The Neo-Spartans: Altered World (8 page)

              “You know, just say it. Let’s be done with it. Yell, scream, tell me it’s all my fault, tell me I’m a moron…”

              “No, it’s OK. It’s not all your fault. We both screwed up. Fighting in the Triffid Forest. What was I thinking?”

              “Oh, no, no, no. You’re not going to make this your fault and heroically suffer for days,” said Gabriel.

              Quinn reached deep, trying to grab onto the patience that was quickly slipping away.

              “Just listen! I’m trying to say something here. I’m trying to tell you that what you did… it’s OK. What you said to me, I get it… you needed to do it.”

              Gabriel didn’t like the sound of this. Her words, her calm forgiveness lit a match and threw it at his mistrust.

              “To hell with your forgiveness. Look around, nobody’s here to applaud, Quinn.”             

              “I understand why you want to hurt me. Yes, I try hard for approval. But I do it for you, Gabriel. You have so much potential. And it is hard. It’s hard for both of us.”

              “What the heck, Quinn? Did you sign up for
Messed-up Siblings Weekly
? You can take this psych crap and choke on it. It’s not hard for me, not at all. Comes naturally. You don’t have to pretend. You got the short end of the stick, the idiot brother to take care of. Every day you have to get up and look at me, deal with me, be reminded of what life could’ve been if I were never born.”

              His words slapped her across her face.

              “Truth is stunning, isn’t it? Admit it, Quinn. I’m the damned kid that took away your mom and it’s killing you,” he continued.

              “Gabriel, no, don’t say that!”

              “Come on, you loved her so much. You were her girl. And she got pregnant with this thing and went ahead and died. You hated that glob that came out of her. You hate him now. You wish I was never born. I don’t blame you. I would’ve hated me too.”

              His flaring anger couldn’t disguise his pain any more. He must have lived with it all these years. How could she have missed it? The path of destruction he was on—it all made sense now. For the first time in so many years, Quinn really felt for him.

              “Gabriel, you didn’t kill Mom. Don’t ever think that. She wanted you so much, and if the hospital hadn’t turned her away…”

              Words and tears got stuck in her throat. The memory of her mother, Rose, bleeding on the street, was still vivid in Quinn’s memory. She had been only four years old, she shouldn’t remember any of it. And yet she did and she hated it.

              “Look at me, Gabriel. You have to believe me. If I blame anybody it’s the Eugenics.”

              Gabriel didn’t want to look at his sister. He didn’t want to be let off the hook.

              “You hate the Eugenics. Right. What about your friend? By-the-book Quinn broke every Neo-Spartan law to help that Eugenic Celeste woman. You hit a wall, you run to her. Crap gets too big and threatens to swallow you, you run to her. I bet that’s where you were before you came here.”

              “I wasn’t!” Quinn didn’t know why she lied. She felt she had to.

              “I can smell it on you. It’s that posh smell. Perfume and tasty junk food.”

              “What are you, the nose now?” Quinn tried to distract him but it didn’t work. He was on a collision course with her and nothing was going to distract him.

              “She makes everything alright. She told you not to be a hard-ass with your screwed-up little brother. She fed you all this nonsense that whatever I do is OK, didn’t she?”

              Quinn remained silent. She found it hard when Gabriel was so painfully perceptive.

              “You don’t want to be saddled with me. Yeah, Neo-Spartan life is hard, but yours is twice as hard because you have to deal with me. I ruin everything for you, Quinn. I killed Mom, Dad died because of me…

              “Gabriel, stop. Why are you doing this? You have nothing to do with what happened to Dad.”

              “Yeah, right. You could’ve been with him and fought with him, helped him. Instead he went alone and left you here with me. To protect me, to protect the stupid gift I have. I’m nothing but a tongue, nothing. Nobody would know what Gabriel was if it wasn’t for the damn tongue. And they don’t really need it. Everybody would be better off if I simply disappeared.”

              He slammed the bedroom door shut in her face. Quinn tried to get in, but felt Gabriel leaning on it.

              “Gabriel, Gabriel, open up. Please. Don’t say things like that. You know it’s not true. I need you. I don’t care about your tongue. Honestly, I do wish you didn’t have the gift, but you’re my brother. As difficult as you are, as annoying as you are, you’re still my little brother. You’re the only family I have… and I love you.”

              Quinn laid some force into the door and this time it gave. The window was open. Gabriel was gone.

CHAPTER NINE

              Gabriel had spent the whole night out before, but it had never been cold like this. It didn’t figure, thought Gabriel: lots of times the linoleum floor of the old elevated train ticket booth had been plenty warm. He’d been glad for the wind that swept through the cracks. It used to be hot! Not this night. He hadn’t slept for beans; he was hungry and stiff.

              He stepped into the morning light and the memory of the argument with his sister hit him like the news of an F on a test he figured he’d aced. No wonder he was worn out. Having Quinn as a sister, living up to her expectations—it would have crippled anybody. Why couldn’t they all just let him be? Yeah, his tongue was different, so what? He hadn’t asked for it. Anyway, it was just an allergy, Kilbert said, so why should they treat him differently? Gabriel’s jaw clenched. He heard Quinn in his head telling him not to clench, and he screamed from so far down deep it surprised even him.

              Man, he was hungry. He shook out his thoughts and looked for something to eat. He found some berries on some prickly bushes, tested them—being the Neo-Spartan’s tongue did have some advantages—discovered they were okay and wolfed them down.

              Energized, he vaulted his way onto an electrical relay box and used it to catapult himself onto a utility pole. He shimmied up it, and pushed onto the third floor of a crumbling apartment building. That got him going. There was nothing like climbing, soaring, and propelling through the air to make him forget all the bad stuff. He looked across the roofs and there, past the railroad tracks of the train depot, were his guys, his Neo-Spartan parkour crowd. Cool, he’d surprise them, and he sprang into action. He got a running start and effortlessly leapt the twenty feet to the neighboring roof. He landed in a tuck and roll to his feet, arose, picked up speed and galloped toward the next gap. He never looked over the edge… if he had he would have seen a Social Defense Force vehicle observing him, the officer inside getting on his radio.

* * *

              Quinn wiped the sweat from her brow and took a heavy breath. The ban from the Triffid Forest had her doing double shifts in every aspect of the Neo-Spartan daily life. She trained martial arts twice as long, tutored twice as many kids, and after all that was done, she lent a hand to every personal farm that was out there. She was exhausted and on edge. The farms were within the city limits and very closely regulated, a shining example of the freedoms still offered to the people. There was always too much for the families to do themselves, and organic food was fractious; if your timing were a little off, or you over-watered, or under-composted you ran the risk of ruining a crop people depended on to live. So not only was it backbreaking, it was mentally taxing. No wandering off into imagining a real life.

              When do we get to live? That’s what I want to know, thought Quinn… but immediately bit her tongue. Truth was, it wasn’t her life that bothered her today, it was her brother. The previous day she’d seen Gabriel in a whole new light. The way he’d pushed her buttons and made her lose control—this wasn’t childish petulance, and it worried her. It had never crossed her mind he might blame himself for their parents’ death. He was convinced she hated him for that. Was he right? Had Gabriel’s typical perceptiveness picked up on something she was completely unaware of? Quinn shook her head vigorously, chasing away even the suggestion of such a possibility. No way! He’s her brother, he’s her only family. Yet, she was always on his case. Maybe she had pushed him too hard. Maybe she had made him feel that way. And if she had, she would never be able to forgive herself. “Watch over him, Quinn,” Declan had said, “Your mom would be proud.” The echo of her father’s voice rattled around her memory. She thought she was doing everything that Declan would’ve done. But maybe this wasn’t what he’d meant. Maybe he’d wanted her to be like Rose, gentle and patient, a safe harbor he could always return to, like the mother Gabriel never had. Oh, boy! Had she screwed up or what!

              The rows of onions in front of her became a complete blur. Her hand dropped the watering can and water gurgled freely, flooding the rows. A few seconds later her instincts kicked in, she snapped to and noticed the damage her emotional moment had caused. Too much water. Dammit! Quinn hurried to add soil and fix the balance of water to seedling. She wiped her eyes, leaving a streak of dirt on her face, and looked out toward the city. She wished she knew where Gabriel was right now.

              A pair of Social Defense Force vehicles slid to a screeching stop at the property, drawing Quinn’s attention. Life wasn’t hard enough, thought Quinn, we’ve got to be hassled by the food police? It certainly wasn’t the first time Quinn had been in the fields when the Hughes forces appeared and harassed some poor family over some infinitesimal infraction. But this was her first personal encounter with Grisner, as his orange head stepped from a squad car and surveyed the area. She knew who he was, of course, as everyone did. Grisner was the Neo-Spartans’ boogie man. But for Quinn he held a significant place.

              Grisner was the one who’d killed her father when a fire had broken out in one of the Neo-Spartan silos. She’d been just twelve when it happened. Quinn would never forget how she’d begged Declan not to go, or at least to let her help him. “Out of the question,” was all he’d said. And looking back, Quinn could see how conflicted he must have been, wanting to let her down easy, but at the same time needing to alienate her enough that she’d stop insisting on helping. But those were the ideas of the grown-up Quinn. At the time, all she’d heard was her father ordering her to stay behind and look after Gabriel, no matter what, the very last thing she’d wanted to hear. Not because it saddled her with the brat from hell, but because she knew she would never see her father again.

              Quinn tried not to look at Grisner as he combed his way among the careful rows of organic plants. He tromped liked a bull through the vegetable patch, casually crushing plant after plant with his heavy booted heel. Quinn observed him and ground her teeth. But when another officer deliberately stomped on a particularly delicate and vulnerable lettuce patch, Quinn found herself racing forward.

              “What did you do that for?! Do you have any idea what it took to get that patch to come around?” she shouted and bent down to upright the plant. “What do you want here? There’s no violation of any kind.”

              “Follow me,” said the Social Defense officer to Quinn. She did so, and the officer led her to a plant at the perimeter of the little farm. He gestured to a healthy, leafy chard whose leaves were wonderfully out of control.

              “This plant is on Hughes property,” said the Social Defense officer.

              “No, this leaf has grown out over Hughes property. The plant itself is just where it’s supposed to be,” countered Quinn.

“It’s in violation. It’s hanging over and is contaminating Eugenics land,” he said calmly. He gestured to others on his team. “Chop it down.”

              “You can’t do that,” said Quinn as she threw herself over the chard.

              “Ah, an arrest for good measure?” It was Grisner, a terrible smile emerging as he loomed over Quinn.

              “You want to arrest me for chard violation? What kind of lunatic are you?” Quinn uttered.

              But instead of striking back, he extended a hand and lifted Quinn off the ground, seeming spellbound. He studied her flowing hair, the turn of her cheek, and fire in her eyes, and for a moment he was wafted away. As she stood up, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.