After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall

2035

Pete and Ravi were now allies. Together they were going to get revenge for Earth. The first Tesslie they saw—and one had to show up eventually, after all Pete had seen one when he’d gone Outside!—they were going to kill.

A week after the fight they sat in the clear-walled room, gazing out at the growing grasses in the black rock. “Those are taller than yesterday,” Ravi said.

“Yeah,” Pete said, although to him the grasses looked exactly the same height. Pete felt obliged to agree with most of what Ravi said because with Ravi’s swollen mouth and broken teeth, Ravi’s words came out a little garbled. On the other hand, he still had his greater height and bigger muscles, which saved Pete from feeling as bad as he would otherwise. The fight had merely evened things up, he felt, the way Darlene “evened up” blankets when she folded them. The same for both sides. Still, Pete sometimes wished that he and Ravi had had the same father, not the same mother. Ravi’s build came from his father Samir, whom Pete could just remember, unlike both of his own parents.

“When we find a Tesslie,” Ravi mumbled—it was always when, not if—“we should have a plan. I’ll grab it from behind and you—”

“Wait a minute,” Pete said. “Is the Tesslie an alien inside a bucket-case or a robot?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes! If it’s a robot, then you hold it and I’ll find the battery case, open it, and pull out the batteries.”

“Good, good,” Ravi said. “If it’s an alien inside a bucket-case, then I’ll hold it tight, you find the place where the bucket-case opens and unbutton or unzip or pry it apart or whatever. Then we can drag the bastard out and hit it with something.”

“With what?” Pete said.

Ravi considered. “We should have a weapon all ready. Hidden, but someplace where we can get at it quick when we need it. I know! Those metal-toed boots from that Grab!”

Pete nodded enthusiastically. The boots were never worn; who wanted all that weight? In the Shell everyone went barefoot. Pete had never seen the point of them. But as a weapon…

Ravi said, “We can kick the Tesslie with those boots and stomp on it until it’s all bloody!”

Pete frowned. The vivid picture created by Ravi’s words didn’t look as appealing as before Ravi described it. Ravi, however, went on and on, spouting things they could do to the Tesslie.

Partly to stop him, partly because the thought had been growing in him for some time, Pete said, “Ravi, I have another idea.”

“What?”

“I think it would help us if we understood more about how Tesslie machinery works. In case, you know, the Tesslies are machinery. We should pick one piece of it and take it apart, examine it real good, then put it back together before McAllister even knows we did it.”

Ravi’s mouth fell open, fully exposing his broken teeth. “Take it apart?”

“Yes. For information about the Tesslies.”

“What if… what if we can’t get the machinery back together again?”

“We’ll be careful, go slow, look at each piece in great detail.” They were words Jenna had used about McAllister’s lesson in taking apart and cleaning McAllister’s precious microscope. Pete wasn’t allowed near the microscope, not since that business with the shit bucket and the broken glass slide.

Ravi said, “Well, if you’re sure…”

“I am,” said Pete, who wasn’t. But all at once the project seemed the most fascinating thing he’d ever done. Find out more about the Tesslies, the better to defeat them! He was like the Little Tailor in the fairy-tale book, using his brain to triumph over evil giants.

“What machinery do we take apart?”

“Well,” Pete said, thinking it out as he spoke, “there are only five Tesslie machines in the Shell. The Grab platform—”

“We can’t risk that,” Ravi said.

“—and the funeral slot and the fertilizer machine and the main waterfall and the disinfectant waterfall. I think the funeral slot.”

“No, the fertilizer machine! Then if we can’t get it back together, we won’t have to do shit-bucket duty anymore!”

“And the shit will just pile up inside the Shell,” Pete said. Sometimes Ravi didn’t think things through. “The funeral slot is better. Nobody else is sick enough to die. Anyway, I don’t think it will be as hard as the other machines. When I was inside the slot, I could see some pipes or something overhead before it got completely dark.”

“Pete, did you really go—look at that!”

Pete’s head snapped around. Outside the Shell, something streaked past, too fast for him to see. “What was it? What was it?”

“I don’t know? Maybe… a cat!”

“There are no cats, not in houses or stores,” Pete said, with an authority he didn’t feel. He’d never seen a cat except in the books. Why did Ravi and not him get to see the not-cat?

“Something like a cat, then! I don’t know! But it was alive!”

They both pressed their faces to the clear part of the Shell, but the thing didn’t reappear. Finally Pete said sulkily, “Yes, I went Outside—I told you! So let’s start on that funeral slot. You go get the flashlight and some rope and… and a bucket. A big one.”

“What for?”

“You’ll see.”

Ravi obeyed him, which made Pete feel a little better. Next time, he would see the not-cat.

In the funeral room, Pete worked slowly. It was a pleasure to not have to hurry, hurry, hurry like on a Grab. He put the bucket close to the slot, the rope in his hand, the flashlight, usually stored in the children’s room for an emergency that had never come, in his teeth. Then he had to take it out again to explain to Ravi what was going to happen.

“You press the button to open the slot, and I’ll go in. Then you jam the bucket in the slot so it can’t close up again. I’ll study the machinery above my head in the slot, and if I see something we want for a closer look, I’ll tie the rope around it and use that to yank it out.”

“Why do you get to go? I want to go, too! The slot is big enough for both of us if we squeeze.”

It was, although just barely. Although Pete didn’t like the idea of being jammed that close to Ravi.

Ravi added, “It’s only fair that I get to go in the slot, too. You already had a turn! You went all the way Outside!”

“I thought you didn’t even believe me about that! And stop whining!”

“I’m not whining!”

Glaring at each other, they got into position. Ravi pressed the button. Pete scooted in. Ravi jammed the bucket into the opening and then crawled past it so that he and Pete lay side by side on their backs. The flashlight was necessary because their bodies blocked nearly all the light coming from the funeral room. Pete swept the beam over the ceiling a foot above them.

The Tesslie machinery wasn’t pipes after all, as he had originally thought. It was hard to say what it was. Rounded bumps, irregular indentations, two protrusions shaped vaguely like small bowls. These were easiest to tackle. Pete looped the rope around one. “I’m going to pull on this, just a little bit.”

Ravi said, “I want to go Outside.”

“Ravi! That’s not what we’re doing! Besides, I promised McAllister I wouldn’t do that again.”

“I didn’t promise her that. And you had a turn Outside so it’s only fair that I do. How do I get the other door to open?”

“Ravi, no, it won’t open until you—”

Ravi kicked away the bucket.

Pete tried to hit him but there was no room to swing his fist. Pete took a huge gulp of air, knowing what would come next: the air whooshing out of the slot, the outer door sliding open to push him and Ravi out on top of Xiaobo’s rotting body… Let Ravi get his own air!

Nothing happened.

The boys lay in the glow from the flashlight. The air did not leave the chamber; Pete could hear Ravi’s breathing. Finally Ravi said in a small voice, “When does it open?”

“It isn’t going to, you fucker! The Tesslies must have changed the machine! We’re trapped!” All at once Pete, who had never minded small spaces before (but when had he ever been in one this small?) felt his heart speed up. Sweat sprang onto his forehead, his palms. Frantically he jostled Ravi, trying to get more space, get more air, get out…

“Ow!” Ravi said. “Stop it! Hey, everybody in the Shell, we’re trapped inside the funeral slot! Terrell! Tommy! Caity! Hey!”

Pete joined him in screaming. He yelled until his throat hurt. How thick was that slot wall? What if no one ever came?

After what seemed days, weeks, Pete heard a voice on the other side of the wall: “Lord preserve us—ghosts!”

“It’s Darlene,” Ravi whispered hoarsely.

Darlene began to howl one of her songs. “‘Save us from ghosts and demons that—’”

“Darlene! It’s not ghosts or demons, it’s Pete and Ravi! We’re trapped in here! Let us out!”

The howling stopped. Darlene said, “Pete?”

“Yes! Press the funeral button!”

Silence. Then Darlene’s voice again but closer, as if she now squatted close to the low slot. “You want to come out?”

“Yes!” Of course they wanted to come out—why did it have to be crazy Darlene that found them?

She said, “I’ll let you out after you repent of your sins. You, Pete—you say you’re a sinner for sassing me and for disobedience and for setting yourself above your elders!”

Pete’s teeth came together so fast and hard that he bit his lip. Ravi snapped, “Do it! Or she’ll never let us out!”

He could wait for someone else, anyone else. But now that escape was at hand, the thought of waiting even one unnecessary minute longer in this place was intolerable. Pete snarled, “All right! I repent of my sins!”

“Name them!” Darlene said.

“I repent of sassing you and disobedience and setting myself up above my elders!”

“Now you, Ravi. You repent of fornication with McAllister, who is another generation, and of sassing me and disobedience.”

Ravi yelled, “I repent! Open the fucking slot!”

“That ain’t true repentance, but I’ll take it. Now both of you sing with me a cleansing hymn of—”

“What is going on here?”

McAllister’s voice. Pete’s heart leapt and then sank, a reversal so quick it left him gasping. Ravi yelled, “McAllister, Pete and I are in here! Let us out!”

The slot slid upwards. Pete and Ravi scuttled out on their backs. Pete felt dizzy. Blood streamed down his chin from his bitten lip. McAllister stared down at the flashlight in his hand, the rope trailing out behind him, the bucket on the floor. From this angle, her belly jutted out like a shelf. Pete had never seen that look on McAllister’s face. He felt four years old again, except that no adult but Darlene ever glared like that at a four-year-old.

Ravi, the great lover, hung his head. In a tiny voice he said, “I saw a cat outside, McAllister, running past the Shell. Really. I did.”