The Green Ones

Episode 2, Part 8

Olin barely seems rattled. Twice I ask him if he’s okay, and he nods. Turning to Yetic, I speak over the steady rain. “I don’t understand. How is any of this possible?”

“It’s her.”

“But who is she?”

“That, I don’t know,” Yetic shrugs. The gesture is like his version of Neca’s wink, somehow suggesting he, in fact, does know even while insisting he doesn’t.

“You have to know something. You didn’t just decide to visit the Shadows one day, not without knowing there was a way out.”

“She’s been here a long time, long enough to establish an infrastructure and an order. They’ve got rain collection, farming, waste disposal, everything they need to exist.” He scratches his chin. “Well, there are a few of the finer luxuries of life they find difficult to come by. In exchange for allowing me to train,” he shrugs, “I bring them said luxuries.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” I’m almost yelling. The nearby twitchers don’t seem to notice or care. “Why would you—” then it hits me. Yetic’s comment earlier about hunting the twitchers—that’s his training. He hones his skills on the inflicted.

I open my mouth to voice my disgust, but I don’t know what to say. While hunting humans, even twitchers, is the definition of barbarism, certainly it’s more humane than allowing them to suffer and die over the course of terrible weeks and months. But what about the twitchers on either side of us?

Yetic watches me with a raised brow. “You’re trying to figure out the difference between the twitchers here and at the gate, aren’t you?”

“How did you—”

“It was my first question,” he nods to himself.

“Well, are you going to answer it?”

“You haven’t figured it out?”

I stomp, leaving a divot in the forest floor with my heel. “What? The mysterious woman you’re pretending to know nothing about?”

“Not nothing. I told you, she’s old.”

“You still haven’t told me how you found out about her in the first place.”

He nods and looks straight ahead, ignoring the question more directly this time.

“Okay, fine. Let’s start with her age. Even I can tell she’s an immortal.”

He shrugs, “Probably.”

“No,” Olin interrupts, “she’s something different. Not like us, and not like Centavo.”

“Wait, you remember Centavo?” Turning from Yetic to my little brother, I briefly wonder if I’m the only one who knows the old man is probably dead. “I thought you were—”

“I wasn’t asleep, just confused.”

“So you could hear me?” I try to remember if I said anything embarrassing.

He nods. “Hear you, see you. Everything. Except, through the water the pieces were fractured and busy. I remember Centavo. His light was similar to the woman’s, but not the same.”

I catch Yetic casting a cautious eye toward the front of the procession. “You’re afraid she’ll overhear us.”

He shrugs. It’s halfhearted, lacking his standard conviction.

“You were fine with the conversation until Olin brought up Centavo.”

Yetic flinches. “Keep your voice down.”

I’m tempted to start chanting Centavo’s name at the top of my lungs. Recalling the flash in the woman’s eye, and out of respect for the old man’s memory, I decide to pressure Yetic instead. “Spill it.”

He crowds close and speaks in a normal tone, barely audible over the rain. “The old man was how I first found out about the queen. I used to train with him, back in the beginning.” He waves his hand as if dismissing an unfortunate chapter of his past simply by stirring the humid air.

“So what happened?”

He spits, “Neca happened.”

“Wait, I thought you and Neca were friends?”

“I never said that.”

“Then why are you—”

“We made a deal. I’m fulfilling my end of it.”

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot. Business is business.”

“You got that right.”

“No, I totally understand.” Despite the sting of being part of a business arrangement, I actually do understand. On a normal day in the market, I would have made a half dozen deals by now.

He eyes me and nods. “Anyway, everything was fine before he came along. After the old man had his new pet, he didn’t have much time for me.” He shrugs, “So I split.”

“And the queen?”

“The old man is her main supplier. She controls the only two-way access in and out of the Shadows.”

Olin interjects, “And, of course, it opens into the underground.”

“Now you’re catching on, and just in time. We’re here.”

The whole procession stops in front of a cave. The woman faces us and nods. The twitcher columns disperse into the forest, leaving two individuals to guard the entrance.

“Come on, that’s the only invitation we’re going to get. Do as I do.” Stopping a meter from the woman, Yetic bows.

Olin and I do the same.

“As much as I’m grateful for our arrangement, I hope our next meeting is our last under these conditions.” Yetic is both cordial and gruff.

“And I hope Masa doesn’t do to you what it’s done to so many others.” The woman glances at me. “You know the way. Go.”

Yetic jogs into the mouth of the cave with Olin on his heels.

I hesitate a moment longer. I want to ask the woman how she got here—who she is. Somehow I feel her answers to be critical in discovering answers for myself. But the telekinetic energy licking every surface of her skin, similar to the shimmering of the shield wall, tells me she’d just as soon disintegrate me than answer unwanted questions.

I sprint to catch up with Yetic and Olin as they reach the dark recess of the cave. Without knowing anything else about the mysterious woman, I know she managed to defeat the system despite everything being stacked against her. That much, I have to respect.