Note to readers: “2200 Blues” is a novel in progress, and each chapter is an early draft in its unfolding journey. Your thoughts and reactions are invaluable, guiding its evolution and refinement. 2200 Blues © 2024 by G.R. Nanda. All rights reserved.
Nickel frowned deeper at Farrul, who was unassuming, walking across the earth of the garden without so much as giving Nickel much mind. The nonchalance of his appearance surprised and eluded Nickel. Was it possible that Farrul had become accustomed to travel through a passageway or catacomb out of the power plant wreckage that was unknown to Nickel?
While the Thraíha had built and set up huts in their settlement, they had also made do with caves and the recesses of the canyon rock. The Thraíha had built atop and within the land they inhabited. While it was a relatively flat rock plain, it was still winding, providing apertures of concealed holes that emerged in the rising rock the deeper he moved across Thraíha country. And with the anatomy of the remaining power plant architecture enveloping the rim of the settlement and serving as a kind of makeshift border, sheltering from the elements of the canyon windstorms, Thraíha country was even more labyrinthine. Nickel didn’t know where canyon rock began and Thraíha hutments ended. It seemed that perhaps not all those hutments were above ground.
Farrul picked up the tools that Nickel had dropped, keeping the satchel he carried on his arm down to the side. He began handling Nickel’s tools, testing the blade against a whittle he pulled out of his satchel.
Nickel ignored the farm animals milling before him and gently puffing out air through their nostrils. He walked over to Farrul, leaving the stables momentarily.
“Hey, Farrul, you brought a whole bunch of tools with you too, huh?”
Farrul looked up at Nickel as he knelt, a look of passive disinterest on his face.
“I guess you really are serious about farming,” Nickel said. “They told me before, but now that I can see you doing it, I get it more. You got every tool you could need, I guess.”
“Is this about Steve?” Farrul asked coolly.
Nickel pressed his lips together, his eyes steeling over.
“What?” Nickel said. “What makes you say that?”
“Trying to get the band back together?” Farrul said, breaking into a wry smile and chuckling. “Not much of a band to begin with, though.” He looked back down at the earth, pulling a mallet out of his bag to balance the side of a kupernacle stem as he gently sheared at the edge of its leaf with a razor-thin blade from his bag.
“Did Steve tell you about our conversation?” Nickel asked in a trepidatious tone, feeling his heart sink. “That’s actually not what I came to ask you about.”
“What do you want to ask?” Farrul said, still watching the plant closely as he worked.
Nickel sighed, watching the sunlight sift through the edge of the opening in the roof. The orange glowed at the center of the sky, sending warm rays of nearly yellow tones sifting through the sky.
Nickel now wanted to ask about more than just the first question he’d had in mind as he had first walked to Farrul. He couldn’t think of it as much the first question now, though, once Farrul had spoken.
“I have a more important one now,” Nickel spoke almost through gritted teeth. “What did Steve tell you?”
“I barely talked to Steve. I thought I told you how I feel about him,” Farrul said.
“We barely have a way out. Every second we’re not walking to Hedonim is a second moving us further from our goal,” Nickel said.
Farrul frowned.
“I thought you were all good to stay with the Thraíha,” Farrul said.
“I never said that,” Nickel said.
“You said they had it so much better than us—than me and Steve.”
Nickel didn’t speak, frozen by Farrul’s words, struggling to find a response. Where is this going? The sense of alienation that he had been feeling growing inside of him was now turning into a dreadful panic. The plan he had with Steve and Farrul before meeting the Thraíha—when the three of them were just vision-addled stragglers desperate for civilization—was now breaking apart. Or had it been broken from the start? Steve had always wanted to become one with the Ether, and it seemed that he saw Nickel as his means to do so. Farrul had always distrusted Steve and harbored resentment toward Nickel. Even if it had subsided since getting to know Nickel, he had always felt cynical about Nickel and Steve’s plan for the three of them to work together, with Steve as the lead to Hedonim. That cynicism was nowhere more apparent than it was right now to Nickel.
“Do you want to go to Hedonim?” Nickel asked.
Farrul shrugged.
“I don’t know,” said Farrul. “But I want to leave the Thraíha.”
“What will you do after?” Nickel asked. He secretly was asking to know for himself as well—what Nickel could do once he left the Thraíha, what kind of role or place in society he could fulfill once that time came.
“I like farming,” Farrul said, still withholding from looking up at Nickel. Having made notches in the leaves of a dozen or so plants, he was slicing through them one after the other, speedily cutting the halves of the kupernacle leaves’ surfaces. “I’ve always wanted to go back to the Ether, but I have this now. If I could farm and live in the Ether—farm in the Ether—that would be really nice.”
“Do you think it’s possible to do both?” Nickel asked, his heart beating fast. If Farrul was like Steve, then Nickel would have neither of them to even remotely work with to escape the canyons.
“Háthrouu ná chuurhá. Nickel háth gáth jurrá?!” called Luvele in a high-pitched scream. She was hobbling to the farm from the far right, away from the rock plain beyond Thraíha country. She was carrying two stone buckets in both of her hands. Their surfaces were bumpy, with rough protrusions. They were presumably carrying water. She glowered at Nickel.
“Oy! Nickel, what are you doing?” she said, shaking her head. “The cows are lonely while you chit-chat. You should have milked and scrubbed three of them by now!”
“Sorry!” Nickel called, walking towards the village. The panicked avalanche he was feeling from talking to Farrul turned into an unbalanced vertigo, threatening to tip him over with each step.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Luvele drawled as she grunted while chugging the two buckets of water. “I thought working with so little sleep would teach you a lesson, but you’re tripping up over and over.”
“Do you want me to leave?” Nickel asked, attempting a guilty tone, though he secretly hoped she would kick him out of the farm so he wouldn’t have to work.
“No!” Luvele said. “Not so fast.” She dropped the buckets of water at the gate to the side of the garden and opened the gate. “You’re staying in the stables, and I’m staying here to wash, so you work and you don’t talk to Farrul.” She bent over, her butt holding the gate door open as she stooped over and picked up the buckets of water. “If you don’t work on the cows, I’ll put you on patrol.”
“Patrol?” Nickel asked, freezing after taking a few steps away from Farrul toward the end of the garden where it met the stables.
“Yes, Nickel,” Luvele said. “And it’s a whole lot more moving around and work than here. You must carry big weapons, restock, and report. You’ll be running around, and I’m sure you’d rather be cleaning cows instead.”
Nickel stood still, his mind swarming with rushing thoughts and feelings. Patrolling. Sounded more fun than grazing cows. Besides, he wanted to see more of what lay beyond Thraíha country. But he was confused.
“Why patrol this early?” Nickel said. “The sun just got to the top.”
“It got to the top because the Huntsman’s always watching for us. His eyes are our eyes,” Luvele said.
“Is this about the visitor?” Nickel asked, pulling the gate between the garden and the stables a crack, still watching Luvele.
“It’s quite a ruckus,” Luvele said, walking into the garden. “You don’t want a part of it.”
“Did he leave?” Nickel asked.
“For now,” Luvele said. “We don’t know if he’ll come back. If he’s come for you—”
“Come for me?” Nickel asked, aghast. Even Farrul had stopped what he was doing, turning to watch Nickel and Luvele as he was stooped over kupernacle plants.
“Yes!” Luvele said. “If any of the outworlders who roamed these canyons saw you, you’d just be another Thraíha to them. But you must be careful! I don’t want you losing any of the protections the Thraíha council has granted you.”
What was going on at the Thraíha borders? Nickel had stayed with the Thraíha so long he still had no real inkling of what lay beyond. Who were these outworlders?
“So get to work!” Luvele said. “Keep your place!”
“I’m sorry, but I’m joining patrol,” Nickel rushed out of his mouth. Looking away from Luvele, he bolted out of the garden, squeezing past Luvele through the gate.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Luvele screamed at him. “You don’t even know where you’re going!”
Nickel didn’t look back. Instead, he bolted away from the farm, running far away from their metal frames. He passed under the shadows of the looming metal spires and enclaves jutting out of the farming area. The pattering of heavy hunting boots rained down from the opposite sides of the huts he approached.
There was a storm of voices echoing from the farther peripheral reaches of the village. Nickel ventured in between the bordering huts, rushing through the village square while keeping to the walls, vying to stay out of sight.
A stream of men rushed past the square, looking for weapons spilling out through an open crate in the smelting station. They cursed at one another and shouted, trying to hurry through the items and armor hanging loose from a rod at the top of the smelting station, just below the roof.
Footsteps thudded behind Nickel, becoming louder with each step. Whirling around, he caught sight of other young men running. They didn’t seem to notice him as they sprinted, eyes trained on the intersection where the village met the workers’ grounds.
Nickel slowed down, watching them stampede past. They blitzed around the smelting station, toward the mound of rocks that surrounded the front of the village, climbing higher as the land spread out across the horizon. Many disappeared into the orange haze, reappearing intermittently as they ascended the rising plane.
Others stopped by the smelting station, shouting at the men who stooped over the armor spilling out of the crates.
“Don’t go there! You’re not supposed to follow them!” an older man shouted, trying to herd the weapons.
“They want us on guard!” a burly young man yelled back, waving his hand toward the village.
“Don’t listen to your friends!” the old man responded, turning to the frantic, agitated young men who swarmed around him, blocking them from Nickel’s view.
Nickel had never seen the village in this much disarray and frantic movement—at least not since he, Steve, and Farrul had been ambushed by the Thraíha after fleeing Nickel’s hovercraft.
G.R. Nanda 