Pahnyakin Rising (10 page)

Dresden’s brows ribboned.  “What’s with this house having power and the other one not?  I saw fresh food at the other house.  Does someone live there or not?”

“Squatters take what they can get,” Dodge shrugged.  “A lot of the houses around here never have power.  Shepherd got pissed after everything happened and disconnected the generator to this place.  I scavenged what supplies I could from runs and was able to rig up a few nightlights, but I usually just go to bed when it’s dark and get up with the sun, when I can sleep, anyway…Guess it’s another perk of you being back.”

“What is?”

“The power was on as soon as I got back to the house last night.”

Dodge removed a thick fabric-covered metal plate from his chest and tossed it in the corner.  A loud thud rang throughout the house and Dresden jumped.  She watched as he continued to walk down the hall, peeling a black long-sleeved sweater from his gleaming wet skin.  The sides of his belly bulged; she could only imagine the weight he carried on his front.  A silver chain with a golden ring hanged down his back. Dodge’s arms were thick and strong as he rolled the shirt into a ball and chucked it behind him.  He reached over his shoulder and adjusted the ring and bulk of the necklace to his front.  He clearly showed no regard for cleanliness.  It was as he gave up on caring about much of anything. 

Dresden, as soon as Dodge disappeared behind a heavy white door, felt tears stream from her tired eyes.  She could not make sense of anything occurring in her life; if this was real, it meant her entire way of life had changed overnight.  Gone were the joys of her past.  Her mother and father, in this timeline, had been long since buried, and Dresden was no longer a scientist but a leader of a community with a goal of defeating the Pahnyakin race.  She struggled to keep her body upright; she so desperately wanted to crumble and wake up to this being a horrific dream. 

She moved hesitantly to the extra room and placed her hand upon the doorknob.  She shoved her shoulder against the wooden door; it always stuck, that was nothing new.

“Peek-a-boo,” she heard from the dark left corner across the blackened room.

“Pierre?” she excitedly exclaimed. 

Dresden fumbled for the light switch to her right and was shocked at the room’s appearance.  Where there was once a twin day bed with a white aluminum frame was now a stack of cardboard boxes bulging at their torn seams.  Each one, she could see even from the jagged golden threshold at her feet, was overflowing with loose, wrinkled papers and books.  She recognized a textbook peeking out of one of the boxes in front of her; it was her old medical dictionary that she would recognize anywhere after she accidentally burned the cover soldering one sleepy night.

A series of rapid clicks filled her ears and she was overcome with panic.  The girl jerked her eyes upward.  Burgundy blackout curtains covered the windows directly across the room from her.  Her macaw was the only other living creature in the room. 

“Pierre,” she scolded to the chattering bird.  “You scared me half to death.”

The bird continued its replication of the aliens’ mechanical clicks. 

“Stop,” she hissed. 

She carefully crossed the room.  Her possessions created a messy maze she fought to get through with her aching ankle.  She winced as she attempted to keep her balance.  All around her were remnants of experiments and research.  Some of it, just from first glance, she recognized.  Other writing, other books, she had never seen before.  She flipped through the water-stained pages of the notebook and mouthed what was written. 

“This can’t be right,” she mumbled to herself.  Her finger was rested over her words.

It was her handwriting, she could tell that much by the dots to her i’s ten miles away from the letter and from a lowercase b strongly resembling the number six.  But how did she learn about what was written on the pages? 

Dresden furiously thumbed through the notebook to see crude sketches of VGA and parallel ports.  Stick-figure Pahnyakins were drawn with faded graphite arrows labeling port locations on the beings’ necks and spines.  There were three pages, alone, detailing how to dismantle an Imperator’s spinal exoskeleton to reach two ports on its middle back. 

‘Screwdriver?’ read her scribbles, with a series of question marks near a drawing of the back of a Magister’s neck.  ‘Long, thin blade.’

The girl shifted uncomfortably and her left toe hit the box with a crash.

“Please don’t hurt my husband,” Pierre squawked.  His feathers were ruffled and he angrily bobbed his head towards the window.  “Talk later.  Okay?  We’ll talk later.  Don’t hurt my husband.  Oh God, please don’t let Dresden come home during this.  Don’t come home.”

Dresden let the notebook fall from her fingers and to the floor.  She stared at the bird.

“Try not to let that get to you,” Dodge said from the doorway.  “He sometimes gets nervous.  That’s why you moved him in here.”

She turned to face Dodge.  His beard was shiny and damp.  He scratched his arms and picked lint from the hunter green t-shirt covering his rotund belly. 

“He clicks now.  He didn’t do that before.”

Dodge remained quiet.

“All these notes,” Dresden motioned to the floor.  “I wrote all of these?”

He nodded.  “This was kind of like your storage room, stuff you didn’t really need anymore, but you sometimes came in here to see if you missed anything.”

“They threw me the screwdriver because of these notes?”

“It’s kind of your thing,” Dodge smiled with a chuckle.  “I have my blades; you have your screwdrivers.”

Dresden erupted in laughter.  “You’re kidding me, right?  Here I fight with a
screwdriver?
  How lame is that?”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you could watch from the outside.  Nobody knows how you do it.”

“But I don’t know how to do any of this,” she protested.  “You saw me in that cage.  Those things will kill me.”

“Then you’ll have to learn again, won’t you?”

-11-

“Get up,” Dodge said.  “We have to go now.”  He poked at the girl’s left arm until she stirred.  It was not how he would usually wake her, but his ordinary practices went out the window when he learned this wasn’t
her.

She let out an annoyed groan and rolled on her side with her eyes still closed.  “I had the worst dream.”

“Mm-hmm.  Come on, get up.  And wrap your ankle in this.  It already looks pretty bad.  You don’t want it getting worse.”

Dresden slowly opened her eyes to see Dodge extending to her a tan gauze compression bandage.  His beard was speckled with wiry auburn hairs in the light of the deer antler lamp on his oak nightstand.  Something felt oddly relaxing about being in his bed.  It took all her fear away.

“It wasn’t a dream?” she asked sadly. 

“Wasn’t a dream.  Do you want me to wrap it for you?” he nodded to her ankle.

She shook her head and reached for the bandage.  “I got it.  Where are we going?”

“There’s a mandatory community meeting.  You need to start thinking of your story again—make sure it’s exactly what you told me, if that’s what really happened.”

“Dodge,” she blew out a breath of frustration, “I told you, that’s what happened.”

He sat at the edge of the bed as she pulled herself up and began to unroll the gauze. 

“I’m just saying.  You’re going to face a lot of confused and angry people tonight.”

“Nobody’s going to believe me.”

“We’ll figure that part out later.”  He sighed and shook his head.  “Maybe.  You know, I can hardly believe this myself.  I really don’t know what others should hear.  You’re not you, and that’s the only thing anyone knows for sure.”

“What time is it?”

“Probably about an hour and a half before sunset.  We don’t usually have meetings this late unless it’s an emergency.  People want answers, Dresden.”

“Well I don’t have any,” she spit.  The girl kept her moans to herself as she tightly wrapped the gauze around her ankle and arch of her cold foot.

“Then you’d better start thinking of something good to say, because they’re not me.”

“Why have you been such a jerk to me?” Dresden demanded as she tucked the ends of the bandage in the pocket of the wrap.  “You’ve been standoffish.”

He stood.  “I’ve lived without you for a year.  And even now that you’re back, you’re not you.  Don’t lecture me after what you did.”

“But
I
didn’t do whatever it is you’re mad about.”

He swatted away her words.  “Forget it.  Just get up.  We really need to go.  It’s going to look bad if you’re late.  Believe me, Dresden: you don’t want to do anything else to make these people not trust you.”

The girl rose from his brown and green plaid comforter and limped out of the room.  Bright sunlight blinded her as she hobbled through the hall and to the living room.  She grabbed her boots by their openings and sat on the couch, pulling each shoe over her feet. 

“Where is the meeting?” she asked. 

Dodge stood by the door and peeked out of the half-circle window at its top.

“By the arena.  Look, don’t say anything when we go outside.  There’s a crowd building.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

The girl stared at Dodge.  His beard and exhaustion added years to his appearance.

“You look so much older,” she commented softly.

His lips curled in a warm smile.  “Yeah, but you always look the same.  Pretty sure you’re the only one going through this with no affect of its stress on your appearance,” he laughed.  “I’ve always been kind of jealous of you for that.” 

She took a deep breath and stood.  Dresden could not deny that the bandage around her ankle helped take the edge off the pain.  She walked to the door and Dodge exited the home first.  Dresden followed him down the walkway and shivered in the cold wind.  Across the street she saw a crowd gathering.  Most looked onward with mixed expressions of fear and anger.  Some whispered to one another. 

“Is it her, Dodge?” called out a dirt-covered man.  His white shirt was spotted with mud and grease.  “They’re saying it’s not her.”

Dodge said nothing.  He reached his right hand behind his back, expecting Dresden to grab it. 

She didn’t.

The two walked for blocks until they passed the cage in which Dresden was face-to-face with the Uni.  Its body was lifeless in the same spot it fell.  Dresden averted her eyes to the sidewalk and continued down the block. 

As Dodge and Dresden approached the front door of the old pottery building, the shouts of the crowd inside raged. 

“Dodge,” she said in a low plea, “I can’t go in there.  They sound mad.”

“They are,” he nodded. 

Lyle emerged from the entrance. 

He approached Dodge. 

“Go in through the side,” he instructed.  “Shepherd is riling everyone up.”

“It’s that bad?” Dodge asked.  Dresden could tell he was growing concerned.

“What’d you expect?” Lyle chortled.  “You think they’d be throwing rose petals at her feet?  Half of ‘em want to see her dead for good, and what’s left of the others believe her or don’t know what to believe.”

Dresden moved closer to Dodge and looked around in fear. 

“And what about you?” Dodge questioned Lyle.  “What do you think?”

Lyle’s eyes examined Dresden from bottom to top until their eyes locked.  “I think,” he said, “that the
real
Dresden would’ve been able to take that Uni out without help.  There ain’t nothin’ deadly about her now, is there?”

He laughed and patted Dodge on the shoulder.  “Go in through the side.  And you’d better avoid Shep for a little bit.  He’s still mad that you took her.  One wrong move with everyone questioning her, and he’ll throw you to the Rising.”

Dodge nodded.  “Thanks, man.”

“Come on,” he said to Dresden, tugging at the sleeve of her flannel shirt.

“You’re friends with
him
?” she cynically asked.

“Something like that.”

“But he’s such a creep.  He watched me get undressed.”

“He watched you—?  Never mind.  He was part of our team, Dresden.  He’s just as confused as everyone else.  And add that to how Shepherd has everyone living in fear, of course he’s going to treat you like crap.  That’s why you have to do something about all of this.”

“I’ll get right on that,” she said sarcastically.  “I’ll save the freaking world.”

“That’s what you were doing before you died,” Dodge replied.

“How
did
I die, Dodge?  And did I really kill people?”

He avoided the question.  “Come on.”

The side door opened to a short set of metal stairs that led to a raised wooden platform.  At least a hundred people from the community were ranting and raving, and all of the voices bounced from wall to wall to create an inaudible chatter.  Dresden could not hear her footsteps as she crept across the stage.  Nick was standing at a scratched wooden podium and overlooked the crowd from four feet from the cement floor.  The room was hot and stuffy, despite armed guards at each of the three propped-open exits.  As the crowd began to notice the main focus of the meeting had arrived, they turned their shouts towards the stage.

Some members of the crowd stormed towards her, but five men holding shotguns spread out as to create a barrier between the stage and the townspeople. 

“My husband is dead because of her,” tearfully shrieked a woman with blonde dreadlocks.  Her green dress fit loosely on her thin body and she had dark bags under her sad blue eyes.

Nick turned his head and stared Dresden down.  She felt guilty but did not know why.  In all her life, she would never intentionally cause pain to someone, but since she woke in that cell, she could feel that these people blamed her for all the pain within the city’s perimeter.  And he knew.  She could tell by the sly closed-lip, gloating smile on his face.  It left her unnerved. 

“Don’t pay attention to them,” Dodge shouted over the noise.  “Just stay calm and do what I told you to do.”

“I can’t hear you,” Dresden yelled back. 

It was surreal to her, to see so many people had turned up to see, well,
her
.  She could feel the hatred radiating from most of them.  Her supporters rallied in the mix and were engaged in heated arguments with those opposed to keeping her alive.

Shepherd nodded to the woman Dresden identified from the previous night.  She appeared of average height, but her weight was impeccably maintained and her muscles were toned.  The shirt she wore now, a long-sleeved gray waffle-knit thermal, was too short for her torso and when it rose she did not seem to care enough to pull it over her tightly defined abdomen.   Her hair, she had let down and it was a fully, curly bob that ended at the sharp edges of her jaw. 

She passed to Nick a set of oversized papers that were limp except where her hands gripped them.  Shepherd patted her on the left shoulder and she walked to the back of the stage.  Once she felt Dresden’s eyes upon her, she glanced up but quickly looked away in embarrassment and fear.  It was a look to which Dresden was growing accustomed.

Shepherd approached the podium that stood to the lower portion of his lungs.  He tapped at a flexible silver microphone that resembled a pipe cleaner in the way Nick manipulated it to the perfect position to pick up on his authoritative voice.  He placed the papers upon the podium and tapped his fingers on the top paper.

“Let’s quiet down,” echoed his voice throughout the room. 

Dresden scanned the room until she found two oversized black speakers affixed in the front upper corners of the space.  Red and black wires spliced with aluminum foil and connected with patches of electrical tape protruded like twisted dandelions from the boxes and the girl followed the wires with her eyes until they ended under the podium. 

The crowd continued to scream death threats and some were still pushing their limits with boundaries, going toe to toe with the armed guards. 

“Shut up,” Shepherd ordered with a shout.  The fierceness of his voice caused screeching feedback that rang around the room and silenced the crowd instantly. 

He cleared his throat.

“When I call your name, you come to the front.  You’re going to take something from me and then you’re going to stand next to a guard.  If you so much as even
consider
doing anything else while you’re up here—warranted or not—you’re going to the Rising.  Is that understood?”

A few ‘yeses’ were audible from the crowd.

“And let’s just make it clear, while we’re at it, that nobody is talking out of turn.  This is already one big cluster.  We’re going to keep it as orderly as we can, so if you feel the need to speak out of turn, we’ll have one of our fine guards,” he motioned to the men in front of the stage, “escort you out of here.”

“Now,” he continued, “Eleanor Pugh, come up here.”

People in the crowd turned their heads and checked their neighbors for Pugh.  Slowly, the left side of the room chattered and the crowd separated to make a walkway for the petite woman in her late twenties.  Her limp blonde hair was frizzy at its ends and was matted against her scalp in patches.  She was skin and bones; her tight denim jeans hung loosely on her thighs and the maroon sweatshirt she donned was slinking over her pale bare shoulders.  There was little life left in her blue jay eyes.

Shepherd lifted the first paper from the stack and extended his arm to Lyle, who, in turn, walked the paper to the edge of the stage and handed it to the woman.  Upon viewing what was on the paper, Eleanor hanged her head and wept uncontrollably. 

“Eleanor,” Nick said softly, “hold that up.  Let her see what’s making you cry.”

The woman sniffled and turned the paper towards Dresden.  She lifted it high above her head and glared at Dresden.

“You killed Russell,” growled the woman.  “Look at him.”

Dresden stared at the pencil drawing of a clean-shaven man with thick-rimmed glasses around his round eyes.  His hair line was receding and his eyebrows were thick.

Dodge reached to his left and took Dresden’s hand tightly in his own.  He squeezed her palm with his fingers three times. 

He frowned when there were no squeezes in return. 

They didn’t mean anything to her yet.

“Eleanor,” said Nick.  “I’d like you to stand down at the end by Chuck.  Tisha,” he referred to the woman from the night before, “has spent countless hours trying to capture the essence of Russ in that portrait and I think it’s vital that the rest of us can see that.”

She nodded and stormed to the far end of the eight-foot-long pine stage.

“Carson Dickerson.”

It broke Dresden’s heart to see a boy no older than 12 walking towards the stage.  He received multiple pats of encouragement on his back as he made his way to the front of the room to take the drawing from Lyle.  But he didn’t take just one.  Carson held a sketch in each hand.  The woman in the drawing on the left was so young and full of life.  Her hair was wavy and her freckled skin was flawless.  And the man in the sketch on the right, undoubtedly, was the boy’s father.  The two shared the same deep ridge between their cocoa eyes and the same dimples on their square chins.  Something Dresden had not done yet would steal this child’s parents.