Shattered Lands

by ALICE HENDERSON

  Raven switched on his headlamp, shining it back the way they’d come. The narrow hole in the debris was now blocked. “We’re not going back that way,” he whispered. “Let’s hope this tunnel is still open at the other end.”

  Above them the hurricane roared and slammed against the street, shaking the ceiling and raining down tiles and dirt. She also switched on her light, and they walked along the tunnel until they reached another staircase. They descended, turned a corner, and stopped at the top of a long, grated staircase. Each step had metal grooves. A decayed rubber banister ran the entire length of the stair. They started down, her boots clinking on the grate. On both sides hung old advertisements. Most of them were too dusty or moldy for her to make out much, but she read a few lines:

  “Be part of our Friends and Family Package! Upgrade to 12g!”

  “Share your company with the world. Ad packages start at only $9999!”

  “Time for retirement? Be smart! Our advisors are standing by today!”

  At the bottom of the stairs they entered a long platform, where crumbling pillars held up a bare ceiling. Tiles had covered it once, but now most of them lay broken and dusty on the floor. In front of them a large tunnel meandered off in both directions. Raven consulted his PRD, then pointed to the left.

  They descended a small set of stairs and stepped into the tunnel. At their feet, strange steel tracks led away into the darkness. They started down them slowly as they stepped over wooden crossbeams. “What is this place?” she asked.

  “People used to ride down here on electric trains, moving around the city.”

  “Trains?” The word was unfamiliar.

  “Vehicles capable of holding hundreds of people. The trains moved from station to station, picking people up and dropping them off.”

  “Why did they get on and off?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where were they going?”

  “Jobs, dates, concerts, social engagements, family events . . .”

  She stared at him, and her headlamp made him squint. She didn’t know what “concerts” were, or how you could go to a date on a calendar. But she knew what family was, and envied those people who knew their parents or siblings. “You mean they lived in a city, but were free to roam around, to spend time with other people?”

  “Yes.” He studied her for a moment as she took it all in. “Things were different for you, huh?”

  She exhaled. “Very.”

  Raven looked down at the tracks, stepping around a large chunk of ceiling that had given way. “For me, too. I spent my childhood on a mission, traveling with my parents, stocking weather shelters and tending to experimental forests.” He tucked a wet strand of hair behind his ear. “Since they were killed, repairing things has become my new goal. It’s hard to imagine an entire city full of people able to go about their leisure, to see musicians play and visit with friends. Add to that the destruction of everything else . . . the forests, the rivers . . .” He took a deep breath. “We don’t know what we’ve lost.”

  They walked on in silence before she asked, “What’s a concert?”

  He cracked a smile. “It’s when a bunch of people gather to hear a musician play.”

  She nodded, still having no idea what he was talking about. “What’s a musician?”

  He stopped and faced her. “You serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Someone who performs music.”

  She thought back to her life in New Atlantic. She’d heard the term “music” before, when she was little. Before she’d been moved to corpse cleanup, she cleaned the living pods of citizens. Piped into the living quarters were strange, magical, lilting sounds. Sometimes they were dreamy and atmospheric, other times full of energy.

  “I think I know what music is. I may have heard it before, a long time ago.”

  He appeared stunned. “I had no idea, or I would have played you some.” Wind whistled through the tunnel. “I’d play you some now on my PRD, but I think we’d have a hard time hearing it.”

  “How do you go to a date? Aren’t we always going to a date, every time the day changes?”

  He wrinkled his brow in confusion, then burst into laughter. He caught himself, and cleared his throat. “Excuse me. It’s not that kind of date. It’s a term for when . . . well . . .” All of a sudden he got awkward, and his words trailed off.

  “When what?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “When two people want to spend time together alone.”

  She thought of Rowan kissing her, and recognition dawned. “Oh. I see.”

  He adjusted the pack on his back. “I don’t suppose you’ve had many of those in New Atlantic either.”

  “Never in New Atlantic.” Her eyes met his. “What about you?”

  “When I was younger, traveling with my parents, there were a couple of people. One was a Badlander.”

  H124 knew how that felt. “Oooh . . . dangerous!”

  “Tell me about it. Her father hated me. We had to sneak out to see each other.”

  “What happened?”

  He fidgeted with his pack’s straps. “After my parents died, I felt like my whole world had turned to ashes. To lose them for such a senseless reason . . . I spent weeks just sitting in a weather shelter, staring at the wall. I couldn’t bring myself to eat. I felt like I was underwater, and time slowed to this agonizing crawl. It was an effort just to breathe. I hadn’t just lost my parents, but my belief that we could change things, that we had any ability to do good on this planet. The weeks turned into months, and instead of things starting to heal, the reality of them being gone just set in all the more. I saw her a few times, but I guess she didn’t understand the depth of my grief. She still had her parents. She wanted the same fun-loving me she’d gotten to know. And I guess that part of me was gone. We drifted apart. I haven’t seen her in years.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He looked at her appraisingly. “Must have been tough for you, living that isolated life, not even knowing your parents?”

  “It was. I’ve always felt this ache inside me, this longing, but I didn’t know what it was. Now, being with you all, meeting Rowan and Gordon . . . I realize that it was companionship.”

  “I wonder what’s worse. Never knowing your parents at all, having terrible, abusive parents, or having loving parents who die prematurely.”

  “They’re all terrible.”

  “Yes.”

  They walked on.

  He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Huh. I’ve never told anyone about that.”

  The hurricane was raging on above, and the ceiling continued to rain down in scattered fragments. A sudden wind tore through the tunnels, as if a debris-choked egress had suddenly come free ahead. Her eyes streamed with tears. A loud boom erupted overhead. Something massive had hit the ground. The entire tunnel shuddered, and H124 brought a hand to her chest. “What was that?”

  “Probably another building falling.” Raven checked his PRD. “We’re getting closer. We’ll have to switch to a different tunnel, though, one going east to west.”

  Their boots squished on the ground. Water was starting to seep into the tunnels. “You mean . . .”

  “We have to go topside.”

  They reached another platform, and climbed the stairs up to the street entrance. It was hopelessly blocked from a cave-in that probably happened decades ago. Moss grew on the exposed rock.

  They turned back, traveling down another stretch of tunnel to a third station. This time when they climbed up to the surface, they saw a crack of dim light filtering through a pile of fallen ceiling.

  “I think this’ll work.”

  They went to work hefting away chucks of tile and cement. They levered out the bigger pieces using lengths of rusted rebar. Wind shrieked through the hole as the aperture grew
wider. When it was big enough for them to crawl through, the wind tore at their clothes. She put her goggles back on, and watched Raven disappear through the jagged opening.

  Then she was crawling through herself, back out into the lashing storm. As they emerged from the stairwell, the wind blasted her in the back. Raven grabbed her hand just as the wind sent her off her feet. Though it was still day, they could barely make out anything before them. Dark, thick clouds hung so low she couldn’t see where the lashing rain ended and the clouds began.

  Raven tried to hold on to her hand, but then he went over too. She looked at her PRD, trying to make out the wind speed. One hundred sixty mph. They tumbled over, and got pinned against the base of a crumbling building. Water rose around them, foul-smelling and cold. Raven shouted to her, trying to point to a neighboring street, but the wind tossed his arm away. Wind rippled their skin. She had to keep her mouth shut, lest it be forced open. Her throat was so dry it hurt.

  Rain slashed at them, plastering their hair to their faces. He shouted something else she couldn’t hear.

  The force of wind against her was unbearable, like a thousand knives pricking her all at once. Sand, glass, and other debris pummeled past. She felt a stinging cut on her cheek as the jagged edge of an old metal sign screamed past.

  They had only a block to go, but H124 didn’t see how they were going to make it.

  Chapter 7

  Crawling on their hands and knees through the sloshing water, H124 and Raven struggled to cross the street. She could see another railing leading to a tunnel. A building on their right moaned, and she looked up to see it leaning dangerously, its bricks being torn from its facade and tossed into the wind. As it shuddered she tried to crawl faster, but each time she picked up an arm or leg, she had to fight against the gale to plant it down again, often losing. Their progress was agonizingly slow, and when she heard the building groan and fall, she braced herself to be crushed beneath it. She kept crawling, kept fighting, keeping Raven in sight, then looked up to see the edifice collapsing just behind them. It came down with a dull rumble and a howling of the wind. The street shook as it hit, bruising her palms and knees.

  They had only a few feet to go. Raven reached the railing, lacing his fingers through the metal. He turned and stretched out his other hand for her. She grabbed it, his skin warm against the cold rain. She was surprised at his strength as he pulled her up close to him against the forceful wind. She gripped the railing and took a deep breath, every bone in her aching.

  Sometime in the past, a building had fallen over the entrance, and rubble now blocked it completely. Holding on to the railing, she reached out with her free hand to start clearing away bricks. But a sudden gust at her back sent her sprawling onto the pile of rubble. Sharp, broken corners cut her hands and knees. Raven grasped her arm, trying to pull her up, but she could feel the bricks shifting beneath her weight. As her stomach pitched downward, the bricks swallowed her. Her hands sunk into the mess as she struggled to get out. The whole thing gave way with a shudder, and she fell down, arms flailing, bricks falling on her head and back. She slammed down hard on the floor. Raven landed beside her.

  She curled into a fetal position as the rest of the bricks cascaded down on top of them. Rain kept lashing at her face. She wiped the brick dust out of her eyes, and saw that the dam of bricks had fallen free—the opening was clear.

  Raven shifted beside her, brushing crumbling mortar off his face. Piles of red dust littered the floor. They stood, wiping themselves off as the wind pushed on them from above.

  “That went faster than I expected,” he said, flicking a broken chunk of brick off his shoulder.

  She laughed. “I knew just where to apply pressure.”

  He grinned. “Brilliant.” After he’d made sure the sled in his pack was undamaged, they made their way into the darkness of the new tunnel.

  They descended to another platform and hopped down onto the rails, this time going east. She checked her PRD. It was six hours before the fragment was due to hit.

  “Raven,” she said, wiping the rain out of her eyes as it dripped down from her hair. “How can we possibly move the spacecraft section to safety out there?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. We’ll wait for the eye of the hurricane to pass over, and move it then.”

  “Doesn’t that mean we’ll be out there, exposed to those winds in the eyewall if we don’t make it in time?”

  “We have to risk it.” He brought up a series of old maps that had been scanned into his PRD. “Looks like there’s an old commuter train tunnel that runs due west. If we can enter it while the eye is passing over, we can have Gordon pick us up at a station beyond the edge of the hurricane.”

  She knew he was thinking the same thing, but she said it aloud anyway. “What if we can’t make it that far before the fragment hits?”

  Raven remained silent.

  They hurried faster now, moving down the main tunnel, branching off at different service tunnels. As they made their way through the dark, another fear came to her. She glanced around in the gloom. “Are there night stalkers down here?”

  He shook his head. “Probably not. They don’t seem to live this far east for some reason. We’re not sure why.”

  H124 thought back to her escape from New Atlantic. She’d slept out in the open that first night, and hadn’t encountered those things until she was farther west.

  At last they reached another platform. A tile marquee still survived on the wall above, though some of the letters had fallen off and shattered. It read: Loc.ha.dt Aer.na.tics.

  “They had their own station?” she asked.

  “Guess so. This company was probably a huge draw to the city back then.”

  They took the stairs two at a time, and found the entrance only partially blocked. Water poured in from the street above. They only had to remove a few stones to squeeze through. She stuck her head through the ingress, holding her breath as the water cascaded down her face. Pulling her body through, she gasped as she emerged from the waterfall, only to have the wind rob her of her breath. To her right she saw the remains of Lockhardt Aeronautics, a marquee above the door now reading only “AERO—TI—.” It had once sported a large glass-enclosed lobby, she guessed, but now all of it was exposed to the elements.

  She stepped out, and the wind immediately sent her off balance. Gripping the railing around the stairwell, she moved hand over hand to get closer to the building’s door. Raven moved as she did, and she let go of the railing, letting the wind lift her toward the entrance. She tried to stay upright, but instead tumbled head over feet through the framework that had once held the glass. She sloshed through brown water. The wind shoved at her, pinning her on the opposite side of the lobby, cold water seeping all around.

  As Raven let go, she watched him fly through the entrance, slamming against the wall next to her. A metal door stood to their left, still intact, so they strained toward it. Raven’s hand closed around the handle, and as soon as he pushed down, the door flew open, pulling him with it. H124 managed to stand, letting the wind urge her through the door.

  It took both of them to get it closed again.

  The sudden absence of wind was shocking, and her skin tingled and ears rang. The gale shrilled through the cracks around the doorframe. She could hear it tearing at the building around them.

  With the door shut, the stench of mold assaulted them. The room was knee-deep with water. Decaying plaster, drywall, and black, molded ceiling tiles floated on its surface. The musty smell was so intense she pulled the scarf back up over her face. They seemed to be in an old room filled with workstations. Several desks stood furred and black with mold, with a few chairs sticking out of the water. Raven studied his PRD, and pointed to their left. Wading through the water, they tested each step for weak areas in the floor, avoiding several spots where water spiraled downward as if there were a drain. Ancient
insulation, now black and tattered, floated around them.

  They moved through a series of rooms as the building shuddered against the wind. Coming to a flight of stairs, they opened the door at the top. “Down here,” Raven said. They descended several flights, opening the door at each floor to explore, but found most rooms to be the same, full of old desks and workbenches, rusted tools, and collapsed ceilings. Finally, three flights down—now deep underground—they entered a gigantic workspace. Machines lay scattered about, with all manner of tools she didn’t recognize. Water seeped through the ceiling in places, pooling ankle-deep on the floor.

  The space was hollow and resonant, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was trespassing. She could almost feel the ghosts of the men and women who had worked here, laboring on a worthwhile project designed to save the planet. Now their tools lay scattered and unused. She could imagine their disbelief when the project lost funding, when they walked away from this workroom for the last time.

  Inside stood a round, self-contained room with glass walls. White suits with helmets hung on hooks beside the door. And in the center of the room stood a device that still looked pristine.

  They entered the room, and approached the object. This was it—the spacecraft section. She recognized it at once from the schematic in the binder she’d found. It was square and metallic, covered in places with gold foil, with areas of complex wiring on the exterior. An antenna extended from one side, and there were panels with strange inputs. It stood nearly three feet tall and two feet wide.

  “How long before the eye passes over?” she asked.

  Raven checked. “Forty-five minutes.”

  “We’re cutting it close.”

  He pulled the mag-lev sled from his pack and turned on the four copters that formed its base. The little propellers moved around the room, calibrating themselves to each other to form a perfect rectangle. He unfurled the horizontal portion and placed it over the copters, where it levitated easily.

  Next he unpacked a translucent skin.