He walked 10 minutes before he saw another soul, and the stroll calmed down his nerves. Seeing a lady with so much grief that she jumped into a hell-hot fire, swatted at burning logs and coals like flies on a picnic table… Well, that was enough to make a person wanna take a walk. The morning air had warmed a bit, the sun shining through the leaves of the trees to dapple the ground with dancing light. He took three deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. He felt better.
And it hadn’t taken long to get the lay of the land.
The entire Crank Palace had been designed in a pattern of circles. Sections of rings, bordered on both sides with circular roads or dirt paths. They grew smaller as he walked, gradually; he imagined an astronaut of old might compare it to seeing the Earth’s horizon take on its curvature as you rose higher toward space in your rocket ship. And from way up there, Newt figured the Palace must look like a giant game of darts, a bull’s-eye in the middle. That bull’s-eye was where he headed, and he heard a general clamor of noise coming from that direction.
Another memory leaked out of his Swiped mind—watching a football game on the telly, hearing the roar of the crowd when a striker kicked a goal. It couldn’t have been a thing happening in real time; it was a match recorded long ago by his… mum. Yes, his mum. He remembered watching it, clearly.
And the sound of that crowd was what he heard now, increasing in volume with every step. The central hub of the Palace must be a gathering spot of sorts; a large group of people definitely awaited him there, as if he were a gladiator about to step into the Coliseum of ancient times. His wiser half told him to turn around, to at least convince Terry or Keisha to go along with him. But that wasn’t going to happen. Newt needed to know what he’d gotten himself into.
Each diminishing ring of land that he passed grew more crowded with tiny cabins, shabby huts, and tents—although there were far fewer of those, now—squeezed in amongst trees, the ground littered with trash. He had a sense that his captors had purposefully dropped them off in a spot still considered the outskirts of the Crank Palace, not fully developed yet—probably planned at one point but abandoned. Most of the structures had broken windows, the glass long missing by the looks of it. He could only assume that shards of glass were the chief weapon around these parts.
He didn’t see many people—just a few spotted here and there, mostly a quick glimpse of their backs as they disappeared into whatever shack they considered their home, closing the door behind them. He heard a lock engage every now and then, wondering what good they did in such shabbily built structures. More than a few sets of eyeballs peered out at him as he walked by, giving him the shivers. He chided himself for not grabbing his Launcher before taking the walk; he could’ve kept it hidden inside the backpack. Right then he’d settle for the knife he also left behind and considered searching the area for a stray piece of glass.
Before his next thought could collect itself, a man stood in front of him, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. He had a glazed look in his eyes, staring at Newt but more like he stared through Newt, into some otherworldly distance that made him happy. He had a look of…
Bliss.
Bliss .
Newt’s own mind did something like hiccup inside his skull. The memories that continued to strain against the dam of the Swipe bulged outward, for a moment mixing with his recent recollections. He knew what the Bliss was. A drug given to the Flare-infected that was supposed to stall the effects and symptoms of the brain-destroying disease. Looking at this man in front of him, swaying on his feet as if to some unheard tune, eyes glossed over, an expression of delirious glee on his face, Newt wondered. Maybe the drug just got you high so you could forget for a while. Who knew? Newt had stopped walking but started again, stepping around the stranger.
“Don’t you want some?” the man asked. “I heard they’re gonna stop giving it out soon. Better get it while you can.”
Without any shame, with complete awareness that he was the kind of person for whom the drug had been intended, Newt said, “Yeah, I want some. Got any?”
The man made a weird noise that might’ve been a chuckle. “Now why in the hell would I have asked you that if I didn’t have any?” Another chuckle, snort, whatever that sound was that came out of his nose with a little spray of snot. “How much you got to pay for it?”
“How much I got?” Newt sighed. “I got nothin’.”
The man took an exaggerated step toward the side of the path, squared himself on his feet, then swept forward in a ridiculous, grand bow, one hand crossed over his belly, the other rising up behind him.
He spoke to the ground. “Then I’m sorry to have disturbed you, my good man. As you were.”
“As I was,” Newt muttered.
He walked toward the crowd noise that hovered in the air like smog.
* * *
No one else bothered him, at least not directly. He certainly saw some things that bothered him.
A naked woman clung upside down to the lowest branch of a tree, her arms and legs wrapped around the bark-scratchy wood above her. She made no noise, made no noticeable effort to let herself down, but followed Newt with her eyes as he hurried to scoot past her. There were enough bare-knuckled fights breaking out on the streets and between the huts to keep him entertained if he got bored. A man sat on one of the rings of streets, filthy beyond measure, his back rigid and straight as he sang a soft tune of gibberish. Nearby, two women stood facing each other, staring into one another’s eyes, saying nothing, completely still. At their feet lay a man looking blissfully at the sky. Literally with the Bliss, judging by the false glee in his eyes.
These sights increased the farther he went, discouraging him with each step, until he finally came upon a wall, maybe 12 feet high. Unlike the barrier that bordered the Crank Palace as a whole, this wall wasn’t made up of wooden planks, nailed together. This one was cement, or stucco, once painted but now a patchwork of crusty flakes of pastels. An archway stretched over an opening in the wall, which led to the crowd he’d been hearing on the other side, a swath of people milling about like giant, fired-up ants. At the top of the opening’s arch, there was a sign with bright letters that seemed as out of place as a kindergarten—from which it very likely might’ve been stolen—would have been in that nasty place.
CENTRAL ZONE
Newt paused, looking at the sign. Maybe he should go back. Hadn’t he learned enough for one day? Wouldn’t he feel safer with a weapon or a friend? Yes and yes. But he walked through the archway regardless, into a sea of frantic activity.
The “zone” was wide and circular, just as he’d imagined—the bull’s-eye of the Crank Palace from above. Along its outer edge, a ring of dilapidated shops, offices, and restaurants faced inward, most of them looking like they hadn’t run a respectable business in years. Where once windows and doors had resided, there were now only empty spots of darkness or hastily nailed-up boards. The glass had been taken long ago. Not many eligible signs remained, either, though one said, in clear black letters against a white background, “Howard’s Hoagies: The Best Sammies in the Valley!”
Hundreds of people jammed the paved central area, every last one of them either busy with activity or busy making a beeline for some undisclosed location for some undisclosed purpose. There was lots of yelling, lots of laughing, lots of talking, lots of arguing. In no surprise whatsoever, Newt saw at least seven brawls from where he stood at the entrance. These were often broken up by plain-clothed people holding full-sized Launchers, people who appeared healthier and stronger than those around them. Calmer, a more rational bearing. Or maybe it was just because they were the ones holding weapons—Newt assumed these were the Munies, those immune from the Flare, that worked here either for money or out of the goodness of their precious little hearts. Keisha had mentioned them in their very first conversation but he’d never followed up on it because they’d spent the next hour running for their lives from the Crank sweeps.
It was weird that there were other people like Tommy, Minho, Teresa, and the rest, who for some reason stayed stable and sane despite the viral intrusion. Immune. It shouldn’t be weird—of course there were others out there, statistically speaking. Maybe it just rubbed him the wrong way because he was still distraught that he hadn’t been the same as his friends. He had a sudden itch to write in his journal, to share some of these feelings. Tonight. Pausing to take another deep breath, he marveled at how much and how quickly he was changing. He felt like an old, sentimental geezer in moments like this.
Movement, a blur that approached in his peripheral vision from the right, snapped him out of it. A woman ran up to him, a middle-aged, short-haired lady with a wrinkly face and bright-blue eyes. She swatted him on the upper arm and kept running, didn’t say a word to him. Such things didn’t seem to faze anyone else in the huge clearing.
Welcome to Crank Palace , he thought. Welcome to the Central Zone .
Welcome to your future .
