Vin did not return to Jericho the way she left it. If she did, she would have had to slink through the desert for weeks, avoiding patrols and Gaders. Then wind up a slope of the mountain and pay her way into a smuggling hole. She would have preferred that route, but no one would allow her to quietly become part of life in Jericho again if she came in that way. No, she had to come back loudly, arrogantly, as if she had done nothing wrong by disappearing without a trace ten years ago. Hence the helicopter.
The drone of the helicopter engine made her feel like a strange thing in a sweaty tin. Vin wished she could see the dark mountainous shape of Jericho as they approached almost as much as she wished the woman next to her would just shut up. In the three-hour flight from the city, she had managed to cover every topic from philosophy to religion to fighting tactics, all centered around Gaders. Clearly, she was a fan. The type of fan that had only seen the object of her ardor on paper.
“So, I mean, it’s dangerous, right? The venom I mean. At orientation, they said it kills a man in under an hour. A woman in less,” she said to the one person in the cabin still willing to smile at her, but her high-pitched voice was broadcast to everyone through the helmet mikes.
Thanks to the vigilance of fringe towns like Jericho, the people in the city never had to face the terror of a Gader horde attacking their haven.
Her first question had been directed at Vin. She had nearly jumped up and down with giddiness, asking her if she had ever seen a Gader up close.
Vin was angry immediately. Not because of the question, which was understandable under the circumstances, but because of the images it immediately evoked. She fought the shards of her memory before simple exhaustion made her give in. At least, that is what she told herself. The way she savored the memories for hours, she tried to excuse. An addict couldn’t be expected to diagnose herself, could she?
The first time she had seen a real, live Gader, it had fallen hundreds of feet from the top of the wall onto The Green below. It was dying, shaking in the last throws of its pain and then it was still. On the other side of it stood Matthew and their eyes locked and she couldn’t look away, because he was looking at her in the way boys did when they had been thinking of a girl way too much. Neither of them had seen the Gader fling a claw at his little brother standing right next to him. Peter was three. The claw pierced his abdomen. Of his intestines and organs, there was nothing left. He died instantly.
The first thing his mother and father did when they got there was blame Matthew. Hundreds of hours on the simulator. He was the best in his age group. Lightning-fast reflexes. He could have pulled his brother away. He could have, if he hadn’t been falling in love with a girl and if she hadn’t been falling in love with him.
That was when Vin started coming to their house. Five brothers, four without Peter, had always been too much to handle for her, and she had avoided spending more than an hour or two there at parentally initiated social events. Now she was there every day. Her mother tried to discourage it, saying that the family needed time to mourn. Vin didn’t listen. She had to help Matthew carry this burden. She had to share in the blame.
It helped. The family latched on to her and stitched her haphazardly onto the broken quilt of their lives. Leslie, who had always loved her sons, but had longed for a daughter. Christopher, who spoke of his youngest son in metaphors of the young soldiers he had to send out there, into the desert, and of Matthew in metaphors of himself who had to watch them die. The brothers, Zack the oldest, and Phillip and Ryan, twins adopted her immediately. Partly because she cooked and cleaned whenever Leslie’s grief locked her up in her room and partly because Peter had left a gap that needed to be filled. She became the little sister they had to protect even though she was born the same year as the twins. She let them. She owed them that.
Then there was Matthew. Matthew… His name was like silver liquid in her mind. How she loved it, just as it ate at her. His guilt slowly turned into anger against himself and Vin and whatever they might have felt for each other. He grew cold and distant, at first isolating himself from the whole family. Luckily there was Zack, and in the way only older brothers can, he pulled Matthew back into the fold where he was welcomed back with love. It was only towards Vin that he remained cold. She didn’t mind. It was their penance. She preferred it that way.
So, they watched each other date other people, fall in love, fall out of love. How many kisses of his had been public, just so that she could see it? She knew all of hers had been. It wasn’t a kiss if Matthew didn’t witness it. Or a dance, or a holding of hands. They lived in the shadow of each other’s minds. At least, that is what the ghosts in his eyes were telling her.
When she stepped into a room, she would look for him and there he would be, staring at her and their eyes would lock one, two, three seconds. It was like he was kissing her mouth, her cheek, her neck, and then they would both look away. Three seconds. She could set her heart by those three seconds. Her life revolved around them.
The woman next to her wasn’t getting a reaction from the one person that had been indulging her flood of questions. He smiled at her kindly but looked away without saying a word. It was then that she turned towards Vin again.
“Have you ever felt the effects of the Gader venom?” she asked slower than before.
It was a ridiculous question. You had to be blind not to see the thick scar running from next to her ear, all the way down her neck, and ending at her collarbone.
“No,” Vin snapped, unclipping her harness and getting up.
There was no way she was sitting next to that woman for a second longer. She moved towards the cockpit and patted Nick on the shoulder.
“Mind if I hang out here for a while?” As she spoke her eyes were roaming the landscape in front of her. It was so beautiful she wanted to cry.
“Ma’am, it is against regulations,” Nick’s co-pilot said apologetically. “If there is trouble you could be seriously injured.”
Nick laughed and Vin made a face at the soldier.
“Did you just call me ma’am?”
Nick laughed harder. “Relax Jimmy, she knows the risks. This is Vin Montgomery. You might have heard of her.”
Jimmy’s eyes widened. “As in twenty-to-one Montgomery?”
Vin sighed and rolled her eyes. “They exaggerate. It was like ten.”
“No,” Nick said with emphasis. “It was like thirty. We only told your dad it was twenty, remember?”
Vin punched his shoulder. “I remember perfectly, that it was ten and your bloody twenty only got me into more trouble.”
Nick laughed and shook his head. “So, you back for good or only visiting?”
Who would she be visiting? She doubted there was anyone left who wanted to see her. “No, I’m back. What changed while I was gone?”
“Matthew is General. Took over after his dad died, but you probably already knew that.”
She did, but she pretended not to. “Oh? For how long now?”
“About four years.”
She focused her gaze on the horizon, looking for any sign of Jericho. “Is he any good at it?”
“I don’t know. I mean, he’s different from his dad or any other General in any other colony for that matter.”
Vin waited, but he didn’t elaborate, so she had to ask. “In what way?”
Nick shifted slightly in his seat. “He still goes out to hunt. Every night. Not like a General is supposed to, you know, sit all nice and safe in his office and order others to do the fighting.”
“That’s what I like about him,” Jimmy said with a sideways smile. “He is still a soldier. Bleeds as much as us, kills more than us. I can respect a General like that.”
“Yeah,” Nick said unconvincingly.
An uncomfortable silence stretched for a while and then Nick scanned the number on her headset and, typing in a couple of codes, cut off the three of their coms from the rest in the cabin.
“He is getting better, Vin. Stronger, faster. Isn’t he supposed to get worse with age? Aren’t we all?” He swallowed. “I mean, you studied medicine. Is this normal?”
Jimmy didn’t seem to pick up on anything strange in the atmosphere. He was just a kid. Barely eighteen. “He is a badass. More than three thousand kills. One day I’m gonna be like him.”
Vin noticed that she had been gripping her trousers and released the material. There was a small tear in it. Nick probably didn’t realize, there was always someone listening.
She cleared her throat. “Does Matthew take unnecessary risks?”
Nick met her eyes for a split second and then focused on the view in front of them again. “He is like someone who doesn’t care if he dies.” He shook his head. “He is like someone who wants to die.”
“Blaze of glory,” Jimmy said, suddenly serious, staring out in front of him as if he could see his own valiant death, fighting to the end, surrounded by hundreds of Gaders.
Nick laughed and looked at Jimmy like he was from another planet. “Would you wait until you get to the sevens before you start planning your demise?”
Jimmy laughed as well. “I’m gonna be a ten, man, and I’m gonna be the best of them.”
Vin couldn’t help but smile. “Where are you in the ranks, Nick?”
“I’m at level nine.” That uncomfortable atmosphere surrounded him again.
“Nine? Why are you still flying?”
He shrugged. “I volunteer sometimes. My sister lives in the city, so it gives me a chance to see her. But this time Zack ordered me to go. I didn’t understand why until I saw you.”
Of course. She hadn’t told anyone she was coming. How Zack found out was anyone’s guess. “Well, thanks for babysitting me.”
He winked at her. “For old times’ sake. Now go sit back down. We are landing in five minutes.”
And there it was. The most beautiful set of mountains she had ever seen, and in the heart of it was the cave system called Jericho where she had grown up. Home. Finally.
Back in her seat, she was thankful to realize that Nick hadn’t connected her coms to the others in the cabin. The woman addressed her, but Vin ignored her, and stared blankly at nothing in particular, remembering the sight of Jericho from the sky.
It was an easy landing, and they remained seated as a trolley was slipped underneath the helicopter and was wheeled into the safety of the cave system.
As they left, Nick and his co-pilot were waiting outside, standing at ease. Vin waited for all the passengers to leave.
“It was great to see you, Nick.” She stood on her toes and hugged him. When her mouth was next to his ear, she whispered. “We could talk later.”
He stiffened at her words but nodded as she pulled away. “You should come over and have dinner with us. Helen would love to see you and we can catch up. I want to know where you’ve been all these years.”
“Tonight, she’s mine, Nick,” Zack’s voice sounded warningly from behind Vin.
Vin turned around and was immediately swooped into a bear hug. He lifted her a few inches off the ground.
“I missed you so much. Where the hell have you been?” Zack spoke roughly into her hair.
He was both upset and happy to see her. The moment the greetings were over she was getting it.
“Well, there is your package all safe and sound, sir.” Nick said ‘sir’ the way old friends mocked each other with titles that meant nothing to them. “You could have told me it was her.”
“What? And ruin the surprise? Bet you thought it was a ghost walking towards you.” There was that angry edge to Zack’s voice again. Apparently, adopted little sisters don’t go missing for ten years without getting chastised upon their return.
Although Zack’s anger was legendary, that was not Vin’s biggest worry. “Did you tell Matthew I was coming?”
She saw Nick taking that moment to disappear. Being a witness to this train wreck was not worth the trouble of getting more information from her.
“Yes, Vinotia Montgomery, of course, I told him. You think I could hide something like this from him?”
“Well, Zacharia Washington, I was actually hoping to tell him everything face to face.”
He crossed his arms and lifted his brows. “Great. He is in his office. Let’s go right now. I would love to hear this.”
Wow, he was angry. Vin decided to take a breath. Her mind whirled with ten thoughts all at once. She sequenced them. Calm him down. Take control of the situation.
“I missed you too, and I would rather see Rachel first. She must be so big now.”
That deflated him and he even cracked half a smile. “She’s ten now. And I have a second, Peter. He is seven.”
Vin tried to blink the tears away unsuccessfully. “Peter.” She swallowed. “I would like to see them. Are they still at school?”
“They should be on their way home now, but Linda will kill me if I bring you over when the house is such a mess. Dinner is at seven. Don’t be late.”
Vin stood up a little straighter. “Yes, sir.”
He smiled a full smile. He always had the best smile. She was glad that hadn’t changed.
“Listen, I have to find a place to bunk tonight. Otherwise, I’m sleeping on The Green.”
“You can stay with us.” But from the hesitation in his voice, she knew, not even he thought that was such a great idea.
“Yeah, and Matthew could bring me coffee in the morning. No thanks.”
He nodded. “The hospital might have an apartment open.”
Vin nodded. “I think they do. So, I’ll see you at seven sharp.” She gave him a last hug and a peck on the cheek, but when she left the hangar, she didn’t go towards the hospital. She headed towards the military base.
Jericho was a vast cave system going in all directions. Cave-ins were always a problem, so houses were built where it was safest, next to the walls. That created a housing problem, as there was limited space. So, many generations of families lived together in cramped houses.
In the caverns roughly to the North West was the military base. It protected the only three entrances to the caves. All other entrances had been sealed off and could only be opened by an explosion. That is, if you don’t count the illegal entrances, specifically dug for smuggling purposes. Once, there had been many tunnels going from the base to the civilian sector, but sixty years ago, they were all sealed. Except for one. That was after thirty-three Gaders had infiltrated the caves and killed two hundred people.
Around her, uniformed soldiers walked in small groups. By how loud they were conversing, she could tell if they were level seven and below, or eight and above. It was at level eight that acute hearing developed. The military’s best-kept secret.
Vin headed away from that tunnel. She didn’t stop at the military clinic either. She walked past the mess hall and through two barracks until she reached the recruitment office. There, she waited fifteen minutes before a recruitment officer could see her.
It was a kindly man in his fifties. On his desk, a plaque read Sergeant Hanson.
“Vinotia Montgomery, as in Catherine and Bill’s daughter?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yes.”
He seemed impressed with himself that he remembered. She supposed it was impressive. Her mother had died sixteen years ago and no one around here had seen her father in ten years.
“Where is your dad now?”
“He is in Europe doing research for the government,” she lied smoothly.
He seemed disappointed. “I had hoped he came back with you. It was more effective when we could synthesize the anti-venom right here.”
This was news to Vin. “Why didn’t the government send a replacement for my father?”
“They did, but they never last more than a handful of months.” He shrugged. “It’s the caves. Very few people can live like this.”
Vin couldn’t understand that. She missed these caves every day she was away.
“So, are you here to join the army or get information for someone else?”
“No, I want to join.” She pulled some pages from her backpack and handed them over to the Sergeant.
He scanned it for a few seconds and frowned. “You are a qualified doctor?”
She nodded.
“I’m afraid there is a problem, doctor Montgomery. You see some professions are on the red list. That means that we are not allowed to recruit them. A medical doctor is one of them.”
Vin smiled and nodded, bent over, and retrieved another page from her bag. After reading it through at least twice, Sergeant Hanson picked up the phone on his desk. That started a process that lasted two hours, going from one officer to another, until finally, they sat in front of the General’s office, Matthew Washington.
Hanson looked nervous. He was passing the pages from one hand to another until the corners were bent.
“Listen, all you have to do is give him the letter. The burden is on the government to make this happen.” She was such a hypocrite trying to calm him down. Her mind was see-sawing between emotional extremes. She kept thinking one thing: he was behind that door.
His smile shook. “It’s not that. He,” he nodded in the direction of the office. “Has a reputation for having a temper. And his anger has consequences, you know?”
Vin bit her lip. She did not doubt that Matthew was going to be furious, but she was certain most of his anger would be directed at her. Strangely the thought comforted her and calmed her frayed nerves.
The office assistant told them they could go in. Matthew was behind his desk, going through papers. He looked up and froze. Their eyes locked one, two, three, four, five, six, seven … The assistant had only told him that a recruitment officer was there with a problem.
His eyes slid to Sergeant Hanson and back to Vin.
“This better be a bloody joke,” he said softly, dangerously.
Hanson stepped forward holding out the letter towards Matthew, who snatched it from his hand. A trickle of sweat ran down the Sergeant’s cheek.
Vin wished she could say something to help the Sergeant, but all she could do was stare at Matthew. He had hardly aged.
“Matthew …” She hadn’t meant for it to sound so …
He didn’t even look at her. He slammed down the letter and picked up his phone. “Get Major Kinley on the line from Special Operations. His office is at The Circle.” Then he looked at Vin and barked. “Wait outside.”
Vin glanced in Hanson’s direction but left without an argument.
A few minutes later Hanson exited, walking quickly down the hall without giving Vin a backward glance, leaving Matthew’s office door open.
Inside the office, Matthew was yelling into the phone. She could hear every word, and so could Matthew’s assistant, who was turning whiter by the second. Vin would bet anything that his assistants did not last very long.
Suddenly he was standing at his door, facing his assistant.
“You can go home early today, soldier,” he said.
She jumped up like a whip and was gone without taking as much as a lunchbox with her. Then Matthew turned to Vin and she got up slowly, waiting for him to move aside so that she could enter. His eyes lingered on the deep scar on her face. How many scars had been added to him over the years?
“You too.”
Vin was momentarily confused. “Me too, what?”
“Leave.”
And just like that, he turned around and slammed the door shut behind him.
Vin stood gaping at the closed door for some time. It was true, she had been the one who had left, but did she deserve this?
She stepped forward and turned the knob. It was locked from the inside. She was about to call out his name again, but she stopped herself, leaning her head against the door. It felt too much like begging, and she just didn’t have it in her to beg.
She sighed, took up her backpack, and made her way through the base, down the tunnel that led to the civilian sector of Jericho. She had grown up as an army brat on the base side of the city, but as a kid, she had spent a lot of time in the civilian section, especially The Green.
The Green was a large park covered with grass, trees, and other vegetation. This was made possible by a large cave-in that had occurred hundreds of years ago, which let in about an acre-wide ray of sunshine. The best part was that if a Gader tried to get in through that hole, it fell hundreds of feet to its death.
Everyone was encouraged to spend as much time as they could in this park, to soak up as much of the sunlight as they could. It was the winters that Vin loved the best though and the desert frost. As a child, she would be the first one here in the mornings. The trees would be bare and white, the grass dead, but the frost, like a shimmering blanket over everything.
This was a summer’s day however and there were groups of people everywhere. Many recognized her and wanted to know where she had been for so long and how her father was. None of them mentioned Matthew, but the question was in their eyes. Escaping into the inn was a relief. She was lucky. There was a room left, but walking down the hall to it, she could hear her neighbor from the helicopter’s piercing voice through the wall. Great, they were going to be neighbors again.
In her room, Vin fell on her bed and tried to drown out all the sounds around her. She focused on the furthest sound she could distinguish. It was the sound of the Molers underneath the ground. Their voices were a faint whisper to her. It lulled her to sleep.
She woke to a screech. It startled her awake into a sitting position. It sounded so much like a Gader’s call that she rushed to the window, but on The Green everything was calm. When she heard the screeching again, she knew what it was. A chair being pulled across a floor, maybe a bed. It was probably someone cleaning a room.
Somewhere to her left though, her neighbor was sighing dramatically and speaking in a very irritated tone.
“Listen, I’m not going to waste my time following this boy. It’s not him, okay? He doesn’t fit the profile.”
Vin would have tried to shut their conversation out if it hadn’t been for that last sentence.
A male voice answered. “We have to treat everyone as suspect until proven otherwise. We can’t take the chance of underestimating anyone, so everyone is a suspect.”
Another affected sigh. “And how has that strategy been working out for you? Five years you have been stationed at this base and you have delivered three low-level members in that time.”
The man cursed, his voice rising. “You know they have advantages that we don’t.”
“Until now,” the woman answered smoothly, her voice suddenly different, calculated. “If you haven’t realized it yet, I’m in charge now. And I’m saying the boy is not a viable candidate.”
Now it was the man’s turn to sigh. “Fine, I’ll bite. Why isn’t he a candidate?”
There was suddenly a ticking sound, like a pen clicking or a shoe tapping.
“While we were flying,” the woman said in her high-pitched voice. “The helicopter suddenly banked to the left. Everyone’s heart raced except for three people there. The soldier across from me, the doctor to my left, and a man seated close to the pilot. Of the three the last man is an unknown. We will start with him.”
Vin kept her breathing even and her heart rate at a normal pace. Not only were they Circle agents, but the woman was advanced, at least a level eight if she could hear a person’s heartbeat. The bitterness of such a betrayal turned her stomach sour.
Vin knew that she couldn’t stay in this room tonight with an advanced actively looking for rebels. They continued with their conversation and she took that time to slip out of the room and out of the inn. She kept listening to them until their voices were weak and faded and then she started to jog. This was turning out to be an eventful homecoming.
There was only one place left for her to go. Past The Green to the far side of the civilian sector were the greenhouses. They stretched for miles and past them were the mines. Iron ore. It was what made Jericho not only a military stronghold against the Gader threat but also an asset to Northern America.
The mines also housed a hidden entrance to a third society living in the confines of these mountains: Molers.
After about a decade of living in the caves, a syndrome started developing amongst a small portion of the inhabitants. The psychiatrists that had studied it at the time dubbed it Moler syndrome. For some reason, these people feel a deep need to dig themselves deeper and deeper underground. Fear maybe, or maybe insanity, who knows, but something made them want to hide in self-dug caves. The last she had heard they had numbered close to a thousand men, women, and children, and among them hid the worst of the criminals that this world could still offer.
What was illegal in Jericho was rampant in Moler Town. Prostitution, human trafficking, rape, murder, drugs, gambling, weapons trade, and Gader parts. And no one could stop them. Moler Town was a maze of tunnels and caves that could be changed in less than a day. The only ones who knew these tunnels were the Molers, which was how they survived. One entrance Vin knew of was at an abandoned section of the mine. As a child, she had gotten lost here. She would have died if it hadn’t been for a Moler boy who found her badly dehydrated three days later.
Their cave house was still where it had been then, but now it was filled with little kids she didn’t know. Hind was one of the almost thirty people occupying the space. When he saw her, a large smile covered his face. He came to her immediately where she stood waiting at the door of their cave.
It was a large cavern, and although most of the men had to stoop, most of the women, including Vin could walk upright. Unlike the large caverns in Jericho, the rooms here were not lit by community generators, but by small lights powered by homemade batteries. Their furniture was mostly large pillows and mattresses strewn across the floor and carpets covering the ground, except for what served as a kitchen where most of the women congregated. There was no venting system, so large tunnels left the chamber in every direction. For such a crowded room, miles beneath the ground, the air smelled fresh.
“Vin!” Hind bowed the customary half-bow of these people. “It has been many years.”
She bent as well, blinking quickly until the burning in her eyes faded.
“It is so good to see you.”
A girl ran forward and was tugging at Vin’s trousers and a boy was shyly watching her from behind his father.
“My son and daughter,” Hind said proudly. “Kim and Fian. And my wife Ria.” He called his wife, but she was even shyer than her son and refused to come.
Vin smiled at her but quickly looked away. The Molers did not trust easily and they did not appreciate too much attention.
“Your family is beautiful.” And she was jealous of them, Vin had to admit to herself.
“Will you stay for dinner?”
She shook her head. “I have already been invited to another dinner.” She indicated a tunnel leading deeper into Moler Town. “Would you walk with me for a while?”
He nodded seriously. “Of course.”
They took a tunnel that Vin hoped would lead back to the military base, but there was no way of knowing. She had seen an entrance at The Green earlier today. It was new, but she thought it had to be an exit from Moler Town. The descent was too steep to be anything else.
They entered another cavern filled with other people and then another where there seemed to be some food stalls. On and on. She even saw some military moving about the caves, watching, but doing little.
“That is new,” she said nodding towards a man that was, according to the marks on his badge, a level two soldier.
“Yes,” Hind said with lifted brows. “It started about four years ago. There have been some arrests, but not of Molers.”
This was worrying and something she hadn’t anticipated. “Are you fine with this?”
“Yes, it might be rude the way they watch everyone, but there have been some bad things happening and they are helping to stop it.”
Vin could understand that. “Have my friends been part of those that have done bad things?”
“No.” He smiled reassuringly. “They are very generous and help protect us when they can.”
“Good.” She lowered her voice slightly. “I need to get a message to one of them tonight. Will that be possible?”
Hind nodded. “Which one?”
“Len Groeger.”
Again, Hind nodded. “He is still alive.”
Vin hesitated for a second. The last communication with her team had been a month ago. Was it possible that she had lost more of them in that time? She wondered how many and who, but this was not the place to ask. “Tell him to be at the Lake bar at ten o’clock. Tell him to ask me to dance.”
Hind shot her half a smile.
“What?” she asked.
“I haven’t seen you in ten years, and the first thing you do is talk business. I missed my friend.”
She looked away. The truth was his friend was gone. He probably thought she had died when she disappeared as everyone else did. About five years ago she contacted him as a type of informant to her embedded team. Even then, she had only communicated what was necessary for the sake of the mission.
There was nothing left of the friend he had known. The mission was all she thought about, but he didn’t need to know that. “Thank you, Hind, for all your help. There is no one else I can trust like you.”
She reached up and gave him a quick hug before slipping out of what she hoped was The Green entrance. Maybe he would forgive her that little impropriety. She had missed him so much.
