Ben Chaney - Son of Sedonia

“Listen, buddy, you don’t belong here, you—”

“I know, I KNOW! ‘ Look at that wall ,’ right?! I should’ve… should’ve stayed on my side of the wall…” He heaved up to his feet. Braced himself against the stall bracket. Liani squinted her shining green eyes at him. In an instant, a pack of girls pushed through the door. Liani lunged for the opening and slipped through, leaving Matteo pawing at empty air. He followed her out.

The club had turned on him since he left. Jagged green vines and blooms surrounded him in step with a flurry of electronic notes. He felt his head loll back a few times. Everything was moving too damn fast. He focused on the curly red hair as it bounced away from him. Stopped. He grabbed her by the shoulders.

“The Raid!” Matteo screamed with tears in his eyes, “Whaddyu know ‘bout the Raid!? Can y-y-you take me home?”

She answered him with a frozen, wide-eyed stare. He let her go and hung his head, sobbing heavily. Liani didn’t move.

“Hey, here he is!” One of the bouncers appeared behind her and pointed at Matteo. Liani looked behind the bouncer toward the door. Matteo stood on tiptoes to see, then felt the blood drain from his face. Kabbard!

“Kabbard? What would somebody like him want with—,” she stopped. Matteo plowed through the dance floor, dodging punches, elbows, and flying glassware on the way. Bursting through the back door, he found Corey talking to someone on a glowing display. Almost ran him over.

“What the—! Fuck, man, you don’t know when to give up!” Corey said. Before the door could snap shut, Liani swung it wide, knocking Matteo across the platform. Out cold.

“Oooh… I uh,” she glanced to the door behind her then back to Matteo, “Grab him,” she said, “We’re getting him outta here!”

“What?! Why?”

“Something’s up with him,” Liani said.

“No shit! What does that have to do with us?”

“I—just shut up and help me get him to your van!” Liani threw one of Matteo’s limp arms over her shoulder.

“ My van?!” Corey gaped at Liani. Meeting her angry matron stare, he groaned and stooped under Matteo’s opposite shoulder.

“Fine,” Corey said, “but since this is your change of heart and your idea we’re taking him to your place!”

JOGUN’S STOMACH AND back had ached for the past eight hours. He just wanted to sleep. To lay down and not wake up for at least a full night. But it was still dark when the nausea had roused him. Still dark when he decided to go up to the roof and let the others sleep. Morning had crested over the Sedonia City skyline by the time his feeble legs made it up the gnarled concrete steps. They throbbed with the sensation of a thousand pricking needles.

Two heaves came up dry, then his stomach went dormant. He collapsed back in the aluminum folding chair, staring up at the yellow ripples of dawn. The cheap-shit anti-radiation meds they had rationed to him on Themis had run dry in his veins before they even left. It took this long for his body to realize it was poisoned. Shivering in the morning haze, he pulled the moth-eaten fleece blanket up to his chin and tucked his arms underneath. Tried to breathe deeply. Into the belly like he’d told Matteo so many times.

“Maybe we understand each other better now, little brother,” he said, wheezing into the wind. Sighed a breathless sigh.

It was nice, at least, to be among growing things again. The rooftop garden hadn’t changed much in six years. If anything, it looked healthier. Happier. A strange island of life in a twisted metal ocean of smoking rubble. And the water was about to rise. He could feel it everywhere. Anger, madness, grief, and now…hope. They think I’m that hope . And there would be no stopping the war. Jogun heard Suomo and the others planning it in the rooms around him. Plans that depended on him. Another dry wretch gripped his stomach.

Padded footsteps came up the steps with a swishing of loose fabric. A low-humming tune lilted in the air as the sounds got closer. The corners of Jogun’s mouth creased in an attempted smile.

“I’ve always been a morning person,” said Utu in his half-laughing way. Jogun craned his neck to watch the man weave a path through the rows of leafy fronds. They seemed to nod as he passed carrying a steaming terra cotta bowl. The spiced fragrance of Utu’s chicken broth arrived before the broth itself, triggering a flicker of an appetite. Jogun’s nausea rolled right over it. He slouched back into the chair under the blanket as the doctor stopped next to him. After a waiting a few silent moments, Utu gave a little shrug.

“Hm,” Utu grunted. Placed the soup to the side on a stack of plastic crates. Jogun tried closing his eyes to calm his stomach, but felt a backward spinning sensation. The kind like he’d had after drinking his ass off then smoking up for initiation. An inability to hold onto the floor. He flashed his eyes open, focusing on the first thing he saw. The Border. As his tunnel vision cleared, the anxiety trickled back in. Became a deluge. I can’t do this! I can’t!

“Open up,” Utu said, holding out a pinched finger-full of ground leaf pulp. The fire died a little inside as Jogun focused on the green-black mush. Comprehension came slowly. He wrinkled his nose as he parted his lips only to have them instantly stuffed with pulp. Utu met his shocked glare with a deep, piercing look.

“Chew,” said Utu. The stuff was bitter as hell both on his tongue and in his nose. Cool menthol juice flooded his mouth as he bit down. Utu watched quietly. Jogun bit again. And again. Very slowly, the first effects did their work, calming the shaking in his belly. Utu walked to the roof ledge, interlaced his fingers, and twisted his arms up in a grand stretch. Relaxing, the doctor looked out to the Border. Beyond it.

“Did you know we come from the stars?” Utu asked without turning. Although Jogun just shook his head, Utu seemed to hear him. Continued.

“Not so long ago, some very bright men discovered this. Through study and observation, they traced the smallest pieces of our bodies to the deaths of faraway suns. And not just pieces of us , but of all things. The earth, the sky, the moon,” Utu faced the sky, then back down to earth. “…and the Border. Like us and the suns, nothing made of this…Stuff…seems to last forever. Through time, or the will of other Stuff, it all dies so that new Stuff can be born. Over and over.”

Jogun didn’t follow much of it, but the words had a kind of ring to them. He couldn’t place it.

“That supposed to help me?” Jogun asked, forgetting the numbing mouthful of pulp. A bit of dark green drool dripped on the blanket. Ashamed, he wiped his mouth.

“Nope,” said Utu, “That’s just what is. Keep chewing.”

The two of them waited there in the humid dawn as the sounds of the waking Slums drifted up to them. A distant echo of boards dropping. A baby crying. A dirt bike motor choking and sputtering to life. Then the morning metal-drum song of the Stepstones…the call to prayer for those who wished to pray. Hollow metallic tones bounced gently through the jagged streets and debris mounds.

“Can you feel it?” Utu asked. Jogun breathed a deep, mixed lungful of menthol vapor and the dusty Rasalla perfume. Nodded as he slowly chewed.

“No, fool, the caffeine! It should be coursing through those atrophied muscles of yours by now,” Utu said. Jogun snapped alert. Moving under the blanket, he realized he did feel stronger.

“We’ve got to get you moving as much as possible if we’re going to rebuild,” Utu said. Before Jogun could think about what ‘rebuild’ meant Utu clapped his hands together.