Chapter 10- Shards

  I light up a cigarette as I trudge down through the remains of the mall, glass crunching under my boots. The glaring sun beats down above my head, heat building over my velm, so scorching you wouldn’t know there’d been a storm last night if not for the murky puddles dwelling across the parking lot’s potholes. Every breath is the earthy smell of rot so pungent I can taste the bitter decay on my tongue. The occasional dash of wind revives the moist grass, roughly brushing across the red flag markers and yellow hazard tapes left behind by Lotus’s forensic team.

  They’ve done an excellent job removing large plaster walls to the side, separating piles of bricks and pillars, and collecting all the evidence except the ones right in front of their eyes. Every direction is dusted with debris and plaster, but the rain cleared it all up, and the hundreds of glistening lotic-shards are littered across the field.

  I kill my cigarette butt and get to work. I examine each nugget in my hand and toss it into my duffel bag. I spend the next hour extracting all I can find until all four bags are filled with shards, enough to fulfill the next shipment.

  And after a month of delay, it’s time I make my delivery.

  I toss the bags of rocks over my shoulder, two on each side, hop on my motor, and leave the site for good.

  The ride back to the border will be another six dragging hours. Damn Cyra for choosing a location in the far east. These deserted sites in the Void used to have a name, used to house millions of civilians, and most importantly, used to be the outer cities of North Bowen before the last significant Outbreak eighty years ago buried it. Upon failing to contain one small neighborhood, North Bowen lost thirty percent of its original land to the Void. Most of which are now reclaimed by foliage. There’s nothing on the East Coast except moody weather. Buildings and roads deteriorate at an alarming rate. Any standing skyscrapers that survived the initial annihilation have long fallen and been buried by nature, and are now nothing but precarious hills I don’t dare drive over.

  The highways became just as difficult to navigate. Weeds and tree roots broke through the pavements, invading the old, rusted cars. Vines and ivies intertwining their way up gantries and eating away at the signs above the road. Rain and snow crept in faster than they could evaporate, creating an underground swamp that extends deep beneath the city itself. So at any given moment, with the wrong step, the ground beneath can give in, plunging me into brain-eating amoeba water.

  Well, any organism in this moist part of the Void can inflict the same, which is why I never leave the border without my boots that reach to my knees, antiseptic fiber pants and shirt, and an extra outer layer for the dropping weather, gloves, and a type B velm, leaving nothing exposed to the environment.

  That, and in case I run into the transport team or other unwanted wanderers like myself. Though with all the times I’ve gone to the void, I’ve never seen one. Not even Infectants, I’ve been made to believe, roam on these lands. Later on, I learned from Raze, who learned from his father, that the transport team takes the Infectants deep into the Void, where they’ll never find their way back.

  After two hours treading the mossy streets and humid urban city air, the drought finally greets me, and my motor finally speeds up on solid land. Dry stale air, dusty streets with nothing but shaved down structures, what most of the Void looks like today. The painted street signs are sanded off, storefront awnings are shredded. A city under a thin sheet of sand.

  Sunset hangs above the horizon by the time I reach the border. Exactly thirty-three miles from the west coast hides a burrowing hole in the wall, shrouded by the thick willow trees and their overflowing branches. The short tunnel inward is covered with graffiti and littered with soda cans and snack wrappings.

  I take a break on the other side, grabbing the metal bottle of water I left between the split branches this morning, and chug the remaining water with another SEM pill. I refill the fuel on my motor and drive for another hour through the woodlands before reaching yet another border.

  The patrols between the outer cities and mixed areas aren’t as strict as Van Sing. And this part of the wall is controlled by no other than Mital’s gang of bought-out government officials, so shipments slip in and out under the city’s noses, into the slums of Lulein.

  I yield before the gates, secured by two squatters. One of them asks for my identity. He must be new.

  His partner gives him a rough push aside and cranks open the gate.

  “You’re in,” he says to me, then back at the new guy. “Don’t you know who that is?”

  They shouldn’t know me. Not by name, at least. Only that they should let the person carrying four concealed, green-striped duffel bags in and out without question. No chip scans, no face reveal, no verbal confirmation. With my indistinguishable attire, I’m just a vague description of an untouchable courier.

  After another drive down the street of brothels and gambling dens, I finally make it to the warehouse a little before the last light of day slips beyond the horizon. A remote area far from the cities, next to farmlands and properties divided by acres apart.

  Cyra keeps the warehouse dark, so no outsiders will assume anyone is here at night. I make my way through the fences and park outside the back entrance. The metal door creaks open, and the sweet fumes of cigarettes greet me. I resist the urge to light another one from my pocket and drag the load inside to the bathroom. The large tub is already filled with what I like to call soft acid. A bright yellow substance that might as well be radioactive piss. I toss every single nugget of shards inside.

  Despite my careless handling with them, lotic-shards are as fragile as glass. They should all be shattered upon explosion, if not for the thin protective coating over them. The explosive, once stuck to the wall, will take about two weeks to soak through the plaster, finding its way around the shards and protecting them from nuclear blasts, fire, and the energy from leaks. Once the time is up and the coating hardens, the bombs detonate. And this acid is the only solution that’ll remove the shell.

  After the tub is filled, my job is done until the next shipment of explosives arrives, and I start to leave. But Cyra’s on her way toward me, her flip flops slapping the ground in her apathetic rhythm. I left the lights off in the bathroom, just so she won’t notice me, but I must’ve been a little too loud on the way here.

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  “Oi, Doviche,” Cyra says in her thick Yutainian accent. Every word sounds like she’s chiding me, or maybe it’s the natural rasp in her voice. “Make food.”

  My shoulder is sore, and my ass is still numb from sitting on the flattened seat all day. My job today is to collect and deliver, not be her fucking maid. I pretend not to hear her.

  By the door frame, I see her silhouette lit by her bright setup all the way in the back—dozens of monitors stacked around each other until it’s six feet tall and half as wide, and a counter of keyboards with different keybindings and shortcuts for her codes.

  Cyra flicks on the bathroom light, her blazing copper curls bunched up in a sorry bun above her head, tangled and unwashed for days. Her pale complexion consists mainly of freckles; her droopy green eyes are slightly red from staring at screens for hours in one sitting; otherwise, the rest of her face is Bowenese. Her brown zip-up hoodie does a bad job of covering her tits, exposed through her thin tank top. I think she has underwear on. At least, I hope she does under that long tank.

  Cyrania Valtor, Valtor Mital’s sixteenth child; she’s two years my senior, but always tells me she’s at least twenty-five, so she has some authority over me.

  She grew up in Yutainia, a country north of Akowa. Seventeen when she’s arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison under the accounts of espionage. Cyra didn’t tell me much, only that she broke into the government’s database and had the button of nuclear power at the convenience of her home. Mital himself couldn’t enter the country, but his men somehow intercepted her correctional bus and got her out of the country that same day.

  Now a fugitive in the secluded area of North Bowen, keeping inventory of shipments coming in and out of the warehouse.

  “You hungry?” she asks, leaning against the door frame, blocking my way out. She’s taller than I am, but has lost a few inches due to her bad posture.

  “No.”

  “Make me food.”

  I pull out my tablet case from my pocket and offer her a SEM pill.

  She sneers and curses in Yutainian, “I don’t want this shit.” Then reverts to Bowenese, not knowing I understand both. “I want real food.”

  “Then order delivery,” I say, repocketing my pill case.

  “No store delivers this far.”

  We’re too close to the coast, where most of the shipments dock. Too far from any urban restaurants.

  “Then you can starve,” I finally say, gesturing for her to move. I don’t dare lay a finger on her. But I’ll break through the bathroom wall to get out if I must.

  A thoughtful moment passes us, and Cyra steps out of my way. “I’m out of clean clothes, too.”

  When we first relocated to this warehouse two years ago, she couldn’t understand how the laundry machine worked, nor the other Bowenese tech in the kitchen, because according to her, she had nannies and maids back in Yutainia. Since she’s in a warehouse now, dealing banned products, no outside hires are allowed. I helped her out the first year until I realized she’s just a lazy piece of shit who’s way too comfortable with ordering people around.

  I can’t say for sure when I’ve fallen into servitude for Cyra, but it stops now.

  “You can be naked for all I care.”

  She tugs on my sleeve, pulling me to a stop. “I tell big boss.”

  “Tell him what?” I yank it back. “That I refuse to be your slave?”

  “Does this little bitch think she’s more than that?” she mutters in Yutainian, then back in broken Bowenese. “Fine, I take from your pay, Doviche.”

  Doviche. Little Demon. Specifically from Yutainia folklore, the gatekeeper who drags those back to hell even after they repent their sins. The worst one of all. But that’s not the translation she gives me when I ask. Female friend, she’d said.

  “My pay?” I say, starting toward her setup. “It’s here?

  A black envelope with a cerulean blue stripe across lies on her desk. Always open. I count the amount, enough to pay the next two months’ bills and utilities; then, maybe if I budget right, I can afford the premium conditioner for my hair.

  I slip the envelope into the lining of my coat and light up another cigarette. Last one for the week, I promise myself. Then I check the crate corner for extra stuff Mital sends her. The overstock products from his various brands, clothes, shoes, bags, small leather goods, all with the white gold-plated letter V. Well, most of the time, they’re returns from customers, filled with minor stains and loose threads, sometimes completely unwearable. Cyra never uses those “gifts”, so I take them for myself. Even that Govon bag Raze retrieved for me. The interior had already been ripped from the start, so I’m at least somewhat thankful he got it professionally stitched for me.

  But lately, these returns are either for men or not to my taste.

  “You steal my stuff without making food?” Cyra chides behind me. “I tell big boss.”

  I roll my eyes at the empty threats. She tosses them my way whenever I don’t comply with her demands.

  “Fine, tell him.” I shut the crate and face her. “Then I tell him why this shipment is delayed. Yeah? That you fucked up on the location and it almost killed a bunch of high-profile nepo babies. There was a Lavoran in the bunch.”

  She frowns at the name.

  “Yes, Lavoran. Lotus,” I add. “But you’re lucky I got them out in time.”

  From all the times I’ve crossed into the Void, I measured the exact time for the explosives to detonate: exactly three-fifty-two hours from placing the first bomb.

  I only realized the day before, when Cerena announced the drill's location, that it was the same one I'd planted all those bombs two weeks prior. I hastily bought a timer and a bunch of cords, taping them to the underside of the table, starting it right after I ended my drill, when the girls rushed out of the room to check on Raven. Someone would’ve found it while cleaning up, but I didn’t think that person would be me. I’d been slowing down, stretching each minute for someone to check on me; if not, then I’d be the one to scream bomb, which would put me at the top of the suspect list. Fortunately, Raze played into my hands flawlessly, throwing the suspicion off me.

  “Won’t happen again,” Cyra shrugs. She tries to be friendly with a grip on my shoulder, but I swat her away.

  “Go reheat the dumplings in the freezer,” I tell her, and storm out the door. “Or eat them frozen, for all I care.”