4. FOUR #2
“Right,” the boy said to Calver’s lack of response. His eyes darted back and forth. “I won’t tell anyone about the revoked man trying to break into the mess wagon, if you train me in what I just watched you practice.”
Calver’s brows nearly dented his nose. He wouldn’t tell anyone? The question remained what the boy was doing in that wagon during the deepest dark of the night.
The boy stared at Calver as though waiting for him to grin and give a thumbs up. As if Calver couldn’t snap the fragile strand of sinew and bones that he was in two. As if the boy could run twenty steps without wheezing. Preservation, something about him was so much like Raimee, and—
Chaos, with all this moral warfare, perhaps he had been better off with the mind djinn.
Something rippled beyond the void. Calver tried to force his thoughts in any other direction. Short of seizing up and permitting the Survivor back into his headspace, he acted on instinct. He ran—sprinted, really—into the desert. He focused on his surging breaths. The sound of footfalls on sand.
It was only after he realized the boy was running after him that he considered the insanity of his actions. He stopped. The boy caught up and stopped as well, hands on his knees.
“No one—has—to know,” he gasped.
So, he did wheeze after all.
Calver would have thought running away to be an effective social cue to make a person scram.
People who weren’t Raimee usually steered clear of him.
He shouldn’t have to shake this boy off as if he clung to his sirwal.
Besides, he had nothing on Calver. The threat was a flex.
He’d come out here to bargain—to make sure Calver wouldn’t be the one talking.
Calver couldn’t care less what the boy had been doing, regardless, but now the boy had his side of the deal.
There was no reason to train him, or go anywhere near him again for that matter. He turned and ran again. He was pretty sure, this time, it would communicate the right message.
NIKLAUS
Were Niklaus a different man, things might have flown through the air. The contents of the wagon might have been overturned; he might have searched every inch of every dank and dusty shelf. Niklaus didn’t need to. He knew where he’d hidden his moss reserves. And now he knew they were gone.
It took weeks to safely wean from moss—rapid reduction could kill a person, and a cold cutoff nearly always did.
The moment his assets had been revoked, he’d carefully plotted how he could accomplish it unaccompanied: four five-day cycles of reduction and adaptation would have allowed him to come fully clean just before they reached Steila.
Every time he dropped in dose—like the day prior—the withdrawal would have been difficult, but survivable.
Now, he wouldn’t last two ten-days. Moss was dark market contraband.
Admitting his need for it to the encampment’s medic was its own sentence.
He looked at the final six tabs in his pocket tin. He’d come out here to uncover Thyatira’s intentions, suspecting Thyatira was grooming the Groundling army that would strip the Nelfinden oligarchy. Because of it, he would die slowly and alone.
With nothing else to do, Niklaus proceeded through his morning as normal, ignoring his trembling limbs, his premature sweats. He prepared the wash station and started into early trays, taking breaks whenever his vision blurred. No need to act desperate. Desperation was dangerous.
Thedexemore exited his tent, pitched beside Niklaus’s on the mess tent’s rim, shortly after Niklaus began washing. The boy gave him a quick glance that might have seemed surprised before strapping on his protective oculars and hastening to Niklaus’s side.
Niklaus would be the first to admit that their initial encounter had not been his best work.
But, while this boy’s presence had been unanticipated, he might be the exact informant Niklaus needed.
He’d come from Limtush—no chance that was a willing union—and Limtush was Thyatira’s oligarchal crutch.
He could have connections or, in the least, a counter-perspective as an Azadonian.
The boy had slept late. Extending pleasantries and not pointing out his mistake might help smooth things over.
“Good morning,” Niklaus offered as Thedexemore rolled up his sleeves and began to fill a wash bin.
The boy was colder than the desert at highmoon.
“Sleep well?”
Nothing but a steady stream of water from the tank on the water wagon.
“Why don’t we start trying to bridge this relationship on a positive note? Hello, I’m Niklaus Meyernes. When I detest someone for a reason they don’t fully understand, I usually do them the good grace of explaining it to them.”
Thedexemore sighed. “Hello, Niklaus Meyernes. I’m going to spend the morning ensuring your job gets done in half the time it would take you to do it. And for that, I owe you nothing.”
Words. That was good. That was progress.
Thedexemore plopped his bin beside Niklaus’s—a matter of stacking efficiency over comradery.
“So, what made you decide to join the Red Wing?” Niklaus asked.
Thedexemore did not reply, but so long as there were dishes, he was a captive audience.
“As I understand it, the stipend alone is better than many can find for wages in Shrokan. Was it a matter of opportunity?”
“I’m not from Shrokan. I’m from Poqualle.”
Two sentences into a fresh start, and Niklaus had already insulted him.
Shrokan was a sprawling slum, where more than half of Seraphinden resided.
Poqualle was a wealthy district. Now that he thought about it, Thedexemore didn’t speak with a Groundling accent.
An over-classed, under-aged Azadonian boy serving the Nelfinden military?
“Forgive the assumption.”
Thedexemore’s blink lasted longer than it should have.
“Ahm. What brings you here, then? You may be one of few among the recruits with letters.” His joining as a Groundling recruit was about as irrational as Niklaus’s.
“I wanted to learn how to fight.”
A wave of nausea took Niklaus. The timing of his withdrawal couldn’t be more ironic. In his mission to prevent violence, it was easy to forget there were those who longed for it.
He snorted, swallowing down vomit. “Let me guess. A peacekeeper?”
Thedexemore’s face hardened. “No. A protector for my family.”
“There are a hundred ways to be a protector that don’t involve impaling other human beings with sharp objects.” It felt like Niklaus’s brain was being stuck through at that very moment.
“Is that right?”
“It is.”
“What a thought-provoking comment, coming from a man with such abundant wealth, he has nothing better to do than spend his time tarnishing the reputations of others. I think I’ll take that to heart.”
Mission aborted. There was no camaraderie to be had here.
Niklaus understood, now, how good men turned savage.
It was easy, really, when you felt worse than boots against the sand.
“You’re here to be popular, aren’t you? Breaking your cycle of being socially disadvantaged.
‘Look how bold that young Azadonian is. Putting his life on the line—in peacetime, mind you—because he’s a true Nelfinden patriot.
’ Let me guess. You got the idea following propaganda from Roskaad Thyatira too, eah? ”
Thedexemore scrubbed harder at a tray than was strictly necessary. Niklaus should have stopped talking. Had he not been sure of the imminent—and probably deadly—final stages of withdrawal, maybe he would have.
“Do you really think the Red Wing has been recruiting record-holding numbers because they want to protect people? Fighting doesn’t protect anyone. Fighting ignites retribution. Wars. Famine. Disease. Dissonance. There are plenty of ways to protect whatever it is you hold dear without violence.”
“Thyatira has recruited record-holding numbers to provide opportunity during record-holding unemployment amongst Nelfindar’s lower castes. I imagine that might be hard for someone like you to understand.”
“I understand fully the story that’s been fed to you—a bandage of a plan with no real logic nor longevity.”
“Then can you also understand your own hypocrisy? You’re speaking against the military, yet you stand to earn millions from the deployment of Aetech’s defensive plates?”
Somewhere behind them, the mess chef hacked and spat into the sand. The sound was nauseating. Niklaus’s head pounded.
“Maybe I’m against the military because it could con people like you—all heart, no agency—into doing something terrible.
” He gestured towards the enlistees, polishing off their meals at the tables under the mess tent.
“People who just want to do what’s right, and people who want to do whatever makes them look good.
But that’s the real hypocrisy here. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that the Fates care not for reputation. They only see truth.”
Silence, except for the water swishing in the bin beside him. Why was it that every time Niklaus tried to make a point, it turned into a looping line that ended with him speaking in his defense?
“Sorry,” Niklaus mumbled. “I got carried away.”
Silence.
“And I have a bit of a headache.”
Thedexemore didn’t turn his eyes from the steady task in his hands when he finally spoke. “Want to know why no one really believes you? You discount your words by sheer quantity alone.”