Inner City

  Chapter 10

  After breakfast the next morning Callen sat near the well playing a childish game he’d devised to pass the time. It involved the well wall and some pebbles he’d collected; the game made little sense. The main gates opened and Lien entered on horseback. Callen moved away quickly, never looking to see if Lien had spotted him. He walked a straight line to the dorm hall entrance.

  Callen was lying nervously on his bed, terrified someone may have seen or heard Eve and him together and reported back to Lien. Two young guards came for him.

  “Lien wants to see you,” they said, standing, waiting, making it clear they meant now.

  “Yeah?” Callen said, stalling. “Did he say what about?”

  “Get up,” the taller of the two guards said with little patience. Callen got up and walked with them; when they reached Lien’s door, one of the guards politely knocked.

  “Come in,” Lien called from inside. The guard opened the door and motioned Callen in. He entered apprehensively.

  “I’m taking you outside the camp,” Lien said. Callen looked to Lien, frozen with fear.

  “Why?” he asked cautiously.

  “Don’t ask questions.”

  “Whatever you’ve heard, we can work it out here,” Callen said. “You don’t have to take me out of the camp.”

  Lien looked at him with confusion.

  “The Elders want to see you.”

  “The Elders?” Callen relaxed slightly. “Will I be coming back?”

  “They haven’t decided. They want to talk with you. Eve’s asked if she could come with us. I told her I’d let you decide.”

  “Eve?” Callen asked, now certain Lien hadn’t been told about their time together. “Whatever you think is best,” Callen said, not wanting to give his true feelings about having Eve with them away. Lien explained the journey to the Elders would take them over a day and would introduce Callen to more of the Outlocked land than any free city dweller had ever seen. They would leave after breakfast. Callen would not be allowed to fraternise with others along the way, and he’d have to obey everything Lien asked of him without question.

  “I’ll be carrying a gun,” Lien added. Callen swallowed hard.

  Breakfast came and went. Callen walked to his dorm and saw Eve saddling three horses as he passed. He wanted to go to her, but in the middle of camp, with every eye on them, he thought better of it.

  When Callen was called to join Lien and Eve, he found them with the horses. Lien was packing the last of his gear, a fishing rod, in case he had the opportunity to indulge in one of his passions. He and Eve mounted their horses with an ease that comes from years in the saddle. Callen looked at the large animal with trepidation. Having watched Lien and Eve mount, Callen tried to copy. He placed a foot in the stirrup and squeaked the leather saddle as he pulled himself up. He sat high, looking uncomfortable as the three passed through the gates of the camp. Lien and Eve rocked with the motion of their horses, while Callen bumped and bounced with every step. For him, the next few days would be one of the most painful experiences of his life.

  Eve and Callen kept their distance for the first few hours. They stole glances and joined heartily in conversations initiated by Lien, but hardly dared talk alone; when they did, their conversations were forced and trivial. Lien assumed Eve was still wary of Callen. She’d been warned since she was old enough to understand about the threat posed by the city and its inhabitants. Finally, Lien absent-mindedly rode ahead and Callen and Eve were able to have their first real conversation since they were alone in Eve’s room the night before.

  “You couldn’t tell me about this?”

  “I didn’t know. I had to beg him to let me come. I thought the Elders would make their decision and he’d come back and tell you.”

  “Does he know about us?” Callen asked.

  “No.”

  “Then why did he tell me he had a gun?”

  “He likes shooting things,” Eve said. Callen’s eyes grew wide. Eve read his fear.

  “Rabbits, not people,” she assured. Callen thought this over, then whispered, “This is why we have simulators.”

  Eve couldn’t help but laugh.

  Almost three hours into the ride Callen’s rear couldn’t take any more punishment. He stopped, in a clumsy manner and dismounted quickly and then ran around for a few steps rubbing his bum. It took Eve a moment to realise what he was doing.

  “This horse hates me,” he said as he walked stiffly, leading his horse, trying to get feeling back in his glutes and upper thighs. Lien noticed Callen walking and quickly trotted his horse back to him.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Numb bum,” Eve said. “First time on a horse.”

  “You have to move your hips,” Lien tutored, “like you’re having sex. You do know how that’s done, right?”

  Eve let go a burst of shocked laughter, covering her mouth to catch and halt her laughter. Callen’s expression froze. For a moment he seemed to be carved in stone.

  “We have a full day’s ride left, and they’ll be waiting for us. So we need to keep moving,” Lien said as he pulled his horse around and rode ahead. Callen glared at Eve who was still trying not to laugh. Callen reluctantly mounted his horse as Eve moved up to ride beside her father.

  “You told me they were advanced. He can’t even sit on a horse,” Eve said.

  “Go easy,” Lien chastised. “He’s got enough worries without you teasing him.”

  Eve smirked, pleased her dad was so oblivious to her feelings.

  “What do you think the Elders will decide?” she asked. Lien shrugged.

  “Could go either way,” he said, turning in his saddle to look back at Callen. Callen awkwardly loped from side to side, still unable to find the rhythm of his horse. Lien let out a sigh, brought his horse around and trotted back to ride alongside. Callen needed a lesson in horse riding.

  “Watch me,” Lien said as he moved his hips with the horse’s steps. “Let your hips go. Loosen up, so they move in time with the horse.”

  Callen watched and listened as Lien tried to coach him. He began to move with the horse, his hips began to roll, and he stopped bouncing up and down in the saddle for the first time since he’d mounted. He was a long way from being competent, but his bruising would get no worse.

  “How’s the city?” Lien asked after they’d ridden side by side for a good distance. Callen wasn’t sure how to answer, not wanting to give away that he knew Lien’s secret.

  “The city’s different to this,” Callen said.

  “I don’t miss the rules or the plastic,” Lien replied, looking at Callen, his intention to shock. Callen did his best to feign surprise.

  “You know the city?”

  “I was eighteen when I escaped my workgroup. I’ve lived here half my life now. In fact next month I will have been here a year longer,” Lien said.

  “You were incarcerated?”

  “For almost six months. I was a student; trying to change the world. I met a young woman. We tried hard to live the way they wanted, but we were young and strong minded. We also thought we were invincible. How would they ever know what we were doing? We were pretending to use the simulators and do everything they wanted, going to a lot of trouble to keep up the show, but they must have had some way to know because they arrested us. We were separated, but I wouldn’t give her up, so they arrested me again. That was that.”

  “You escaped and stayed here?”

  “Escaped and went to war with these people. I held them off for months and then a young Outlocked woman was injured. They left her behind, and I cared for her.”

  “She told you the truth about the Outlocked?”

  Lien smiled to himself remembering.

  “No, she was their best deception. When they can’t scare you home they tie you to this world; they find a reason to make you loyal. The girl they left behind had volunteered.” Lien changed his focus and looked to Eve riding up ahead.

  “That’s my
life up there. She makes me Outlocked.”

  Callen didn’t know what to say. He rode alongside Lien in silence.

  “Which do you like better? Here or the City?” Callen asked when the silence between them grew awkward.

  “Look at her,” Lien said, indicating Eve up ahead with a nod of his head. Eve was riding slowly, in perfect motion with her horse, her hair blown by a light breeze.

  “She’s the only thing in my life that matters, and she’s here, not in the city.”

  Callen turned his face from Lien. He tried to look like he was concentrating on riding, but he wasn’t. He was hiding his blushing face from the father of the girl he was falling in love with.

  It was a perfect day for travelling, white clouds gave relief from the sun, and a light breeze kept them cool. Callen sat gingerly on his saddle and Lien watched him shift uncomfortably every few minutes.

  An hour further and Eve came from well in front at a canter to join them.

  “We’re almost where we first met,” she said brightly. She rode alongside Callen for the next ten minutes as they came around a bend at the top of a cliff. They stopped and looked down to a river below. The same river Callen had camped along when Eve and Ky’s party found and captured him. Eve took delight in recounting the adventure for Lien’s sake. She included every significant moment of their herding Callen to the city border, where he refused to leave the Outlocked world. Callen put up with the ribbing from Eve, but Lien found her teasing troubling. Further on he strode his horse to pull up alongside his daughter.

  “Not like you to take cheap shots like that,” he chided. Eve fought against smiling. Her dad was asking her, in a roundabout way, to be more social with Callen; things couldn’t be going better.

  They moved in silence until midday when they stopped to water horses. It was only the second time they’d stopped all day, and as Eve cared for the animals, Callen got another chance to talk to her alone.

  “What did he say?” Callen asked with concern.

  “To be nicer to you,” she replied with a wicked smirk. Callen was surprised. He looked to Lien, feeling guilty at their deception.

  “Maybe he’s just testing us?” Callen wondered. Eve gave a little laugh.

  “My dad thinks I’m his perfect little girl. Trust me; he’s not testing anything. He has no idea we have something going on.” She paused and looked to Callen in all seriousness.

  “There is something going on, right?”

  Callen nodded far too quickly as he said, “Yeah, of course. Something’s definitely going on.”

  Eve smiled broadly and shooed Callen away. She didn’t want to give her father any reason to suspect anything between them.

  They’d been back on their horses for well over an hour when they came to a fork in the road. Eve took a right, only to be called back by Lien. He pointed her the other way.

  “The dead zone?” she queried.

  “I want to show him.”

  Eve nodded and began to ride down the other of the two tracks.

  “What’s the dead zone,” Callen asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  As they rode along the track, the vegetation thinned. The trees looked spindly and bare. The surrounding growth was sickly and scarce. There were no birds, and an ugly yellow tinge hung overhead. Callen first noticed the smell while riding behind Lien’s horse and thought it came from the mare’s digestion. But in time, unless Lien’s horse had severe problems, the smell was coming from somewhere else. The ground was dead. Life of all kind was missing. Only those insects that thrive in poor conditions remained.

  The track wound its way up a long incline and at the top Callen looked out to see death in every direction. Splintered stumps marked long dead trees; rock slides flowed down slopes without vegetation to hold the earth in place. Dust clung to the lightest breeze. Callen stared at the apocalyptic scene. Far off in the distance, he could see the cause of the devastation. A billowing dirty thick cloud of smoke spewed into the air. It looked as if the ground was giving birth to storm clouds.

  “The exhaust from the city,” Lien said. “They have exhausts in each direction, but this one gets most use because it’s east. The wind usually blows east.”

  “It’s killed everything,” Callen said in quiet disbelief.

  “I thought you’d like to know.” Lien began to move again across the dead land. They kept well away from the city’s exhaust, but they couldn’t escape the pungent smell or taste that permeated every pore. As they drew to the closest point, Eve and Lien brought damp cloth to their faces and tied it off. Lien rode back to Callen and handed him a similar piece of torn cloth and instructed him to wet it and secure it over his mouth and nose.

  “You’ll be more sensitive to this than we are,” Lien warned. It wasn’t long before Callen discovered this for himself. His eyes began to water. He began to cough and feel a roughness in his throat.

  The three rode on, but it was hours before they started seeing signs of new growth. Callen’s tearing eyes took a while to calm down. Lien explained they’d turned away from the breeze carrying the city’s exhausts and soon the land would be back to its best. He began to discuss the ability of nature to regenerate. It was the basis of the Outlocked’s philosophy, allowing nature to lead, instead of trying to alter it to their needs. Lien spoke passionately and at length. In this world, the lifespan was an average of around seventy-five years. To extend it on mass would take greater resources than the land could manage. The Outlocked held life to be sacred, and so to death, naturally occurring rather than delayed.

  “A generation’s worth is judged by actions of the next. That’s the only way to place a value on life. In this world, there aren’t many regulations that don’t work alongside the natural laws. When the Elders decide a complicated issue, it’s to the natural world they look to for guidance.”

  Callen nodded in understanding. These were simple principles, but they made perfect sense. Lien made it clear the past was still looked to and studied, even used as a guide, but the Outlocked had learned to control people’s behaviour made life too regulated to enjoy. Everything Lien said struck a chord with Callen. Lien was pleased, he was trying, without Callen realising, to help him make a good showing with the Elders.

  As the afternoon stretched on the sun lost its bite. The track grew wider, surrounded by tall, healthy trees. From the exhaust outlet to the east, for many days ride, the pollution killed the landscape. Away from the corridor of chemical erosion, nature was putting up a valiant fight to go unaffected. Callen found the transformation incredible and felt ashamed that his world’s waste had caused so much damage. He rode in silence, trying to reconcile the environmental vandalism. It wasn’t something he could do.

  A young girl ran towards them and broke their quiet, peaceful ride. She was in tears and waving her arms. Lien galloped to her. Eve was close behind. By the time Callen arrived, Lien was already rearranging his horse for a faster ride. He handed Eve his supplies to lighten his load. The girl’s family had a farm in an isolated area. For those who succeeded, the rewards were enormous, but it meant taking risks. The girl’s father had been creating a dugout home. As he worked to reinforce the cavity, it collapsed. With few people nearby the girl had run for the nearest road and was desperate for help. Lien hoped he’d be in time. He put his hand out for the girl and swung her onto his horse.

  “Go to Sheepyard Flats; we’ll camp there tonight. I don’t know how long I’ll be, but I’ll meet you when I’m done.” Lien wielded his horse around and rode off at a gallop with the girl grimly hanging on behind him.

  Callen and Eve were finally alone and away from Lien’s glare. The sun was an hour from setting on what had been a warm day. Eve knew the spot Lien had chosen to camp. She and her father had stopped there before. She brought her horse up close and leant across to kiss Callen. She was sure he’d like the campsite, explaining with a devilish grin, her father would be away for some time. Callen followed Eve at a canter; suddenly his bruises d
idn’t seem to bother him.

  Through a clearing Callen could see the river. Trees seemed to defy gravity as they grew from steep hills. The smooth river rocks lined the banks and waters swirled around a hairpin bend leaving a rocky outcrop all but cut off from the surrounding land. Their campsite for the night was a large flat piece of ground created by a bend in the river. Callen was impressed by the beauty around him. They guided their horses down a narrow track carved into the side of the hill by thousands of hoofs before them. Eve’s horse seemed surer as she made her way to the bottom quickly. She stopped and looked back to Callen.

  Eve was unpacking supplies when Callen arrived. Together they watered and fed the horses before setting up a simple windbreak with a piece of canvas that Eve carried. They gathered dried wood and Eve made a fire. She had it going within minutes. There was little left to do, and Callen was looking forward to relaxing after a long day in the saddle. Eve had other ideas and began a slow, seductive striptease.

  “What if your dad comes back?” Callen half-heartedly cautioned, hoping she’d be able to reassure him and continue.

  “He’ll be hours,” Eve cooed, as she dropped her pants and slid her briefs down her legs to her ankles.

  “Besides, it’ll be dark soon, so we’ll hear him before he sees anything.” She kicked her panties away. Now she was naked and any thought Callen had of being cautious disappeared. He went to her, sliding his hand down her side.

  “I’m going swimming, and I’m not going alone,” she said playfully, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him to the river’s edge. Callen wrenched his hand away and began to shuck his clothes like they were on fire. Eve giggled, as she climbed a stairway of large rocks, ending on the highest, almost a metre above the water. With a graceful dive, she disappeared into the large waterhole created by the swirling currents at the bend in the river. She surfaced with a shout, caught her breath and then waved for Callen to join her. Callen flicked his underwear down his legs and then flicked away with a foot. His shoes and socks lay on rocks ten feet apart. His top and pants formed a path heading to the boulder. Naked, he climbed to the highest rock, stood to choose an entry in the water and with a scream, jumped as far out as he could, bombing into the clear swirling water. He surfaced with a roar.

  “It’s freezing,” he screamed, flaying his arms around and trying to expel the cold from his body.

  “It comes from the mountains,” Eve said. It took Callen a few seconds of hard exhaling to come to terms with the chill. Eve dived under the surface and emerged in front of him, her skin touching his.

  “I’ll warm you up,” she whispered close. Giggles began, then playful screams let out as the two began a wrestle. They found stillness in the shallows, with the water for a blanket, sharing a passionate kiss. The kiss evolved into more and, still entwined, they came from the shallow water and walked to a particularly flat boulder at the water’s edge. The smooth rock was still radiating heat from the day’s sun. They quickly lost all chill from the water as they lay on the heated surface and made love.

  Above, at the beginning of the trail to the river, Lien sat on his horse. He was a long way from the couple making love on the rocks below, and the light was grainy and dim, but their passionate throws were unmistakable. He sat watching, feeling sick to his stomach, his anger rising as his daughter and this boy from the city revealed their true feelings for each other and their lies to him.

  He wondered how long the relationship had been going on. His mind became clouded as he tried to place past events. He quickly realised they’d played him for a fool. Whatever sympathy Lien held for Callen vanished.