The Ask and the Answer

❮Chapters ❯

Davy, hearing his name, calls from far across the field. “What?”

I call back, “Why do you keep letting this one back over here?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Davy yells. “They all look the same!”

“It’s 1017!”

Davy gives an exaggerated shrug. “So?”

I hear a click, a rude and sarcastic one, from behind me.

I turn and I swear 1017 is smiling at me.

“You little piece of–” I start to say, reaching my rifle round my front.

Which is when I see a flash of Noise.

Coming from 1017.

Quick as anything but clear, too, me standing in front of him, reaching for my rifle, nothing more than what he’s seeing with his eyes–

Except a flash as he grabs the rifle from me–

And then it’s gone.

I’ve still got the rifle in my hands, 1017 still knee-deep in the ditch.

No Noise at all.

I look him up and down. He’s skinnier than he used to be, but they all are, they never get quite enough fodder of a day, and I’m wondering if 1017’s been skipping meals altogether.

So he don’t take no cure.

“What’re you playing at?” I ask him.

But he’s back at work, arms and hands digging for more dirt, ribs showing thru the side of his white, white skin.

And he don’t say nothing.

“Why do we keep giving ’em the cure if yer pa’s taking it away from everyone else?”

Me and Davy are lunching the next day. The clouds are heavy in the sky and it’ll probably start raining soon, the first rain in a good long while, and it’ll be cold rain, too, but we’ve got orders to keep working no matter what so we’re spending the day watching the Spackle pour out the first concrete from the mixer.

Ivan brought it in this morning, healed but limping, his Noise raging. I wonder where he thinks the power is now.

“Well, it keeps ’em from plotting, don’t it?” Davy says. “Keeps ’em from passing along ideas to each other.”

“But they can do that with the clicking.” I think for a second. “Can’t they?”

Davy just gives a who cares, pigpiss shrug. “Got any of that sandwich left?”

I hand him my sandwich, keeping an eye out over the Spackle. “Shouldn’t we know what they’re thinking?” I say. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing to know?”

I look out over the field for 1017 who, sure enough, is looking back at me.

Plick. The first drop of rain hits me on the eyelash.

“Aw, crap,” Davy says, looking up.

It don’t let up for three days. The site gets muckier and muckier but the Mayor still wants us to keep on somehow so those three days are spent slipping and sliding thru mud and putting up huge tarpaulins on frames to cover big parts of the field.

Davy’s got the inside work, bossing Spackle around to keep the tarpaulin frames in place. I spend most of my time out in the rain, trying to keep the edges of the tarpaulin pinned to the ground with heavy stones.

It’s ruddy stupid work.

“Hurry up!” I shout to the Spackle helping me get one of the last edges pinned to the ground. My fingers are freezing cuz no one’s given us gloves and there ain’t been no Mayor round to ask. “Ow!” I put a bloodied knuckle up to my lips, having scraped my hand for the millionth time.

The Spackle keep at it with the rocks, seeming oblivious to the rain, which is good cuz there ain’t room under the tarpaulins for all of ’em to shelter.

“Hey,” I say, raising my voice. “Watch the edge! Watch that–”

A gust of wind rips away the whole sheet of tarpaulin we just pinned down. One of the Spackle keeps hold of it as it flies up, taking him with it and tumbling him hard down to the ground. I leap over him as I chase after the tarpaulin, twisting and rolling away across the muddy field and up a little slope, and I’ve just about got a hand on it–

And I slip badly, skidding right down the other side of the slope on my rump–

And I realize where I’ve run, where I’ve slipped–

I’m heading right down into the bog.

I grab at the mud to stop myself but there’s nothing to hold on to and I drop right in with a splat.

“Gah!” I shout and try to stand. I’m up to my thighs in lime-covered Spackle shit, splattered all up my front and back, the stink of it making me retch–

And I see another flash of Noise.

Of me standing in the bog.

Of a Spackle standing right over me.

I look up.

There’s a wall of Spackle staring.

And right in front of ’em all.

1017.

Above me.

With a huge stone in his hands.

He don’t say nothing, just stands there with the stone, more’n big enough to do a lot of harm if thrown right.

“Yeah?” I say up to him. “That’s what you want, ain’t it?”

He just stares back.

I don’t see the Noise again.

I reach up for my rifle, slowly.

“What’s it gonna be?” I ask and he can see in my Noise just how ready I am, how ready I am to fight him.

How ready I am to–

I’ve got the rifle stock in my hand now.

But he’s just staring at me.

And then he tosses the rock down on the ground and turns back towards the tarpaulin. I watch him go, five steps, then ten, and my body relaxes a bit.

It’s when I’m pulling myself outta the bog that I hear it.

The click.

His rude click.

And I lose it.

I’m running towards him and I’m yelling but I don’t know what I’m saying and Davy’s turning round in shock as I reach the shelter of the tarpaulin just after 1017 and I’m running in with the rifle up above my head like I’m some stupid madman and 1017’s turning to me but I don’t give him a chance to do nothing and I knock him hard in the face with the butt of the rifle and he falls back on the ground and I lift the rifle again and bring it down and he raises his hands to protect himself and I hit him again and again and again–

In the hands–

And the face–

And in those skinny ribs–

And my Noise is raging–

And I hit–

And I’m screaming–

I’m screaming out–

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE?”

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?”

And I hear the cold, crisp snick of his arm breaking.

It fills the air, louder than the rain or the wind, turning my stomach upside down, making a thick lump in my throat.