Those Beyond the Wall (The Space Between Worlds #2)

by Micaiah Johnson

So if you also sense an undercurrent of rage in this novel, you are not wrong. But it is not bitterness. Bitterness is anger with nowhere to go. Bitterness and resignation are close and tempting cousins. Anger with a target is Rage, and Rage is sister to Hope alone. We rage because we do believe things can be better, by fire if necessary. Science fiction is an expression born from dissatisfaction with where the world is versus where the world could be. The same is true for protest. Science fiction is fueled by dreams of a different, but possible, future. The same is true for Rage. While bitterness is an isolator, a repellent to community, Rage is a beacon calling out to others. It is as much a communal invitation as any bonfire. Come join me, Rage says, at this spark that is lit by the distance between what the world is, and what we could make it. If you read this novel, which is like but also very unlike my own experience, and feel that fiery undercurrent, please know it for the call it is. The night is long and dark, Rage says, but I will keep us warm.

When the urge to ruin his peace gets too tempting, I remind myself not to be selfish; I remind myself that wanting to shift someone else’s boundaries is a burden and a threat, not a gift or a compliment.

If I walk around geared up and punch someone in the face, I expect them to fight back. I’m not looking to lock them up for the most sensible of reactions. They wanted to beat us bloody, and then arrest for “assault” anyone who kicked dirt in their direction. They wanted to look like, be armed like, and act like a gang, but get treated with respect by the very people they terrorized. You don’t get to have your bloodthirst and your city key, too.

Fire 🔥

But his death became a story. It had been seen and heard and shared by so many of us that we began to whisper his name across the sand. Every mouth changed the story’s shape a little: He was crying. No, he was stoic. No, he begged for mercy. No, he said, Do your worst. He fought to the end. Or his hands were tied. They came at him from behind and he never saw it coming. They came at him from the front and he stood his ground. With his last breath he called for his mother. With his last breath he called for god. With his last breath he called for vengeance. Or he called for nothing with his last breath, because he didn’t have one. He couldn’t breathe, and his last words were just one more thing stolen from him. It didn’t matter which version was true. They were all real. Stories should never be believed, but they should always be trusted.

It didn’t matter which version was true. They were all real. Stories should never be believed, but they should always be trusted.

When they didn’t deliver the killer up for charges they weren’t saying, He didn’t do it. They were saying, He was allowed to.

I hit her with the full force of my glare, but she just glares right back. Her eyes are too dark, not dark brown like everyone else’s, but like the empty black of a place light can’t live. Too late, I realize it’s a trap. Those eyes are tar, and I’m sure even if I tried to look away I would be held in them. Maybe it’s just the stripes on her face. They make her appear otherworldly so my eyes are playing tricks. Just a trick…but I still can’t look away. “You would be surprised,” Esther says, making Cara look at her, which frees me. I look around, but no one else seems to have noticed that Cara is clearly a fucking witch.

“Oh wow. Killing a bunch of innocent dops so that some rich assholes can come over? What kind of sadistic monster would do that?” Cara says, leveling a glare at Adam that tells stories. “My way was one human killing another. That is as natural as the sun rising. I never planned to weaponize the backlash.” “Only because you didn’t figure out how,” Cara says. Her tone leaves room for zero doubt, and Adam’s Well, true shrug confirms it.

own bodies,” I say. “You think someone from another world could just slip into ours assuming a previous identity, and no one would notice?” Cheeks asks. Adam’s chuckle is low, dark, and entirely out of place in the conversation. “I don’t know, Cara, do you think such a wild thing could even be possible? ‘What kind of sadistic monster would do that?’ ” “Fuck off,” she says, then turns to Nik Nik. “You may want to send a team.”

Stories are powerful, and none are more powerful than the ones you let others tell you about yourself.

“You want to go with him?” Her eyebrows rise, surprised by the question. “No,” she says, and it’s not even heavy. “You go. I’m not the one who can help him.” I can’t tell if she means Esther is the sister who could help him, or I am the one out of the two of us that could help him, or—most impossible but feeling the most true—she’s not the Cara that can help him.

“I know a little about that,” I say. “Exlee says jealousy is a poison you make for others but drink yourself.”

You can’t solve any craving for excess by stopping the act. You’ve got to solve what made them need, which is a separate thing entirely. Need can make any act harmful. Even love.

When I pull up to the nightfire I have to park three rows back. I swear every runner not on shift right now is here. It’s an eternal burn located just outside of the Rurals, where runners come for precisely one reason. The crime of hitting on someone just trying to do their job still stands on the clock, but here approach is fair game.

“Yeah,” she says, a single word summing up that dark bit of history. “Those ones. I inherited the profit from his shares, and I’d like to give it back. I don’t want to sit on apartheid money.” My shock must show on my face, because she reads it instantly. “We’re not all oblivious monsters.” “No, I just…I didn’t know you guys were using that word for this.” “It fits,” she says.

“It feels good to criticize others into the ground when we are right and we know they are wrong. But it’s not good, it’s righteous, and the two seldom have anything to do with each other.”

“Yeah, one thing,” Cheeks says, stepping into the alley. “What?” He grabs my shoulders. “Can’t let you do it.” I don’t have time to process. He uses my surprise to shove me back behind the holographic image of the alley. “Hold her!” Cheeks yells, and it’s an order. I collide with Cross, who wraps one arm around my waist while the other is a bar across my chest, as Cheeks runs out into the street. A pack of black follows after him like a rabid hunt. I try to lunge forward, just like he knew I would, but Cross holds me firm. I don’t know I’m screaming until he claps a hand over my mouth. Cross’s whispered “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I’m sorry. I’ve got you. I’m sorry,” is a rush of air against my neck, but all I can hear is Cheeks, sitting on his couch, looking over at me. This is the best part. I have never, not once, believed someone like Cheeks could really care about someone like me. In the smallest part of my mind, the part where I am an unwanted child wrist-deep in other people’s blood, I’ve never believed I was worthy of our friendship. Only now, now in this moment that is far too late, do I believe. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear I hear every step Cheeks takes away from me. I swear I can hear him laughing as he hits the ground.

“So you’re the one who taught her to walk like a ghost,” I say, not turning my head to face Dell, though I watch her from the corner of my eye. In one hand she has a weapon, in the other she has a portable perimeter scan. It must have alerted her the second I stepped onto the property. I know for damn sure I didn’t trip any lasers, so she must have the fancy satellite version, because of course she would. Dell lowers her stunner, and I see her smile for the first time. “You greatly misunderstand her nature if you think I could teach her anything.” There’s so much love in her voice, it’s not even a criticism. It’s awe.

At first it’s like she doesn’t understand my question. “I’ve had years of Cara leaving me behind on this earth. I don’t think I could survive it again.” She walks inside the house, but I stay standing long enough to watch a bright change come over Cara’s face when Dell walks in. I’ve never seen her look like that. I’ve certainly never seen anyone look at me that way. In that look, I have my answer.

You’d think I’d be getting better at watching it, but every time it’s worse. It’s worse because I know these aren’t dreams. These are worlds. This isn’t fantasy; it’s reality. Even worse, soon it will be history. We’ll all just be so much history. It’s already happened on other earths, and in other places on this earth. Civilizations once strong wiped out by those greedier, more religious, more self-entitled. Inventions uninvented. Poetry, not just unwritten, but the very words that would have made it up lost forever, the very tongue it was written in cut out and excised from reality. Nik Nik used to tell me these stories, the fallen empires. Places that had plumbing and sewers and writing before anyone else, but they were nonviolent, so they were killed by hordes who called them heretics and shit in their water basins and used the sewer for food storage because they didn’t know what it was. I know that it happened; I just didn’t think I would ever see Ashtown turned into deadland, turned into museum fodder. And I have no doubt that if I look far enough into the future, Wiley will have whole exhibits about the people we used to be. Their kids will dress up as us for school projects. Their eccentric artists will take names that sound like ours and say stupid shit like Spiritually I am an Ashtowner.

The mayor asked if we wanted her to open the doors. No, that’s what Cara would have wanted. We want them to no longer have doors to open. — That night in his room when my brother told me the plan, he said it like it was his own, but I recognized Adam’s fingerprints around the edges. The city thought we were making a treaty for Ashtown protection in exchange for Adam infusing the barsamin into the atmosphere. But we weren’t. We were getting access to the atmosphere so we would never have to ask for anything again. We knew the city would reject us, knew there would need to be a battle outside, but there’s a reason there were no civilians with our caravan. We didn’t come to win the fight. We didn’t even come to get into the city walls. We came to distract them while we took those walls down. The influx of names on the tunnel logs weren’t there because runners thought the walls would keep them safe. Runners were on the log because they were saying goodbye to the walls their ancestors carved while they laid out the stockpiled explosives to bring them down. They won’t be able to keep us out anymore, but they won’t be able to keep their artificial atmosphere in either. Without the ring keeping the field concentrated, and with Adam increasing its potency to extend its distance, the artificial atmospheric field will radiate out, providing a shade umbrella for miles and miles. Yes, we’ll get to benefit from the barsamin shielding us from other worlds, but we’ll also get Wiley’s arti...