Four Hundred Meters in the Open

Malik coils his copper wire and slides it into his sleeve. He understood before the others.

I strike the pillar. Three blows of stone against steel, my alphabet since my throat sealed shut. Boom. Boom-tak.

Jolanda raises her bandaged palms and translates for those who haven't yet learned to read my blows. We cross in the open.

Lio protests. The gap between the arches runs four hundred meters, the snow reaches the knee, and on the far side hangs a suspended station whose cables droop like severed tendons. Over there, people are going out without a word. They've stopped telling. The white covers their names one flake at a time and nobody raises a hand.

I drive my obsidian fist into the drift.

Steam bursts up, a column six meters high, visible for kilometers. I've just offered us to the Stability's sensors the way you throw meat into a pit.

Jolanda stares at me. She knows exactly what I'm doing.

"You'd better own this, kid."

She wedges the drum against her hip. Her bandages split on the first strike, blood beads across the stretched hide, and the rhythm goes out anyway. My sister's rhythm. The one Marisol hammered on oil drums when the city forbade us noise. She taught me that racket beats silence, even when it calls the dogs.

We go out.

Four hundred bare meters, steam at our backs, the percussion snapping at our heels. Lio carries the infant and swears with every stride. Malik counts the arches aloud. My internal wounds burn under the frost, and that bite confirms I'm still breathing. The Flame doesn't comfort. It tears.

Silhouettes appear on the platforms. A dozen. Numbed. Resigned.

They watch us come.

In two minutes they'll have to choose: Mutation, or letting us die at their door.