Over Freezing Altitudes

by Kate MacLeod

  Scout used the holds Daisy had shown her. It felt weird leaning back with the rope in her hands, and she was all too aware of the road behind her back. She felt a rush of dizziness and forced herself to take a deep breath.

  If she fell here, hitting the ground would be a jolt. But if she got dizzy again further up?

  She had to keep her head clear, her mind focused.

  She opened her eyes, saw another knob of rock that could function as a foothold, and took the step, pulling herself up the rope even as she found the next step for her other foot.

  “Good,” Daisy said. “Just like that. You’re doing great.”

  Scout felt Shadow squirming against her stomach, but Daisy had tied him in too tightly for him to move more than that squirm. He was just flexing his muscles and whining. Scout tuned him out and took the next step.

  She was not even a third of the way up before her arms started to ache.

  The ache was an agony by the halfway point. Scout tried to take more of her weight on her toes, but even that little adjustment had her body waving back and forth on the rope. Her feet nearly slipped from the little outcroppings she was using as footholds.

  “You’re doing fine, Scout,” Daisy said. Scout didn’t dare look down, but it sounded like Daisy was moving even more slowly than Scout, her voice drifting up from a point barely off the surface of the road. “Keep going. You know, I found some chocolate in the food rations. We can split it when we get to the top.”

  Scout forced the whiny part of her mind to acknowledge that standing still was just as exhausting as climbing had been, and it fell silent long enough for her to press on.

  Sunsets on Amatheon had always been lazy affairs, the large red orb that was its sun sinking slowly behind the western hills, the orangey light of dusk a welcome relief after the intense heat of midday. She could stop her bike the first moment the sun kissed the horizon and set up camp, cook some food, and share it with the dogs and still be able to watch the last of the sun disappear while sprawled out on her bedroll.

  Sunset on Schneeheim, on the other hand, was more like a person switching off a light. One moment Scout could see the next few footholds in front of her, the next she lost sight of them all together in the sudden darkness.

  “Daisy?” Scout called.

  “You’re nearly there,” Daisy said, still far behind her. “Just a little further.”

  Scout turned on her night vision. It took a moment for her eyes to work out where those holds were. Looking at the green-tinted world wasn’t the same as the world in full daylight, but she could adjust.

  Scout could see the stone markers that stood at the edge of the road above her. She was nearly there. Her arms were shaking, her hands trembling so violently it took time to force them to close around the rope after moving them, but she was nearly there.

  Just a few more steps.

  Then Daisy gave a yell of alarm, and Scout heard the soft thunks of darts striking the rock face all around her.

  20

  Scout ducked her head, for all the good that would do her, but it was a reflex. The darts were coming from directly below her. The assassins must have come through the tunnel like she had feared.

  And Daisy with Gert on her back was taking the brunt of it.

  But she couldn’t look down. She had to get to the top.

  Scout let out a yell of equal parts rage at their pursuers and pain from her exhausted body. She charged up the last few footholds and then really had to work her arms, reeling herself in until she could pull herself over the ledge.

  The dog tucked close to her stomach made that more complicated than it would have been otherwise, and she had to twist sidewise to drag herself up on one hip before rolling over onto her back, staring up at the dark gray sky above her, hugging Shadow close with two shaking arms.

  She wanted to just lie there forever, to sleep for a million years and never move again.

  But that wasn’t an option.

  She sat up and forced her trembling hands to unzip her coat and untie the sling to let Shadow go. He scrambled away to sit against the cliff on the far side of the road. It would be a while before he forgave her for what had just happened.

  Scout rolled over onto her belly and slid up to the edge of the road, looking down at Daisy and Gert, barely at the halfway point of the rope.

  The assassins were no longer firing darts, and Scout didn’t see them on the road below – but that was only because they were climbing the rope behind Daisy, scaling the cliff with the fast pace Daisy had managed when she was climbing alone.

  They were closing in on her fast.

  Scout pulled out her gun and took aim, but with all of the assassins lined up behind Daisy, she couldn’t get a shot.

  Daisy looked up and saw what Scout was doing. She paused in her climbing to look around, and Scout wanted to scream in frustration. She needed to move faster, not slower.

  Gert’s head was looking up over Daisy’s shoulder. Either Daisy had packed her that way, or she had squirmed her head out of the opening on top. Scout really hoped it was the former.

  Despite everything going on around her, Gert looked absolutely thrilled, tongue lolling. Then Scout saw that Shadow had come to stand beside her, looking down at his doggy friend.

  “Scout!” Daisy called up to her as she detached herself from the rope and swung her body onto a parallel track. “Take the shot!”

  Scout raised the gun. She was about to gently squeeze the trigger when a sudden fear gripped her.

  It was like she could feel all the snow still on the mountain behind her, looming over them all.

  What if the sound of her gun firing triggered another avalanche? Was that possible?

  “Scout!” Daisy growled up at her. She was making her way up without the rope, but at any moment the assassins would see what she was doing and abandon the rope as well.

  “Hello, Teacher,” Scout said through gritted teeth.

  “Hello, Scout,” Warrior said, appearing beside her, also lying on her belly and looking down the cliff. “Take the shot.”

  “What if I trigger another avalanche?” Scout asked.

  Warrior looked around. “Unlikely. Everything that was going to slide already did so.”

  “Are you sure?” Scout asked desperately.

  “Scout!” Daisy shouted, loud enough for the assassins to look up and see Scout there aiming a gun down at them.

  “If you don’t take this shot, possible avalanches won’t matter,” Warrior told her.

  Scout saw one of the assassins moving away from the rope, taking a diagonal path to catch up with Daisy and Gert.

  “The only shot I can take is a headshot,” Scout said. “But that would kill even them, I think.”

  “They aren’t giving you a choice, Scout,” Warrior said.

  Scout bit her lip. She couldn’t let the assassins reach Daisy and Gert. She definitely couldn’t let them get up to her and Shadow. Scout was sure Daisy could fight off any attacker even while scaling a cliff, but Scout would have stood little chance even before she exhausted herself climbing.

  She couldn’t let them get up here, but did that mean she had to murder them? Was that really her only choice?

  She was haunted by what Daisy had said almost in passing about the mental conditioning that hadn’t taken hold of her own mind. All of these kids had been susceptible to it, but was that unfixable now? Could they be redeemed if given a chance?

  Could they just be kids again?

  “Scout!” Daisy cried again, this time ending in a frustrated shriek as her pursuer caught hold of one of her ankles. She kicked their hand away, then followed that up with a kick to the face that snapped their head back sharply and nearly knocked them off the mountain.

  Nearly, but not quite. And after clinging where they were for a moment, they continued their pursuit.

  And the others on the rope had nearly reached Scout and Shadow.

  Scout aimed the gun for the rope. As shaky as her hands
were, she didn’t think she could hit any of the assassins until they were right on top of her, but if she severed the rope . . .

  She was aiming for the point on the rope directly in front of her gun barrel, and it still took three shots to hit it. But when she hit it, it blasted apart at once, the weight of the climbers snapping it back with the speed of a retractable cord.

  Scout heard shouts of alarm and felt snow pelting her shoulders but ignored both, focusing instead on the climber once more reaching for Daisy’s foot. Scout fired, again and again, wishing she had taken out her slingshot instead. Aiming the gun wasn’t remotely the same experience. Firing her slingshot was instinctive to her. She never even thought about aiming, she just did it, aim and fire all in one smooth motion.

  She had no such instinct with the gun. But the fifth or sixth shot struck a protruding rock just in front of the climber, spraying their masked face with sharp slivers of shattered stone. They threw up a hand to protect their eyes—foolishly, as the mask protected them; it must be one of the younger kids—but Daisy had been watching for just such an opportunity and let herself drop back far enough to kick at their other hand. They slipped, caught a different hold, then slipped again, falling with a scream that ended abruptly the moment their body hit the road.

  “They can survive that,” Warrior told her. “But recovery will take time.”

  Scout turned her attention back to the path directly below her. Two of the assassins had let go of the rope and were still climbing up to her. When Scout fired again, she swore they both just let go of the rock face, letting themselves plunge back down to the road.

  “What was that all about?” Scout asked.

  “Regrouping,” Warrior said. “They’re going to be coming after you again.”

  One of Daisy’s hands appeared over the edge, then the other. She clutched a stone marker and pulled herself up to collapse facedown on the road.

  Scout turned to tell Warrior to go, but the AI had already disappeared. Not the first time she had seemed to read Scout’s mind. Perhaps they shared the feeling that Daisy didn’t need to know all of Scout’s secrets.

  Although Scout kind of suspected Daisy knew all about Warrior anyway. If she had been hiding in the walls watching everything, she probably had seen Bo gift it to her in the first place.

  “Give me a minute,” Daisy said, wheezing into the ground. Scout found the tie for the pack on her back and opened it enough to let Gert fall out of it.

  “Are you ill?” Scout asked, sitting next to Daisy’s head.

  “No,” Daisy said, then forced herself up onto her elbows. “I require a specific form of sustenance, and I’ve run out. I can maintain with normal food, but I would need a lot of it. Even if I ate everything we have and left nothing for you and the dogs, it wouldn’t be enough.”

  “The same is true of them,” Scout said, looking over the edge. None of the assassins below them were stirring yet.

  “Yes,” Daisy said.

  “But you stole their packs.”

  “They only had a day’s supply on them.”

  “So these guys might be getting hungry,” Scout said. “That will slow down their recovery time, right?”

  “It would, but I suspect they are getting resupplied,” Daisy said.

  “How?” Scout asked.

  “Those vehicles we saw outside the cabin, maybe,” Daisy said. “They might have found the other end of this road. It would have taken them some time, but eventually, they would have met up with the groups that followed our trail over the rougher terrain.”

  “Should we get off the road, then?” Scout asked.

  “No, we’re nearly there,” Daisy said, sitting up. “And off-road here means more cliff climbing. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can do it again. Not without rest and proper food.”

  “No, the road is better,” Scout said, but she didn’t like it. Everyone knew where they were. There was no way to hide.

  They would have to move quickly. And she was already so very tired.

  “I wonder if we could trigger another avalanche,” Daisy said, tipping her head back to look at the top of the cliff high above them. Even with Scout’s night vision, it was hard to distinguish where it ended and the sky began.

  “No,” Scout said. “If my gun didn’t set it off, I don’t think anything will.”

  “I have explosives,” Daisy said, patting the pack she had left leaning against the cliff wall.

  “No,” Scout said again. “We’re as likely to bury ourselves as them, and we really don’t have the time.”

  “Onward, then,” Daisy said, getting to her feet and bending to pick up her pack. She huffed out a breath as she pulled it up onto her shoulders.

  “Do you need me to carry that for a while?” Scout asked.

  “No, I’ve got it,” Daisy said. “Maybe you can take point?”

  “Of course,” Scout said.

  It was strange talking to someone when you were both wearing goggles with layers of scarf around the rest of your face. The smallest tilt of a head suddenly carried tons of meaning.

  Scout was pretty sure that Daisy had just given her the tired but hopeful smile she herself had been trying to give Daisy. Scout was glad she was there. There was no way she would have come so far without her. They would have gotten her for sure that first attack on the plateau in front of the McGillicuddys’ cabin.

  Scout looked up at the mountain as they walked. She could no longer see the dome of the city, not because the sun was no longer gleaming off of it, but because they were now walking almost directly beneath it. Not much longer and they would be there.

  And then the real fight would begin.

  21

  They walked half the night before Scout could not take another step. Daisy didn’t look like she could do much more either and found them a niche in the cliff a short climb up from the road, far enough that once they were inside no one walking by would notice them.

  It was a tight squeeze, but that was probably all for the better, as the temperature started dropping again. Daisy pulled a thin, insulated blanket out of her pack and huddled close to Scout with the dogs between them so she could tuck it around all of their bodies.

  Shadow curled up in Scout’s arms, his preferred place to sleep. Gert usually liked to be behind Scout’s knees, but now she had another human at her disposal. She curled up against Daisy, resting her head on Daisy’s bicep and closing her eyes with a very contented sigh.

  Daisy had her goggles pushed back and her scarf pulled down around her throat. Scout could see her face as she looked down at the dog sleeping against her. Her expression didn’t change much from its usual hard, stoic look, but there was a definite warm fondness to her eyes as she put a gloved hand on Gert’s big head to caress her softly as she slept.

  Scout felt another sharp pang in her heart for all the secrets she was keeping. Daisy felt like a decent person who would take circumstances into account, and if it were just what Scout had done, she would confess it.

  But Gert had attacked Clementine too. And it was for Gert’s sake that Scout had stabbed Clementine in the one place she couldn’t recover from.

  If Daisy knew, would that fondness leave her eyes? Even that would hurt Gert. There were a lot of things short of murderous rage that Scout still desperately wished to avoid.

  She liked Daisy. There was a comfortable feeling between them that reminded her of her childhood days with her family and school friends. She didn’t want to lose that.

  But what could she do to prevent it? She could only keep her secret for so long, and she was sure once they were in the city, she would have to confess. The moment they weren’t running for their lives.

  She owed Daisy that much.

  Scout felt like she had only just shut her eyes when Daisy was sitting up, gathering up the blanket to stuff it back in her pack.

  There was no sign of the sun, although the gray of the world around them wasn’t dark enough for it to still be night. />
  “Another storm?” Scout asked, looking around at the clouds scuttling darkly all around the mountaintop. It was disorienting how many of them were blowing by below them.

  “Or the same storm back again for another pass,” Daisy said. She took out a protein bar and snapped it in half for the dogs, then gave another to Scout.

  “What about you?” Scout asked, her mouth stuffed with the sticky berry crumbs.

  “I ate already,” Daisy said. “I’ll be fine. Just think, once we’re in the city we can find some proper tea.”

  Scout nodded. She wasn’t much of a tea drinker herself, but she could see the naked longing for the beverage in Daisy’s eyes. Scout preferred the fizzy, caffeine- and sugar-laden jolo, but as it was always served ice cold, she had no craving for one now. But back on the prairie after a hot day pedaling a bicycle? Nothing better.

  The rising sun competed with the darkening clouds, leaving the world around them a consistent murky gray. Great flakes of snow were dancing through the air, not falling exactly, just riding the faintest currents of wind.

  Scout reckoned it was about midday when the road curved around one last protrusion of rock before finally reaching the city wall. She recognized the stonework: stacked blocks that seemed older than time, just like inside the station where she had gotten on the tram.

  The road now circled the city itself in both directions, curving out of sight without any sign of a door or gateway.

  “Which way?” Scout asked.

  Daisy looked both ways, then stood still for a long moment with her eyes unfocused.

  “I’m not sure,” she said at last. “I don’t have any record of an exterior door from my time inside the city, but there must be one somewhere, or else why the road?”

  “Is the road as old as the wall?” Scout wondered, touching the carefully smoothed blocks. “When they put up the dome, they might have blocked all of the exits except for the trams.”

  “We’ll find something,” Daisy said. “But for now, one way is as good as the other. To the left?”

  Scout shrugged, and they started walking in that direction.