Shattered Lands

by ALICE HENDERSON

  Raven held up his hand, signaling Rowan to wait, and they moved to the rear of the vehicle to the decontamination area. They sprayed off their suits thoroughly, then returned to a side window.

  Rowan hit the switch for the door, and they all poured in.

  He moved to the back and hugged H124 through her heat suit. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” He went to work unlatching everyone’s helmets and suits and helping them out.

  Rivet hadn’t said much since H124 had talked to her behind the shelves, and now she stood in silence, staring out of the windows nervously. She still didn’t say anything as she stepped out of her heat suit and hung it on the wall of the vehicle in the back.

  Rowan looked at all of them. “Cal’s really gone?”

  H124 nodded.

  “What was it?”

  Raven shrugged. “We don’t know.”

  Rowan moved back to the controls and started up the vehicle. They lumbered out of there, moving slowly over the uneven terrain, getting blissfully farther and farther away from the nightmare.

  H124 thought of Cal, lying out there alone, the sands creeping around him.

  * * * *

  As they drove silently toward the Rover camp, H124 sat up front with Rowan. The sun rose in a sky of red, with brilliant gold and orange clouds blanketing the horizon. Desolate brown mountains rose in the east, completely desertified. She watched him move in the driver’s seat, his clothes stitched together from a variety of old fabrics gathered by the Badlanders: pants of worn grey canvas and a soft green material with black stitching and a black shirt with red pieces stitched together to cover the holes. It looked comfortable. She’d replaced her own old work clothes with some pieces the Rovers had made: a soft, black, long-sleeved shirt made out of something called “bamboo,” and sturdy black pants with a number of handy pockets. On her feet she wore her old trusty black boots, which had begun to show signs of wear.

  The temperature started to climb again, and soon the vehicle’s cooling system struggled to keep them from overheating inside the cabin. She could hear Rivet crying in the back. Raven sat with his hand on her back, uttering consoling words H124 couldn’t quite make out.

  After two hours of jostling over broken asphalt and slogging through expanses of windblown sand, exhaustion caught up with her. She tried to fight it, but her eyes finally closed. Then Rowan braked suddenly, and she jerked awake. He leaned forward in his seat, gripping the wheel.

  “This doesn’t look good.” He slowed down the vehicle, staring out at the horizon.

  There she saw a fuzzy brown line. It bloomed higher, moving and undulating, its top edge ragged and hazy. It looked like a beige storm cloud, but on the ground. “What is that?”

  “A sandstorm.”

  The mobile mass stretched as far as they could see to either side. Moving quickly, it soon towered before them, surging and rolling.

  Raven came forward, gripping the back of H124’s seat. “Can we go around it?”

  Rowan sat back, gazing out of the windows. “I don’t see how.” He leaned over between their seats and flipped a few toggle switches. A round screen mounted in the center of the dashboard blinked on, glowing green. An arm of light snaked out from the center and started to sweep in circles around the display. The sandstorm appeared as a bright line, taking up the entire top half of the screen. Rowan studied some numbers at the bottom. “It’s moving at forty-two miles an hour.”

  Raven gaped at him in horror. “Can this thing withstand a storm like that?”

  Rowan rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been in some storms, sure. But nothing like this.” He stared out at the approaching mass, searching for anything they could seek refuge near. Nothing but flat land stretched out in their immediate vicinity. “But we’re about to find out.”

  The storm barreled toward them, a churning squall, alive and writhing.

  “Will it get into the engine?” Raven asked.

  “It’s been specially adapted with a filter that should protect it. If I shut off the motor, it won’t take long for it to heat up in here. We’ll be a bag of crispy fritters.”

  Then the storm hit them. Visibility went from fifty feet to one. Dim sunlight filtered through the sand, growing fainter by the second. Incredible winds hit the vehicle. H124 gripped her armrest as the car rocked violently, threatening to lift up on two wheels.

  A hissing erupted as millions of sand particles hit the car. The world grew darker and darker, taking on an eerie red glow. She could barely make out anything around them now, not even the hood of the vehicle.

  Then darkness swallowed them, plunging them into an impenetrable black. Lights from the instrument panel glowed, lighting Rowan’s face as he stared out. Powerful winds buffeted the vehicle. The hiss of sand grew to a roar.

  “Make it stop!” shouted Rivet.

  H124 looked back to see her cradling her head in her hands as Orion tried to comfort her. “It’ll pass soon,” he told her.

  But it didn’t.

  The storm raged on and on, keeping them in complete darkness. The bellowing of the winds howled in a frenzy against the vehicle. The grating sound of sand against glass made H124 grit her teeth. All she could do was squeeze her eyes shut.

  “How long can this last?” Orion asked from the back.

  Raven checked the radar screen. There was no break in sight from the storm.

  Rowan reached over and gripped H124’s hand. They all sat in silence then, listening to the storm twisting around them, scouring the vehicle.

  H124 blinked as a dim light seeped in through the windows. The darkness shifted back to the strange red glow, and suddenly she could see the car’s hood. She’d never seen such a spooky crimson light, and she felt as if she’d been transported to an alien world.

  Slowly the red shifted to beige, and she could now make out the ground a few feet in front of the car. But she couldn’t see anything out of her passenger window. Sand had piled up, burying that side. The wind quieted and died.

  Raven stood tensely between their seats, still looking out. They could now see about a hundred feet out. H124 noticed that the vehicle’s brilliant green paint had been completely blasted off on the windward side. Bare metal glinted as the sun finally pierced the thick cloud of sand.

  The engine still thrummed. They’d made it.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Rivet pleaded from the back.

  Rowan tried to pull forward, but couldn’t. He pressed the engine harder, but the tires just spun in the sand.

  “We’re going to have to put on the heat suits and dig ourselves out,” he told them.

  “Out there?” Rivet cried. “With those things? No way. Just push the engine.”

  Rowan tried again, but it was only digging them in more. “The hatch is buried. We’ll have to crawl out of the window on this side.”

  “I can do it,” H124 said, getting up. She slid past Raven, and moved to the back where her suit hung.

  “You’re crazy,” Rivet told her. “That storm could have sprayed those things all over the place.”

  H124 stepped into the suit and picked up her helmet. “I’ll be okay.”

  Rowan moved to the back too, donning Rivet’s suit. Raven joined him. The three of them winnowed out of the driver’s side window and stepped onto the sand.

  Orion handed shovels through the window, then rolled it up again.

  The sun beat down mercilessly as H124 moved to the passenger side. It was completely buried. She immediately went to work digging down toward the front wheels. Raven and Rowan took the back, shoveling awkwardly in their bulky suits.

  With every scoop of sand, she dreaded finding more of the things that had killed Cal. She had almost cleared one of the front wheels when she saw them. Lifting her shovel, she tossed sand to the side, seeing grey particles squirming among the tiny brown pebbles.

&nbs
p; She stepped back, bringing her shovel up. The section of sand at her feet erupted with the tiny creatures. They wriggled and scurried over one another, no bigger than the brown grains burying the car. “They’re here!” she called to the others. But already they swarmed up over her suit. She held her breath as they flooded over her faceplate, once more drowning her in darkness.

  Chapter 4

  H124 held still, hoping they wouldn’t find ingress to the suit.

  “H!” she heard Rowan cry out. “They’re all over her! What do we do?”

  “I don’t know!” Raven shouted, and for the first time since she’d met him, he sounded truly afraid.

  “What’s happening? I can’t see anything,” she called out to them.

  “I think . . .” Rowan started to say, “I think they’re leaving.”

  The darkness lifted a little, and H124 could once more see the tiny grey creatures swarming over her faceplate. They glinted in the sunlight as she struggled to focus on them. When only a few darted across the glass, she brought up her hand slowly. Dozens still scurried on her arm, and she studied them closely. They gleamed like silver. They weren’t organic. They were some kind of metal. Machines.

  She looked down as they burrowed back into the sand.

  Rowan rushed to her. “They couldn’t get inside your suit.”

  She stood, shocked that she was still alive.

  Raven stood beside her, squeezing her shoulder. “Let’s work fast,” he said, and they returned to digging.

  Fifteen minutes later, they’d cleared the wheels. After decontaminating their suits again, they squeezed back in through the driver’s window. They shucked off the bulky suits, and Rowan returned to the driver’s seat. He pushed the engine, the motor roared, and the vehicle lurched forward, rolling over the sand.

  Rivet sighed loudly and hung her head. Orion nodded his thanks at them, but no one spoke. They still had a long slog to go before they reached the Rover camp.

  * * * *

  After five more hours behind the wheel, they pulled up at the Rover camp to find everyone rushing around. Raven climbed from the vehicle and hurried into a nearby tent. H124 followed him, seeing fear on every face. They found Onyx packing up her computer equipment. She was a tall woman with long black hair, a fellow Navajo and cousin of Raven’s. She was an amazing hacker, and had been the one to save them all during the airship attack when H124 had finally found the Rovers.

  “Yá’át’ééh,” Raven greeted her.

  She smiled, happy to see them back. “‘Aoo’, yá’át’ééh.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked her.

  “Our location has been compromised,” she told them. The Rovers had been piggybacking off Rowan’s listening device that he’d planted at Delta City. They all eavesdropped now on the Public Programming Control movements, including PPC troop and airship maneuvers. “They’re sending in troops.”

  Raven rocked back on his heels, watching everyone rush around, packing their equipment.

  Rowan joined them and squeezed H124’s hand. “Where will everyone go?” she asked.

  Raven cracked a rueful smile. “Sanctuary City. It’s our stronghold, and the media can’t find it. But we don’t have time to join the others there now. We need to get to the east coast.”

  James Willoughby appeared as Raven rushed away. He was back in his impeccable suit, his black hair freshly styled. She’d gotten used to seeing him in casual wear around the Rover camp as they’d healed from the airship crash. Now he looked every inch the stylish PPC exec. “H,” he said, moving quickly to her. “I’m glad I got to see you before I left.” He gave her an affectionate pat on the shoulder.

  “Left?” She felt a pang. For the last few weeks they’d been spending a lot of time together. She’d learned so much about how the PPC maintained its power, and how they kept the citizens enthralled. But more than that, they’d talked of their lives, and she felt bonded to him. He was the one member of the PPC they could count on, their source of inside knowledge, and he’d been a powerful ally. She’d grown attached to him.

  “I’ve contacted the PPC and explained that my airship crashed, and that I’ve been recovering. They have no idea that I helped you. I pitched them a new show, too, to sweeten the deal. They’ve been struggling. The British Entertainment Corporation City has installed some new, very powerful transmitters, and citizens in New Atlantic are able to pick up their shows. We’ve been having some infrastructure problems as a result.” H124 knew that to keep the media streaming, citizens had to periodically enter codes and commands into their consoles. These in turn managed the city’s infrastructure, though the citizens weren’t aware of it. If they were watching BEC City’s programming, then all their efforts would go toward maintaining that city instead of New Atlantic.

  “They’ve arranged an airship to pick me up,” he told her.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Don’t worry. It’s nowhere near here. And everyone’s packing up, anyway.”

  She took his arm and led him away from the others. “You can’t go back to New Atlantic.”

  “Why not?”

  “When we were at the radar facility, we were able to see the fragments. Get an accurate idea of their size and where they’re going to hit. I’m sorry, but New Atlantic is going to be completely destroyed.”

  Willoughby rocked back on his heels. “What?”

  “In a very short amount of time, too.” She told him about the spacecraft and how they had to retrieve a section of it on the east coast before the impact. “You can’t be anywhere near there.”

  “What should I do?” he asked, blinking.

  “Can you go to Delta City?”

  He looked down at her. “I can’t . . . that place . . .”

  “You could work for the PPC there, gathering intel. One of the sections of the spacecraft is there. We could really use your help to infiltrate the city. In the meantime, you could work undercover to convince the citizens to leave. If we’re unsuccessful in altering the course of the main asteroid, it’s going to be a direct hit on Delta City. “

  Willoughby swallowed. “What about the people in New Atlantic?”

  “We can try another pirate broadcast. You could reach out through your channels, and warn people to leave the city.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded. “I can’t believe this.”

  “I’m sorry,” she told him, clenching his arm.

  “I’ll go contact the PPC airship, tell them I want to be routed to Delta City instead. And I’ll think of a way to warn people in New Atlantic.” His faraway gaze fell back on her. “You take care of yourself. Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  She thought of crossing the desert, of the things that had eaten Cal. Of the night stalkers and megastorms. There was nothing now to her life except risk. “I’ll be careful. And you take care of yourself in Murder City.”

  He hugged her, kissing her on her forehead. “Back into the lion’s den,” he said, and turned away to join the throng of rushing people.

  As the Rovers shifted around camp, H124 spotted Gordon sitting nearby, examining some charts. The elderly man—whom H124 had guessed to be in his late eighties, but never asked—wore his usual flannel shirt and worn pair of overalls. He spotted her and got up, smiling. “How are you feeling?” she asked him.

  The aviator had been badly injured in the airship crash too. The medpod had fixed all his broken bones, but she knew he still ached just like she did. “Better and better every day,” he told her with a smile.

  Across the room, she saw Rowan answering a call on his PRD. Concern washed over his face as he nodded and talked quietly. She heard someone say, “You’ve been away too long as it is. They aren’t your people. We are. We need you, Firehawk.”

  The words stung her, and she didn’t want to eavesdrop. Raven came back into the tent and waved R
ivet and Orion over to where H124 stood with Gordon. “We’ll need a way to cover that distance to the east coast, and fast,” Raven told them.

  Gordon glanced around at them. “What’s the mission?”

  H124 told him about the spacecraft pieces, and how the one on the east coast was in danger of being destroyed.

  He lifted his chin. “I’ll take you.”

  Raven raised his brow. “But your plane. It’s gone. And we don’t have any others near here.”

  Gordon stood firm. “It wasn’t my only one. I’ve got access to a few, stashed around in different places. My friend’s got a little jet that can get to the east coast in no time.” His twinkling eyes rested on H124. She felt herself smiling. They’d been through hell together and shared a concrete bond. “It’ll have to be a small group if we’re loading a piece of this spacecraft aboard. I can only take two people. And it’ll be dangerous. That part of the coast is lashed with storms this time of year. Bad ones.”

  Bad storms. They’d been through that together too. “I’ll go,” she said.

  “And so will I,” Raven offered.

  “That’s two,” Gordon said.

  Rivet exhaled, the relief clear on her face. “I can take the schematics back to Sanctuary City and figure out how it’s going to fit together when we get all the pieces.”

  Raven nodded. “Great.”

  Orion cleared his throat. He looked relieved as well. “And I’ll keep an eye on those fragments. You’re going to be cutting it pretty close. That thing could hit while you’re out there.” He thought a minute, then added, “I can send the data to your PRDs. Let you know when it’s getting close to impact.”

  “Fantastic,” Raven told him, extending a hand to Orion. Raven shook it. Rivet did the same, shaking H124’s hand. As she and Orion walked away, Rivet looked over her shoulder, giving H124 a sad smile. “Good luck, H,” she whispered.