Niko Read online

  Chapter 11

  Salt crunched under her boots as she stepped outside, the revolving door still spinning slowly behind her.

  Though she’d spent a lot of time looking at the street from above, things were much different at ground level. Somehow the grey buildings hovering over her and the hustle and bustle of people milling around her made her feel slightly claustrophobic in a way that she never did looking down at it from high above.

  “I think I know a place you’d like to go see.” Malik said drawing her eyes from the buildings and her mind from her thoughts.

  “Where?” Niko asked but he only gave a soft smile in return before he began walking. She had no choice but to follow him.

  She fell in step beside him. There were a few people riding bicycles or manning small solar-powered carts but most people walked though not in the rushed frightened manner of Outsiders. They were protected and had little to fear from Slithers.

  As they turned the corner Malik suddenly let out a yell and broke into a run.

  Chills traveled over Niko’s body, as she looked about herself, frantically trying to locate the Slither. Then she realized he didn’t have a weapon out and none of the people around her were screaming and running for their lives.

  Malik had dashed across the street toward a small group dressed in blue. They were laughing and taunting someone shabbily attired in grey, they had already forced him to his knees and were now shoving his face toward a particularly wet patch of dusted ground. He was screaming, snot running out of his nose and forming a bridge between him and the sidewalk.

  Malik slammed his shoulder into the leader, a tall guy with spiky brown hair who stumbled back a few steps and released the grey victim.

  "Stop this right now, Holt." Malik was saying when Niko finally got near enough to hear what was being said.

  Holt's lips curled into a sneer. "Or what?"

  Niko's eyes took them all in a quick glance. There were five of them and she doubted she and Malik could take them on their own. She might have counted the grey young man in their ranks but he still hadn't risen from his crouch and taken advantage of the small pause in his torment to run away. As an ally he would be useless.

  "C'mon Holt, a Grey-man?" Malik said, trying to make Holt see reason instead of drawing a weapon like Niko would have done. "Aren't you stooping a bit low? They're practically helpless."

  "Not this one," Holt said, placing his booted foot on the Grey-man's back pressing him closer to the sidewalk. "This one doesn't know its place. It spilled salt on Madison here and never said sorry."

  Madison showed them the crumbs of salt littering her dress while the Grey-man screamed out incoherent apologies. It only made Holt bear down even more on the young man's back until his faces hovered mere centimeters from the sidewalk where his harsh breathing caused the acid soaked grains to tremble.

  Niko usually made it a policy of hers not to get into other peoples fights, you didn't survive long Outside by getting noticed and meddlers always got noticed. So she was just as surprised as Holt to find herself pressing a knife to his throat.

  "Let him go," she said in a low voice.

  Holt canted his eyes downward, trying and failing to spot the blade she held under his chin. It was only a table knife, part of the small collection of blades she carried with her. But he didn't need to know that.

  When he couldn't see the knife his eyes settled on her traveling down the length of her body as if he was cataloging every line and curve. There was nothing sexual in his gaze, in fact it seemed to be filled with a faint trace of disbelief.

  She didn't flinch, giving him a steely-eyed gaze of her own.

  Features settling into an expressionless mask, Holt lifted his foot off the Grey-man's back. The young man had barely scrambled to his feet when Holt kicked him in the rear, sending him stumbling along his way.

  He stepped back and Niko quickly put her knife away before he could see what she had threatened him with. Neither took their eyes off each other.

  Without a word he spat at her feet and left, taking his friends with him.

  "I hate those guys." Malik said. "They think that just because they kill Slithers it gives them the right to do anything they want."

  Niko watched their retreating figures. "Who are they?"

  "Azure Circle." He answered. "They have a lot of members."

  Niko nodded once. She'd definitely be seeing more of them in the future. As they resumed walking she began to notice that not everyone moved with a straight, relaxed posture. She began to notice men and women dressed in the same color grey as the buildings. First it was only one or two then more as her eyes were fully opened. They walked in stooped unassuming postures as they clung to fringes of the crowd and the shadows of buildings sweeping trash and laying down salt.

  She quietly asked Malik about them.

  "If you don't have enough money to get into the city, the Council allows a certain number of men and women to come in on merit." Malik explained. "They agree to work for the city, salting, cleaning up dead Slithers, and managing the greenhouses among other things. After five years and if they don't commit any crimes they and their immediate family are allowed to become permanent residents of the city."

  "Can getting salt on somebody count as a crime?" Niko asked drolly.

  Malik smiled and shook his head. "I doubt it, besides since the insurrection they get fixed before they're allowed into the city. They're virtually harmless now."

  This must have been why he rushed forward to stop the abuse.

  Eventually Niko saw that they were heading toward the wall that surrounded the city. The streets grew narrower as they grew near, the houses haphazardly placed about and she saw even more of the Grey-men and women. They had come to the South Gate.

  The checkpoint consisted of an inner and outer door with a space in between to hold people hoping to get into the city.

  Malik led them to an armed man standing just outside the gate. Niko eyed the gun he carried. Not many people outside of the military or very high-class security had guns. They were useless against Slithers.

  "Hey, Bobby," Malik said when they got close. "This is the girl I wanted you to meet. This is Niko."

  Bobby's eyes brightened and he took her hand in a crushing grip. "Jared hasn't passed through here yet," he said, "but if he passes through this gate don't worry, we'll catch him."

  "I wanted you to see how things work here," Malik said, turning toward her, "so you can see we're doing our best."

  Bobby was an eager guide pointing out how they asked the name of everyone entering the city whether or not they were able to pay the 5000q admittance fee.

  Niko tried hard not to show her shock at the exorbitant price, which was for one person. If circumstances hadn't been what they were she would have never gotten into the city on her own.

  The people there were separated into two groups: those that could pay, they looked hopeful as they waited for the final test results to come back, and those that couldn't and waited anxiously to get in on merit. Occasionally somebody would come and in complete silence pluck someone out of the group. That person always looked unsure as to whether they should be happy or devastated that they were chosen.

  Just beyond the outer gate she could see the long line of people waiting to enter and the shorter, but only slightly so, line of rejected people turned away from the city and heading back to their homes if they still had any.

  Even so the guards kept a close eye on them weapons trained. She wondered what would they do next or if getting into the city had been their last hope.

  They stayed there a little longer as Bobby assured her that there was nothing to worry about, her brother would not be allowed to fall through the cracks.

  "Looks like rain," Bobby said once they left the holding area, the people inside watching them enviously as the trio came and went as they pleased.

  Niko looked up at the sky. Dark grey clouds hung overhead heavy with precipitation.

  "Yo
u sure you don't want to stay here? Doesn't look like something you'd want to get caught in." Bobby continued.

  "We'll make it." Malik assured him. She could tell he didn't want to stay in the area any longer than he had to. The pervading scent of helplessness and anxiety was probably too much for him. She wondered what the people still waiting outside of the gate were going to do. They had to make a choice between losing their place in line or being burned by the rain.

  She followed Malik back to the hotel. There were fewer people on their journey back. The streets were quickly emptying under the threat of rain.

  They hurried as fast as they could but the skies opened before they'd even made it halfway and they dived into the nearest building which turned out to be a restaurant.

  There were several people milling around inside as they also took shelter from the rain that drummed and hissed outside. She and Malik sat by the windows, though currently they showed no view of the street only the heavy shutters pulled over them to protect the delicate glass. On the underside of the shutters someone had painted an idyllic scene, she supposed it was of the Outside but it was like no place she'd seen before with long stretches of green grass and plump, happy people.

  "The rain will bring out more Slithers," Niko said softly. They seemed to be the only things capable of standing in the rain for more than an hour without the acid eventually eating furrows into their skin. Sometimes they raided houses during a storm pinning families between corrosive water and sharp teeth.

  "Or perhaps the Slithers brought the rain," Malik said with a cryptic smile.

  She wanted to know what he meant.

  Malik folded his arm across the table. His eyes darted quickly around the restaurant before, satisfied, he leaned forward and pitched his voice to a whisper. Mildly alarmed by his secretive actions she leaned forward as well.

  "You've heard some of the legends about Slithers haven't you?"

  Niko nodded a tad impatiently. There were many stories about how Slithers came to be. For a fairly recent phenomenon it was very difficult to separate truth from the sticky web of rumor and myth that ensnared it, though it wasn’t for lack of trying, there were many so-called experts that occasionally cropped up with polished versions of the same story.

  “Then you’ve noticed that no matter how creative the storyteller everyone assumes that the rain and Slithers arrived at the same time. I don’t know where the Slithers come from, maybe they are some kind of punishment, but what I do know is that we created the rain hoping to kill them.” He reached across the table and his fingertips met hers. “I haven’t figured it all out yet, the Director was very young when it happened and the little bit I’ve been able to gather on my own is in confusing fragments.

  “Back then they didn’t have people like us to keep Slithers from overwhelming everybody. They were desperate and the best minds quickly came together to create something that would get rid of the creatures. They made a chemical that was supposed to affect only Slithers and they blanketed the skies with it. And it worked. Mostly,” He amended when Niko raised an eyebrow. “I mean it diminished the herd from overwhelming to manageable.”

  “And it changed the rain.” Niko finished softly. She had gone back to the library a few times and flipped through some of the books. She was surprised how casual people were about the rain and other forms of water and she wondered what it must have been like to have it suddenly turn on them.

  A waiter came to their table having finally made it through the sudden influx of costumers. He took their order, which was nothing more than coffee.

  When they were alone again in the relatively crowded restaurant Malik leaned back in his seat. “I think they tried to fix it but by then the end of the world had come and people had other things to think about.”

  Niko rubbed random symbols onto the table with her finger. She didn’t want to sound ungrateful but her preference for clean water managed to top the idea of a plethora of Slithers running around. Maybe it wasn’t so in the city, but Outside more people died of water poisoning than Slither attacks and the attacks occurred frequently.

  She sipped her coffee in silence listening to the water pounding outside washing away the layer of salt that protected the streets.

  Eventually the storm slowed until it stopped altogether a few random plips of water the only things left of it. Inside no one seemed to be eager to leave just yet but Malik pushed back his seat anyway.

  “We should go,” he said, “there’s always an attack after a storm like this. The Grey-men are out. Easy pickings.”

  He accepted an umbrella blazoned with the restaurant’s logo and they headed back to the hotel.

  The sidewalk glittered prettily before them and Niko walked carefully around shallow puddles making sure to keep close to Malik and the protection the umbrella offered from stray raindrops.

  Just ahead was a Grey-man--- though woman would be a more accurate term. She slowly walked down the sidewalk stopping frequently to shake white powder from a large basket she carried. There were more Grey-men doing the same thing across the street. She never looked up as they came near and what little of her face Niko could see was pockmarked with acid scars.

  Beyond the woman the sidewalk lay covered with a neat layer of salt. Niko looked over her shoulder as they passed and found the woman watching their retreating figures with dull eyes. As the salt crunched beneath her boots Niko wondered how long the woman had left on her contract and how soon would she and her family be allowed to stay in the city.