Mutt

  ***

  The world was spinning when he awoke. For a long time, Emery was too disoriented to open his eyes; when at last he did, he saw that it was entirely dark. The others had tried to set up camp; with no tent or sleeping mats, they had simply found another half-standing building and gathered inside it. Emery wondered how they had moved his unconscious body here. Timothy was keeping watch while Lydia and Miren slept next to Emery, all shoulder to shoulder to preserve what warmth they could. Lydia's hand was resting lightly on his chest; Emery disentangled himself and walked to where Timothy was sitting.

  “It's good to see you awake,” Timothy whispered.

  Emery nodded wearily. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “No way of telling,” Timothy said. “It's been dark for hours. My watch is almost up, I think.”

  “Thanks for dragging me here,” Emery said, casting a look around the building. Its walls still careened in a nauseating fashion; Emery wondered when the dizziness would subside. “How was everyone while I was gone?”

  “Green came back to look after us when they wouldn't let him go with you,” Timothy replied. “I guess he's not as selfish as he comes off at first.”

  “He saved my life down there,” Emery said. “Things are rough in the wastes, and only rough people thrive. But I think beneath all the grit and callus, he's a decent man.”

  “Yeah.” The ceiling of their present abode had survived in patches; the spot directly above them still held. Timothy looked at the black sky visible at the far end of the building, where both ceiling and wall had collapsed.

  “It's overcast tonight,” he said. “I don't think we should travel in broad daylight; we look like easy targets right now. But we heard dogs roaming around when we were coming here, and we'll probably have to wait until it's almost dawn to be safe.” The boy who was fast becoming a man exhaled deeply. “Emery, Miren's getting sicker. I don't know how much longer she'll be able to keep moving. And I'm trying my best, but I've felt better, too.”

  “Are we going to make it through the sewers again?” Emery asked.

  “I don't know,” Timothy replied. “Emery…while you were gone, I was thinking about this medicine we're trying to get. You said the medicine to cure our sickness was different than the one to prevent it.”

  Emery nodded hazily.

  “So why do they even have the medicine for curing the sickness, if nobody inside can get sick in the first place?”

  “For bartering,” Emery said. “Timothy, there are people outside Rittenhouse who have access to that medicine, just not people like you or Miren. What do you think people like Three Dogs do if they become sick with what you have? They possess things that people inside want, so the medicine finds its way outside.”

  “But isn't trade with the outside against the law in Rittenhouse?” Timothy asked. “How can they make something if its whole purpose is illegal?”

  A cynical laugh escaped Emery's chest. “When people in power break laws to get what they want, more often than not, everyone turns the other way.”

  Again, Timothy was silent for a long time. “Back when we were planning our first trip out to see the king, I heard Oliver talking to you about Jehovah God. I asked him later, and it sounds like Jehovah God is almost the same as what we call the Spirit Above in New Providence.”

  “I'm not too familiar with the religions out here,” Emery said, “but in my experience, most gods are people's different perspectives on the same thing. Different details, different misconceptions, but they're all looking for a creator, a sustainer.”

  “Do you believe in him?” Timothy asked.

  “Jehovah God?” Emery followed Timothy's gaze into the starless night. “That's not an easy question. I believe in God, certainly, but not the same god most people in Rittenhouse talk about. My God isn't very fond of the way people live their lives in the city. The manuscripts we've managed to recover, the ones that form the doctrine of the Reborn, Jehovah God's religion, are so incomplete and riddled with contradiction that I can never swallow the whole package the way they do. But as muddled as their scriptures are, sometimes you find a verse that glimpses the God I do believe in. 'Again I looked and saw the oppression taking place all around,'” he intoned. “'I saw the tears of the oppressed; their oppressors held all power, and there was no one to comfort them.' Rittenhouse is a machine designed to empower the oppressors. The God I believe in would say something like that about us.”

  “Is that what you want to be?” Timothy said. “The one who comforts the oppressed?”

  Emery shrugged. “Maybe someday it'll get to that point,” he said. “But really, I feel this is the very least I can do. I live in wealth I didn't even earn, while outside Rittenhouse, we don't even know how many people are starving and struggling to survive. Right now, I'm just trying not to be the oppressor anymore.”

  “I guess if everyone thought like that,” Timothy replied, “there wouldn't be oppression anymore.”

  Emery laughed softly. “If everyone in Rittenhouse thought like that, there wouldn't be Rittenhouse anymore, I can tell you that much,” he said. “Honestly, I haven't even found out yet how far I'm willing to go with it myself. Yeah, I can sneak out here and risk my life a couple of times. But when I go home, if we make it home, I return to a sort of comfort people in the wastes have never even seen. If it ever came to me sleeping in a house like this one every night so someone else can eat, I hope I'd be able to take that step, but I don't know.”

  “I hope you're right about God, Emery.” Timothy looked at the girls: Miren was still sleeping; Lydia was stirring to take the watch. “If we want to get back home, we're going to need him on our side.”