fic: boneyards, yesterday's child

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Set before Finding. Sort of a prequel, except not really. I just like messing with Code, I guess.

Another vomit-the-idea-out-as-quickly-as-possible-before-it-goes-away sort of thing. So uh, yeah, it's really rough and unedited. Also there's a fair bit of info-dumping and world-building. Sorry.

This one's 592 words.

Yesterday's Child

Wyndham's car was situated near the back of the train, where the dogs were kept. None of the guards stirred or even showed interest as Code approached. He'd worked with most of them for nearly a decade; they didn't regard him as a threat.

He was more careful about pushing open the door, but it was well-oiled and slid open with little noise. There he paused, cocking his head like the dogs gathered around the train, carefully listening. He heard only deep, even breathing.

Wyndham's family was sprawled across the floor. Code navigated the mess of limbs nervously. At least he already knew where the knife was.

They had guns in the supply car, but their crew was steadily moving into the Second Crescent, a long strip of quickly-recovering land situated near water. With more than forty people riding in the trains and a half-dozen acting as scouts, their migration couldn't possibly have gone unnoticed. There'd be constant guards--people and dogs--stationed near the supplies. Code knew. He'd just got off his shift.

Besides, he wanted--something. A momento, because after this, he wouldn't be allowed back. Deserters were never welcome. So... a souvenir, something personal but not easily missed. Guns were precious, and easily stolen. Knives were more common.

He found it, finally, still secured in the pack Wyndham always had on him. "It's bad to be so predictable," Code whispered to the sleeping man; the words brushed against the still air, their presence if not their identity staying.

He left, closing the door shut behind him. He picked up the pack he'd dropped near the wheels and affectionally stroked one of the dogs. "Goodbye," he said. It wasn't at all the audience he wanted.

He should have said goodbye to Ilsa, at least.

He should have said goodbye to his sister.

He couldn't, though. If he did, he'd want to stay. And he couldn't afford that. He couldn't. His sister was depending on him, even if she didn't know it.

Code straightened, gaze drawn to the Second Crescent. It was easily seen, even from this far back in the train; they were on high ground, and the grass that stretched out before them was almost as green as the sweet, healthy color in hazy childhood memories. There were even scraggly, twisting lines that might have been called trees. Code knew that, in a few days' travel, they would see the water.

The Crescent was paradise, if your crew was strong enough to challenge the people already settled there. For Wyndham, the move had been a matter of necessity; their numbers had swelled, and impossible to support in the eastern savannahs. So they'd moved.

Code hoped Wyndham's plan succeeded. He was entrusting his little sister to the crew, after all. It was important she live. He needed a reason to come back, and a reason to go, and a reason to keep fighting.

Code turned around, a clean one-hundred-eighty degrees. In this direction lay the backlands. He'd be able to subsist on hunted animals and foraged food for the first month. And then would come the acid rain.

He wasn't sure how he'd survive that, only a vague certainty that he'd done it before, when he was little, his little hand clutched in his mother's larger, rougher one. He remembered emptiness, stretching from his feet to the horizon, never approaching but never receding, either. And above, the sky, drawn in strange colors. And the smell of the rain, too.

It was a memory that smelled of freedom... or maybe, and more appropriately, fear.

Well. He'd find out soon. Code hefted his pack and began walking. He didn't look back.

Labels: _fiction, c: code, verse: boneyards