Pulse Point

by Colleen Nelson

  Remove what? I wondered.

  “Show them,” he commanded me and gave my finger a pointed look. When I raised it, they all leaned away from me. I didn’t know what they thought would appear, knives that would fly through the air at them? A flock of birds to carry them away? But there was an audible sigh of relief when nothing happened. “The thing in her finger is broken.”

  The female, a few years older than me, ran her eyes up and down me, staring hard at my face. “She could be lying.”

  I looked to Akrum, but he said nothing in my defence. “I’m not lying,” I whispered.

  “That’s what you’d say if you were,” she sneered. “Was she armed?”

  “She had a knife,” Akrum said. “Gideon took it.” A low murmur ran through them.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” I said, my voice shaking. Was one of them Raina? I looked at the crowd, searching each face for one that looked like the female in Mae’s memory.

  “Why are you here then?” A large male, maybe the tallest human I’d ever seen, piped up. His deep voice silenced all the other questions.

  “I can’t live there anymore.” My voice cracked, more from exhaustion than emotion.

  Gideon stared at the others angrily. “Look at her, would you? She’s no threat to us. Anyway, she’s got a wound on her knee.”

  His words seemed to calm their fears. The female with braids gave a disgruntled sigh and muttered something to the big male. One by one, they turned and left the clearing, walking single file down a forest path. “I’ll tell the Chief,” Gideon said to Akrum. Before he left, he gave me a long look. I met his gaze and then turned away, unsettled.

  “Why do they hate me?” I asked.

  “They’re afraid. We haven’t had a refugee in a long time,” Akrum said.

  “There’ve been others?” My breath quickened at the thought of Raina. Had she made it?

  “A few, over the years.”

  “A few?” I repeated, turning to him in surprise.

  He nodded and drew his eyebrows together in a frown as he looked at my knee. “I never told the other refugees what would come, when we found them.” He sighed. “But, I’m old now,” he grimaced. “And wiser.” He drew me closer and lowered his voice. “You’re going to die on this Mountain, Kaia.”

  I stared at him.

  “Death is coming for you. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

  Lev

  We’d stopped for another break. Thankfully. Raf’s pace was punishing and sweat dripped down my back. My shoulders had been rubbed raw from carrying the backpack. The storm had left the ground slippery and spatters of mud covered our suits. I looked up at the cloudless sky. Raf kept reminding me how few daylight hours we had until night fell. I swatted at the clouds of insects buzzing around my head. Nothing in my overseer training had prepared me for being outside. I wondered how Kaia was managing. Even without Mae’s life at stake, I was sure Kaia would agree to come back to the City when we found her. She must have discovered by now that whatever she’d fled hadn’t been as bad as what she was running to.

  What was she running to, anyway? What did she think she’d find on the Mountain?

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that Tar knew more about Kaia than she had let on. After all, she’d taken Mae prisoner before Kaia had left. Why? What did Kaia have that Tar wanted? And why did she need to use Mae to get it? I was missing something, but what?

  “How did Tar know to take Mae? Did she know Kaia was going to leave?” I finally asked.

  Raf didn’t answer right away. He grabbed a stick off the ground and twirled it between his fingers. I watched as he pulled a knife out of his belt and shaved bits off the end, whittling it to a point.

  “Tar must have told you,” I pressed. “She tells you everything.”

  “Tar and I have known each other our whole lives. We were classmates, me, her and Kellan, then trained as overseers together.”

  “Was she always so—”

  “Menacing? No. Not always. She got that way after Kellan died. His death made her see things differently. She had you to look after and set her eyes on the Council. Her happiness didn’t matter anymore.” Raf stopped talking and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”

  I raised my nose, but all I could smell was the sharp tang of the forest. Raf tucked his knife away, put on his pack and signalled for me to do the same. He took a few steps forward, then a few more. I got up to follow him, wondering how far we’d let his nose take us. When he stopped, I looked to where he was pointing. At his feet was a pile of excrement. I curled my nose in distaste, but he peered at it, intrigued.

  “You don’t know what this is, do you?”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “A pile of—”

  “It’s not human,” he interrupted. “It’s from a beast.”

  I watched him, not sure if he was making fun of me. “They’re real?”

  Raf nodded. “They were bred to protect the City and keep the Prims away. Some kind of hybrid. They were pack animals, excellent hunters and intensely protective of their territory. They were too smart though. When there wasn’t enough food, the alpha led his pack away from the City.”

  “And came here.” I stared at the pile of dung. “How do you know it’s theirs”

  “I don’t. I’m guessing.” Raf took a long look around, spinning to get a 360 degree view.

  “Is it fresh?”

  Raf jabbed at it with his walking stick. The point sank in. “A few hours, maybe. We should get moving.” He adjusted his pack and waited for me to do the same. “Keep your eyes open. If it’s not the beasts, it could be something else. Maybe more dangerous.”

  A lump of fear rose in my throat. More dangerous?

  Raf started to walk, moving branches out of the way with his stick, his boots leaving indentations in the tall grass along the stream.

  I glanced over my shoulder. The feeling that we were being watched hadn’t left me. And now there was the added fear of night coming.

  Up ahead, on the other side of the stream, among the deep greens and browns of the forest, a fragment of pale fabric dangled off the end of a branch. “Raf,” I said. He turned and looked where I pointed.

  We waded across the stream, slowly and then faster, splashing with excitement. Raf got to it first, fingered its familiarity, and held it out to me. A piece of a Citizen’s tunic, the fabric unmistakable. A grin stretched across his face. He crumpled the fabric in his hand, shaking it with triumph.

  But I didn’t feel triumphant. My stomach dropped. It was proof. She’d really left.

  Without me.

  How had she managed to get this far on her own? Without any protective gear, wearing only a Citizen’s tunic? Beasts, Prims, storms, insects; the Mountain teemed with dangers. With a renewed vigour, I realized I was Kaia’s only hope. Unless we found her, she’d die out here.

  Raf was already barging through the branches, forging deeper into the forest, following a trail visible only to him. “This way,” he said with confidence. I turned back once to see the stream disappearing behind us, swallowed up by trees.

  ⌓

  I collapsed to the ground, resting against a rotted log, too tired to swat at the insects flying around my head. Raf pulled some dried papaya from his pack and tossed it at my feet. Bright orange and tough, it softened up as I sucked on the end of it. We hadn’t spoken much as we walked for the last two hours, both of us on edge. The sky had gone from blue to violet and was now bleeding into black.

  I held up my finger and waited for my hologram to appear. Weak and flickering, it floated in front of me for a minute and then disappeared. My thoughts went briefly to the City. What was going on there without me? Had anyone noticed I wasn’t at my usual posts? Had Sari? I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn’t told her I was leaving, or why.

  “The last record
of her in the City was over a week ago, did you know that?” Raf asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  “That’s not possible. She was at the gymnasium every day until her elder was balanced.”

  “She might have been at the gymnasium, but her joules were never recorded, or used. She went dark eight days ago.”

  “Went dark?”

  “Her pulse point malfunctioned. At least, that’s what I figure happened.”

  “She’d have told me if something was wrong,” I said.

  “She didn’t tell you she was running away,” he pointed out.

  I thought back to our last night together in the orchard after the energy-sharing rule was announced. With a wince, I remembered it had been me who’d suggested running away.

  “You’ll need your lightstick now,” Raf said and pulled one out of his pack before looping the straps around his shoulders. Moments after he spoke, the last bit of light left the sky and the Mountain was plunged into darkness. “We have to keep going.”

  I pulled my lightstick out too. Powered by our bodies’ electrical impulses, it cast a weak beam of light over the ground. I stood up with a groan and stuffed the papaya away. We made our way slowly, keeping the gurgle of the stream close. There was one positive to the darkness: the Prims were as trapped by the night as we were.

  It was slow-going with our lightsticks. Their glow only lit up a small circle at our feet, but Raf was right, it was better to be moving. As tired as I was, I wanted to find Kaia and start back to the City. The less time I had to spend outside, the better. I swore I’d never complain about the boredom of life in the City again.

  But as the hours passed and the sky brightened, we found no more signs of Kaia. Trepidation filled me and I started to echo Raf’s mumbled thoughts. We should have found her by now.

  “We should talk,” Raf said, surprising me. “To fight off exhaustion. It will keep us alert.”

  “Did someone go after the other Citizens who left?” I asked.

  “We never needed to. By the time we figured out they were gone, their bodies had shown up.”

  “What do you mean ‘bodies’?”

  “The Prims brought them back in the night. Dumped them outside the dome. We didn’t know if they were killing them, or finding them already dead.”

  I stared at him, astonished. “They all died?”

  “Citizens can’t survive outside of the dome. After living in the City for so long, we’ve lost immunity to the bacteria and germs. An infected cut or insect bite is deadly. None of the Citizens who left had these,” he pointed to his survival suit. “The Prims though, their bodies have adapted. That’s what got us thinking, we needed to study Prim blood.”

  Study Prim blood? I frowned at Raf. He wasn’t making sense. Maybe exhaustion had finally caught up with him.

  “But first we had to get some Prims.”

  I laughed, assuming he was joking.

  He wasn’t.

  “Kellan saw them one day, tramping across the valley. We sent out a convoy who reported the Prims were asking for help. There was a sickness on the Mountain and they needed medicine. We agreed, let them in, and then didn’t let them out.”

  “There were Prims in the City?”

  Raf nodded.

  “What did you do with them?” I almost tripped over a tree root, I was so preoccupied with the conversation.

  Raf didn’t answer. He stopped walking and leaned on his walking stick, breathing heavily. “Raf?” He blinked and looked at me confused. “Raf? Are you okay?”

  He put a hand to his head. “It’s starting,” he muttered. “Are you getting them? These dizzy spells?” I held up my lightstick. His face had a sickly pallor to it and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  “Maybe you should sleep? I can keep watch. We’ve been on the move for almost twenty-four hours.”

  Raf shook his head. “We can rest when we find the female.”

  I waited until he’d had a sip of water and looked more alert to ask about the rest of his story. “You were telling me about Prims in the City,” I prompted.

  He frowned. “I was?”

  “The City had captured some,” I let my voice drift off and hoped he’d pick up the story.

  “The City didn’t capture them. Kellan did,” he corrected. “It was his idea,” he snorted, remembering. “Once he got an idea in his head, there was no stopping him. They did all kinds of tests and in the end, figured out that over the years the Prims’ genetics had evolved. Their blood carried an immunity ours didn’t.”

  I’d learned about genetics and biological evolution in school. It made sense that the Prims would have adapted to survive outside. But I didn’t know how all of this related to Kaia.

  “The leader of the experiment wanted to take it a step further. She implanted an embryo fertilized by a Prim into herself. She wanted to see if interbreeding would create a stronger species capable of living outside.”

  I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. How could all these things have gone on in the City, hidden from Citizens? “Did it work?”

  His eyes locked on mine. “If we find Kaia, and she’s still alive, then yes.”

  Kaia

  Akrum’s words echoed in my head as he led me through the trees to the Prims’ camp. “You’re trying to scare me,” I shot back at him, forcing myself to stay calm.

  He shook his head and pointed to the gash on my knee. “It will kill you. You have no immunity to the germs and bacteria that exist outside your City.” There was no animosity in his voice, but his words still stabbed, ripping into my chest. I stared at my knee, imagining miniscule bacteria writhing inside the cut, needling their way into my bloodstream. The bug bites had turned into red, itchy bumps on my legs, arms and neck. Was their poison deadly to me too?

  I swallowed, trying to still my trembling hands. My blood had betrayed me. Again. How much time did I have? Hours? Days? “Why didn’t you just leave me to die?”

  “Ask Gideon,” was all he said. “If it’s any comfort, when you die, we will return your body to the City. You should be with your people.”

  I gave him a strange look, not understanding. There was no reason to be returned. Balanced Citizens were incinerated, their ashes mixed into cement. Why would Prims risk their lives to return a body?

  I dropped my pack. “I came here to find someone. A female named Raina.”

  Akrum shook his head. “We have no Raina here.”

  It took a moment for his words to sink in. We have no Raina here, echoed in my head. Of course there wasn’t. Sy was a fool and I was an idiot for believing him. I was too exhausted to cry. Leaving the City had been pointless.

  Akrum picked up my bag and gestured for me to follow. “Come. You need to eat.” He gave my knee a doubtful look, “Our healer might be able to help. Make you more comfortable, at least, when the fever sets in.”

  I closed my eyes and ignored him. I couldn’t face the Prims and their menacing looks. What if they hissed at me as I walked through camp? Akrum tried cajoling me, but I sank to the ground. He lifted my elbow and tried to drag me, but I fought back and he gave up. “Suit yourself,” he said with a resigned sigh. “It’ll be dark in a couple of hours. Camp’s that way.” He pointed down the path the other Prims had taken and then left.

  I huddled with my satchel, wishing I still had my knife. I trusted the Prims as much as they trusted me. I’d seen the looks on their faces. They’d as soon slit my throat as welcome me into their camp. I was the enemy.

  But worse, there was no Raina. I’d left the City to chase a dream and now I’d die for it.

  ⌓

  “Kaia!” Gideon crouched over me, light from his torch flickering across his face.

  “You need to come to camp. It’s dangerous for you to stay out here,” he whispered. I woke up with a start, remembering where I was. I hadn’t me
ant to fall asleep. I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest, inching away from Gideon. “Why did Akrum leave you here?” he asked, annoyance flaring in his voice.

  “It was my choice. I didn’t want to go into camp.”

  “Why not?”

  “I know I’m going to die,” I mumbled, pulling away from him. “The cut on my knee will get infected.”

  He moved the bandage and took a closer look at my knee. Heat from the torch warmed my skin. “It doesn’t look any worse. Come on, let’s get you to camp.”

  I didn’t move. The hiss of the Prims when they’d seen me still echoed in my head. They looked wild and intimidating with their dirty faces, long hair and patchwork clothing; barely human compared with the clean, pale, almost hairless Citizens. The Prims radiated something feral, like they were part of the earth itself. I longed for the sterile City, with its protective dome, and for my sleeping capsule, warm and soft. With all my heart, I wished I’d never left the City. I silently cursed Sy and his plan, and myself for being desperate enough to listen to him.

  Gideon’s voice softened. “We can wait here until camp is quiet, okay? Not everyone is afraid of you. Although it was kind of funny watching Big Sam’s face when you held up your finger. I’ve never seen him so scared. He looked like he was going to piss his pants.”

  I didn’t find anything funny about it. Gideon jammed the torch into the earth. “I’ll sit with you,” he said.

  Having him close calmed me. The noise of the camp filtered through the trees. “They’re afraid of me?

  “Not of you, exactly, City people in general.” There was a long pause.

  “What about the female with the red hair? She looked like she wanted to kick me back down the hole.”

  Gideon turned somber. “Nadia’s been through a lot. It’s just her and her two brothers now.”

  “And Sam?”

  “Big Sam? Lost his best friend. He’s never forgiven himself.”

  I didn’t see what any of that had to do with me or the City. Maybe Sy had been wrong and the Prims were still bitter about being turned away generations ago. I’ve lost people too, I wanted to tell Gideon. Prims aren’t the only ones who’ve been hurt. “I didn’t come here to make enemies. I came looking for someone but Akrum told me she’s not here. She never was here.”