The Green Ones

Episode 2, Part 6

Still struggling with Yetic’s plan and its rushed explanation, I find my brother and I following him into the arched entry of the Shadows. Everything I’ve ever held to be true is in question. Yet, there isn’t time to rummage through the mental confusion. The one thing never in doubt is that what I’m about to do will define my worst nightmares for years to come. 

The wall is four meters thick. Yetic stops a meter short of the gate—a telekinetically charged iron turnstile pounded into a nearly seamless door. “We might have to move fast, and we’ll need to stay together.” Yetic shakes me until I focus on him. “That means we’ll need to cram in all at once.”

I nod.

“You understand what we’re likely to see on the inside? The survivors are keyed to this one point. All the fresh meat passes through these gates.”

I growl, “We’ve been over this already. Just make sure you keep up.” I disguise my fear with rage. I’m sure Olin sees through it, but not this chadzitzin boy, Yetic. “The quicker we get in, the quicker we get out.”

Yetic backs into the turnstile.

Only the slightest slivers of light slip through the door’s cracks. Along with them streams all my most vivid imaginings about the blood-soaked ruins of the final battleground for the twitch insane. Breathing in deeply, Olin and I squeeze in to join him.

Removing his gum, Yetic grinds it into a corner with his thumb. “Ready?” He braces his arm against the lever that will spin us through the final gateway into the Shadows.

Pressed up against me, Olin shivers. “There are several within thirty meters—two fighting each other, at least five watching from the trees.”

“Trees?” I question.

Yetic interrupts by slamming the lever. “Now’s as good a time as any.”

The gate spins so fast it ejects us, ready or not, inside the Shadows. As I steady myself, the first image seared into my consciousness is of a twitcher sinking his teeth into the arm of another—one gurgling, the other screeching. The clearing at the site of the gate is a bloody mess of shattered human carcasses. Beyond that, there’s nothing except dense forest.

“Go!” Yetic forces us to our right.

Pushing Olin in front, the two of us crash through the underbrush like peccaries fleeing the jaws of a jaguar. Behind us, Yetic grunts. A half-dozen screams split the air, riding the front edge of a telekinetic pulse. The distortion washes past us, leaving only the sounds of Olin and me stumbling through the brush. I’m tempted to look over my shoulder for Yetic when I hear him.

“Keep the wall on your right until you see a red insignia painted on the rock.”

“Insignia? Of what?”

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Then what?”

“Head straight in,” he huffs before adding, “with caution.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going hunting.”

“What? I thought you said stay together.” I duck a low-hanging branch.

“I won’t be far.”

Olin calls over his shoulder, “He’s getting the Queen’s attention.”

Yetic is already breaking away from the wall and heading further into the forest when he adds, “Before the subjects sink their teeth into us.”

Again, Olin and I are running, this time through a forest in the heart of Worker City. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always envisioned the Shadows as an ancient and wasted version of the city itself—a tattered urban war zone. Instead, I find myself in an ancient forest more lush than the one surrounding New Teo.