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

by Micaiah Johnson

When my agent (the incredible Cameron McClure at Donald Maass, without whom you wouldn’t be reading these words) read the first draft of this manuscript, she said—accurately—“I didn’t realize how angry you were.” Yes, this novel was largely conceived during the sixty-two-day sit-in at Nashville’s Tennessee State Capitol. And yes, this protest produced hundreds of arrests under frivolous charges that dissolved shortly thereafter, and far more instances of brutalization, which proved harder to erase and linger with many of us still. If any faith in institutional justice remained in me—after living in America as a Black person with the misfortune to both study, and live through, historical moments of spectacular racialized violence—my time at The People’s Plaza would have killed it. 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.

Sometimes I want to call him back close again. Tell him there’s no need to worry. Tell him there’s no danger of us being more than friends. Tell him I only miss when we’d touch for the warmth. Tell him he’s just a brother to me, and I’d rather have him as a friend than a lover anyhow. But he probably wouldn’t buy it. Just ’cause it’s a lie and all.

A decade ago some prominent citizen’s body was found in the desert between Wiley and Ash, prompting the city to write a blank check to their enforcement. It didn’t matter that we didn’t kill the man they found outside. It didn’t matter that Wileyites are more likely to kill one another than to be killed by an Ashtowner. They like fixing imaginary problems, and the vote to increase enforcement’s presence at the border was unanimous. Unanimous because, of course, they didn’t ask us.

The city’s enforcement wanted to use all the power-drunk violence they don’t use on their citizens on us in the desert. In the city they were still nice. Polite. Clean-pressed uniforms who’d call you Sir or Ma’am. In the desert they armed themselves like militia and acted like hyenas…which I’d respect if they were honest about it. 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.

Mr. Wills was almost certainly not the first of us killed in the desert by a pack of uniforms who wanted to play at hunting. 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.

See, the killing wasn’t ambiguous. It was recorded. Ashtown and Wiley agreed the officer killed him. 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.

Not sharing true names is my favorite thing about being a runner. I like the idea of stories and I hate the idea of truth. Names—real names, fixed names, government names—are too concrete to be made into a story properly. You say, A man named Diamond Jones died trying to eat a mountain and that’s why there’s a crater in the wastes. And someone says, Actually, I checked, and there’s never been a man named Diamond Jones or According to his obituary Diamond Jones died from cancer, not mountain-eating. But if you say, Once—once and only once, because dates are as bad as names for stories—a man loved the ground so much he ate a mountain and it killed him but it killed the mountain too, people will learn from the story without truth getting in the way. They’ll learn that to love something is to open wide and hope what you love is digestible. They’ll learn that if you love so much you consume the thing you love whole, neither of you will survive and neither will your love. They’ll learn not to eat fucking rocks.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re seeing someone in love and you want it to become a love story. Stop. Being in love with someone doesn’t entitle you to them; wanting someone doesn’t obligate them to want you back. I know that better than most. Like I said, no rumors of Cheeks and me ever surfaced because some stories are too weighed down with disbelief to carry on the wind. Even before this confirmation of him seeing someone else—seriously—I never thought it’d be him and me. Last year I even helped him write messages to someone he wanted so badly it froze him solid. And I did my best writing in those messages, because I want him to be happy more than I want him to be mine. I know how it sounds. Like I’m shoving a knife in my own chest so I won’t risk cutting him. Maybe I am. But if I’m going to choke on poison by my own hand, you can at least let me congratulate myself on how well I take it. It’s a cold consolation, but that’s the only kind I’m likely to get.

Around the side of the house is a runner’s ride. Not just any ride, but one armored enough to belong to a ranking officer that Nik Nik might ride along with, yet fast enough for someone who still runs border patrol sometimes. It’s tight work. Every seam flawless. So much armor you’d think it’d be obvious the person putting it on was in love with the person it was meant to protect, but fit so tightly you don’t hear shifting or straining even on the bumpiest stretches, because the person who put it on also knows the value of hiding in plain sight. It’s the kind of work you get when your mechanic spends as long as possible fitting seams into each other because it’s the only way she’ll ever get to touch you.

“What do you want with my people, Bosch? There’s nothing here for a man like you but religious counsel. If it’s conversion you seek, I’ll need to clear my schedule. I anticipate the confession portion will take…a good while.” I so desperately didn’t want to like her, but Adam’s such a pain in the ass it’s hard not to want to smile at that.

When civilians tell the story of my combat qualification, they talk about how a barely adult girl beat all twenty competitors, two soldiers per rank, leaving them in a twitching heap of broken bones without sweating one drop and while laughing the whole time. When other runners tell the story, I was stone-faced and unafraid, systematically rolling through my opponents with measured hits, careful not to disqualify myself by breaking their bones. Runners say I fought like a machine, like something inhumanly efficient. Both stories say I was fearless. Civilians are wrong about the laughing, runners are wrong about my stone face. Truth is: I was smiling. Truth is: I was sweating. A lot. And the truth is: I was fucking terrified.

Adam’s such a piece of shit, it’s wild to me that there is one person in the world who can’t cope with the idea of him being gone, much less two. It gives me hope. If you have to be more of a monster than Adam to be totally abandoned, it means I might not die alone either.

Mini-atomics makes us all shudder. Mini-atomics and ever-burn incendiaries are the weapons only the council of cities use, and they only ever use them on the people outside the walls. Because inside would be a human rights violation. No telling what that makes us in their minds. I’d say dogs, but they’re quite manic in their protection of dogs, so we must be less.

I make like I’m checking my digital screen as I shove toward the front. We’re not in any official uniform, so I half expect it to fail. It wouldn’t have worked in Ashtown. They’d want to know why. If I tried bossing a crowd out of leather, they’d ask who died and made me emperor. But this is Wiley. Cross looks like a property owner and I look like security, so they’re happy to obey and step aside. The city can bray all they want calling Nik a dictator, but he just uses force to make people bow to one man. He doesn’t change the way they think, just how they behave if he’s in earshot. The city uses education, and vidshows, and goddamn etiquette to train people into bowing to anyone who seems more successful than they are. They don’t even know they’re doing it. Everyone in Ashtown knows Nik’s name and what they hate about him, even though they pay their dues. These people moved for a stranger with a clipboard without even knowing why.

This is what every feel-good story about these fucks misses. Yeah, there are nice people in enforcement, but it’s not about numbers, it’s about policy and policy always sides with the assholes. The ones they call bad are the ones who actually follow orders and department culture. Every nice thing the other guy does is an aberration that people use as an example of why they should exist. I remember the city getting all smiles over a story of an enforcement officer who found an Ashtowner—not a runner, just an exiled civilian—in the city and gave them a blanket and some hot cocoa. People praised the uniform for doing something that wasn’t policy, wasn’t even common. But policy never changed, so the kid was kicked back out into the desert to starve. Kind officers are just the exceptions that ensure the rule goes on.

“Exlee says jealousy is a poison you make for others but drink yourself.”

“About that. You should know they don’t discourage drug use here. Let your provider know if you don’t want it around you, and they’ll do their best.” His surprise is genuine, and I try not to be insulted by it. “I thought this place was about wellness?” “It is. For some people, wellness is a little oblivion. If someone wants to use it to destroy themselves, better to figure out why they want to disappear than just make sure they never hold a blade again.” It’s a line straight out of Exlee’s mouth, but it’s one of my favorites. The House raised me, so I’m indifferent to drug use. Like anything else that doesn’t deliberately hurt others, it’s morally neutral here. Lots of people use with no harm done to themselves or others. Those that do harm themselves, well, I understand how strong the urge to self-destruct can be, no matter what form it takes. But I’ve seen it in people who lift or run until they’re nothing, people who love only those that hurt them, people who spend their pay so quick it’s like they want to starve—not just those who tap their veins looking for a way out. They all have the same thing in common: 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.

You heard about that study? Where city scientists put two fake parent monkeys in with baby monkeys? One fake monkey was hard metal and produced milk, one was soft and warm and gave no food. I’d choose the latter. I like comfort in any form—cold, false, toxic—and I’d starve to death happily wrapped in a soft warmth I’m only pretending can love me.

“Tear, how many of my people have been killed on bright days while Wiley refused to open their doors?” “Two thousand four hundred and six,” Tear says. “Oh, now, Mr. Tear, that’s not fair. Tell me just how many it’s been during the mayor’s reign.” “Seventy.” “Well, there you have it. I’ll let sixty-five more of you die, and then save the seventy-first. And the scales will be even.”

“But he’s…” I wave my hand like it encompasses everything I hate, or hated, about Cross. Exlee makes a disappointed clucking sound with their tongue. “Are we judging someone based on who they were at their worst? Is that what I taught you?”

“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.” “I know, Boss.” I remember this lecture. It was in frequent rotation when I, or any other new provider, wanted to go out and spit in the face of every Ruralite who so much as looked at the House. I want to show Exlee how much I’ve changed, but sometimes the girl I was is sitting right beneath my skin, as toxic and reactionary as ever.

“Snakes don’t cry over their skins,” she says, exhaling an expertly round puff of smoke. Her eyes go sharp and sideways. I can see from my periphery that she’s cut her gaze toward Cheeks. “Don’t mourn what you outgrow.” I take the drink in a single swig and thank her again before leaving, but this time I don’t mean it. ’Cause I bet snakes do mourn their skins. I bet they crawl back inside sometimes, wishing they could fit. I bet they rub their old skins all over, trying to cover themselves in the smell of home. That’s all growth is, getting too big to stay somewhere that used to feel good. Just having one less place in the whole world that fits right.

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.

I don’t know I’m crying until the tear drops. I don’t know I’m hovering over his face until it lands on his bottom lip. I want to wipe it away, but it’s too intimate, it’s never been my place to touch his mouth. As I watch, the tear slides into the gap between his teeth. He will wake with my tear on his tongue. He will wake tasting salt, and he won’t know why.

Now the battle is beginning in earnest as roughened leather clashes with its plastic equivalent. Even our clothes are two different kinds of violence meeting head-on: Their plastic jumpsuits don’t require a carcass to make, but they take so long to decay we’ll be finding them in the stomachs of choked birds for centuries.

“And tell, tell Cheeks…tell him he’s a fucking hero. Tell him how they chanted his name in the streets. And the statue! Tell him how they’re talking about making a statue of him to symbolize all the Ashtowners lost to Wiley violence. Tell him every eye in the desert’s wet for him. Tell him there’ll be at least a dozen kids named after him, and that even the Wiley teens are gonna get tattoos of his face. But, do me a favor? When you tell him…don’t say it was me that said. Make sure he never has to hear my name ever again, okay? Okay.”