Hugh Howey: Molly Fyde and the Land of Light

It was nighttime on the frontier side of Lok. Molly brought her ship down through the atmosphere, descending toward the darkness of her abandoned, childhood village. She leaned forward to get a better visual through the carboglass, disturbing the Wadi in her lap. It flicked its tail, claws skittering on the polished plate that moments ago had held Molly’s leftover lasagna.

SEE?_ Her mother typed.

Molly checked the SADAR; a ship the size of a Firehawk sat right outside the commons. Cole had beaten her there. She didn’t take her hands off the flight controls to respond to her mother, but she thought about the red band in her chest pocket, considered popping off her helmet to try it out, to see if she could contact him. Instead, she focused on a soft arrival, pointing her thrusters away from the other ship and using the old commons as a landing pad.

Parsona settled to the dew-covered grass. Her belly opened, the cargo hatch lowering to the soft soil.

Molly popped her helmet off and set it on the rack. “Don’t touch anything,” she told Walter. “I’ll be right back.” She stroked the Wadi on the head and moved the creature from her lap to the back of the chair. Peering into her water bowl, she made sure it was topped up, then headed through the bowels of her ship and out into the crisp night.

Byrne had his hands on her immediately.

Molly tried to scream, but cold, bony fingers covered her mouth. She struggled against his arms, but they were unnaturally strong; they pinned her against his body in a vise-like grip, her feet dangling in the air. The flashlight fell from her hands and banged against the cargo ramp; it rolled into the grass, its beam snuffed out by the unkempt length of the dry blades.

Thin lips came down to her ear, brushing against them.

“You’ve been expected ,” Byrne whispered, his words close, yet no hint of breath puffed against her cheek. Molly reached back to claw at his face, but he just tucked her under one arm as he keyed the cargo door closed. When the ramp sealed, he struck the control panel with his bare fist, demolishing it completely and denting the hull around it.

Molly kicked her captor physically and herself mentally. She berated herself for not keeping her helmet on so she could warn her mom.

She struggled to take in a breath of air—the way she was being carried forced her to exert energy just to stabilize her body. Her legs hung awkwardly, her spine bent and jolted with pain from each of Byrne’s steps. Even the red band added to her torment, the small lump jabbing into her ribs through her flightsuit pocket. She twisted around and grabbed Byrne’s arm to support her weight—it was like clutching a solid-steel rod.

Just when she thought she’d pass out from the exertion and inability to breathe, Byrne threw her down in a patch of dirt. The area around her glowed in the soft light of a nearby work lamp, and something hummed softly in the distance.

Molly tried to launch herself up, but Byrne grabbed her again and pushed her back to the ground. His fingers dug between the muscles in her neck, squeezing nerves that shot numbness into her arms. The underlying pain made her mouth feel like it was full of metal as her lungs continued to scream for air.

“You seem to have a problem keeping still, don’t you, Mollie Fyde?”

Byrne’s other hand went to her thigh, up near her hip. Fingers as hard and thin as screwdrivers dug deep at her hip socket, grinding against the bone. Molly had never felt such pain before. It wasn’t something she could scream about—that would have required some degree of motor control. Instead, her jaw fell open in shock, her eyes wide with fear. Even the leg he wasn’t gripping vibrated with pain, both flight boots thumping the packed soil. It was an agony on the verge of nothingness, a numbness that could be felt .

Her stomach lurched, then bunched up in knots.

Molly turned her head to the side and threw up her lasagna. She spat, her eyes rolling up in the back of her head as she tried to will herself unconscious. She dreamed of the comforting blackness that usually overtook her in moments of raw shock.

But Byrne’s iron grip held her just over the precipice of consciousness. Her legs continued to tremble uncontrollably from the pain.

When he finally let go, there was nothing Molly could do but relish the feeling of not being tortured. She tried to wipe her chin, but her arm flopped, limp and useless. Byrne remained crouched beside her, looking at her like a specimen of some sort.

“The next time you try and stand up, I’m going to do something very bad to you. Nod if you understand.”

Molly nodded. Once. It was all she could muster. Just moving her eyeballs around to take in her surroundings felt like an accomplishment. She and Byrne were in a small plot of land; tall weeds grew up next to a low brick wall. There was a fireplace at the far edge of the pool of light, a chimney rising from it and up into the black Lokian night. It was the ruined foundation of an old building, all the wood long since ground to dust, carried off by the wind.

Byrne grinned. “Recognize the place?” he asked.

Molly tried to shake her head, but only her eyes moved, rolling back and forth.

“No? You should. We had tea in this very room back on Dakura. This is the little hell your mother chose for her eternity.” He laughed. “Eternity! She didn’t last another twenty years, thanks to you.”

“Din’t kill ’er,” Molly slurred.

“Even worse. You had one of your cronies do it, didn’t you? Just like Lucin. Tell me, where are you getting your information? I know it isn’t from your father. And there’s not an inch of that ship I haven’t inspected. So I’m curious—how did you know to go to Dakura, and just what do you know about this place?”

A weak smile was all she could pull off. Byrne’s hand came to her knee and started sliding up her thigh. Molly could feel the pain, like a memory, even though his fingers hadn’t returned to the right spot yet. Her leg went numb in anticipation and she tried to slide her pelvis out of the way—but it didn’t budge.

“WALTER?”

His name boomed through Parsona, scaring the hell out of him. He froze, then quickly slid Cole’s things from the top of the human’s dresser and back into the drawer. He pushed it closed as quietly as he could and peeked out the door—up, then down the hallway.

“Hello?”

It may have been his imagination, but he thought the camera in the corner of the cargo bay moved slightly. “Hello?” he asked again. “Where are you?”

The voice boomed down the length of the ship:

“COME TO THE COCKPIT.”

Walter had the sudden urge to do the very opposite. He looked the other way, to the laz, then back up the shaft of the ship. The Wadi’s head peeked around the corner from the back of Molly’s seat.

Its tongue flicked out.

“What if I don’t wanna?!” he yelled to the Wadi.

The creature’s head pulled back.

Walter crept up through the cargo bay; he glanced at the portholes, which showed nothing but pitch black outside. He wondered if he was about to get in trouble for looting Cole’s room. He cautiously entered the cockpit, which hadn’t changed since he left it. The Wadi flicked her tongue out at Walter, tasting the air.

“You have a very loud voicse,” he told the Wadi.

The voice boomed in response, filling the cockpit: “HIT THE BUTTON MARKED ‘MIC’ ON THE RADIO. IT’S THE PANEL BESIDE THE LOUD HAILER, AND RIGHT NEXT TO—”

Walter flicked it before the voice could complete the sentence. “I know where the radio iss,” he hissed.

“There you are,” the lady said, in a more sensible volume. “I need your help.”