Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalipse

Artie knocked at my window the first night; he’d shinnied up the drainpipe from his apartment just below. The artificial rain no longer worked in our sector, of course, because the infrastructure was well on the road to hell, but the drainpipe was still there. Artie D’Angelo was this skinny kid, just my age, a little goofy-looking, but agile as a monkey. When I saw him hanging on that drainpipe, I was more amazed than frightened. “Hi!” he said through the glass, grinning widely. He had dark, curly hair, deep brown eyes, and big ears.

I climbed onto my bed, which was under the window, and stared at him. “You gonna open up?” he asked. “Or let me hang on this drainpipe all night?”

With a glance over my shoulder to make sure my door was shut, I lifted the sash and Artie climbed in. “I’m Artie,” he introduced. “I live downstairs.”

“Faye,” I replied. “You can’t use the door?”

“I knocked before,” he said, “but no one would answer.”

I knew the cause of that. “My dad’s scared to open the door,” I told Artie.

He shrugged. “In this neighborhood, you’re better off. But I saw you moving in, and I thought you must be from outside, so you’d probably need someone to show you around.”

During the next months, Artie did just that. Born in KanHab, he knew its grid upground and under. If not for his tutelage, I would probably have died in that first year. By the time they got around to letting dregs like my family in, half the sectors were more or less lawless, and a 10-year-old kid could easily get snuffed if she didn’t know where to run and where to hide. Artie taught me that and more. In those early days, he was my salvation; in these latter days, I shall be his.

It was while we were hiding from the Citizen Patrols in B4 that he first spoke the name I took as my own. That was back when the Sisters of Literacy still tried to run schools in B4, which was as close as they would get to B9 where Artie and I lived. School didn’t excite me, but Mom wanted me to go, and Artie insisted crossing into B4 was at least as safe as living in B9. Most of the time that was true, but not when the Citizen Patrols were out.

We knew there was going to be trouble that day, because Melissa’s desk had been empty at roll call, and word got around by recess that she’d been found in a trash bin, missing a few parts. So the Citizen Patrols were out that afternoon, looking for someone to punish. B9ers were a favorite target. Artie and I ran from shadow to shaft, upground and under, trying to stay out of their way. We watched from beneath an abandoned maintenance cart as they rousted three teenage boys playing hoops in the street.

The boys must have scanned as B4s, because the CPs started to walk away; but then one of the boys said something. Something dirty, and cruel. And a CP just shot him. With a crossbow, that is, because no pulse or projectile weapons were ever allowed in the habitats—too much danger of damaging the shielding. When the other two boys went for their knives, the CPs shot them, too.

I’d seen people die before—things were even worse outside than under the shield. But this was the first time I knew—I knew—if I twitched, I’d be next. One CP went over to kick the boys and make sure they were dead. Another one cut open the mouthy boy’s pants and sliced off his privates. “That’s for Melissa,” I heard him say, and he flung the bloody flesh across the street. It landed right beside the cart where we lay hidden.

The sight of it there, so close to my face, made me gag in horror. I stuffed my fist in my mouth to keep from screaming, and Artie pulled me to him, pushing my face against his scrawny chest and holding me tight. “Sh,” he breathed in my ear, knowing both how terrified I was, and how bad it would be if the CP heard us. “They can’t hurt you. They can’t hurt you, Faye, because—because you’re magic.”

I was so startled I stopped crying, wondering what in the dying world he was talking about. I couldn’t see the Civilian Patrol, the way he had me pressed up against him, but after a minute or two he let go of me so I knew they had gone. “What you say, magic?” I demanded in the barest of whispers, not knowing how far away they were.

“They left, didn’t they?” he whispered back. “Magic. You’ve got the magic name.”

I told him what I thought he was full of.

“Maybe,” he agreed, checking the street carefully to be sure it really was clear. “But your name, ‘Faye,’ that’s like Morgan LeFey, right?” He started to squirm out from under the cart.

I squirmed right after him. “Who?”

“King Arthur’s sister,” he said. “She was magic. She took Arthur to the Isle of Avalon where he couldn’t die.”