is not here,” said the voice. “Zapper is taken away for care. If she is hurt, you is suffering even more. Now, move.”

Another snap of the zap-stick. Fisher bit back a yelp of pain and moved forward, pushed along by prairie dog paws.

They went down a steep ramp, and Fisher smelled fresh earth. From the sounds of movement around him, he sensed he was inside a tunnel. The prairie dogs tugged him to a halt and something hard whomped the backs of Fisher's knees. His legs folded and he fell to a kneel. The bag came off his head. A door of steel bars shut before him with a clank.

“Watch him,” commanded the dog-in-charge to one of the others. “If is trouble, kill him quick.”

“Ai,” nodded Fisher's guard. “Catches-Big-Bugs is not letting human ape get away with anything.” He shook his zap stick with menace.

The one in charge grunted and led the rest of his patrol away.

Fisher stared at his guard through the bars. He'd called himself Catches-Big-Bugs. Fisher moved his hand to rub his throat, and the prairie dog flinched.

“You're skittish,” said Fisher.

Now that his fellows were gone, the prairie dog guard seemed less fierce. His eyes darted back and forth nervously.

“Is never seeing living human ape before,” the prairie dog said. “Is … is you mummy coming back from dead?”

Fisher laughed but didn't answer. Let the animal wonder.

“Tell me what you did with my friends,” he said.

The prairie dog blinked mutely.

“The robot and the mammoth,” Fisher said, more loudly. “Tell me what you've done with my friends.”

“Big dung dropper is hokay. Prairie dogs is liking big dung droppers. Is machines we is not liking.” Catches-Big-Bugs blinked a few more times. “And dead human apes, of course. Though you is first one ever in colony.”

“I need to see Zapper,” Fisher said.

Catches-Big-Bugs barked a laugh. “Human ape is not having chance to hurt Zapper. Zapper is great warrior-explorer. Zapper is favorite. Colony is protecting Zapper.”

“Zapper and I shared a frog,” said Fisher.

The prairie dog stared hard at Fisher with his black-mirror eyes. His whiskers twitched.

The dog-in-charge returned with a small band. If they came at him, maybe Fisher could disarm one of them. He was outnumbered, and the prairie dogs surely had practice fighting with their weapons in the tight, dim confines of the tunnel, but if he had a chance to succeed at survival, he would have to take it.

But what about Protein and Click? Where were they being held? Fisher couldn't just leave them here with the prairie dogs, could he?

He knew what Click would say: Yes, leave Protein behind. Leave me behind. Your own survival is your only priority.

The lead prairie dog opened the bars.

“Come with me, human. Zapper is saving your life.”

This time there was no bag over his head or rope around his wrists, but the prairie dogs kept their weapons ready and activated as they walked him through the tunnels. The underground complex snaked and twisted for what seemed like miles. Spacious chambers lining the tunnels were filled with neat bundles of leaves, bark, grasses, berries, snails, jars of bugs. Others contained workshops, with prairie dogs working leather, maintaining weapons, and taking apart blasted gadgets. Some sang as they worked, or chattered among themselves. And there were also little ones, prairie dog children, chasing each other and wrestling.

Despite the circumstances, the sights and sounds of the prairie dogs together in their colony made Fisher glad. He could only imagine how it must feel to be part of a community. He pictured himself bringing a netful of fish to a village, where perhaps a Forge made repairs to everyone's tools, and a Farmer tended neat gardens, and a Healer soothed Fisher's scrapes and cuts, and they'd all gather around blazing fires to eat together, maybe even sing.

He wished Click was with him. The robot would be trying to explain everything Fisher saw. He'd be talking about how the bare glass globes casting light through the tunnels drew their energy. And about prairie dog diets and the way societies organized themselves. And he'd help Fisher decide if the prairie dogs were his enemies because they'd attacked him, or friends because the gadgets were their common foes.

They arrived in a modest chamber furnished with a rough wooden table supporting a bowl of what looked like weeds. A weapon with a weathered blade hung on a wall peg. On a stool sat a pale-furred prairie dog, white scars criss-crossing her snout and belly. Fisher sensed great age, at least for a prairie dog. Her eyes nailed him with the keenest stare he'd ever experienced.

“Leave us, Red Top,” she said to the leader of Fisher's escort party.

The guard captain sounded a brief growl. “Is not good idea, Mother. Human ape is dangerous.”

She waved her paw, and after another moment's hesitation, Red Top retreated with his troop. But not before giving Fisher a dangerous glare. “We is right outside,” he said.

Once he was gone, the old prairie dog bit down on some weeds from her bowl.

“You is hungry?” she asked.

“No.” Fisher licked his dry lips.

“You is thirsty, maybe?”

“What have you done with my friends?”

“My name is Greycrown. Is colony's leader. Does human have a name?”

Fisher kept his mouth shut. He wouldn't say another word until he knew that Click and Protein were safe.

“Creatures that speak should have names,” Greycrown said.

Fisher just stared at her until she barked something that sounded like a chuckle. “Mammoth is hokay,” she said. “Is upground and is given food and water. Is unhappy and unruly, but unharmed. Machine is needing some new wires and parts, but dogs is good at fixing. Now you is telling Greycrown your name.”

Fisher said nothing. Greycrown regarded him for a long time.
Munch, munch, munch.

“Zapper is great traveler,” she said into the silence. “Greycrown is sending her and Nailer to see where rovers come from. But she is saying you travel even farther.”

No reason to lie about it. “Yes. From the other side of the continent. Me, Click, and Protein, all together. We're like …” Fisher grasped for words that would make the prairie dog leader understand. “We're like littermates.”

Greycrown munched weeds.

“But they're not like me. Nobody else is like me. I'm the last living human from my Ark. There are more humans in the Southern Ark, but they aren't alive. Zapper told me about the Western Ark, though. She said it hasn't been destroyed yet, that the humans there are still alive. That's why I came all this way. To find them. To protect them against the gadgets. And to wake them up.” He felt his heart quickening in his throat as he spoke. He was so close. He just needed a little more help.

Greycrown finished chewing and rose from her stool with a grunt. Fisher watched her pace around the little room. She turned to face him, her paws clasped behind her back.

“Ark is forbidden place. Is dangerous place. Is ringed with guns and death. Is—”

“Defense systems,” said Fisher. “My Ark had them too. They became the gadgets, or what you call rovers. And at the Southern Ark, the defense systems became the Intelligence. But your people are tough and well armed. Together, I'm sure we could get past them. There'll be all sorts of advanced technology inside for you to scavenge—”

“Don't interrupt, human. Greycrown knows what is in Ark. Is specimens of all kinds, suspended in sleep. Is fish and foxes and cattle and older, stupider kind of prairie dogs. And, yes, is humans.”

She said
humans
with such spite that it felt like a slap.

“Zapper told me humans made you,” said Fisher. “They—we—cloned regular prairie dogs, and changed them. Weaponized them. You're smart because of us.”

Greycrown munched weeds. “Hah. And you is thinking prairie dogs should be grateful to you? In awe of you? We is maybe thinking you is a god? We is singing songs to you?”

Well, that
would
have been awfully convenient …

“We is different than you, ragged human. Prairie dogs is remembering their own stories. Where we is coming from. How we remained while humans extincted. You humans dig more than you can ever put back. You burn anything that is burnable. You is destroying forests, is covering world with concrete and plastic, is changing weather. We is not impressed with you. Even if prairie dogs could get inside Ark, Greycrown is giving only one order: take it apart.”

Fisher opened his mouth to protest, to tell her that's not what humans would do if he awoke them. But he'd seen their ruins. He'd depended on the junk they left behind. And he'd seen the destructive results of their technology. The gadgets. The Intelligence. The shopping mall above his head.

“If you're not going to help me, then at least let me and my friends go.”

Greycrown took a handful of weeds. “Greycrown is not ‘letting you go,' ” she said. “Greycrown is kicking you out.”