Free Under the Empyrean Sky by Chuck Wendig Page A

With him.”
    Her voice drops to a hissing whisper. “You think I like this? He’s a
skunk ape
, Cael. But he’s my husband. Or will be. I figure the best thing I can do is keep my head down and take the ride.”
    “You’ve changed,” he says. “You never would have gone along with it before. You always did what you wanted. Those days are over.”
    “Maybe they are.” She hesitates. “Maybe they have to be.”
    “Yeah. I guess so.” The words suddenly come out of him, a bubbling, bilious concoction that he wishes he could swallow, but it’s too late: “You’re no longer first mate of the crew. You’re out.”
    “
What?
”
    “You heard me. Go with him. I can’t have a person on my boat married to the enemy.”
    “You’re an asshole,” she says.
    “At least I’m not a slut.” It quiets her like a slap—but, really, it’s worse. Those words plunge deep like a knife. Did he even mean them? He stammers, “Gwennie, wait.”
    But she pulls away from him and storms back to Boyland.
    “C’mon,” Gwennie says, pulling Boyland underneath the water tower. On the way she pauses by Wanda and says, “Congratulations, Wanda. Good luck with that one.”
    And then their shapes merge with the shadows.
    Wanda comes up, asks him, “What was that all about?”
    But Cael doesn’t even open his mouth, because he’s afraid of what will come out.

 
    THE HOWLING POLLEN
     
    MIDNIGHT IS WHEN they’ll announce the Lottery. An hour before, the street starts growing tighter with people, gathering in the hopes that they’ll be the winner. The pollen drift picks up and the winds start to howl, and all around are those allergic to the storm—blowing their noses into paisley handkerchiefs or rubbing their swollen red eyes. But they gather just the same because, above all else, they want to win.
    The Lottery goes out across the Heartland. Once a year the Empyrean randomly selects a family, and that whole family ceases to be Heartlanders. Instead, they get a one-way trip to an Empyrean flotilla, to go live among the skyward elite. A reward, it’s said, for their “mighty toil.” Rumor has it that thewinners are highly sought-after guests to all the biggest parties. Lane says this just proves that the former Heartlanders are a hick circus act brought in to entertain the cackling harpies.
    Cael stands there, lost in the crowd, looking toward the stage, a stage on which he stood earlier that day. He doesn’t see his father, or Rigo, or Gwennie and Boyland. Wanda’s gone now; he sent her away, off to be with her family. Like she should be. (Like
he
should be.) She was just standing there, behind him and to the right, queerly subservient and keenly afraid to speak lest she set him off. He hates that this was her first impression of him, but what can he do? “That’s life in the Heartland!” he wants to scream in her ear.
    Proctor Agrasanto, her attaché, and Mayor Barnes alternate between milling about the stage and hovering over a visidex computer. The glow from the single handheld screen bathes their faces in an eerie blue light. Cael feels a presence at his side, and there stands Lane. Looking grim.
    “It’s all bullshit,” he says. His pinched eyes and hangdog face suggest the ghost of his fixy drunk still lingers. But he’s got a fresh jar of the liquor pilfered from somewhere, and he passes it to Cael, who takes a sip. “I’ll tell you, Cael. The Lottery.
Pfft
. It’s how they keep us on the hook. How they keep us fish from flopping around.”
    “Uh-huh,” Cael says. He’s heard this speech before. Every year, actually.
    “No, really. Everybody thinks, ‘Ah, yeah, okay, I can be rich one day, and not rich like the mayor rich, not rich like the Tallyman. I mean flotilla-rich.
King Shit of Shit Mountain
rich.’ We don’t say boo against them because we think that one day we might
be
them. Right? That’s what you think is gonna happen to you. To us. We’re gonna get rich, and when we do, that’s the