Caleb was taken down below the main deck, chained to the wall in a small room, and left alone. He was actually glad to be given this time to think. After the guard closed the door and left him some privacy, Caleb tugged on the chains. They were securely bolted to the support beam along the wall. Even if he did manage to break free, where could he go? He was on an airship, hundreds of meters in the sky.
And even if he managed to escape an airship in mid-flight, and make it safely to the ground, where could he go then?
A hybrid wandering around the Southern Territories, outside of electrified fence, would cause quite a stir in any town or city he entered. He certainly didn’t want to live out the rest of his days as a wild animal, living deep in some forest hunting for his food and hiding from everything else.
He couldn’t escape back into the rest of OZ either. The ceramic wall that surrounded the Southern Territories was as smooth as glass and dwarfed the tallest trees. The tools he had used to get in had been confiscated when they were captured. And besides, he still had to rescue Dorothy. He wasn’t about to go anywhere without her.
Of course, he had already created a small stir since he was captured outside the fence. Despite how careful he had been in the past, the Southern Marshal now knew he had found a way out. She would take extra steps to seal them in tighter than they were before.
Some leader he had turned out to be. He had just made it harder on all the hybrids in the compound. Any hope of escape in the near future had just been quelled. He was the last person they should be looking to for guidance.
But the Southern Marshal was right. From the moment he first arrived in the colony six months ago, everyone had looked to him as their leader. Rather than being treated as the new kid and shunned as a stranger, he was asked to sit in on the monthly council meetings. But as much as he tried to just sit there and remain silent, he was still called upon to settle disputes among the council members. And every decision he made immediately became law.
He was constantly being pulled by the hybrids within the colony to take a leadership position. Now he was being pushed from the outside, by the Southern Marshal herself, to do the same.
But a leader of what?
And where would he be leading the hybrids to?
He still had not figured out why the Southern Marshal had invited the hybrids to the Southern Territories. Why had she accumulated every hybrid into one place? What did she plan to do with them? Everyone he spoke to waved off his concerns and told him not to question their good fortune. Despite the electric fence, everyone told him, they were better off. Asking such questions would only invite trouble they didn’t want to have.
His mind swirled over the same questions, for what seemed like hours, without coming to any new answers. Even without a window in the small room, he knew their journey was coming to an end. His ears popped as the airship descended. A final bump signaled that the airship had come to rest on the landing platform.
It was no surprise that, within five minutes of the airship landing, he heard the lock on the door to his small room engage and the door swung open. But it was a complete surprise when the first person who came through the door was Zee.
She placed balled fists on her hips and shook her head at him. “I told you. If you kept sneaking out, one day you would get caught.”
“What are you doing here?”
She held up the cast iron key that would unlock the shackles on his hands. “I’m here to help you make the right decision.”
“You told her I left as soon as I went through the fence, didn’t you?”
She ignored his question and twisted the key in the lock. The shackles dropped free and he massaged his wrists, trying to bring blood flow back to his numb hands.
He couldn’t believe Zee, who had become his closest friend in the colony, was working against him.
“How long have you been working for the Southern Marshal?”
She headed for the door when he grabbed her arm and forced her to look at him. “How could you do this to us?”
She met his stare. “There is no us. There is you, and there is the rest of the colony.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Unlike you, we like the Southern Marshal. She has given back to the hybrids everything that humans took away from us. When you first arrived, I thought the colony was complete. You were supposed to usher in a new era for the hybrids. “
“What was your reward for turning me in?”
She broke free from his grasp. “There was no reward. I didn’t turn you in. You got caught outside the fence all on your own. I had nothing to do with that.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
She spoke so quietly with her head lowered, he missed what she said.
“What?”
This time she screamed it. “I’m here, we are all here, to watch you be crowned king. The council decided that, the biggest reason you are resisting your duties, is that there was no formal ceremony. We came here to make official what everyone has already accepted. And you don’t deserve it!”
This was certainly news to him.
“What are you talking about? I’m not being crowned king.”
“Yes, you are. I am here to help you get ready and to convince you it is the right thing to do. Even if I don’t believe it myself.”
This was getting all too surreal. “I don’t deserve to be king.”
“That is something we can both agree on. But it has already been decided. It is out of our hands.”
“I can refuse.”
She grew somber and spoke in a monotone as if she had practiced the same sentence over and over again.
“Then you will be executed for violating the rules of the colony. You only have two choices. Become the king or have your head chopped off by a Woodsman. I’m sure you can guess which one I prefer.”
This was the first time Zee had ever been hostile toward him. This was not like her at all.
“What’s the matter with you Zee?”
“There’s nothing the matter with me. You’re the problem. We finally have a place we can call our own and all you want to do is leave. You spent so much time away from your people, you don’t even identify with them anymore.”
“It has nothing to do with that, Zee. I have to find my friend.”
She laughed. “That’s right. Your little friend Dorothy. What can she offer you that none of us, who are your own people, can offer you?”
“It’s not that. I made a promise to her.”
“Yeah, well, your ancestors made a promise to my ancestors. And blood is thicker than water.”
“What are you talking about? There are no ancestors. We are second-generation hybrids. Our parents were created in a lab.”
Zee frowned. “Where did you hear nonsense like that?”
“It’s not nonsense. It’s the truth.”
“You don’t know anything about our history.”
“That’s because there is no history. We were deemed abominations of science and sent here to OZ to die.”
She studied the ceiling for a moment before settling her eyes on his.
“I don’t know what you were told, but our history has nothing to do with science. Hybrids have been around for a very long time. We were the gods of long ago. Worshiped by the humans. Until they stole the Brahmastra, a weapon of immense power that could destroy anything you pointed it at. The humans used the Brahmastra to destroy the capital city of the hybrids. When they believed they had destroyed every one of us, they turned that weapon on each other. A few of our people survived and moved to a place where the humans could never reach them. Their plan was to wait for the humans to destroy themselves, and then we would be free to roam the world again. But with each passing century, humans didn’t die out. Instead, the expanded into every corner of the world. It was getting harder and harder to stay hidden.”
What she was telling him was absolutely unbelievable. Meaning, he did not believe a single word of it and wasn’t about to listen to her spin fables from her childhood.
“Listen, Zee…”
She raised her hand and cut him off.
“Let me finish. Despite remaining hidden, we kept an eye on human advancements, and the evolution of their society. Fear and superstition had given way to logic and reason. All the ancient writings and depictions of our people were seen as fanciful attempts of prehistoric man trying to make sense of the world around him. My parents remember the day when the humans found us again. To explain why we looked part animal and part human, we said that we were test subjects in a genetics project. We felt that they would believe that more than if we told them we were the gods of their ancestors. And they did believe us. But the human’s reaction was to outlaw genetic manipulation and send the hybrids here. My mother was pregnant with me when she was relocated to OZ. She told me these stories and made me promise to never forget them. Never forget the true history of our people.”
Caleb thought her parents must’ve wanted to instill in her a sense of worth to offset the treatment of the hybrids by the humans in OZ. It’s a shame they had manufactured an entire mythology, stretching back thousands of years, instead of having to explain that science had only recently created them. He could tell by the conviction set deep in her eyes that nobody would be able to convince her that what she just told him was anything but the truth.
“So, this is what you believe?”
“This is what we all believe, Caleb. Everybody but you.”
“Then how come this is the first I’ve heard of it?”
“It’s a rather hard pill to swallow if you’ve been fed the lie for as long as you have. We had hoped to tell you when you were ready. And we’d hoped you would be ready once you were crowned king.”
“Why is it so important to everyone that I am the one crowned king?”
A new voice interrupted from the doorway. “I believe I can answer that one.”
The Southern Marshal strode into the room. “Thank you, Zee. Why don’t you go out and make sure everything is ready for the pre-coronation feast?”
Zee bowed low as she backed out of the room. Caleb noted how she did not stand up as long as she was still in view of the Southern Marshal. He assumed that as soon as she disappeared around the corner of the doorway, she stood up and went on her way.
“Still on that same old question are we?”
“You never gave me a straight answer before.”
“I want you to be the king for the very same reasons they want you to be the king. “
“And what is that?”
“Because they will listen to you.”
“That still doesn’t answer why you want me to the king over the hybrids. What’s in it for you?”
She studied him for a long time, her eyes darting back and forth in rapid succession as she waged a battle within her head. Finally she reached a hand into her mouth and pulled her teeth out.
With her false teeth removed, he could see the razor-sharp fangs that protruded longer than her shorter, but just as sharp, front teeth.
“Because I am one of you.”