The Green Ones

Episode 1, Part 7

My heart pounds in my chest. It’s midmorning by the time we reach the dump.

Neca catches up to me the second I stop inside the workers’ gate. “You’re sure this is the only way?”

“You afraid of a little garbage?” I’m not about to admit the smell would have brought up my breakfast, if I had eaten any. “Besides, if Centavo’s plan is half as stupid as I think it is, the dump is the least of our worries.”

“All right, the faster the better.”

I stretch my neck for a glimpse of the control tower. I can’t see anyone on the catwalk or behind the glass. Good enough. With a final deep breath through my nose, I dart toward the backside of a mountain of food waste. Even if someone sees us, they might not care. No one is that uptight about garbage security.

The main concern is to avoid piles scheduled for compacting. Masa is in charge of that part, and it’s done with telekinesis. In the blink of an eye, a whole mound of scrap metal can become nothing but a chunk of ore. When Olin and I were little, my parents worked in the yard. My father told me about a coworker who wandered too far during his break. He had misread the compacting schedule, or decided to try to reclaim something of value.

Anyway, it had taken them eight hours to figure out the general vicinity of his remains. This was the sort of life lesson my father liked to instill in us. The result was to make the dump yard an instant source of forbidden mystery. Olin and I spent an entire rainy season imagining it as an underwater kingdom forgotten by the annals of time only to be rediscovered by a brother/sister team of renowned explorers.

The garbage piles are an ever-shifting sea, and at one point I loop around the same pile twice. After a few minutes, I locate the fenced-off sinkhole I’ve been looking for.

“This keeps getting better.” Neca has covered his mouth and nose with his collar.

“If you know a better way into the caves—”

“Let’s just do this.”

I’m already hurdling the fence. Three long strides, and I’m sliding down a pulpy pile of paper products in varying states of decay. Nothing is dumped here anymore, but plenty of garbage blows into the pit before it’s compacted. Luckily, none of it is too disgusting. Although once I did land squarely on the carcass of a decaying vulture. Not my best day.

In a matter of seconds, we’re underground, and I’m leading the way through the system of natural caves to a spot outside the shield wall—the most sacred place in my confined world, my mother’s garden.

Behind me, Neca’s feet fall softly on the smooth floor of the cave. He’s as graceful as he is strong. The fact does nothing to lessen my anger at his presence. There is zero chance I’m leading Centavo’s errand boy to my mother’s garden.

Sure, the trip was originally my idea. That involved me alone making more logwood tea. Now Centavo has me fetching buds from a weed I nearly killed off due to it overgrowing half the garden during the time it took Olin and me to rediscover it.

He had known it would be there, described it down to its serrated leaflets and sticky resin. He swore he’d never been to the garden, that he didn’t know where it was and didn’t want to. You don’t have to trust me. Hell, I don’t even trust you. But you’re taking Neca. Those had been his exact words. When I asked him why, the whole plan got ridiculous.

At least locating a plant in my mother’s garden is something I can work with. Adaptations are inevitable—with plants, with people. I’ll figure out what to do with Neca along the way.

The hazards of running in the dark force me to slow my pace. I’m intimately familiar with my surroundings, and due to the occasional distant opening, the caves aren’t pitch black. Still, I’m not accustomed to navigating them at high speeds.