XXVI.

The Dam

The wind whipped furiously at their backs as they crept foot by foot up the plasteel wall. Luckily for them BP’s teeth were hard and sharp enough to dig into the fabricated adamantine bricks, proving to be, as she had claimed, excellent climbing spikes. How she managed to convince Vagari to bring her with him as he scaled those bricks was a different kind of luck all together. Half-way up she was already regretting the decision as she clung to his lower back for dear life despite the rope being tied snuggly around them both. “M-maybe I was wrong?” She whined over the wind. “Maybe they were just saying hi?”

“Nope – too late to go back now,” Vagari answered for the fifth time in as many minutes. “Besides, don’t you want to see the top? Over the other side even?”

“Ye-yes… but, you know,” BP stammered, “I have a really vivid imagination, so maybe you could just tell me about it?”

“How are you going to explore the ruins of the world,” Returned Vagari, stabbing another tooth in the wall for leverage as he pulled them up another foot, “if… if you’re afraid of heights?”

“After what we’ve just been through – I’m not afraid of heights!” BP stated firmly before adding, “I’ve just become acutely aware that you’re not exactly in flying shape – eek! Careful!”

“What gave that away?” Asked Vagari snidely. “Was it the hours of climbing, or perhaps something less obvious?”

“W-what if I run out of teeth?” She proposed, an unlikely as scenario as them falling and hitting land. “What if I reach up and – and what if there’s only gums?!”

“Well,” Vagari began with a smirk, “I guess we’d just have to jump and wait until you grow more.”

“JUMP?!” Squealed BP. “Vagari don’t you dare!”

The entire journey ended up taking the better part of three hours to accomplish. Around the two-thirds mark, however, all sound above abruptly silenced. Vagari half wondered whether they were walking, or climbing rather, into a trap, but as he hoisted them both over the ledge, they found that not a single soul lied in wait. “Hello?!” Vagari called out as he untied the clinging BP from his waist. She plopped down and promptly got as far from the edge as possible. “Is anybody home?!”

Much to the duos surprise, there was something resembling a small city up there, hidden so high they couldn’t possibly see it from below. It was by no means golden, or even close to what Vagari would consider a paradise, but by some twist of fate, the rumors of a city beyond the frontier sea had proved to be true in some fashion. It reminded him a bit of the Lower Outer-City in a way, with how the buildings were a mergence of a proper structure and scavenged metal. But too did it remind him of the graveyard of ships they had just departed from, with how lifeless the place was. The air hung heavy with the miasmic weight of a ghost town. Whoever had drawn their attention was nowhere to be seen now – no one was.

Vagari stepped forward, and as soon as he had his sense of magnetic north pinged in his head – a tingling in his sinuses that he hadn’t felt since they had first crossed into Esh’s domain. “Guess we’re well and truly beyond the demon’s influence up here,” Vagari uttered with a harsh snort as he jutted his chin forward. “There’s north… ish. God, feels like my ears just popped.” It wasn’t unheard of for the greater demons to influence their chosen domain even in death, a notion Vagari had been somewhat hopeful for if only due to the fear he had lost the ability forever. But no, thankfully it seemed to have only been the great dragon’s rotting corpse confounding his senses – one last slight no doubt. Vagari cursed Esh one last time.

Now that it seemed that they were above the lingering affliction, the sense of relief Vagari felt half made him want to abandon the boat and walk the rest of the way. But that wouldn’t do. He had left the key to their salvation behind, bundled up tight in his cloak, stashed beneath the crates of foodstuff that had survived the storm. Vagari sighed, hoping that maybe his wings would be better by the time they were ready to depart and he could just hop down and grab it. A insistent tugging at his side would pull him free from his lazy dream and back to the now. “They’re here,” BP whispered as she pointed a stubby finger toward the mess of buildings, “but hiding…”

“Why are they hiding?” Vagari asked in quiet dread. “Waiting for us to make a move? It is a trap then… Annoying.”

“No, no I don’t think so,” she replied with a trickling of uncertainty in her avian voice. “I sense… fear, mostly. They’re afraid… of us! A deep fear, primal… Vagari, I don’t think we were what they were expecting.”

“What were they expecting, the fire brigade?” Vagari tossed out with a huff, the irritation in his voice plain to see. “Well, we’re what they get. After climbing all this way – out of our way, I might add – I’d expect a warmer reception.”

He took a moment to absorb his surroundings before venturing in further to look for their inattentive hosts. They seemed to be on a loading dock of sorts, or maybe a landing-pad, one that had since been turned into an area for gardening. The platform at the core of the surrounding houses was covered in rows of half-barrels, with each marked for a specific crop. However, everything the residents had planted there had since shriveled up and died, though not for fault of the system. Vagari walked forward and drug a finger through the soil of the nearest planter. The dirt was practically mud, telling him that inexperience had killed the plants, that they had drowned. It was no doubt the children’s attempt to procure food, mimicking the work of their caretakers. “Do you sense anyone else, BP?” Vagari asked. “Anything else?”

“No,” BP answered, shaking her toothy maw. “It’s just them.”

“They’re alone then,” Vagari uttered, wiping his hand off on the side of the barrel, “and if it stays that way they will surely starve for their efforts. We can’t have that, can we?”

“Yeah,” BP agreed, peaking over the edge of one of the barrels, “that’d be no good. We should figure out what happened here, and where everyone went.”

With an agreeing nod, Vagari walked out into the open with his hands up. Crouching down to perhaps appear less threatening, he called out, saying “Hello! It’s okay. We’re here to help, if we can!”

“Yeah! We’ve got food,” BP added, popping a squat as well. “It’s not good food, but it’s very nutritious!”

“G-go away!” shouted a voice from the confines of a scrap metal shack before being loudly hushed by another that said, “Shut up, Jeremy! They’ll find us… and… and… Look at them! They’re monsters – so just shut up!”

Self-loathing aside, Vagari never really considered himself to look very monstrous. He was alien, sure, with his elongated frame and armored limbs, but he was lucky enough to have a humanoid face instead of, say, a bestial maw full of six-inch teeth. At a distance he might even pass as human, so long as their eyes weren’t very keen. He wasn’t half as freakish looking as most of the worlds denizens, Vagari figured. Perhaps it was BP they were afraid of? Bestial maw, six-inch teeth – it was more likely to check out. BP hopped a little closer, looking to be the world’s strangest frog on her stumpy legs. “It’s okay,” she called out. “We’re not monsters! He just looks scary, that’s all!”

“Really? You promise?” the first voiced called back, to which the second snapped sharply, “Shut UP, Jeremy!”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Vagari shot BP an almost hurt look, but she would only shrug and say, “Well, it can’t be me they’re afraid of. I’m adorable!”

“You said ‘deplorable’ wrong,” huffed Vagari under his breath. He then slapped his knees and stood up with a heavy sigh before calling out again. “Fine,” he said, “if you don’t want our help, we’ll leave. But, ask yourself this… How many other boats come along this way? Besides ours, when was the last time you saw a boat? If you change your mind… well, might be too late by then. Come on, BP, lets go.” Vagari turned and began heading back to the wall they had just ascended, motioning to BP over his shoulder to follow. She held back a moment, but then reluctantly joined him. They strode silently over to the edge where both stared down at the black spot floating on the water – their boat, moored to the plasteel wall by fang and broken anchor chain. “We’re… We’re not going to leave them, are we?” BP asked unsurely. “They’re just scared, Vagari… I can feel it! And… alone… like I was.”

“No – no, we’re not,” Vagari said, waving the worry away nonchalantly. “We’re just waiting. Four… Three… Two… On-…”

No sooner than the word began leaving his mouth, there came the sudden sound of scampering and clacking metal. It was almost blocked out by the frantic bickering, and truly fell silent when a voice shouted out to them. “W-wait! WAIT!” the voice, Jeremy from the sound of it, pleaded as his figure struggled out of the shadows. Frightened hands attempted to pull him back into their rusted hideaway, but he quickly proved too much to wrangle and broke free. “PLEASE WAIT!”

A hair taller than BP by Vagari’s standard, what looked like a pile of tattered rags stumbled and staggered their way into the garden before falling onto his knees halfway to them. He quickly regained his footing, struggling with his baggy attire all the while in a frustrated sob. Ultimately he fought the thing off, a patchwork jacket or cloak it appeared to be as he tossed to the floor. Vagari stared in shock as the boy shuffled towards them. He was a little worse for wear with a scuffed up knee bare and a busted lip that looked somewhat recent. He was obviously thin as well without the bulky garment – not starving yet, but close to it. But rib nor bruise was what drew Vagari’s startled eye; something was clearly off about the boy beyond his haggard visage. He was human, truly and wholly, without a hint of corruption or mutation to him. “Hello there,” BP croaked with a curt wave of her stubby hand, not seeming to notice the significance before her. “I’m BP, and this here is Vagari! We’re from waaaaay across the lake, from a place called Eastend. What’s your name?”

“I’m… I’m Jeremy,” the boy confirmed hesitantly, his squinty eyes locked on BP’s mouth full of teeth. “I’m… uh – eight, and my favorite color is blue… I mean – why did I say that? I mean nice to meet you! I – I’m sorry, I’m nervous.”

“That’s okay,” Vagari interjected slowly. “I get nervous too, meeting new people. Nice to meet you too, Jeremy. What can we do to help you? It was you, trying to get our attention, right?”

“Yes… I’m SORRY about the tank!” the boy sputtered, throwing his hands up apologetically.

“It’s okay!” replied BP with a dismissive huff. “We get stuff thrown at us all the time!”

The boy managed a laugh. That was good, Vagari thought, ice broken. “You said you had food?” Jeremy went on to ask, lowering his soiled hands to his stomach. “We’re out of food… O-our printer broke, Brenin says! And we can’t get anything to grow.”

“Well,” BP offered, “maybe we can help you with that? I can take a look at your printer and see if maybe there’s a fix for it. I’m quite handy with mechanical doohickies, if ya don’t mind me tooting my own horn.”

“Unless that doohickie is a door,” Vagari threw out with a snigger, right before getting a elbow to the knee. “Ow – jeez, it was a joke. Um, do you have any filament left? Because if you’re out, ‘fixing’ it won’t do you much good.”

“That stringy stuff, right?” questioned Jeremy unsurely. “We have boxes and boxes, but it tastes bad… Too hard to chew.”

Vagari loosed a sigh and shook his head, saying “No-no, you can’t eat it raw. The printer processes the filament into edible food patterns. Alright, lets make a deal, huh? You tell us what happened here, from start to finish, and we’ll try our best to get your printer up and running. Deal?”

“You want to know what happened?” Jeremy asked softly before blurting out, “I mean, sure, okay! It’s a deal… but Brenin knows more, I think. He’s scared though.”

“I – I’m not scared!” shouted a quaking voice as another soul parted from the darkness. Brenin was older, in his early teens it looked like, but much less able-bodied than his younger brother. The electric groan of his powerchair echoed slightly off the shantytown walls as he made his appearance. “Can… can you actually fix it?”

“No guarantees, I’m afraid,” Vagari admitted. “But she is quite handy, I’ll admit, and I’ve dealt with similar tech before. They’re finicky but pretty sturdy, even after all this time. They were made for long-haul space travel, if it’s the kind I’m thinking of. Not the best food of the time, but it’s hard finding fresh produce between planets.”

How they managed to get their hands on one was a mystery in its own right. Had they come from a ship, Vagari wondered, perhaps the ship? Both boys were as human as human could be, down to their faults it seemed – at very least on a macroscopic level. They were more the curiosity by the moment. Vagari had to know what this place was, and why the corruption still hadn’t affected them, even all alone as they were. Was it the altitude? Doubtful – the upper echelons of the Megacity were no doubt as monstrous as the lower, at least as far as its denizens were involved, and it reached higher by far. Then was it distance? Distance from something? Something in the air maybe? What exactly was it that kept them human? Vagari had to know. “What do you say?” Vagari called out to the wheelchair bound boy. “Food for knowledge? Even if we can’t get it working, we’ve got algae to spare.”

Brenin stared at them both with unease and dread in his eyes. It was clear to Vagari that he had never seen something quite like either of them before, at least not in a healthy capacity. But, hunger spoke louder than the fear in his eyes, and desperation rung true. Brenin gave a curt nod. “If… If you’re lying,” the older brother began, putting on a brave face, “I’ll… You’ll regret it. Follow me,” he said firmly, turning about in his chair. “It’s in the mess unit.”

The mess unit was exactly what one might expect: a diner of sorts with a few lines of tables and a semi-open kitchen to the back. At the center was a pile of toys and boardgames, and a sleeping bag that suggested it was being used as the brothers’ new home for the time being. It was kept reasonably clean, but a layer of dust had settled on everything remaining in a state of disuse. Just looking at the place, at the size of the kitchen and the number of tables, Vagari could see a hundred or so people packed in there at any one time. It wasn’t designed for a family unit, or even a couple families, no – it was for a colony. How does an entire colony of people just disappear?

Brenin lead them straight to the food-printer, a large dishwasher sized machine hidden behind the half-wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the mess. He leaned forward and flicked on a switch, bringing the unit to life. Lights flickered on and the machinery hummed as the feeding of power activated them. A rudimentary A.I. offered a greeting from dusty speakers as a menu lit up the see-through face of the device. “Activate FPU-1 please,” Brenin stated to it firmly. “Two breakfast #34s, please.”

“That’s my favorite,” Jeremy whispered to BP excitedly. But his voice quickly fell to disappointment when the A.I. replied with a negative, stating, “UNKNOWN PROCESSING ERROR – PLEASE CHECK MACHINE.”

Vagari pushed by and squatted down in front of the unit before prodding at it with the sharp nail of his index finger. “Well,” he began with an exhale, “the lights are on at least. That’s promising… BP? Open that side panel there and connect your tablet to the A.I. core.”

“Right!” BP chirped, tugging her tablet free from her vest. “Good idea… Lets see if we can get a little help from Aan.”

“Exactly,” Vagari returned with a smirk. “We’re too far from the main unit back in New Houston, but there should be a basic version installed on the device. Maybe if we can get these two dumbos talking, they can help us work things out. And, as for you two…” Vagari began, glancing over his shoulder to the boys watching intently behind them. “Why don’t you start talking as well?”

“Alright… What do you want to know?” Brenin asked quietly, shifting his gaze to everywhere but the man before him.

“Everything,” Vagari answered as he opened the glass face of the printer to prod at the extruder within. “I want to know what happened here, and why you two are all alone. But, I also want to know the history of your settlement – how you guys came to be here. Why you don’t look like us.”

“Why would we look like mon… Like you?” Brenin asked with more than a hint of offense cracking his voice. “We’re not… like you – demons, or aliens, or whatever you are. We’re human.”

Vagari stopped and looked back at him with a tightlipped frown before saying calmly, “We’re not monsters, Brenin, or demons, or aliens for that matter. I used to be human just like you – the whole world used to be human just like you. Though, I can’t say your suspicion isn’t justified… There are monsters in the world, a lot of them… But, it’s mostly good people who are just like you, just on the inside. The outside just changed, is all.”

“I’m… sorry,” the chairbound boy muttered in a voice hardly a whisper. “You look… You look like them, the monsters that took everyone. I know there are good ones out there, my da told me so. These ones were bad, like the one in the lake.” Brenin sighed heavily, his voice shaking as he stared down at his useless feet. “I guess that’s where I’ll start, three months ago, when they found us…”