Salem
After escaping the Holy Police, Caden and Annika trudged deep into the forest. They’d dismounted the crippled Deber and continued on foot. With the arrow still sticking into Deber’s backside, walking slowly was all that she could handle, and it was a lot easier for her without two people riding. As they pushed forward through the hanging branches and ground thick with roots, the Home’s thundering bellrock became more and more muffled until it was only a quiet clink in the distance.
Caden couldn’t stop thinking about Tooby. He felt so alone. Tooby was the one who had told him what to do, the one who had given him hope. If it wasn’t for the Iltech spider, Caden would have a pair of broken legs and be heading off to live with Mr. Stercus. And how had Caden thanked him? By letting him blow himself up. Tooby had told Caden to sense electric signals—whatever that meant—but all he could feel right now was a sharp pain in his chest, constantly reminding him that his friend was gone.
“Deber doesn’t look like she’s bleeding,” Annika said, sounding as far away as the bellrock. Caden took a deep breath. He didn’t want to move on, but he knew he had to. He didn’t want Tooby’s sacrifice to be in vain. And the first step toward doing that was to make sure they weren’t leaving a trail of blood for anyone to follow.
Annika was walking next to Deber, inspecting the wound up close. Caden peered over. She was right. There was no blood, on the outside anyway. The arrow stuck out of Deber’s skin as neatly as if it had sprouted there, a thin wooden rod growing out of red and purple splotches on her white hide.
“It looks painful,” Caden said. “Should we take it out?”
“No way,” Annika said. “If you do that, blood will gush everywhere.”
“What do we do then?”
“Look at this.” Annika gently stroked the arrow all the way up to its feathered end. “This is a slim arrow. It’s designed not to cause any excessive damage. For some reason, the Holy Police were shooting to get us alive.”
Caden narrowed his eyes in skepticism. “How do you know so much about arrows?”
Annika bit her lip. She pulled up the sleeve of her green dress and revealed her left forearm to Caden. There was a scar the size of a large pebble, and when she flipped over her arm, a nearly identical scar was on the other side.
“I know a thing or two about being shot by Holy Police,” she explained, rolling her sleeve back down. That was enough for Caden.
“Do we just leave the arrow in then?”
“That’s all we can do for now. Pulling it out will cause bleeding. Leaving it in for too long will cause infection. We have to get her to an animal doctor in Salem.”
Deber put on a brave face as she trod along, but her limp and whines of pain told Caden that she was in bad shape. And it was his fault for forcing her to leave with them. The only thing he could do was rub her back and reassure her.
“Don’t worry, girl. When we get to Salem, we’ll find someone to fix you up real quick.”
Deber snorted. Caden held onto her reins and focused on moving forward. Walking through the woods without a path was tough. They had no idea where they were going. There was little sunlight. Gnarled roots, leafy nets, and sharp branches stuck out like traps everywhere. The only thing guiding them was the Home’s bellrock growing fainter, and finally silent, behind them. At least there was no sound of galloping hooves. For now, they were safe.
As they walked, Annika made sure that every branch they snapped was picked up and tossed aside, and every hoof and footprint they left in the dirt was brushed away with a fan of pine needles. She did it all silently, without saying anything to Caden. He wondered how much experience she’d had running away, but she was the one who spoke up first.
“I have a question,” she said. “What the steel was that Iltech spider thing all about?”
Caden smiled. As they walked he told her about Tooby and his dad and the Xs on his palms. Annika didn’t believe him until he removed his gloves and showed her the glowing marks. The bright red Xs reflected in her wide eyes.
“Let me get this straight,” she said, sounding overwhelmed. “You’re a part-human, part-robot … thing. And somehow you triggered that big X on Metl that’s going to cause the end of the world?”
“Yep,” Caden said simply. “But Tooby said as long as we find my dad before Metl hits us, we’ll be fine.”
“And how long do we have before that happens?”
“Uh, about two days. I think. That’s what Tooby told me.”
Annika let out a sigh. “Well I guess that means us being wanted criminals isn’t a big deal, right? Either we find your dad in two days and we’re heroes, or … well, the world ends.”
Caden nodded. Now it was his turn to ask something.
“So why did you run away with me?”
Annika let an airy laugh escape out her nose. She looked like she was faking a smile.
“I’m just along for the ride. I mean, you can only stand so many of Mother Mildred’s lectures on proper corn seed planting before you have to leave, right?”
“Oh, come on,” Caden groaned. “I had to leave but you didn’t. What made you go?”
Annika was silent again. The sound of birds fluttering above and moist grass smooshing under the slow tread of their shoes were the only sounds in the woods.
“I have some things I need to take care of,” Annika said finally. “And being stuck at the Home wasn’t helping.”
“Are you looking for your mom?” Caden asked. He realized only too late that this was not the right thing to say. Nobodies never wanted to talk about their old lives. Annika closed her eyes and squeezed her branch of pine needles so hard it looked like she was going to grind it into a pile of wood chips.
“We’ll see,” was all she said. Caden didn’t ask any more questions. The two of them and Deber continued along, Annika still covering their tracks, now with a silent scowl on her face.
They kept walking for hours. As the sun went down the woods grew darker and more alive. Bugs chirped, owls hooted, and shadows bounced between tree tops, shaking branches and leaves. Caden and Annika glanced over their shoulders at every sound. All they ever saw was the growing blackness behind them.
But being attacked by some forest creature wasn’t the biggest fear on Caden’s mind—finding food and water was. He hadn’t eaten anything all day, even missing out on his own adoption breakfast. Now it was catching up to him with pangs of hunger rippling through his stomach. He wished more than anything he’d spent those extra few seconds grabbing an apple or two out of the tack room before running away.
Even worse was the thirst. The dryness in his mouth was excruciating. Every time he tried to swallow or lubricate his throat, nothing came up but dust. Annika suggested chewing on sticks to stave off the hunger, and to occasionally get savory little morsels of moisture caught in leaves and stems. The first time Caden put a stick in his mouth and tasted the dirt and bark was the first time he thought maybe he’d made a mistake.
It finally got so dark that Caden had to hold out his glowing red palms to see anything. He walked squatting close to the ground to keep his hands as low as possible. Even then he could barely see a foot in front. When he tripped over a root that he’d missed and landed face-first onto a decaying log filled with insects, they decided that was enough, it was time to set up camp. And by “set up camp,” Deber just laid down and Caden and Annika leaned against her twitching body.
Doubt continued to creep into Caden’s mind. If he’d just stayed at the Home, even if that meant being adopted by Mr. Stercus, at least he wouldn’t die of starvation or thirst. Sure, he’d never find his dad, but he’d never find him anyway if he was dead. And because of him, Deber had been hit by an arrow that was sapping her life away. And then there was Tooby, who might still be alive if it wasn’t for him running away too.
Tooby. Caden closed his eyes and remembered the metal spider. If only he were here now to guide them and tell them everything would be all right. Without him, Caden didn’t know what he was doing or where he was going. He finally fell asleep, wishing he had any idea how to sense those stupid electrical signals.
When Caden woke up, it wasn’t because he sensed anything strange. Rather, he heard something distinctly normal—human voices.
Annika heard them too, and the two of them were instantly on their feet. Deber slowly got up on all fours. Her wound looked worse than yesterday. The purples and reds had darkened and spread out like a web of infection. Caden reassured her, and himself, that they’d find a doctor in Salem.
Caden looked up through the tops of the trees toward the sunlight. They’d slept longer than he’d thought. It was already late morning. The human voices were getting louder and louder. It sounded like dozens of people shouting to be heard over each other. Whatever they were yelling about, Caden didn’t care. If people were nearby, that meant food and water were nearby too. Adrenaline suppressed Caden’s hunger and thirst, and he plowed through the woods along with Annika and Deber.
More and more sunlight began filtering through the trees. The brush became less thick. Then suddenly and without any warning Caden took a step and he found himself teetering on the edge of a slope. He shot his arm out to stop Annika and Deber from tumbling over, and then he stood there, shocked as he took in the view.
Caden had only ever heard stories about Salem, but they couldn’t compare to the real thing. It was like there were Homes, hundreds of them, stacked next to each other and on top of each other in every imaginable shape and size. There was a rainbow of brown, cream, and red wooden buildings, some of them with smoke pouring out of brick chimneys or with spinning windmills, all lined up against roads that faded between stone and dirt. Caden had never seen so many people before. They were walking along the streets, riding horses, carrying buckets of produce to sell, kids running around playing games with rocks and sticks. Everyone was dressed in earth tones, the men wearing hats and the women in bandanas and bonnets.
Just beyond Salem toward the horizon lay the ocean. Caden could only make it out as a sparkling blue sliver in the distance. The other Nobodies had talked about the ocean before, but Caden had a hard time believing there could be so much water in one place. He gazed at it in awe, feeling like he’d finally been let in on a secret that the rest of the world had known forever.
But there was one building that stole Caden’s view: the church. It was an intricately carved sculpture in the center square that towered above the other buildings, at least ten stories high. Far more than a building, it looked like a statue divided into two halves: on the left was Gotama himself as a massive, burly man with a flowing beard. On the right was a giant ant with a human head and antennae that Gotama was wrestling with.
Mother Mildred had told the Nobodies stories about the church. She’d said that it was carved out of a colossal tree that, a thousand years ago, humans had engineered to grow all the way up to Metl. Humans had become so advanced that they could transform into animals using Iltech if they wanted, so they turned their bodies into ants to gain the insects’ incredible strength and ability to climb trees. They climbed the giant tree all the way up to Metl and used their strength to fight Gotama, to show that they were more powerful than him.
But Gotama easily defeated the human-ants. He was disgusted that his creations had twisted their natural forms, and he destroyed the giant tree and cast the human-ants back to Earth. To punish them, Gotama took away humanity’s unnatural Iltech powers and instructed them to appreciate his creations for what they were. Through the Six Virtues he showed them that even each tiny leg of the ant has a purpose, and he instructed humanity to follow them to make the most of his gifts on Earth.
Caden had always thought the story was silly, but now that he was seeing the statue-church for himself, it seemed possible.
Especially since Metl was closer than ever.
Metl had been hidden to Caden all day yesterday while in the woods, so seeing it now made his heart stop. It was five times the size of the sun, and its ominous X still glowed blood red. It was almost comical watching clouds float in front of it as if nothing were wrong.
Only the shouting voices stopped Caden from staring at Metl. The same yelling he’d heard in the woods was now even louder, and Caden could see exactly what was happening. On a wooden stage in front of the church there were two people kneeling and being berated by an audience of hundreds. The mob was shouting and throwing sticks, dirt, whatever they could at them. The only thing that prevented them from storming the stage were the Holy Police armed and ready.
Caden narrowed his eyes to get a closer look, but then snapped them open in shock when he saw who the two people on stage were. They were far away and hard to see, but there was no mistaking that red hair and flowing coat.
They were Dom and Mr. Stercus.
“Hey,” Annika said. “We should go down while everyone’s distracted. We can easily get some food and water.”
“Did you see who’s on stage?” Caden asked. He still didn’t believe it. Annika carefully leaned closer and she gasped.
“Gotama’s Ant,” she said. “What are they doing there?”
“I don’t know.” Caden quickly tied Deber’s reins to a nearby tree, sat down at the edge of the slope, and swung his legs over. It was a rocky, dirty, two-hundred-foot slide down. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.”
“Are you crazy?” Annika howled. “Going to the stage is the last thing you should do! There’s Holy Police there. We need to stay as far away from them as possible.”
Caden knew she was right, but at the same time there was something pulling him toward the stage that he couldn’t resist. It was like a hook latched around his bellybutton, gently tugging at him. If those were the electric signals that would lead him to his dad, then he had to follow them.
“I’m just going to check it out really quickly,” he said, starting to shuffle down the slope. “You stay here with Deber. She can’t come down this slope anyway.”
Annika continued protesting, but Caden was already sliding down, careful not to slam into any large rocks. Around him earth crumbled and pebbles tumbled until he landed at the bottom, right behind a wooden building. As he brushed himself off, something else rushed down behind him. A few seconds later Annika was next to him, covered in dirt and dust.
“Glad to see you changed your mind,” Caden said.
Annika glared. “Let’s just get this over with. I’m dying of thirst.”
Finding water was easy. Salem was peppered with wooden buckets all over town, acting as rain water receptacles for horses to drink from, to water plants, and most importantly, to put out fires. In a town where nearly every building was made of wood, fire was the worst disaster imaginable.
Caden and Annika ran to the nearest bucket and practically dunked their heads inside. Water had never tasted so beautiful. It was like honey, flowers, and a big juicy steak all put together in the most satisfying way imaginable. They gulped down handful after handful, only stopping when the bucket was emptied.
Their thirst quenched, Caden and Annika headed to the streets. Navigating inside Salem was a lot harder than viewing it from above. Caden wasn’t used to walking such narrow paths; there was at least an acre between each building at the Home. The tiny spaces here made him feel squeezed from all angles. It didn’t help that every few seconds people would slam into him and Annika as they ran past, eager to make it to the church square while the action was still going on.
They followed the groups of stragglers to the stage. When they reached the center of the ruckus, Caden and Annika stood at the back of a thousand people. Everyone was craning their heads for a better view, shouting and shaking balled fists in the air. Caden stood on his toes to try and see. He could just barely make out Dom and Mr. Stercus kneeling on stage, surrounded by a dozen Holy Police.
Caden had never been around so many people. More and more filled in behind him, pushing up against him and Annika, trapping them. Caden wondered what would happen if he was recognized by the Holy Police. He’d have no way to escape. He started to wish he’d stayed with Deber.
Suddenly there was an eruption of noise that overpowered the unruly crowd, a blast so loud it caused everyone, even Caden, to cringe in pain as they covered their ears. Caden opened his eyes a slit, seeing something on the stage that he’d overlooked before: a hollow wooden cone the size of a shack. The open end was facing toward the crowd, and a tiny man in gray robes peeked out from the other end, then disappeared behind it again.
“That’s better,” boomed his voice throughout the town. “Now that you’re all quiet and I have your attention, could someone explain why these two have been brought to Gotama’s stage?”
The crowd exploded into a frenzy of incomprehensible shouts, and the little man let loose with another booming noise out of the cone. It silenced the mob as everyone slammed their hands over their ears.
“I can’t hear you when you all scream at once. One at a time.” This time no one shouted anything. A single Holy Police walked over to the small man, whispered into his ear, then handed him something that glittered in the sunlight. It reminded Caden of Tooby.
“It appears that these two are accused of possessing Iltech,” he spoke as loud as thunder through the cone. There were shouts of agreement from the crowd, but they quickly quieted down, not wanting another blast to force them silent. “This boy—a former Nobody—turned in his adopter to the Holy Police for hiding Iltech inside his jacket. But the adopter claims that the Iltech is not his. As you can see, we have a bit of a problem. And it’s made even worse by the fact that this is no ordinary piece of Iltech.”
The small man held up the shiny thing that the Holy Police had given him. There were shrieks of terror from the audience.
“Does anyone know what this horrible thing is?” he asked into the cone. The only response was shaking heads and fervent denials. Caden squinted to try and make out what it was. It was small and square and looked like it had buttons. Maybe it was a camera? Or a computer?
“This despicable instrument is called … a calculator!”
At hearing the name of the Iltech, people in the crowd shut their eyes and covered their ears as they wailed in pain. Caden had never seen how anyone outside of the Home reacted to Iltech, but now he could understand why every Nobody he’d talked to about it ran away.
“The calculator is one of the most abominable examples of Iltech,” the small man bellowed. “It takes Gotama’s gift of the human brain and turns it into mush. It makes wise men lazy and lazy men arrogant. Is this what is causing Gotama to be angered?” There was a cheer of agreement. “Should we send both these sinners to Gotama and have him deal with them as he pleases?”
That was apparently too much for Mr. Stercus. He leaped up from kneeling and stomped over to the small man. Just as the Holy Police caught up to him and grabbed his coat, he ripped the calculator out of the man’s hand and leaned into the cone.
“This horrible Iltech isn’t mine!” Mr. Stercus announced to the crowd. “This disgusting little Nobody, who I adopted out of the kindness of my heart, must have planted it on me as soon as we got to town. He probably got it from some devil black market dealer, conspiring to frame me and take over my business! If there’s anyone to punish, it’s this boy over here.”
Mr. Stercus brandished the calculator at Dom. Caden had never seen Dom like this before. He was in tears, kneeling on the ground, pleading with Mr. Stercus. He crawled over to him on his knees, babbling something that Caden couldn’t hear. The short man guided him to speak into the cone.
“Please, Mr. Stercus,” Dom cried. “I didn’t do any of that. I just … I saw the Iltech and I thought … I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought, maybe, I could get my real family back.”
“Don’t lie to these people, boy!” Mr. Stercus yelled into the cone. “I should’ve known better than to adopt a tainted Nobody like you. Once a sinner, always a sinner.”
“Mr. Stercus, father, please I—”
Mr. Stercus smacked Dom hard with the calculator in the eye. Dom howled and covered his face as blood dripped through the slits between his fingers. That was enough for the Holy Police to finally drag Mr. Stercus and Dom back to the other side of the stage and return the calculator to the small man in robes. Caden didn’t know what to think. Part of him felt like Dom deserved it, but at the same time he didn’t want to see him like this.
The crowd was getting more riled up. People were demanding that someone be punished to appease Gotama and stop Metl from crashing into Earth. One of the Holy Police dashed across the stage to the small man and said something to him. The man smiled and spoke into the cone.
“Father Yohan has been summoned,” he blared. “He will put an end to this madness.”
There were murmurs of agreement through the crowd. The Holy Police stood at attention, and a man walked up from a staircase behind the stage. He was dressed in gray robes and had a wooden pendant in the shape of Gotama’s Ant around his neck just like Mother Mildred. A mane of white hair framed his face, from the beard that reached down to his chest, to the wisps on the sides and top that stuck out like bleached fire. But despite his imposing appearance, he had a kind look on his face.
He drifted over to the wooden cone with his hands behind his back, leaned in, and spoke in a voice that didn’t sound old at all. It sounded confident and experienced, as if he’d seen all this happen hundreds of times.
“I have heard all that I need to hear,” he said. “Who are we, mere humans—less than ants—to judge each other? We should let the Great Gotama decide who is innocent and who is guilty, for only he has the power to make decisions free from Earthly sins.”
The Holy Police prodded Dom and Mr. Stercus with empty crossbows, shuffling them to the center of the stage in front of Father Yohan. Dom was still dripping tears and blood out of his eye as he kept it covered, and Mr. Stercus looked like he was smelling something foul coming from Dom’s direction. Father Yohan put a hand on each of their heads, then looked up to the sky, past the giant statue of Gotama and right to Metl overhead.
“O Great Gotama!” he yelled loudly enough to be heard without the cone. “Is there a sinner among us? Show us so that he may be punished justly, and the innocent allowed to continue to serve you.”
The crowd was silent. The only sound was Dom sobbing on stage. Caden didn’t know what was going on. Were they waiting for a sign from Metl? Was the statue of Gotama going to move? He’d never heard of anything like that before.
Then Mr. Stercus let out a howl of agony that rippled through the air. At first it was hard to tell what was wrong, but when he leaped to his feet everyone in the crowd could see it.
His face had aged fifty years.
Mr. Stercus wasn’t young to begin with, but now he looked ancient. The skin was spread thin over his skull, and brown splotches popped out on his sunken cheeks. His hands were nothing more than gnarled masses of veins and wrinkles, and his screaming voice was dying away by the second. Moments later his legs gave out and he collapsed on stage. His bones crumbled to dust and were blown away in the wind, leaving behind just his fur coat and hat as the only evidence he’d ever existed.
Caden immediately thought of Dom and hoped the same thing wasn’t going to happen to him. But Dom looked exactly the same. He was still kneeling on stage and had stopped crying. He lowered his hands from his face, and his eye looked as good as new. There was no blood, no sign that it had ever been hurt.
“Gotama has spoken!” Father Yohan announced. “The true owner of the Iltech has been dealt his due justice, and the innocent in needless pain has been healed. Such is the benevolence of the Great Gotama. We are his Ants!”
“We are his Ants!” repeated the crowd. Caden was too stunned to say anything. What had just happened? Did he just witness a miracle? From somewhere in the crowd there came a shout.
“But the red X is still there! Metl is still going to hit us!”
Fearful murmurs spread as people stared and pointed up. They had expected the X to fade away and Metl to retreat to its old position in the sky after the Iltech sinner had been dealt with. But nothing had changed, and the crowd grew anxious. Father Yohan spoke into the cone.
“My fellow Ants, have you already forgotten the miracle you just witnessed? The Great Gotama is watching over us, making sure that his believers are safe! Everything is part of his grand plan. Do not lose faith now, when we are on the verge of his greatest sign in a thousand years. Now is not the time to fill your hearts with fear, but with joy and love for Gotama and Metl in the sky.”
Father Yohan turned to Dom who was still kneeling in disbelief. He offered Dom a hand and helped him stand up.
“You, boy,” Father Yohan said. “You have witnessed Gotama’s greatness firsthand. Do you believe he would allow Metl, his finest creation and our eternal home, to simply crash into us?”
Father Yohan offered Dom the wooden cone. Dom spoke, and his amazement echoed through the town.
“Gotama saved me. I … I didn’t ask him to, but he did. It’s because he knows I’m not an Iltech sinner. And I don’t think anyone else here is either. If you are, then you should give yourself up to Gotama right away. Gotama is great! Gotama is great! Gotama is—”
Father Yohan gently ushered Dom away from the cone. With a smile on his face, he leaned in to speak again.
“With such passion, I’d say we’d be missing out if we didn’t recruit you to the Church. What do you say, boy? You were a Nobody, weren’t you? It seems your adopter had ill intentions in his heart. Will you join us in the Church to help repair your wounded soul, crying out in pain?”
Dom didn’t need to go near the cone for everyone to hear his enthusiastic yes. Father Yohan put a hand on Dom’s back and guided him off the stage, escorted by two Holy Police. The remaining Police picked up Mr. Stercus’s clothes. A few puffs of dust billowed into the air. The small Father from before cleared his throat and returned to the cone.
“Thank you very much, Father Yohan. As we’ve stated before, there is nothing to worry about. We’ve almost figured out what Gotama is trying to tell us, and any more distractions are just wasting the Church’s time. Please remain calm. We are his Ants.”
The crowd repeated his words, not nearly as excitedly as before. The short Father and Holy Police on the stage left, and the audience began to disperse. Everyone scuffled away in varying states of confusion, fear, and forced smiles. They didn’t look convinced by the Church’s words.
Caden just stood there, still in shock by what he’d seen. It wasn’t until someone slammed into him walking past that he was knocked back to reality, suddenly very aware of how much he stood out. He was one of the few without some sort of head covering, not to mention his denim overalls that looked out of place in a sea of white and brown cloth. Caden felt like he was one stare away from being put up on stage and turned to dust too.
Annika was right. Coming down here had been a mistake.
Thinking of Annika, Caden turned to talk to her. They needed to figure out what to do next. Caden looked around, expecting her to be standing right next to him. But she wasn’t there. Caden panicked and tossed his head in every direction as more and more people bumped into him and gave him suspicious glares. But she wasn’t anywhere.
Annika was gone.