Stung

Fiona walks through her ruined neighborhood. Empty-looking houses feature broken windows; rusty cars and garbage line the streets. The city buildings of Denver are in the distance. No green plants or vegetation grow in her surroundings, only dead plants and leafless trees remain. Fiona sees a strange paper flyer that indicates the “marked one must be alive” (9) and offering various amounts of honey in exchange for so many marks. The flyer is signed “Sincerely, Governor Jacoby Soneschen” (9). Dogs bark fiercely at her as she passes a yard where four armed men threaten her with guns. Fiona has a flashback in which she recalls her father, a retired military officer, taking her to a shooting range; she did well, and he credited her finger control to playing piano.

A woman tells the men with guns to let Fiona pass if she is not marked and reveals Fiona’s name for the first time: “Dear, Lord Almighty, that’s Fiona Tarsis. If she doesn’t have the mark of the beast, let her pass” (11). The woman is Ellen, the mother of one of Fiona’s classmates. Fiona shows that her hand is unmarked (her new tattoo covered by the concealer), and she goes on her way. One of the men with guns catches up to her; it is her old friend Jacqui in disguise, her hair cut short to look like a boy. Jacqui calls Fiona “Fo” and tells her to cut her hair and disguise her sex. She gives Fiona a few peanut butter crackers. As she passes the house, Fiona sees Ellen, Jacqui’s mother, in the backyard stroking the tops of green corn stalks with a paintbrush.

Confused, terrified, and desperate to find shelter, Fiona decides to enter an abandoned house. Dogs bark somewhere behind her and gunshots ring out from the direction of Jacqui’s house. In the darkening street, someone grabs Fiona by the arm and pulls her to a utility access hole. The stench emanating from the sewer is overpowering, but too afraid to stay on the street, Fiona follows the person into the hole.

In the sewer, Fiona realizes the person is a child. They walk in complete darkness. The child asks why Fiona is clean and if she came from behind the wall, questions Fiona does not understand. The child insists that Fiona owes a debt and that she will have to pay back double. The child asks if Fiona has food or honey, prompting another flashback: Fiona recalls planting lavender with Lissa and Jonah to attract honeybees. Lissa said that bees were endangered; their extinction threatened the food chain, but government scientists were working to prevent famine.

Fiona demands water and gets some. The child reveals that she is a girl named Arrin and that Fiona will repay her—double—the next day. Arrin warns “Fo,” as Fiona now calls herself, that if she tries to flee in the night, “the others will kiiiiiill [her]” (20), indicating that other people use the sewers as a place to survive as well.

Arrin wakes Fo and says it is time to repay her. For Fo’s safety, Arrin cuts Fo’s hair with a knife until it is close-cropped to her head except for long, shaggy bangs that cover her face. Arrin wants to know why Fo got the attention of raiders the night before, but Fo does not know. Hungry, Fo takes the crackers from her pocket. Arrin pounces on her, gobbling the crackers and saying she has not had peanut butter in two years. She gives Fo only a tiny corner of one cracker and a piece of leather to chew on. In the light of the candle, Fo sees that Arrin has a tattoo like hers, except the oval has three lines instead of 10. Fo sees her own tattoo showing through the makeup. She asks for privacy; Arrin tells her to urinate in a corner. Fo uses the concealer to cover the tattoo again, then senses someone in the tunnel nearby. Arrin calls out a threat to the person and extinguishes the candle. She wipes filth and dried sewage all over Fo’s arms, legs, and face. Arrin demands that she and Fo switch clothes; she gives Fo a piece of fabric to bind her breasts, insisting she look like a boy as much as possible. They head out through the tunnels.

Arrin tells Fo that the horrible smell and the sludge underfoot is mostly-dried human sewage. She reveals that she buried herself in it once to hide from the militia who “patrol the wall and catch Fecs for the lab” (31), in addition to shooting raiders. Fo is mystified again, and Arrin wonders aloud how it is that Fo doesn’t understand these basic ways of life. Then a man attacks them. Fo fights him off, then tries to hit him while he attacks Arrin. He stops fighting suddenly and Fo pulls Arrin away. The girls go quickly through the sewer tunnels looking for a storm drain. Fo sees a mother with three children hiding and eating worms. Arrin tells Fo that she needs help saving her nine-year-old brother, who is a Level Three, referring to the number of lines in his oval tattoo.

In the late daylight, Fo sees that Arrin is thin and young; she has a swollen eye and her lip is cut open. She says she is 13. They hide from a passing militia troupe. The men are polished-looking and wear brown uniforms. Fo realizes blood covers her hands and Arrin’s. Arrin reveals she killed the man who attacked them. They come to the militia camp where Fo sees tents and fires; the men are roasting meat on sticks, and one plays a melody on guitar that she remembers playing on piano. She also sees two prisoners against a wall at the end of the camp. Arrin tells Fo the plan to rescue her brother, whom she now says is 11. Fo tries to refuse; Arrin threatens her with her dagger; Fo relents. Arrin thanks her just before Fo runs into the camp.

Fo manages to steal meat out of the hands of two militia men and wolf some down on the run before they taser her. From the ground, she sees Arrin running away with her little brother. One of the men yells, “Stop them! […] He’s a Level Three on the verge of turning!” (45), and the men all fire at the boy. More men haul Fo to her feet and look for a tattoo. Finding none, one man with an embroidered name on his uniform, Micklemoore, tells two others to bring her to “central,” an office with electricity. Micklemoore attempts to use a small metal box to scan Fo’s hand, but she runs. She does not get far before another man, Len, tackles her. When Micklemoore scans her hand, the scanner emits an alarm and flashing lights. Micklemoore jumps away from Fo as if scared; all the other militia point their guns at her.

Micklemoore orders a militia officer named Bowen to bring cuffs. At first, Bowen speaks gently to Fo, calling her “kid” and asking for her name. As soon as the electromagnetic handcuffs are on her, though, his tone changes to rough and harsh. He presses a button on a remote control and her hands zip together under the power of the strong magnets. He puts cuffs on her lower legs in the same manner so that she cannot run. Now that she is immobilized, the men are excited and congratulate each other for catching a Level Ten, again referring to the 20 lines of Fo’s tattoo, which she still does not understand. The men drift away, but Bowen stays. He is surprised that Fo can communicate. She says she is hungry; Bowen puts a small wafer in her mouth that dissolves into the taste of a pork chop dinner. Fo sleeps, but wakes later to hear a voice asking Bowen to sell Fo for eight ounces. The conversation goes unresolved.