I put my hands on either side of the table and gripped the undersides. This man was crazy. Being stuck underground for this long had driven him nuts.
But he was harmless, and I spent the afternoon listening to his theories about the Coders, the links and meanings between the numbers on the different codes. He viewed the Superiors as Gods and believed that when he cracked the ‘code,’ he and his people would be let back into the Woodlands.
“Wait. What do you mean, let back in?” My heart was beating fast. A new truth opened up another paper-cutting file in my head. “Salim, what’s your full name?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Salim Sekimbo,” he said proudly, with his arm across his chest in salute. His coat slipped down a little and the faded lines of a barcode blared at me like a warning.
“You’re a Superior,” I said as a statement and a question, because I really wanted to be wrong.
He nodded. “Abel is my brother,” he muttered with a sour expression on his face and turned back to a stack of papers, shuffling through them, looking for something.
I stayed a while longer listening to his crazed ranting. My mind wasn’t really taking it in, because it was stuck on the why and how. He was Superior Sekimbo’s brother. How could this be?
I walked back to the main area, keeping my hands close to my sides. My shirt was already slick with green stains. I shook my head and thought of my mother, her disapproval. It was a tough recollection. I hoped she would be nicer to my sister.
The monkeys ran ahead of me and separated as I entered the vast central space. My eyes scanned the area. Joseph was sitting by a fire with Orry, talking with some of the locals who were squatting low but not sitting, stirring some steaming concoction in a pot on the coals.
Gus stood shirtless, by the canal, dunking his clothes in and out of the water. I stomped down towards him, peoples’ sooty eyes on me.
*****
I screeched to a halt meters from the bank and took a deep breath. Joseph had seen me. He was unhurriedly picking his way towards me but he was slow, stopping to talk to people, saying excuse me, doing things I seldom bothered to do.
His back was to me. I frowned at the muscled torso I was confronted with. “Gus!” I said sharply. He turned, beads of water clinging to his beard, water trickling down his chest, which was sprinkled with grey hairs. I felt suddenly embarrassed. I averted my eyes while he grabbed a towel. He seemed unperturbed. But he would always rustle me, clothed or not. He had Cal’s face, scrunched a little with age, but those eyes would always make me want to run.
“What is it?” he grunted.
My voice was shaky. “Did you know that Salim is a Superior?”
The corners of Gus’s dark lips lifted under his wire-brush moustache. “Oh,” he said as he dried his hair, “that.”
“Yes, that,” I said angrily.
“Yes, we know. He’s an almighty Superior banished for being… oh, how did he put it?” Gus scratched his beard. “Oh yes, banished for being original. Which is a nice way of saying crazy.” He laughed.
I was flabbergasted. “Are the rest of these people from the Woodlands?” I asked
“No, no. They’re Survivors like us. He was on his own out here until he found them. I wouldn’t worry, Rosa. He’s not a bad man.” I knew that. I felt it.
Gus returned to slapping his shirt on a rock over the water.
Joseph’s hand cupped my shoulder. “What was that all about?”
I shrugged, still trying to process what Gus had just said. “Salim was a Superior,” I said.
Joseph raised his eyebrows. I filled him in on the way back to our living quarters. When we reached them, I slid back the dirty blanket curtain made and closed it after we entered. Joseph put Orry down and moved towards me. We kissed hurriedly. There was no privacy; you could hear everything down here. I pulled back.
He was smiling.
“Why are you smiling?” I barked.
“Why do you think?” he said, sitting down with a thump on the old mattress so hard that I thought a spring might snag him. He laid his arms casually over his knees and looked up at me, grinning. “If Salim’s a Superior, he can help us. He can help us get Deshi back.”
I sat down next to him and dared to think about it. This former Superior might be crazy, but Joseph was right. He might have information that could help us rescue our friend.
Joseph and I spent as much time as possible with Salim, quizzing him about the Superiors’ compound. In return, we let him take notes on our barcodes and the others. Careen and Alexei had obliged. Apella couldn’t come, but Salim came to her. Pelo was just as animated as Salim. He asked him questions about the connections between the codes until it became apparent there were none, and that Salim was two threads away from snapping what was left inside that brain of his. But we humored him to get the information we needed.
Rash seemed uncharacteristically unsettled by Salim. He’d only allowed him to take a quick photo of his barcode before he yanked his hand back and excused himself.
The door closed, and we moved down the tunnel towards the large living area. “I don’t want to go in there ever again,” Rash said, pulling his shirt down over his wrist, rubbing it like Salim’s touch had scorched his skin. “That guy is super creepy and most definitely nuts.”
I nodded. I didn’t disagree.
Joseph sighed heavily and slapped Rash on the back, hard. Rash stumbled forward and caught himself on the wall. “Get over it, man. It wasn’t that bad.” I smiled at the gesture. It sent Rash flying, but it meant something. It meant Joseph was accepting him.
Rash shuddered and hunched his shoulders. “Whatever. I’ve done my bit now, right?”
I slung my arm over his shoulder. “Yes, thank you.”
Rash muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets, “I thought I was done with crazy.” His mother…
*****
During one of our many conversations with Salim, he began talking about his brother. “Yes, we had a, err, disagreement. My brother was always a hot head. Impulsive…” Salim said, narrowing his eyes. “I was banished. But at least I have my friends.” He smiled affectionately at one of the hyped-up furballs.
As if it knew he was talking about it, the monkey wrapped its arms around Salim’s neck and licked his ear. I fought for control over my repulsion.
I leaned in and caught Salim’s distracted, rolling eyes. “So tell me about the compound…”
He straightened excitedly and started to paint the picture that would turn into our map. Joseph scribbled things down, and I let myself be carried away on his words. I let them waft in front of me like a tantalizing smell, following them through the tunnels and up onto the icy earth. I padded after him through the forest, soaring through a wind tunnel to the Superiors’ dwellings.
High walls hung in front of me but, within them low, stone walls with black iron bars set inside them dominated this one part of the compound. I could see Salim, cane in hand, striking the bars and stirring up the animals housed within them. Monkeys gripped the dark iron and shook themselves crazily while they screeched.
He tipped the food into little hatches, handing out sliced apples and bananas to his favorites. I imagined it smelled worse than it did down here. I could see myself behind those bars, begging for food and screaming at my captors.
“The zoo is directly in the center of the compound,” Salim said, sweeping his arms in an arc. “It is a perfect circle, and each Superior’s dwelling starts from one side of the circle and radiates out, getting wider and wider like the wedge of a pie. Though I wonder what state the zoo is in now. I was the only one who cared for the animals, researched them…” His eyes darkened, his speech becoming volatile and spitting. “It was mine. And they took it from me, from us…” He patted the back of one of his monkeys, its hollow ribs thudding like a skin drum. Apparently, when they kicked him out, they had let him take the monkeys he’d trained with him.