"Damn," the kid said. "Too big." He glanced around. Seeing that Dare was in the process of putting on some she'd found, his gaze shot to me. "Here." He thrust the prizes toward me. I hesitated. The kid frowned at me. "What's wrong?"
"Miss Priss probably thinks her tender feet are too good for second-hand shoes." This came from Dare. Hers matched, but that's about as much as they had going for them.
I avoided her too-knowing glare and grabbed the boots from Rabbit. "Thanks, kid."
They were still warm and gritty from his feet. I ignored my natural urge to recoil and shoved my foot in all the way. It was only when the leather cupped my heel that I realized the damned things fit like they'd been made for my foot.
"Ha! Look at that," Rabbit said, beaming.
I glanced down at our feet. Mine with the mismatched but well-made boots and Rabbits bare and covered in dirt and blood. Shame washed through me. This kid had never in his life known the luxury of new shoes. I smiled at him. "Let's find you some now."
"Here, buddy," Icarus called from across the pile. He tossed a pair of scuffed wingtips across. The kid looked like he'd been handed gold. "Wow, thanks Ick!"
I raised my brows at the nickname and received a grimace in return. "Put them on quick. Saga's waiting."
A couple of minutes later, Icarus led us to a pile of old cars. I glanced around, expecting a pack of junkyard dogs or a swarm of bats to attack at any moment. Even among the mountains of trash, we were way too exposed for my liking.
Ignoring my worried glances, Icarus took his time finding a stone from the red dirt. Once he found a specimen he liked he sucked at his teeth while he squinted at the pile. A split second before I opened my mouth to ask what he was doing, he threw the rock at the rusted hood of a blue car about halfway up the pile.
Just when I was ready to call bullshit, a small mechanical sound reached my ear. Like small gears grinding. An instant later a headlight from a red car lower on the stack broke away from the car's frame. It rose up on a telescoping rod and once it reached about twelve inches up, the top portion flipped over to reveal a camera's eye imbedded inside.
I raised my brows and shot Dare a look. She shot back a shit-eating grin. Then she mugged for the camera and gave it a wave. Icarus just stood with his legs braced and his jaw tight, which from what I could tell was his relaxed stance.
A red light blinked to the right of the eye, but no voices came from the cars and no armies appeared from the surrounding trash piles. Instead, another mechanical sound followed by a whoosh of air escaping some sort of airlock sent a puff of rusty dust up from the trunk of a large sedan.
Icarus motioned a hand toward the yawning trunk. "After you."
I considered suggesting he go fuck himself, but paused. We'd come to this place so I could be tested. Something told me to balk at going in first would earn me a failing grade before I'd even crossed the threshold. So instead of arguing, I raised my chin, adjusted my canteen on its shoulder strap and took a purposeful step toward the dark void.
"Watch your step," Rabbit warned. "That first one's tricky." The helpful suggestion earned the kid a knock on the shoulder from Dare. He shot her an annoyed look as he massaged the tender spot. "What? We don't want her to die before Saga gets his hands on her."
The way he said it implied that surviving to meet Saga might be worse than death, but I ignored it, shot him a nod of thanks for the warning and marched forward.
My new heavy boots clomped against the metal bumper. The instant my feet hit the inside of the trunk, the bottom gave way and blue shadows swallowed me down a long, cold throat. Gravity tugged me down even as my stomach shot up to the back of my throat, blocking the screams that fought for freedom. My back hit something hard and then my side did too. I was in some sort of chute. I couldn't see anything and the air was clogged with dust and the cold, grey scent of clay. I could only brace myself, hoping that whatever waited for me at the bottom wasn't instantly lethal.
Soon enough, the world slowed down and then went still altogether. Before I opened my eyes, I did a quick physical inventory. When the pains in my arms, legs and back proved to be superficial, I listened for a moment. I could hear sounds, like arguing, echoing far above my head. The others were trying to decide who'd come in after me. But closer, down there where I lay on my side in the dark, I heard something far more menacing--the sound of an animal breathing.
"Be very still," a male voice said from maybe twenty feet away--hard to tell since the words echoed off the walls like we were inside some sort of cavern. "Polonius hasn't had his rations yet this day."
I opened my eyes and was pleased to find they'd adjusted to the dark enough to allow me to make out the outline of a bent-male form standing next to a very large four-legged animal. "Maybe Polonius should be careful, too," I said. "I haven't had any rations today, either."
A low chuckle reached me. "You hide your fear. That's good. But is it enough? We shall see."
I pushed myself out of my prone position to turn toward the voice. "Show yourself, old man."
A light flared. Pain burst behind my pupils at the sudden brightness. I covered them for a moment and then squinted toward the man. I had to blink a few times before the blurry form took shape, but when it did, I dropped my hand and let my lids open wide.
Standing next to the largest dog I had ever seen was the oldest man I had ever seen. Granted, in the post-Troika world, men rarely lived longer than their thirtieth birthday. Even those who'd been blessed (or cursed depending on your perspective) with a desirable blood type, still aged rapidly because of the constant demands on their veins. And those who worked in the blood camps literally were worked to an early grave.
But the man before me had to be at least double that, but I didn't really have much to judge by. His shoulders slumped forward, as if he was curling into himself. He had a long, white beard, which he'd braided into a long, thick strand. In contrast to the hair on his face, his scalp was completely free of hair and the dome shone dully in the lantern light. His clothes were simple grey homespun--clean from what I could see and functional but completely free of ornamentation. In his right hand, he held a lantern aloft and in his left was a wood staff taller than his own height. The wood was highly polished and topped with a metal symbol I couldn't make out from where I stood.
"Now that you've had your look," he said, "and I've had mine, you can tell me your name, stranger."
I licked my dry lips. "My birth name is Carmina Sargosa." I'd chosen to give him that name first because he seemed old enough to know the history of my mother.
His eyes widened. "Sargosa, you say? Hmm. And what name did they give you at the camp?"
"I don't come from the camps."
He pursed his lips. "Don't try to convince me you grew up in the resistance. You've got too many teeth in that mouth of yours."
My lips quirked. "I was raised in the Dormitories."
He stilled. "Which one?"
"Meridian."
"Let me guess--cell six?"
I nodded. He'd known who I was all along. Those questions had been a test of my honesty.
He cocked his head. "What a coincidence. Someone named Meridian Six is wanted for attacking the Prime just two nights past."
I crossed my arms. "Shouldn't believe rumors." For that matter how in the hell did he hear anything hiding as he did down in that pit.
Swishing sounds came from behind me, indicating the others were on their way down the chute to join us. Icarus appeared first, of course. Unlike me, he didn't flail out of the tube and land on his ass. Instead he found his feet easily and came to join the old man and me. "What's the story?" he asked Saga.
He flicked too-shred eyes in my direction. "I'm intrigued. Bring her." With that he turned flicking a, "Come Polonius" over his shoulder.
The dog executed a wide turn and followed his slow master back through the archway leading out of the cavern. I looked at Icarus. "What now?"
Rabbit and Dare shot out of the slide a split second before he said, "Now we find out if you get to live."
As it turned out, the cavern I'd landed in was only a tiny part of what turned out to be an extensive underground bunker. Icarus and the others led me into a long corridor. The walls of this space were covered floor to ten-foot ceiling with books. The musty scent of aged pages filled the space, and I wondered how Saga managed to keep the books from rotting in the damp air. Icarus moved ahead to go talk to Saga, leaving me in Dare's keeping.
"What is this place?" I asked her. Because of her wounds, I had to slow my pace, which was fine given the judgment waiting for me at the other end of corridor.
She glanced at me but I could tell she wasn't happy to have to talk. "Saga considers himself a historian, of sorts. This is his library."
I glanced at the thousands of books. "What kind of historian?"
"Of the human race."
My eyes widened. I knew that when the Troika decided to take over the planet, one of their first moves was buying up all media companies, which included servers filled with the bulk of shared knowledge on the planet. When the actual war began, it was simply a matter of flipping a few switches to deprive humans of every electronic source of communication and information.
"Where did he get all these? I thought the Troika confiscated all the remaining printed books when they took over."
"They did. But Saga went underground long before the war began."
"What? Why would he do that?"
She sniffed, like my curiosity offended her. But before she could explain, Saga's voice echoed down the hall. "Because I never trusted the world wide web. Too many spiders."
My instinct was to declare the old man insane. But I knew all too well how easily the Troika had cut people off from each other because they'd sacrificed their freedoms to the gods of convenience.