Pulse Point

by Colleen Nelson

  “Keep moving. Maybe the female will realize how impossible it is to survive out here. Maybe she’ll turn around.”

  And then we could all go back to the City. Kaia could be reunited with Mae. I would break off the match with Sari and somehow convince Tar, and the matchmakers, that Kaia and I should be together.

  “See that?” Raf pointed to the sky. In the distance a black bird circled. “That’s a bird of prey. Its talons are like knives. Probably found her before we did. It’ll kill her and then pick her bones clean. Won’t be anything left for us to take home but her tunic.”

  I gritted my teeth against his words. He was enjoying the torment they caused me.

  His pace quickened. “No one can survive out here on their own.”

  Despite my hopes for the opposite, I was starting to think he was right.

  Kaia

  The knife attack had kept the bird a safe distance away from me. It kept circling as I trudged towards my satchel, but knew better than to attack again.

  I longed for the safety of the City.

  Thinking about the City made me think of Sy. I fought the wave of emotion that rolled through me. I couldn’t waste water on tears.

  My satchel was waiting for me where I left it. I hitched it up on my shoulder, and the weight felt comforting now, not as much of a burden. I kept walking. My legs ached but the Mountain was almost in reach. I turned back and scanned the horizon. The City was so far behind me it was just a bump on the valley floor. Behind it, storm clouds moved with menacing speed across the sky. In minutes, they would engulf the valley and release a torrent of rain. There was something else in the distance. I squinted. Was I imagining it? Two figures in white. My breath caught in my throat.

  They’d come after me.

  A rumble shook the ground. Flashes of sheet lightning lit up the sky, bruising the swollen grey clouds to purple. My exhaustion forgotten, I ran for the safety of the Mountain.

  I was too afraid to look back as I scrambled uphill. There were trees now, their prickly branches tore at my skin. An animal, furry with long ears, darted out from behind a bush and ran in front of me. With a startled scream, I fell, banging my knee hard on a rock. I felt a hot trickle of blood run down my shin but didn’t look at it. I kept going, using my hands to scrabble up the slope. Lunging for the trees, I dragged myself up and hid under their branches.

  When I looked back down, I was surprised how high I’d climbed. I had a view of the valley below. And the two figures that were following me. A crack of thunder echoed. A few angry drops of rain pummelled the ground. And then the clouds opened and the rain came down fast, in hard-edged slaps.

  I had to keep moving. There was only one reason the overseers were outside and it was to find me. Veering to the right, away from the stream, I wound my way through the trees, wishing for flat ground so I could catch my breath. But the trees only grew denser as I climbed higher. The trees scratched my skin and tore holes in my tunic. The hem lay in tatters, chunks of fabric missing, tangled in the prickly needles, and I’d lost my headscarf. The bamboo sandals had saved my feet, but they did nothing to deter the clouds of insects waiting for me to slow down so they could feast on me. Sweat ran down my forehead and neck.

  As I climbed, the rain stopped, replaced with a blanket of mist. I looked back down the Mountain once to see if the overseers were close, but all I could see were trees. Endless trees. And they all looked identical. The path I’d just climbed had already been swallowed up, concealed by branches and trunks. I listened for the stream, but heard nothing.

  Sy had told me to stay by the stream. But I’d veered off course and now I was lost. And then, from high in the treetops, the caw of that stupid, monstrous bird. Could it get through the trees to attack? I was weak and exhausted. The gash in my knee throbbed; a rivulet of blood trickled down my mud-covered leg. Every cell of my skin screamed with the sting of the sun. With a panicked sob, I sank to the ground.

  Let the overseers find me, I thought. This plan was madness, hatched in a moment of weakness. I should go back down the Mountain and give myself up to the overseers. I’d accept whatever punishment awaited me in the City.

  But then another thought: I’d made it this far. Despite the obstacles of leaving the City without Sy and crossing the valley, I’d arrived at the Mountain. I’d done what I thought was impossible. If I gave up now, it meant the City had won again. With newfound resolve, I stood up.

  A smell, not foul, but musky and salty, carried on the air. I caught a whiff of it before a hand clamped over my mouth and I was dragged away.

  Lev

  Raf froze and held his hand out for me to do the same. His gaze landed somewhere at the base of Mountain. “Did you see that?” he asked, turning to face me. The Mountain stretched in front of us like a wall. The storm clouds hovered above, ready to unleash the storm.

  “There was movement, just below the trees.”

  I looked at where he pointed, doubtful. “It could have been an animal, or—”

  “A Prim,” he finished for me. “It wasn’t. It was her.”

  I wanted to believe him, but how could he be so sure? How could he tell the difference between Kaia and a Prim at this distance? I didn’t get to ask because a loud crack shook the ground. The clouds burst open and rain pelted down.

  “Keep moving!” Raf shouted, as if we had a choice. There was no place to take shelter; we wouldn’t reach the Mountain before the storm hit. All we could do was walk, heads bowed, shoulders hunched, and hope it would pass quickly. There was no way to control the storm; the elements were unforgiving.

  Kaia! I called in my head. How will you survive this?

  ⌓

  “Yaw!” Raf, held his arms out and hollered at the sky in triumph. The last few drops had fallen and the sky was lightening. “Yaw!” he shouted again. We’d made it through the storm, sometimes huddling against each other as the wind battered against us. Outside had done its worst and we’d survived. The Mountain was within reach.

  My canteen dangled from one hand as I threw my head back and shouted with abandon. Raf laughed as my voice echoed off the Mountain and slapped my shoulder. “We did it!” he congratulated me. The stream, full with rain water, tumbled frothy over rocks.

  “I have to fill up my canteen,” I said and let my pack drop to the ground.

  The sudden stop made my pulse point flicker with static. Raf had warned me that as we got further from the City, the signal would weaken. There had already been intermittent buzzing in my ear, like a nagging insect.

  “If it was her I saw before the storm hit, we’re gaining on her,” he said, looking up at the Mountain and its mass of green. “But she could be anywhere on this Mountain. It’ll be hard-going when night comes. I figure we have a couple more hours. Once the sun goes down, it’ll get dark quickly.”

  “Where will we sleep?” I asked as I dipped my canteen, a relic from the original inhabitants, into the stream. The water gurgled as it flowed through the built-in purifier.

  “We won’t. Best plan is to keep moving, try to gain some ground on her.” Raf surveyed the space around him. He was different out here, some of his overseer arrogance had worn away.

  “What if the Prims find her first?” I asked. I hated to think it, but it was possible. We were on their territory now. And alone and unarmed, I wondered what chance Kaia had against the Prims.

  “I don’t know what they’d do if they found her. They aren’t like us,” Raf said.

  “How do you know?” I hadn’t meant it to be a challenge, but by the way he answered, with clipped words, I knew he’d taken it that way.

  “I’ve met some.”

  “When?”

  “A long time ago,” he said. “We caught some and brought them into the City.”

  My mouth hung open. Prims had been in the City?

  “I thought they’d be wild, you know?”
Raf raised his hands and made a comically fierce growl. “But they weren’t. They were angry they’d been captured and worried about their families. They wanted to go back to the Mountain.”

  “What do you mean captured?”

  “They came looking for something. After years of them keeping to themselves, they showed up. We let them come in, but we didn’t let them go. That’s all I know.”

  “What happened?”

  Raf shrugged. “I was moved to a different post. My guess is that they were balanced.”

  I shook my head, confused. “The City captured them and then killed them? Why?”

  Instead of answering, he clipped his water bottle onto his pack. “Might be a good idea to keep your knife handy. Who knows what’s hiding in the trees.”

  I pulled the knife out of its holster. With a long blade and thick bamboo handle, it was the heaviest one I’d ever held. I kept it gripped in my hand, my eyes darting in every direction.

  “We’re going uphill now,” Raf said. “Pace yourself.” The slope was so steep that I had to hold on to tree branches to make my way further up the Mountain.

  Raf’s strides grew longer as the incline got steeper. The danger that lay ahead didn’t faze him, he seemed eager to embrace it, forging ahead. No wonder Tar had told me to follow his commands. But she’d also said Do whatever it takes to survive. What if the two things worked against each other?

  I switched the knife to my left hand, letting the circulation flow back into the fingers of my right hand. I stopped and looked around, if only to prove to myself that the spine-tingling feeling that we weren’t alone was just my imagination.

  Kaia

  I struggled. I tried to bite the hand covering my mouth. I kicked at the ground, dragging my heels. The overseers were too far away to hear me, but I screamed anyway. The muffled sound was lost as I was pulled into a cave.

  “Shhhh,” a voice said. A male. He eased his grip over my mouth. My fight weakened as he pulled me deeper into the cave. It smelled damp, the air murky and festering with fungus and moss, life that fed off gloom.

  Another male, younger, emerged from the darkness. A fire burned in the centre. I stared at it, mesmerized. Mae had told me about fire. The idea of it had filled me with fear. She’d told me it could be started by lightning and how entire forests had burned down. But this fire crackled and flickered, warming the walls of the cave. A grey mist, like heavy steam from boiling water, rose up from it.

  “Don’t scream,” the male said and took his hand off my mouth. I couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to: my throat was dry with fear.

  The younger one squatted and rested his elbows on his knees. He poked at the burning sticks with another, longer stick. The end was blackened and sharp. He kept stealing sidelong glances at me, an anxious furrow in his brow.

  “Who are you?” I whispered. The male passed me my canteen and held it in front of my lips. With a wary glance at them, I grabbed it and took a sip. Smoke had started to fill the cave. It burned my eyes. I looked up, realizing for the first time how enormous the room was. Tunnels led off in different directions.

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to ask questions, do you?” He peered down at me. The firelight flickered off the hollows and peaks on his face, his skin dark as aged resin. Shaggy dark hair hung limp and matted on his head, like an overgrown plant. A beard trailed to his chest.

  I licked my lips, wishing for more water but afraid to ask. The knives in their belts glinted in the dim light. As discreetly as possible, I felt for mine and then spotted it lying on the ground beside the younger one.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Kaia.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “You left the City? When?”

  I hesitated, unsure if he could be trusted. He hadn’t asked me to follow him, he’d captured me. I wasn’t a guest, I was a prisoner. “This morning. Before sunrise.”

  “Alone?” The younger one asked. His skin was sun-baked too, and he had a beard, but it was trimmed and not so wild looking.

  I nodded. It wasn’t a lie. I had left alone, and I grit my teeth against mentioning the overseers I’d seen in the valley. What if the Prims were hostile? I might need the overseers. A forced return to the City might be the lesser of two evils.

  “Why?” The older one’s eyes dug into me.

  It was too much to explain. Words failed me. I stared at him, despondent. “I can’t live there anymore.”

  He grunted and reached for my hand. I tried to jerk it away, but he held it tightly. His fingers were calloused like Sy’s, and filthy. Rubbing a finger over my pulse point, he clucked at me. “They’re tracking you.”

  I shook my head. “It’s broken. No one knows I left.” Except Sy, another secret I wouldn’t divulge.

  The younger one leaned in. “I’ve never seen one,” he muttered and rubbed his thumb over my pulse point. “So, this controls them?” he asked his friend.

  “No!” I snatched my hand back, indignant. “It records energy production.” The two of them exchanged glances of disbelief.

  “Can you make it do something?”

  I lifted my finger, expecting a hologram to appear, but nothing happened. Lowering it, I tried again and stared at the cave wall. My whole life, a hologram had appeared with a flick of my finger, connecting me with the rest of the City and displaying my memories. But now, that was gone too. “See,” I said shakily, “it’s not working.” I caught the skeptical look that passed between them. “It’s true,” I said, fearful that they wouldn’t believe me. “It’s how I escaped.”

  Neither of them said anything, but a look passed between them, like I wasn’t to be believed. The younger one bent closer, inspecting my knee. “What happened?”

  “I fell,” I answered. Dirt covered my knee and was embedded in the trail of congealed blood that ran down my leg. The cut had started to bleed again.

  The older one made a noise in his throat. “It’ll get infected.”

  They looked at each other again and frowned. “We should get her to camp. Make her comfortable.”

  Confused by the ominous tone of the older one’s voice, I watched as they dipped long sticks into the fire. The flames shot out at the cave walls. I ducked, cowering away. The younger one kicked dirt onto the fire in the centre until it died. He picked up my knife and slid it into a sash at his waist. He saw me watching. “Just keeping it safe for you,” he said.

  The older one surveyed me with a smirk and held out his hand to pull me up. “I’m Akrum. This is Gideon,” he pointed to the younger one who held his fire stick higher so the firelight flickered across his eyes. They were kind and curious and for a moment, I forgot to be scared. “You’ve made Gideon’s day. He’s always wanted to meet a refugee fresh from the City.”

  So that was what I was, a refugee?

  Gideon’s shoulders filled the narrow tunnel and when he moved, I could see the power of his body, well-muscled limbs used to the harsh conditions of life on the Mountain, so different from the lithe, slim figures of Citizens. With no protection on the Mountain, Akrum and Gideon’s skin looked as weather-beaten as the valley. Mae had told me that the solar panels on the dome filtered out the harmful spectrum of sunlight and made natural pigment unnecessary. After years of living in the City, every Citizen had a version of the same silvery, pale skin. I looked weak and vulnerable compared to both of them. “It’s a long walk through the cave tunnels, but still a shortcut. Are you coming with us?”

  It was an invitation, not a threat. I hesitated. Their appearance and roughness was intimidating, and Akrum put me on edge; his gaze was harsh. But if they were going to hurt me, wouldn’t they have done it already? Gideon waited impatiently at the forking tunnels and held out a torch to his friend. What choice did I have? Go back to the Mountain, lost and wounded, and wander? Or let the overseers capture me? If I wanted to find Raina, following these
Prims was my best chance. With a brusque nod, I ignored his hand, got to my feet and limped after them.

  The tunnel narrowed and we had to stoop until it opened up again into another large chamber and then we took a different path that twisted and turned. I reached out a tentative hand. The stone was cool and rough. A knot of fear tightened in my belly. I was following these people deeper into the cave. What if they weren’t Prims, but some other group?

  They both stopped suddenly and looked up. A hole opened at the top of the cave and I could see daylight. Akrum held his torch up high, whistling like a bird. Seconds later, a rope ladder was dropped down. It swung in front of us. Gideon began to climb, the ladder swinging side to side as he made his way up. “Your turn,” Akrum said. He held both torches and his face glowed orange, a lopsided smile showed yellowing, decayed teeth.

  I stared at the ladder, gripped both sides of the rope and tested the bottom rung with my foot. With a deep breath, I took a step up, the narrow rope pressing into the sole of my sandals. The ladder swung for a sickening moment until Akrum grabbed it, securing it below me. I moved up, hand over hand. I looked down once and my stomach lurched at how far I’d climbed.

  The smell of fresh air replaced the dank, still air of the cave. I put one arm on the ledge and hauled my body up, rolling out of the way and scrambling to my feet. At least thirty Prims stared at me. They stood in a semi-circle and began to hiss. It was a horrible sound, filling my ears as they advanced. I shrank back searching for Gideon.

  “Stop!” he said barging in front of me. “She’s not going to hurt us!”

  The hissing died out, but the hostile looks didn’t. “How do you know?” a female said.

  Akrum leaped over the edge, his agility surprising for someone of his age.

  “Did you remove it?” The female’s voice was sharp with suspicion. Two braids of red hair, as thick as hemp ropes, hung on either side of her face.