The Forsaken

barrier.
    Then the boy’s eyelids flicker open.
    “He’s alive!” voices start yelling.
    Veidman steps forward. Gadya, Markus, Sinxen, and the others follow him with their bows. The boy’s pupils roll into position, fixing us with a bleary gaze. His eyes are pale blue, and I can see the pain in them. The loss of hope.
    “What’s your name?” Veidman asks.
    The boy struggles to open his mouth, licking his cracked lips. Then he tries to take a huge breath. But he just gasps instead, like a fish on dry land. I realize that his chest must be under incredible pressure. “Help,” he whispers. “Can’t breathe . . .”
    “‘Can’t breathe’? That’s not a name!” Gadya taunts viciously.
    His eyes swivel toward her.
    “Don’t look at me, drone! I’ll cut out your eyeballs and feed ’em to a hoofer!”
    “Ignore her,” Veidman interrupts. “Talk to me. Maybe I can help.”
    “Please . . .” The boy can barely utter more than one word at a time. I realize if it weren’t for us, he never would have been rescued.
    Veidman looks around at our small group. “We need to get him out. He might be useful.”
    “He’s the enemy,” Markus says. “Let him rot. If he knew anything about how to get through the barrier, he wouldn’t be stuck.” For a moment, even Veidman hesitates.
    “What if this were one of you?” Rika pleads, her voice ringing out over the patter of the rain. “Not every single drone is bad. They can’t be! Some just chose the wrong path. And this drone doesn’t pose a threat to us right now. We can afford to be kind, for once.”
    Is she right? I think about David. About how he saved my life, and shared secrets with me. “I think I’m with Rika,” I begin softly.
    “You and Rika can go stuff your kindness!” Gadya yells, cutting me off. “The wheel doesn’t respect kindness. Look what happened to Liam! And the others! And you just don’t care.”
    “The drones didn’t take Liam, a feeler did,” I say. “Maybe a feeler did this to the boy.”
    “Alenna’s right,” Veidman speaks up, before Gadya can shout over me again. “We have to get some answers from this drone.”
    “And if he doesn’t have any, we can always put him back in the wall,” Markus says ominously.
    Veidman and the others walk forward and grab hold of the boy’s free arm and leg. Gadya hangs back with her bow, covering the group.
    I try to help by walking forward, crouching down, and yanking on the drone’s foot. I wonder how long he’s been trapped in here. The parts of his body inside the barrier are as white as a sheet of paper.
    Gadya sees us having trouble. “You need me to do it right,” she says in frustration, tossing down her bow and joining the fray.
    Progress is slow. First we get the rest of the drone’s shoulder out. Then another portion of his leg. Then part of his neck and chest. He starts to gasp as more air finally reaches his lungs. “Please, please,” he keeps whimpering in a high-pitched voice.
    “We’re almost there,” Veidman tells him. Indeed, I can feel the jelly of the barrier loosening as we keep working.
    Finally, with an explosive pop, the boy is pulled free from the wall.
    He sprawls facedown on the dirt as we cluster around him. His body is slimy with the substance of the barrier. For an instant, a large indentation remains where his body was. But then the jelly surges forward and the hole slowly disappears.
    I look down at the drone. Now that he’s been liberated, we’re all a little wary of him. Gadya picks up her bow again. We stand in a semicircle, watching and waiting to hear what he says. The rain is finally letting up.
    The drone takes deep, shuddering breaths. He coughs, gurgles. Hacks up phlegm. His limbs look thin and weak.
    “Tell us your name,” Veidman gently instructs.
    The boy can’t even raise his head. “They call me . . . Jump.”
    “Dumb name,” Sinxen snickers.
    “You’re one to talk,” Gadya retorts.
    Veidman silences them both with a look. But the boy has heard.
    “You’re right,” he manages in a breathy whisper. “It’s dumb. . . . But they call me Jump ’cause that’s what I do.”
    “Is that how you ended up stuck in the barrier?” Markus calls out. “Jumping around like a monkey? Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
    The drone has another coughing fit, and Veidman leans in closer to talk to him. “My name’s Matthieu Veidman. We’re from a village in the blue sector, near the big river. We’re