The Belly of the Beast

Ch. 57, To Our Graves Dancing

Walking up the blood red carpet, I wondered if it was actually possible for me to win and find Androcles. After the Highs, there was only one Letter Trial left: The Top Letter Trial. It was said that if you won the Top Letter Trial you were given a new life and a new letter.

I didn't want a life on the Top. All I wanted to do was find Androcles, use him to find Xyla, and then pass on this burden before it crushed me. An entire level was dead, gone, so that others could live in extravagance. How could anyone live with that knowledge and not be poisoned by it?

The red cushioned steps rose and fell beneath me. Once, I would have been amazed by such a thing. Now I felt angry. Xyla had made life in a dark world bright. Yana had been a sun shining and protecting us, and Nuka... Nuka had been a spark just starting to burn. How many people in that room had been sisters, mother, fathers, brothers?

Each step I took the rage climbed, til it felt like a vial of rocket fuel — one wrong move and I would explode. So many dead. So many lost. The anger and fear and bitterness all roiled inside me, and with it, came Yana's words. You aren't a real doctor. You're not a real engineer. You're a Z. That is your strength, and the only thing that will let you do more than just live and die in the Beast.

Maybe Yana was right. My strength was that I was nothing and no one. I would find my way to the Top, because there was nowhere else for me to go.

At the top of the stairs a group of K-guards waited. One of them glanced back and motioned me forward impatiently. With anger burning away the numbness, I climbed on, careful not to trip on the voluminous dress. The room smelled deep and fresh, like a breath of cold water. The sound of music drifted down the stairs, traveling through clear air. Too bright. Too clean.

The final step loomed, and I steeled myself to stand straight-backed with eyes of cold disdain. No matter how beautiful it is, remember why you're here. These people would let a level die to live the way they do.

The red carpet ceded to a floor of marble, and finally, I looked up.

An unending crowd watched me, brightly lit and standing in a vast ballroom. Instead of walls of steel, they were white, with swirls of silver, the air so clear and free it unsettled me, as if I'd been wearing dirty glasses my whole life and had only now taken them off. The low murmurs that echoed off walls of white died as every eye turned to me. Even the orchestra tucked in the corner of the room grew still.

The Highs.

Their faces blurred together. Part of me had worried after a lifetime of imagining this level I would want to run, or hide, or even fawn over the beauty; instead the boiling rage threatened to overflow. I wanted them to understand what it was to live your life on the scraps of others. I wanted them to know what it felt like to hold someone you loved and feel the life bleed out of them.

I wanted them to die.

I'd never wished death upon someone, not even the Admiral, but now the thought felt like a physical thing inside me, trying to claw its way free. The anger wasn't logical: because logic would have told me that these people maybe didn't know the cost of their world.

I didn't care.

I was so tired of excuses, of people so blind they refused to see the inconvenient truth right in front of them, at the cost of all below.

As I looked out at the crowd, at the grand dresses, at the suits and outfits that spanned all of Old Earth history, my hate felt like it spewed from a broken pipe, unfocused and wild. There were women dressed in giant corseted dresses, men in white togas, outfits of all leather, clothes that sparkled and shone and other styles I didn't recognize from Old Earth, but were probably stolen from cultures and traditions long lost. The garish colors blended together. I was stranded, alone, an animal at a circus, with Dagger nowhere to be seen.

Then the last person I expected stepped in front of me.

Skull.

His hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, his tattoos mostly covered by an enormous suit he bulged out of. But for all the grooming and fancy clothes, his smile was as viciously honest as it had ever been.

"I wondered when you'd show up, little fox."

His eyes traveled appreciatively over my dress, but I didn't turn to leave. I should have hated him. He tried to kill me. But I didn't. In fact, as bizarre and irrational as it seemed, he was the only person in this entire room I didn't want to die.

And there was something quiet in his eyes when he said, "Your little friend, did he make it?"

I couldn't speak, the grief lodged inside my throat. Why he even remembered the small boy he'd seen for just a moment, I didn't know, but maybe that was the point. Skull saw the ugly truth that everyone else here refused: a boy had died for their games.

Skull nodded, and then, when a waiter passed by, lifted two glass flutes free with a speed that belayed his bulk. The waiter shot him a dirty look but seemed to think better of saying something. Skull turned to me and held both glasses aloft. "Then he died with honor, which is more than most of us can say. We drink to him."

Instead of passing a glass to me, he tilted both back into his mouth. Then he tossed both glasses over his shoulder. A group of women with fans and giant ugly dresses behind him screamed as the glass shattered at their feet. Skull didn't even turn. The scandalized looks on their faces, and the growing circle around us, made just a little bit of my anger die away. I'd break more of your precious things if I could.

Then, to my surprise, music swelled through the room. People still watched us carefully, but now it was in hushed voices, seeming to wait for us to do something, as if we were wild animals who would attack without warning. Maybe we are. Skull held out a large, calloused hand. "Well, this is a ball. May as well go to our graves dancing."

The people and guards all kept a careful distance. I saw a few other guards posted at the exits across the massive ballroom. I was still a prisoner, but the cage had suddenly expanded.

Skull held out his hand, waiting.

May as well go to my grave dancing. I let him take my hand in his, and he pulled me into a clumsy, halting dance. We sometimes danced a swing dance in the Belly, swirling and fast, but this was a different dance entirely, slow and sweeping and stiff. Or maybe it was just my partner. Skull seemed more concerned with keeping his chest thrown out and grin directed at the audience than leading.

"You look beautiful as a drop of fresh blood, little fox."

"And you look handsome as a skull."

Skull threw his head back and roared. The noise echoed and several watchers recoiled. Part of me wished I was a fox, with sharp eyes and sharper teeth. Maybe then they wouldn't watch so closely.

"Why do you call me little fox?" I winced as he stepped on my toes again. I'd seen a picture of a fox before: a small, red, dog-like creature, with a bushy tail. A real animal on Old Earth and sometimes a crafty villain in children's stories. But I didn't see how it was like me.

Skull winked at a woman in the crowd, who blushed, before he turned back to me. "It was an old story my grandmother told. About a man named Zorro. Means fox in Spanish, the language my people spoke on Old Earth. Zorro stole from the rich and gave to the poor. And when he did, he carved a Z on the wall behind him."

"He stole from the Highs? And the Top?"

He shrugged. "Sure. Whatever rich assholes were called back then."

"Why did he carve a Z? Wouldn't that let them know he'd done it?"

Skull grinned. "Exactly. He wanted to let them know that he'd bested them." He spun me away, yanking me back in so that I nearly stumbled. "Wouldn't you?"

I met his eyes, that ruthless smile, and realized, despite the fact we would soon be competitors trying to kill each other, there was something about Skull that I liked. Or at least understood. "I would... But why does that remind you of me?"

"You've stolen more from the rich than anyone I know."

Before I had a chance to ask what he meant, someone behind us cleared their throat.

"May I cut in?"

It was like a cold finger ran down my spine. Or like I finally felt the emotion I should have when I first walked into this room.

Dagger stood behind us.