The Colony Book 2: Revolution

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When I stood, I realized too late the water had turned my white underwear translucent. Not only that, sand gathered in the seat, dragging them down. I cupped the front of my crotch and glared at the girl, who watched us openly. “Can you turn around or something?” I asked.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” she grumbled, but she crossed her arms in front of her and turned her back to us.

Quickly, I hurried over to where my haversack lay on the sand. I had to brush more sand fleas off it, but the items inside appeared to be uninfested. I dug out a clean pair of underwear and stared at the girl to make sure she wouldn’t peek while I changed. From the corner of my eye, I saw Kyer getting dressed, too. I really wished it was just the two of us on the beach. Then I could have watched him change, or even started something that might have ended up with us “doing it,” as the girl had asked so rudely.

But I didn’t dare take my eyes off her. Every now and then, she sort of turned her head to one side, as if flipping the hair out of her face, but I knew she was trying to sneak a look.

When I had switched out my wet underwear for a new pair, I snapped the waistband in place and glanced at Kyer. He had his pants on again, and was shaking the sand from his tunic to put it on, too. “All right,” I admitted grudgingly. “You can turn back around.”

She gave an exasperated sigh and swiveled on one heel. She saw Kyer, fully dressed now, and me still in my underwear, and a sardonic grin spread across her thin face. “You’re still half-naked. What, you want to do it with me now, or something?”

I grimaced at the thought and bent to pick up the clothes I had shucked off so unceremoniously a few moments earlier. “Hell, no. Who are you, anyway?”

“Who are you?” she shot back. “I’ve lived here all my life and have never seen either of you guys here before.”

“Is this your beach?” Kyer asked.

She glared at him. “It isn’t yours.”

His question had been a simple one, but she obviously chose to misinterpret it as a challenge. “Calm down,” I said, shaking my pants to make sure any lingering sand fleas were gone. “We just came over the bridge last night and were too tired to walk any farther, okay? We aren’t looking to fight.”

“Over the bridge?” She glanced behind her at the bridge in question, and I took the opportunity to pull on my pants without her watching. When she turned back around, her dark eyes were narrowed into suspicious slits. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t really care,” I said.

Kyer spoke up. “It’s true. We broke the window in the Collection Center and escaped before the barrier came down to seal us in. Then we ran before the Overseer could send Officers after us.”

“You came from the island?” Her eyes widened in surprise, and I could tell she was impressed in spite of herself. “But no one lives there.”

“We call it the Colony,” I told her. “And there are a lot of people who live on the other side of the monorail track. We thought no one lived here.”

“Wait a minute.” She held up both hands as if to stop us. “Old Faye says the place is haunted. Sometimes kids goad each other into seeing how far they can go down the bridge before they scare themselves silly and turn back, and I’ll have you know I hold the record, but no one’s been all the way to the other side. No one.”

Kyer stepped forward, his chin jutting out in defiance. It was a look I had first seen on him when we faced off against the Overseer, and I had to admit, it was sexy. “We have. That’s where we came from.”

The girl smirked. “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to believe a bunch of queer weirdos. Prove it.”

Reaching into my haversack, I pulled out my console. “Ever seen one of these?”

With an insolent shrug, she said, “So what? There are a million broken electronics scattered around the city. You could rig up anything and tell me it’s from some imaginary Colony. That isn’t proof.”

I dug into the haversack again. This time, I pulled out a package of synthetic pasta. Long strands of hard carbohydrates held together in a plastic tube. Inside was the facsimile of a tomato-type sauce full of protein and vegetables, all created in a lab on the other end of that bridge. “What about this? You guys have anything like this here?”

She dropped the pretense and took an involuntary step closer. “Is that…food?”

Kyer grinned. “Just add water and zap it in the microwave. Presto! Dinner.”

Another step, and she closed the distance between us, her gaze still on the tube in my hand. “Zap it in the what?”

“Microwave,” I explained. “It’s an appliance you use in the kitchen. It heats up food so you can eat it. Wait…you do have microwaves, right?”

Suddenly I wondered what good all the food I had managed to bring with us would do if we couldn’t heat it up. How would we eat it?

“Old Faye told us houses used to have kitchens,” the girl said. “They had large buildings that generated power and could run all sorts of appliances off it. But that was before the war. Now you’re lucky if you find a place to sleep, one with four walls and a roof over your head that won’t fall in on you.”

“We slept out here last night,” I offered.

“Yeah,” she said, “but sand fleas bite.”

I didn’t like the glazed look in her eye, or the hungry way she watched me return the tube of pasta to my haversack. “How do you eat?” I wanted to know.

“There’s food,” she admitted, “when you can find it. If you know where to look. Or if you know who to pay off at whatever price they’re asking. I get by.”

She tore her gaze away from my haversack and looked at Kyer, then me. “What were your names again?”

“Aine,” I said, holding out a hand for her to shake. She looked at it as if she didn’t know what to do with it, and after an awkward moment, I let it drop. “This is Kyer. He’s my Other.”

It was a lie, but no one outside of the Colony would know it wasn’t true. Besides, we had left to make it true, and saying it out loud felt freeing.

The girl frowned in confusion. “Your what? Oh, wait. You mean your boy. I get it. So you really were getting it on out in the water.”

My boy. I liked that. “So who are you?” I asked.

“Today I’m Sinda.” Then, with another unabashed look at my haversack, she asked, “You two haven’t cooked anything yet this morning, have you? Because I could eat.”

Kyer gave me a strange look. “Cook how?”

“You do know how to make a fire, don’t you?” Sinda asked. At our blank stares, she sighed. “God, you two really are from some ignorant island. Let’s make a deal. I’ll help you cook your food if you give me some of it, how’s that?”

We didn’t have much, and spreading it three ways instead of two would use it up faster. Still, it would do us no good if we couldn’t eat it. But I didn’t want to give in too easily. I sensed Sinda was someone who would use Kyer and me to get what she wanted.

“You said you knew where to look for food,” I pointed out. “Why do you need to eat ours?”

“I do know where to look,” she said. “I found you, didn’t I?”

Kyer groaned. “We weren’t lost.”

“Oh?” she challenged. “So where are you, then?”

On a beach. By a bridge. Beyond that, I had to admit I didn’t know. The ocean sprawled on one side of us, and dunes covered in scrappy blades of grass rose on the other. Beyond the sand, the sky had a bruised, bullied look. I couldn’t see any buildings or houses, but if Sinda lived nearby, there had to be other people, too.

But she said they had no power. No microwaves or refrigerators, no monorails, no indoor lighting. Everything I had ever taken for granted in my life was now gone. Even food would soon be at a premium. How would Kyer and I survive if we didn’t know the ins and outs of this new world in which we found ourselves? If we didn’t even know how to cook what little we had, how could we hope to find anything more?

We would need Sinda’s help. She was tough and scrappy, but seemed to get by well enough on her own. We needed to learn her secrets of survival, and be taught how to deal with whatever challenges her world threw our way. She had said it herself—we had to pay her for her help at the price she asked.

I looked at Kyer, who nodded in approval. “If we share our food with you,” I said, “then you need to help us. Not just with cooking, either.”

She narrowed her eyes in distrust. “I’m not doing it, if that’s what you’re asking. I mean, you’re sort of cute and all, but I need more than a bite to eat before I give it up.”

“What? No.” Why did everything boil down to s*x with her? “You’re right—we don’t know where we are. So you help us get situated here, and we’ll share what we have with you. Food only,” I clarified. I wanted to add that Kyer was mine, but I thought that might be overkill.

She considered my offer, shifting from one foot to the other. She looked at me, then Kyer, then me again, and finally her gaze settled on my haversack. I saw her glance at Kyer’s, and she probably thought he had more food hidden in its depths, too. With a decisive nod, she stuck out her hand. “Deal.”

Surprised, I shook it. Her palm was grimy and hot. “Deal,” I echoed. Then I just had to ask, “Why didn’t you shake my hand before?”

“What, when you told me your name?” She gave me a funny look. “You couldn’t just expect me to agree with you about it when I didn’t even really know who you were. How was I supposed to know you didn’t just make it up?”

Beside me, Kyer shook his head. “You might use the same words we do, Sinda, but I haven’t understand half of what you’ve said all morning.”

She laughed, and I grinned. Secretly, though, I agreed with him. And she called us weird.