During the walk, I tried to use my other senses to figure out where we were. A few birds tweeted nearby. Thanks to my foster parents, I could identify most North American bird species by both sight and sound. Two particular calls stood out—the whistling song of a yellow warbler and the raspy mew of a gray catbird. Not super helpful, since neither were local to any specific state or region. The only thing I could guess from those birds was that we hadn’t gone too far south, since they tended to stay north at this time of year.
The scents of wet earth and pine also hinted at north or west, maybe Pennsylvania or West Virginia, possibly southwestern New York. Something else was in the air, an unfamiliar scent both metallic and oily that I couldn’t pin down.
After about thirty paces, Landon stopped. “The trail is pretty wide here. No plants or anything, so don’t worry about poison ivy. You have two minutes.”
He pulled away, and I stood there in the dark as his footsteps moved back in the direction we’d come. Thatcher’s hand stayed on my shoulder another few seconds, and then pulled away.
“I’ll back up a few steps and give you some space,” he said.
“Your son is an asshole.”
He didn’t disagree.
The final leg of the drive didn’t last nearly as long as the first, but it was significantly more twisty. Twice, sharp turns sent me sideways into Thatcher’s shoulder, and he hit me once. I was about to complain about Landon’s lack of driving skills when the road changed from pavement to gravel. The gravel turned into a thump- thump-thump, as if we’d just crossed a wooden bridge, and then became gravel again. Landon slowed to a near- crawl.
“You can remove the blindfolds,” he said. “We’re here.”
I yanked off the offending strip of fabric and blinked hard against the sunshine. My eyeballs ached from the bright assault, and I squinted out the window at our mysterious destination.
We were in a valley somewhere in the mountains, which rose up all around us in peaks of green and brown. A town right out of a history book sprawled out in the valley, a postapocalyptic blend of Old West mining town and Great Depression shantytown. Wooden buildings at least a hundred and fifty years old stood next to newly constructed shacks. The vehicles parked in driveways and along the roads were old, patched, most of them sport utilities, pickup trucks, or work vans of some nature. Everything seemed to be covered in a fine mist of gray.
Curious faces peeked out of windows, and a few folks stepped onto porches to observe the new vehicle rumbling down what appeared to be their Main Street (such as it was). No one tried to stop us, but no one seemed eager to come up and say hello. Landon kept driving at his snail’s pace, past more homes and business fronts converted into homes. I saw no restaurants, no stores, no churches or communal gathering places—until we got to what looked like a park. It was filled with mismatched picnic tables, a few charcoal grills, and a planted garden that reminded me of the pictures I’d seen of the garden in Manhattan. On the edge of the park was a small brick building. The word MUNICIPAL had been crossed out and STORE painted over it.
“This is one of the towns we deliver to,” Landon said. He parked near the store and turned off the engine. “The town leaders do their best to get legitimate food deliveries up here, but without us, the eleven hundred people who live here would have starved to death a long time ago.”
He climbed out. Thatcher and I glanced at each other before we followed. We met him by the bumper of the Sport. The air here was cooler and had a nose-tingling sharpness to it that made me want to sneeze. I squeezed the bridge of my nose and that only made my eyes water.
“Twenty years ago, this was one of the last thriving mining towns in this part of the state. Clean energy regulations had shut down half a dozen other mines, so those families moved here looking for work. And then this mine was shut down and no one had jobs. Some folks moved away, but others were sixth-generation miners. They didn’t want to leave, not even when other businesses closed and the chains refused to put a store in any closer than forty miles away.
“State and local governments were so busy with the Meta War they didn’t have time for saving these small towns. They still don’t. They want everyone in cities where they can control what they eat, where they work, and how they live their lives. It’s why people like Bethany and me do what we do.”
A small crowd had gathered in Main Street, watching us from a distance. I didn’t sense any hostility from them, despite the fact that we were strangers (and I was probably the first blue person they’d ever seen). More than anything, the mix of faces seemed curious—not to mention happy to see Landon. They gradually inched forward, like a nervous crowd unsure how to welcome home a returning hero because he’d brought back an unexpected companion. Or two.
“Everything here is shared,” Landon continued. “Labor, clothing, supplies, food, it’s all communal. They take turns working in the garden. Some folks hunt and fish, others gather edibles from the mountains. No one hoards. No one steals.”
“Who enforces that?” Thatcher asked.
“There is a five-person council that changes every six months. Names are drawn from a lottery of everyone over the age of twenty-five. There’s an official town charter that establishes certain rules, but the council doles out punishments when necessary.”
Something cold raked down my spine. “Punishments?” I asked.
Landon nodded. “Rule breakers aren’t given a slap on the wrist and community service, Flex. The only way a community like this can survive is if everyone follows the rules. Punishments are rare because they are effective deterrents.”
The crowd was still out of earshot, but they continued moving closer and growing in number.
“So what happens if someone steals a loaf of bread?”
“The last time that happened was about a year ago.”
“And?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “They broke both of her hands.”
My insides twisted up tight, and I balled my own hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “Are you serious?”
“Completely serious. What do you think they should have done? Fine her? No one here has any money. And no one else has tried to steal a single scrap of food since.”
“Hell, why didn’t they just stone her in the town square?”
Landon looked at me like I was nuts, and I kind of wanted to punch him in the mouth. Actually, I’d wanted to punch him for hours now and the urge continued to grow. “How old was she?”
“Fifteen.”
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes as I was assaulted by mental images of a teenage girl having her hands broken by people in authority, people in a position to help or harm as they saw fit. I wanted to cry and scream and stamp my feet in protest of the horrible thing done to her.
Were all small, cut-off communities like this? Were they all led by people willing to harm children in order to protect what they saw as the status quo? Ever since my rescue by the Rangers, I’d lived in cities and sprawling suburban areas. My foster parents had lived in a lovely community with access to so many wonderful people, and it had never felt insulated. Not like this little mining town, and not like the compound I’d grown up in.
Someone’s hand closed around the back of my neck, a gentle and warm touch. I didn’t look, but I knew it was Thatcher, and I didn’t pull away.
“Landon?”
The stranger’s voice made my head snap up. Thatcher’s hand fell away, but he stayed close. A tall, thin woman with graying hair approached us. Her sharp face was chiseled by hardship and lined by worry, but she carried herself with the confidence of royalty. A man shadowed her, shorter but just as thin, his advanced age impossible to guess. They both eyeballed me and Thatcher like we’d just cut wind and forgot to excuse ourselves.
Landon shook both of their hands. “This is Renee Duvall and Derek Thatcher,” he said. Then to us, “Darlene Woods and Artie Cavendish, two of the town’s council members.”
We all exchanged polite handshakes.
“I’ve heard of you,” Darlene said to me. “You were one of those Ranger children.”
