Sand Red

23

I awoke in a buzz of noise. I immediately checked the space beside me for Yul and Aida. They were gone. Around me stood a small raggle of curious children and beyond, men and women plodded up and down the road, holding more children by the hand and baskets of wild tomato and yam. Syenin sat some distance away, playing with the children, his rifle on the ground. A little girl shrieked as he pulled something out from behind her ear and the whole bunch of them clapped delightedly.

I rolled to my uninjured side and pushed myself up slowly, painstakingly, then sat up, my back convulsed, blinking and breathing the slow purple waves away.

'Syenin!' I called. 'Where are they?'

He turned tome, the smile melting off his face. 'Oh, you are awake. They said to tell you they're with En.

'Who?'

'The man from last night'

The big man. Why hadn't they woken me? Was I so useless now? I leaned against the wall as a hot breeze picked up and waited for them to return. They must trust these people a great deal if they had left me here by myself among them.

Several minutes later, I spotted Yul traipsing down the road towards me. I pushed myself up straighter, for I had slouched.

His face was closed as he came into better view. 'How is it today?' he asked.

'Still hurts.'

'We went with that big guy,' he said before I could ask. 'He said they have only one scientist and no glass.' His face broke into the ghost of a grin. 'The same as us, really.'

Syenin ambed over to us. 'So, what happened?' he asked.

Yul looked up at him. 'No luck'

'Where is the lady?'

'She went to the scientist. Internet access if nothing.'

The boy nodded as if he understood what that meant. 'Internet access is impossible. If Lars knew how to do it, we'd be using it, no?'

That logic was hard to argue with. 'We'd better start today,' Yul said. 'Can't lose a full water day.'

Our water was our own. They would provide us with no resources. 'Where will we go?' I asked.

'The Reds.'

'What the hell for? What do they have?'

'Farms.'

Goddamn Yul. Goddamn him to hell.

'You're being stupid,' I told him.

He shrugged. 'I think they'll have something.'

'Have what, Internet access? Glass shards?'

He looked at me. 'Where would you rather we go, then?'

I was silent. I didn't know.

Aida came up behind him. Her face was unreadable. She came sat down in her night's sand hole.

'What's the news?' Yul asked.

'He knows a bit, but not about glass. He could theoretically access the net, but then again, so can I. It's the materials I need.'

'So it was useless,' he said.

'Not useless...insightful.'

'Where next?' I asked her.

She turned her cold eyes on me. 'I don't know.'

'The Reds,' Yul said.

'Goddamnit, there's no use!' I said as angrily as my wound would allow me. 'What the hell are you going to do there, anyway?'