The swing was too high. They’d done that deliberately. But it was still hers, and she’d learned that the only way to get on it was to get a running start and then jump.
She backed up across the cave and dashed toward the hole in the cave wall. She was surefooted on the uneven floor. She jumped at just the right moment with hands extended.
For an uncertain, wild moment, she was flying. And then her arms wrapped around the wooden seat, and she clamped down with all her might as her legs swung beneath her. She climbed up while the seat and chains were still rattling. She almost lost her footing when a hole in her pantleg caught on the edge of the seat, but she recovered and settled in the seat with a motion she’d done countless times before.
Locks of her hair, tangled and dirty and a deep red the color of sunset, hung in her face, and she quickly pushed them away until she could see the view. Far below, at the base of the mountain, the city began. The closest buildings were squart and small, and streets connected them to the towers at the very center of the city. Miles away, the tallest of the towers rose almost to the level of the swing. More buildings and more city streets stretched to the horizon behind the towers, and the farthest buildings were hazy at all hours of the day.
She heard Mama gasp. “Marcia! Get down from there!”
She twisted in the seat and stuck her tongue out at the hologram of Mama, whose hair was as tangled and red as hers, and whose clothes were as dusty and old and full of holes. “Make me,” Marcia said.
“Don’t think I won’t remember this on Visiting Day! Get down from there right now!”
Marcia growled in frustration. For a moment, she thought about disobeying. It was so easy to rile up Mama, and it could be fun. But Mama wasn’t above spanking, and the city people let Mama do it on Visiting Days.
She pulled herself up to standing on the swing and turned around, facing away from the view of the metropolis that was always out of reach even by hot-air balloon. “I have to swing to get down,” she said, which was sort of true. She could jump right now and she’d probably be fine. But it was safer if the swing was moving and swinging inward, into the cave. So, she pumped her knees and got the swing going, ignoring her mama’s grumbling and then gasps as the swing swung inward, then outward, inward, then outward, farther and farther, until her back was to the sky and her view below was of the hazardous rockface of the mountain. It was steep and rough and covered in craggy ledges and sharpened, spikey rocks.
Despite the hazards, she knew she scale down that mountain. She’d climbed the inner waves of the cave plenty of times, and she did it with ease.
But she didn’t. Climbing outside the cave was the One Rule the city people had been Very Clear she wasn’t allowed to bend.
“Time to get down now!” Mama’s voice filled with urgency. “Before they see you!”
On the next swing into the cave, she jumped. Mama made a noise of distress, but Marcia landed easily on her feet and knees and was standing up a second later. She grinned cheekily a Mama.
“Oh, eat your lunch.” Mama’s face flushed. “Get the firewood and the meat. Let’s roast our food together, okay? And no more stunts today, you hear?”
“Yes, Mama!” She jumped and skipped over the rough floor to the cave wall, where she always stacked the packages of food. The hot-air balloon people brought new rations of firewood, food and water every week, but she had to cook them. She grabbed the pebbles of flint and steel she kept next to the stack of food.
Mama’s hologram shuffled around, grabbing unseen sticks and unseen food packages. Somewhere else in the mountain, Mama was cooking her own food at the same time.
“One day, I’ll be able to cook for you, like normal parents do for their children,” Mama said.
Marcia tore open a plastic pouch, and the smell of raw meat hit her nose. Something about the packaging kept the food safe to eat. Mama had explained about food safety and refrigeration and food preservatives, but Mama didn’t go into it again today.
Lunch was the same raw meat and raw vegetables she had every day, cooked over the fire pit she lit herself. Mama’s hologram kept her company while she ate. She was glad to talk to Mama, even with the threat of spanking.
Mama told her mouth-watering stories about the seasonings she’d never tasted that people used to cook down in the city. Mama spoke about the mattresses and bedding and pillows that the city people slept on instead of the hard rocky ground. Mama told her about concrete and grass that felt soft under bare feet. Mama had such vivid stories about life down there, filled with birthday cakes and crowds at music festivals and weather-proof shelters from the wind and cold and rain.
Mama said that Marcia was there, too, but she couldn’t remember it. Mama said the trauma of being forced onto the mountain when she was so young was too much, and that was why she couldn’t remember.
Mama’s stories always ended with sobs. Today’s lunch was no different. Mama ate and cried. Mama was so sad here up on the mountain. The city people had everything they needed and more, Mama said. She and Mama had so little.
One day, Daddy would finish his political prison sentence, and they would all get to go free. In the meantime, she and Mama were Examples to him and to everyone else down in the city, who had a perfect view of the cave mouths. One day, she’d be allowed to leave her cave jail cell. And then she’d climb down the mountain and enter the city she’d seen from afar for her whole life, and she’d eat the first cake she found and she’d see for herself had soft the grass was.
The cave rumbled like rain, but there was no rain outside. Dust trickled down from the cave ceiling. Pebbles danced on the floor.
“Earthquake!” her mother’s hologram made motions like she was shifting the logs in a fire. “Smother your fire, chilld!” Her hologram knelt down and clasped her hands behind her head. “Brace, Marcia! Just like this!”
Marcia hurried to put out the flames and gasped as a rock hit her head. It wasn’t big or heavy, but it surprised her.
Dust filled the cave and got into her lungs. She coughed as she curled into a ball and did her best to protect her head.
The mountain stilled. Her stack of rations had fallen over, and bottles of water rolled across the floor. Her campfire logs had scattered past the fire spot. Rocks had dislodged from the ceiling, and new hazards lay scattered across the floor. She peered up at the ceiling. It was mostly the same, but she could pick out the changes. The hologram projector and camera were still up there, secured to the very center. Her swing shook, but it still hung from the cave mouth’s ceiling, too.
Her mother’s hologram unfolded. She looked scared, but otherwise seemed fine. “Marcia?”
“I’m okay, Mama,” Marcia said.
Mama rubbed her face clear of dust. She slapped her hands against the floor of her cave, but her holographic hand seemed to pass through a rock in Marcia’s cave. “They don’t care what happens to us, up here on this death trap!” Mama said. “The mountain could collapse on us any day, and it would matter not a bit to them!”
Marcia darted over loose pebbles and rocks and approached the cave mouth. If the city had felt the earthquake, she couldn’t tell from here. Mama got upset so easily, but if the city wasn’t affected, it couldn’t have been as bad as Mama worried.
She watched, just to be sure, and there it was: a trail of smoke rising from downtown, not from the tallest towers, but from a shorter tower hiding among the taller ones.
She busied herself with cleaning up the mess in her cave. The fire in the city went out before it spread.
The hot-air balloon people did not come to check on them. Mama was right about how the city felt about them. It bothered Mama, that lack of concern. But Marcia would swing and jump and land on the rough cave floor, like she had no cares in the world.
**
Her week of rations dwindled, like they did every week. When she cooked the last meal in the pile, she stabbed the pieces of meet with a stick salvaged from the firewood and carried them to the cave opening.
She sat and waited. Eventually, she saw the balloons rising in the distance, beyond the towers of the city, from a field she’d never seen.
She turned to Mama’s hologram, who stood next to her, watching her, not the city. Mama couldn’t see the cave beyond what Mama was interacting with directly. She couldn’t see Mama’s cave, either.
“Why do they always come from so far away?” she asked Mama. “There are closer fields that they can launch from.” She could see a few from her perch. Sometimes, they were filled with white tents. Other times, tiny people kicked balls across them.
Mama glanced away at something she couldn’t see, but she assumed it was the view from the other cave. “They want the city to see them,” Mama said. “The Protectorate rules through fear. When the people see their prison wardens visiting the prison, the people know that there are still prisoners up here.”
“Is Daddy watching the balloons, too?”
“Yes. He's in the city prison, but they’ll make sure to put him next to a window where he can watch. They want him to remember we’re here.”
The balloons bobbed up and down as they approached. They were so colorful. She liked them. She didn’t like the people who rode them.
The balloons broke off into many directions. She never saw the other prisoners on the mountain, but she knew they were there, because each balloon was for a different family.
Mama was in another cave in the mountain. Once a week, the balloons came, gathered them both, and set them down in a third cave for visitation hours. It was the only time she ever saw living people instead of holograms.
Her balloon people were two men this time. They stared down at her. The guards changed regularly. Mama had guessed the guards weren’t given the chance to develop feelings for them and see them as people. It was hard for Marcia to see the balloon people as real people, too. The men who peered down at her wore the same khaki uniforms with white stripes down the sleeves that all the guards wore. They all acted the same, too, hard and angry and unforgiving.
One of them reached down into the basket and reappeared with his arms laden with rope. He tossed the rope ladder over the side of the basket. The end of the ladder slapped against the rocks just outside the cave mouth. “Get in!”
She climbed the ladder. The rope was rough against her arms, legs and feet. Near the top, he grabbed her skinny wrist and yanked her the rest of the way up, over the side of the weathered wall of the basket.
“She’s skinny as a twig,” he said to his companion. He pushed her to the floor in the corner. She knew better than to complain. “Sit there. Don’t move.”
She rubbed her wrist, folded her legs beneath her and leaned back against the woven wall of the basket. It was soft, so unlike the rough walls of her cave. She imagined it felt like grass.
He hauled up the ladder as the other guard piloted the balloon. She peered up into the hole in the balloon, where flame shot up into the space. The balloon people could ignite the fire just by pulling a handle. She wondered if they used flint for their cooking fires, but she didn’t ask. They hit her if she talked to them, and then Mama would be upset by the red marks that turned to bruises.
She watched the flame and the clouds as the basket rocked back and forth. The wind fought against the balloon, sending it into wobbly circles. Marcia dug her feet into the basketweave. The guards held on to the metal frame that connected the basket to the balloon’s ropes.
The pilot sent another column of flame into the balloon. The heat didn’t reach her. She shivered. Her teeth clattered. It was cold above the mountain. The guards were dressed for the chill with their long sleeves and long pants and shiny boots, but she wasn’t.
The guard threw over the ladder a second time, and soon, Mama was in the basket and told to sit next to her. Mama’s warmth pressed against her side. Mama was soft, too. Her eyes were frightened but alert, both so normal for Mama.
Marcia reached for her hand. They leaned against each other, and body warmth filled that side of the basket and made it almost cozy. Marcia fingered a new hole in Mama’s shirt.
They sat and waited for the balloon to reach the third cavem, but the time came and went.
Marcia glanced at Mama, but Mama was looking puzzled, too.
“Circle around again,” one guard said to pilot. “They’re not ready for us.”
All Marcia could see outside the balloon was sky. She couldn’t see the familiar rock face outside the third cave. She shivered. Every inch of her felt frozen.
Outside the balloon, there was a scream.
Mama sat up straight. Marcia stilled. They listened, and there they were: more screams, somewhere out there.
The pilot manning the tanks asked, “Are they finishing soon?”
“It looks like they’re almost done,” the other guard said.
“Where are you taking us?” Mama said.
Marcia gaped at her. Mama wasn’t usually so bold.
“Shut up,” said the pilot.
“The landing pad is clear!” The guard who’d hauled them into the basket threw out the ladder. He scaled down it, and the pilot threw down the tether rope.
Mama’s hand squeezed hers. “Something’s wrong,” Mama said quietly, while the second guard was distracted. “Be careful.”
Marcia nodded.
The second guard pointed at Marcia. “Climb down!”
Marcia grabbed the top of the basket wall and pulled herself up. She climbed over the side and put her barefoot on the ladder rung. Her thoughts whirled with the odd place she’d seen in just that second. When she reached the bottom of the ladder, the first guard pushed her to the ground and told her to stay there, but she barely noticed. She was too busy taking in the sight.
The other balloons were in the near-distance, but they were leaving. The rock floor under her was the same dark gray she’d seen all her life, but this floor was completely smooth. It was a wide surface, and all that was visible in all directions, beyond the edge of the platform, were the clouds and the other balloons. There were no caves and no view of the city.
Mama appeared in the basket and wailed. “No! You can’t!”
The guard in the basket back-handed Mama. Mama tumbled back onto the basket floor.
“Mama!” Marcia said.
The other guard’s hand hit Marcia’s face. She didn’t feel it in the moment she was spinning and landed in a heap, but the pain came in the moment she pushed herself back into sitting.
Mama was forced out of the basket. The guard in the basket pushed her down the first few rungs of the ladder. Mama climbed down the rest, but before she got all the way down, the other guard snarled, grabbed her feet and yanked on her ankle. Mama landed clumsily but on her feet. She staggered over and pulled Marcia into a tight grip.
Mama smelled of dust and dirt. “Where are we, Mama?” she asked Mama’s shirt.
“The mountain peak.” Mama’s voice shook. “Execution Peak.”
Mama had never told her about this place. Marcia didn’t understand.
Both guards were on the ground now. One guard yanked on Marcia’s arm until Marcia was on her feet, then pulled her toward the flattened peak’s edge.
Mama was dragged as much as pulled. “No!” Mama’s voice twisted into sounds Marcia had never heard. It was horrible.
Marcia’s hands clenched into fists. Her nails dug into her hands so much they hurt, though not as much as the guard’s grip on her arm.
“You can’t!” Mama kept saying. “Ten years! That was the sentence! Jolun in political prison, us on the mountain! It’s only been nine–”
“Jolun has violated the terms of his sentence by staging a prison mutiny during the earthquake.” Mama’s guard’s lips curled into an awful smirk. “He will be executed, but first, he will see that his actions led to your deaths.”
Marcia thought of the column of smoke she’d seen during the earthquake. There’d only been one trail of smoke, and it had been snuffed out so quickly.
“Liar!” Mama said.
“Mama!” Marcia cried as they reached the edge of the platform and halted.
Cameras mounted on drones hovered at the edge, recording them. Their noisy blades sounded like a hive of bees. One camera pointed straight at her, and the other pointed at Mama.
The craggy, steep side of the mountain opened up below her feet. Far, far below, farther than the view from her cave, was the city. Much closer on the slope, among the sharp points of rocks carved out by water and wind and ice, were people. The people weren’t moving. They lay in strange, awkward ways. More drones hovered around them, buzzing, watching.
Marcia understood. The other balloons had brought the other prisoners here, recently. They’d stood right here, deaf to the cries of the people they pushed over the ledge. The wind had been so loud up in the balloon that she’d heard none of them.
Marcia couldn’t remember life down in the city. Her life had started on the mountain. It would end here, too.
“Mama!” she said through tears. They were angry tears, terrified tears, helpless tears.
The guard slapped her again, and her tears stopped. Marcia looked up at the disgust in his eyes. She saw the hat askew on his head, the pressed collar around his neck, the trimmed beard on his chin. He was clearer to her in that moment then she’d ever noticed before.
Her ears rang. Her cheek burned. But the fear was gone. In its place, she felt something deeper reaching up.
She was shaking. Her clenched fist slammed into his clean pants. He yelled in surprise and doubled over.
“Earthquake!” the other guard said.
Marcia realized the shaking came from the ground. She was too angry to care.
The guards staggered about, more worried about keeping upright than keeping ahold of her and Mama. But Marcia was sure on her feet. She was used to pebbles shifting with every step in her cave.
She didn’t remember how the Marcia’s guard ended up on his back. Maybe he tripped as the quaking grew stronger. Maybe she knocked him over. Either way, the mountain knocked him off balance and cleared the way for her to do the rest.
Her hand hurt. She felt flushed. The guard’s perfect face turned red and broken under her fist.
Finally, hands pulled her to her feet. She yelled and fought, but she stopped when Mama’s hands fell off her arms and pressed into her cheeks. Mama’s eyes were wild. Marcia felt wild, too.
“Run!” Mama said. “Get to the balloon!”
Marcia glanced back as they ran. The mountain’s rumbling was louder now, louder than the wind up in the sky. The guard she’d beaten was out cold. Mama had knocked over the other guard, but he was struggling to rise as the mountain kept shaking.
Mama didn’t lose her footing. She pushed Marcia ahead, and Marcia grabbed the ladder as Mama untied the tether. “Go! Go!” Mama said, full of panic. The ladder shook as Mama climbed onto it behind her.
Mama yanked on the gas lever. A column of fire shot up into the balloon, sending them up with enough force to make Marcia grab onto the basket wall.
The mountain was raging. The conscious guard’s scream sounded pitiful among the rumbling of rocks splitting open and tumbling.
Marcia held on tight to the basket. She peered over the side.
The mountain peak split apart. The entire side of the mountain seemed to come free. The bodies of the dead tumbled down with the boulders toward the city below. More boulders and cracks and pebbles came free, and the entire rockslide vanished inside a cloud of dust that descended on the city.
Mama manned the balloon’s flame. Marcia watched as the dust settled and cleared, revealing toppling buildings and boulders rolling into streets. Her swing and her firewood and her empty ration containers must have been among them.
Yesterday, she may have been devastated by the destruction. Mama’s stories of city life had always been so vibrant and full of amazing things. She thought she’d live in the city one day. But as she watched the mountain destroy the view she’d seen all her life, the horror and sadness did not come. She felt disappointed. They deserved worse than this, she thought.
One person down there didn’t deserve to die. “Daddy!” Marcia turned to Mama. “Daddy's still down there!”
Mama’s eyes were still wild, but she nodded. “They’ll be busy with emergency responses,” she said, more to herself. “We can rescue him.”
Mama knew how to pilot the balloon. Other balloons returning from the mountain passed by, giving them no heed as the guards in those balloons returned to their base, too distracted by the chaos below.
“Did they kill the other prisoners?” Marcia asked. “All of them?”
Mama didn’t answer for a moment. “I think they did. I’m sorry, Marcia. I thought they’d let us go after ten years, like they said they would. I’m so sorry.” Mama wiped away her tears and focused on flying.
If she was back in her cave, she would have let the tears go freely. Marcia thought she could see the revolutionary Mama used to be, before the government locked them away and broke Mama’s spirit.
Marcia didn’t feel broken.
They passed over cracked buildings as sirens rang through the streets below. Marcia stared down at the people who were still far away but much closer than they’d ever been in her life.
“There!” Mama said. She laughed. “There he is! Do you see him? That’s Jolun! That’s your father!”
The tower that quickly approached had burn marks around its windows. On the flat roof, a man raised a rifle over his head and waved it, as if summoning them. People lay on the roof around him, not moving.
Marcia had no memory of him, either, but she knew this was Daddy. Marcia gathered up the ladder and pushed it up, over the edge of the basket.
Soon, they’d all be free, and they’d escape. Maybe she’d come back to the city one day, but not to live. She’d come to raze the rest of it to the ground. She imagined more rocks falling and more columns of smoke, one for each building. Maybe she’d join the resistance, if there was one, or she’d revive it.
The balloon people thought Daddy was the dangerous one. They’d done what was needed to mold her into an even worse nightmare, for them.
Marcia smiled. For the first time in her life, she truly had no cares.
Image Source: jd_art_x
Comments
Post a Comment