“What?” asked Sienna.
“The people who fix mental problems.”
“Psychiatrists,” said Sienna. A moment later, she chuckled and sat up into a hug. “Thanks, but that was stupid.”
“I wasn’t sliding. The kids held on to me. Besides, we couldn’t all have fit in that hole.” Raven pointed at the poncho on the road. “You lost something.”
Sienna examined her left leg and side, wincing at the scratches she’d suffered from her brush against concrete. “That’s a damn first. Dropped so fast I fell right out of the stupid thing. I didn’t even step hard on the piece that broke.”
“We probably should’ve gone down and risked the swim.” Raven stood, pulled her satchel and katana back over her shoulders, then looked around at the bridge. “We’re past the halfway point. No sense going back now. The sides look more stable than the road. Let’s stick to the edges.”
Everyone tiptoed onto the sidewalk by the waist-high concrete banister. Numerous cracks riddled the walkway, but it didn’t have any holes. Again in a single-file line, they crept forward to the end, at last reaching solid ground.
Ariana flopped flat on her chest and tried to hug the road. Xan leaned on a tree, sweat pouring from his face and arms. The bandage on his leg appeared bloodier than before, but he didn’t complain about it hurting.
“I don’t like bridges.” Cheyenne squatted, head in her hands, and breathed hard. “We should definitely swim on the way back.”
Raven sat on a big rock beside the road. “Sounds good.”
They rested for a few minutes to recover from almost falling through the bridge. It seemed increasingly likely that they wouldn’t be checking out the silver ball and getting back to the dentist’s office before dark.
There are far too many different ways to die out here. She exhaled hard, staring up at the sky. Not sure which is worse. Eaten by cougars or drowning in a river. At least suffocating in my sleep would have been peaceful.
Ariana, Cheyenne, and Tinsley crept into the woods together in search of a spot to relieve themselves. A few minutes after they disappeared from sight, they squealed. The noises sounded far too happy to be worrisome, but still entirely strange for a bio break.
Raven stood to go check on them, but they came running back into view.
“Bunnies!” cheered Ariana. “A whole family of them!”
“So cute!” Tinsley bounced on her toes.
“Adorable.” Cheyenne grinned.
“Where? I wanna see.” Josh jumped to his feet.
“They ran away.” Ariana pouted. “We scared them.”
Cheyenne grinned. “But there’s bunnies! They’re real!”
Tinsley folded her arms. “Bunnies were always real. Extinct doesn’t mean the same as imaginary.”
“Ooh! You know what I meant!” Cheyenne rolled her eyes.
Seems they’re over the bridge in more ways than one. “Okay. C’mon. And, maybe we should stay a little quiet now. We’re getting close to the orb and don’t know what’s there.”
The kids nodded.
Raven took her best guess at a heading and walked off the road into the forest. A few rocks and roots reminded her that she’d lost her boots. Weeds and low-lying plants brushed at her legs. She slowed to reduce the swishing noise from her baggy pants.
About ten minutes after leaving the bridge behind, she caught a glimpse of glimmering silver in the treetops ahead. At this distance and angle, the material reflected sunlight rather well, giving it the appearance of shiny metal.
Dad didn’t have binoculars. He wouldn’t have seen this thing until he got close. Like… right here. She looked around at the woods. Is this where he was when he stopped, afraid of Plutions? He’d always seemed like he had all the knowledge, knew everything. But, he’d believed in aliens, and that legend didn’t appear to be true. The doc didn’t usually explain things with such certainty in his voice, but he’d been quite convincing that the true culprit for the Great Death had been pollution.
If a couple generations of living wild can turn humans into ferals, it can make people turn pollution into Plution. Oh, shit. Dad said he was wrong… stupid stories. He knew this place didn’t have aliens!
Raven pulled the binoculars out of her satchel, advancing in a series of short scurries from tree to tree. Sienna and the kids got the hint and mostly tried to keep themselves out of sight as well. Eventually, she noticed a break in the forest up ahead.
“Wait here a sec.” She took off the tool satchel to reduce clattering noise, and set it on the ground by a tree.
Sienna furrowed her eyebrows, but didn’t protest. The kids peered at her from behind tree trunks.
Here goes. Raven closed her eyes, asking the Saints to help out a little. Not Noah’s team, but the ones who died years and years ago to save everyone else, the ghosts that some people believed still walked the halls of the Arc.
Raven approached the edge of the forest and raised her binoculars at the enormous silver sphere, awestruck at the size and complexity of the bizarre object. It had to be six or seven stories tall, made from a spherical assembly of thin metal tubes supporting triangular swaths of a material she couldn’t identify. The dark grey iridescent stuff resembled metal but fluttered like fabric. From the outside, the spherical structure had no apparent purpose. Society before the Great Death had vast technologies no one in the Arc could imagine, much less explain or understand. This had to be one of those things.
If the weird bubble of material simply protected some manner of technology from being rained on, it wouldn’t make for a good shelter against ferals—or cougars. Somewhat disappointed, she resigned herself to arguing with Noah until he agreed to move to the surface outside the Arc, and panned her view down to look for a possible way into the sphere…
… and about screamed at the sight before her.
The base of the giant orb sprouted from a reasonably intact metal-walled building—surrounded by over a hundred single-room dwellings. Men, women, and children roamed a settlement that had to contain thousands of people. Most adults wore jumpsuits that reminded her of pictures she’d seen in the Arc of important individuals, the sort of clothing that her great, great, ancestors once made. Children had shirts and shorts, or dresses. None of the apparel resembled history books’ photographs of pre-Great-Death society, being far more simple and utilitarian.
Best—or perhaps worst—of all, everyone seemed content and nonthreatening.
Before the binoculars filled up with tears, she lowered them from her face and sank to her knees. This is what Dad saw… he knew! Those damn cougars killed him before he could tell anyone. Would Noah have believed him four years ago?
“How could they have been so stupid…?”
“Who?” whispered Sienna, right behind her.
A heavy blanket of sorrow and anger kept her from jumping at the unexpectedly close voice. “Whatever idiot wanted to stay underground.” Raven offered the binoculars. “Look… at the base of the ball.”
Sienna took the binoculars and sighted through them. “Shit… are we dreaming?”
Raven reached under her friend’s poncho and touched the scrapes on her leg.
“Ow!”
“Nope. Not dreaming.” Raven smiled.
“Bitch.” Sienna playfully swatted the back of her head. “So, umm…”
Raven stood. “They look friendly enough. Wanna go say hi?”
“Yes. Do you think they have a doctor? Xan needs to be checked out.”
“They look more advanced than we are.” Raven shook her head and trotted back to grab her tool satchel. “They might even have a real doctor.”
34
The Oasis
Most people think I’m thrilled to find stuff, but they’ve got it backward. The worst part about exploration is the actual discovery… takes all the wonder out of it. – Ellis Wilder
Raven inhaled a deep breath, steeled herself, and stepped out from the forest into the grassy meadow surrounding the settlem
ent. Sienna and the kids followed close behind. A moment later, a childish voice shouted something in the distance. A few men and one woman also called out. Without the binoculars, Raven couldn’t make out facial expressions, but everyone outside in view stopped in their tracks to watch them approach.
She squeezed Tinsley’s hand nervously, unsure what kind of reaction to expect.
As they drew closer across the field, thin pipes became apparent, running overhead across the dwellings, water spritzing from the occasional bad joint. The shouts morphed from indistinct calls to phrases like ‘someone’s coming’ or ‘outsiders’ or ‘there’s people in the field.’
A group of men and women emerged from a gap in the buildings wider than any other, giving it the appearance of a ‘main entrance’ to the village. They didn’t go too far, evidently waiting for Raven and the others to come to them. Two of the men seemed distrustful at first, but evidently upon seeing two women and five children, relaxed—mostly. One kept looking at Raven, his gaze flicking to the handle sticking up over her right shoulder.
“Well, they’re not running out to grab us,” whispered Raven. “That guy seems to know what a sword is.”
“That’s good.” Sienna gave her side eye. “Should I be nervous?”
“Not sure yet, but at least they speak English.”
“What did you expect? We’re not that far away from the Arc.”
“I dunno. That feral didn’t understand me.”
Sienna chuckled. “These people don’t look like tribal savages.”
“Not at all. They look like old photos of Arc residents.” Raven bit her lip. “Do you think…?”
“Anything’s possible. To them, we are probably the savages.”
They kept quiet for the last minute or two it took to walk up to the waiting group.
Right, Dad. Be confident. She compressed her anxiety into a little rock, which she metaphorically hid in one hand behind her back. None of the men and women who’d come out to see them appeared to be obviously in charge or of any greater station compared to the others.
“Hello.” Raven raised a hand in greeting. “What is this place?”
“Our home,” said a man with brown skin a little darker than Raven’s. He looked fortyish, and spoke with the poise of higher education. “It has been so for many generations now. You are clearly not primitives. Where did you come from?”
“The Arc,” said Raven. “Arcology 1409.”
Murmurs swept over the group.
Noticing their reaction to that, she took a step closer to the man. “Are you from the Arc, too?”
He smiled, trying not to laugh. “Not directly, I’m afraid. Many of us here are descended from the people you are referring to.”
“So it’s true?” Raven gawked. “Most of the people in the Arc did just get up and leave?”
“Yes, roughly 140 years ago if memory serves.”
“Some people wanted to stay,” added a blonde woman around the same age as Raven. “They tried to stop the others from leaving and some violence happened. You don’t look like you’ve come here for revenge.”
“No, not at all. The Arc is dying. I grew up being told that the world outside was so poisonous we’d turn into goo if we opened a door… but my father went outside, and he survived. The others, back at the Arc, might already be dead. Maybe not. The systems are…” Light-headed, Raven swooned into Sienna. Hope hit her so hard she cried. Tinsley would neither suffocate in the Arc nor become lunch for giant cats. “I left to look for a safe place.”
The man beckoned her to follow him. “It’s possible you have found it. I’m Alexander Grant. Come along. Some of you seem injured.”
“Thanks. Yes. I’m Raven. That’s Sienna, my daughter Tinsley, Josh, Cheyenne, Xan, and Ariana.”
The kids waved and said hello as she introduced them.
“It must be bad there if you’re wearing those rags.” The blonde picked at Raven’s poncho.
Alexander led them into the settlement past small houses assembled from slabs of metal or plastic. A few had been made out of stacked concrete rubble glued together by means of a black cement. Hundreds of people came out of doorways or alleys between the houses to look at the newcomers. This place had more children under twelve than the entire population of the Arc. Tinsley and Josh grinned and waved back at the other kids. Cheyenne and Ariana kept their heads down, overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. Xan, normally rather outgoing, appeared to be so focused on walking and not falling over that he might not have even noticed how many people had come out to see them.
The blonde woman and a few others from the initial greeting party followed behind them like security officers escorting prisoners, but they gave off only curiosity.
“You look rather surprised,” said Alexander.
“So many people. There’s only 183 in the—I mean 182—in the Arc now.”
“That is tragic.” Alexander sighed. “Our town is spread out over a few square miles. There’s more on the other side of the biodome. We’re up to about 6,200 people now.”
“Holy shit,” muttered Xan.
“Xander Michael!” rasped Sienna. “Language!”
“I can always tell when she’s mad at me because she makes up new names.” Xan grinned.
Raven looked around at the scenery. The small homes had been built with a clear degree of planning, following the routes of walkpaths and copper water pipes. Electrical wiring also ran overhead, fortunately separate from the water lines, suggesting they had windmills somewhere. Most likely on the other side of the giant ball. The overall technology level of this place exceeded the Arc by a decent amount, probably about even with how it would have been originally.
A few kids too small to reliably use toilets ran around undressed, while some adults of both sexes went topless in the heat. It seemed that everyone here who wore less than a full outfit or no shoes did so out of choice, not because their society lacked the resources to make things. No one here wore ponchos, and unlike Raven, they also most likely did not still wear the same clothes they got at age twelve. At least cotton-plus was tough.
Alexander brought them to the large building from which the huge silver ball sprouted. The pale grey windowless structure, wider at the bottom than the top looked like something that belonged on the cover of a science fiction novel about aliens and starships.
She expected the front door to open mechanically while giving off a soft hiss, but Alexander pushed it in on a hinge, revealing them to be three inches thick and quite non-futuristic. Inside, a smooth-floored hallway reminded her of the Arc, only tile instead of bare concrete. Six other hallways branched off at various distances in both directions. Numerous doors everywhere led to various rooms. The word ‘Oasis’ appeared occasionally on the walls next to a strange pinwheel-shaped swirl.
Too awestruck to ask about anything, Raven held Tinsley close and followed Alexander to a door marked ‘medical.’
“This is your infirmary?” asked Raven.
“Yes.” Alexander went in. “Might as well get you all cleaned up and checked out before you talk to Tess.”
“Tess?” asked Sienna.
“She’s the one in charge. Used to call that office ‘administrator’, but it changed to mayor a while ago.”
“Ugh.” Raven sighed. “I hope she’s not like Noah.”
Alexander regarded her in confusion for a moment before enlightenment gleamed in his eyes. “Oh. The arcology is still running things the old way I see. I’d like to think Tess is doing a good job.”
Four people in white jumpsuits, two women and two men, approached.
Alexander smiled at them. “We had some newcomers wander in out of the forest. They tell me they’re from the old arcology.”
The medical staff regarded them in shock until one man noticed Xan’s bloody bandage, at which point he hurried forward, ushering the boy over to an examination table in an alcove at the back of the room walled off by hanging curtains.
“How many
of you are hurt?” asked a black-haired woman as pale as her jumpsuit.
“Mommy got bit by a bad kitty. On her shoulder. An’ it bit me, too.” Tinsley held up her leg.
“Please, follow me.” That woman escorted Raven and Tinsley to another alcove. “I’m Iris. Do you know what a doctor is?”
“Yeah. We’re not that primitive.” Raven chuckled. “I’m Raven, this is my daughter Tinsley.”
Iris smiled at them, then grimaced. “I’m sure you’re likely unaware of how filthy you are. Not to be insulting, but you both smell like you went swimming in sewers. I’m concerned you are at risk for infection.” The woman gingerly poked the poncho. “Would you mind taking those filthy rags off? We’ll get you fresh clothes after you’ve cleaned up.”
The doctor pulled the curtains closed, turning the alcove into a private room.
Raven hadn’t been naked in front of anyone she didn’t consider family since having sex with Chase. She blushed. If they’re the descendants of the smart people who left the Arc, she’s gotta be a real doctor.
Tinsley didn’t hesitate at all, flinging off her clothes except for the plastic sandals. As blasé as Raven could force herself to be, she disrobed. Iris looked at the bite mark on her shoulder, the claw wounds on her arm, then the abrasions on Tinsley’s leg before deciding that the shoulder puncture needed more immediate attention.
“Let me look at that before you hop in the shower.”
She dabbed at the spot using alcohol and some other mystery substance that burned like fire. Raven managed not to scream, but she nearly fell off the edge of the exam table. Once satisfied with the condition of the wound, the doctor used another fluid that glued Raven’s skin closed. That done, she did the same to the claw marks on Raven’s bicep before moving on to Tinsley’s leg.
“The lacerations your daughter suffered are fairly shallow. They seem to be healing all right and without infection.”
Raven shrugged. “I guess most of the bacteria died, too.”
“Perhaps.” Iris raised both eyebrows.
The Girl Who Found the Sun Page 35
