In Quaking Hills

by Kate MacLeod

  “What time is it?” Scout asked. Her voice was raspy, as if she hadn’t used it in weeks.

  “Just past sunset,” Joelle said, her attention focused above Scout’s eyes as she carefully dressed the wound. “My father should be back soon.”

  “Then what?” Scout asked.

  “Then I don’t know,” Joelle said. “You’ve made things complicated.”

  Scout made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough. “I made?”

  “You’ve put me in a very difficult position, yes,” Joelle said. “I know you didn’t ask to come here, that Tucker dragged you here. And I know my father freaked you out this morning. But what you don’t get is that I’m trying to help you. And you keep making it difficult.”

  “You should probably stop trying to help me then,” Scout said.

  Joelle sat back and looked her right in the eye. “No,” Joelle said. “You don’t want to know how things will go for you without me helping. You really don’t.”

  Scout didn’t know how to answer that. Before she could summon any words at all, Joelle was gone, taking the first aid kit and the lantern with her.

  Scout was once more alone with her dogs in the dark. But at least night had only just begun. She still had time to figure something out.

  Scout ran her hands over every centimeter of the walls and over every bit of the earthen floor. She traced every part of the door with her fingertips. She even jumped again and again, brushing her hands over the low ceiling that hung featureless over her.

  There was nothing. Not one usable thing.

  At last Scout curled up once more with her dogs and waited. There was nothing else she could do.

  She woke from a fitful doze to the sound of the door once more clanging open. Someone stepped inside, from darkness to darkness. Scout could hear breathing but nothing else. She sat up and crept back until she felt the wall behind her.

  The dogs sensed her fear and both rose up, backs bristling as they growled. Had enough time passed for Joelle’s father to return? Was he in the little cell with her?

  “Hey, calm your dogs down,” Tucker said from the darkness.

  “I don’t think so,” Scout said. “I don’t think I feel like calm is the answer to anything just now.”

  “Hold on,” Tucker said, and she could hear him fumbling with something. Then there was a little light, glowing redly from between his cupped palms at first but with a more yellowish glow as he set it down on the ground. Some sort of pocket lantern, just an exposed bulb on a tiny stand. He was on his knees but sat back on his heels once he had the light glowing. Then he held something up in his hand to show her.

  “Jolo,” Scout said, recognizing the bottle. The unmistakable bottle. The one great obsession in her life.

  “You like?” Tucker asked, then pulled off the cap. There was a hiss of escaping carbonation and Scout’s mouth immediately began to water. That was just what she needed, here in this place. A massive dose of sugar and caffeine, enough to keep her wakeful through the rest of the night, however much remained.

  “I like,” she said, reaching out for the bottle. He handed it to her with a smile. Then, once she took it from him, he moved to sit not exactly beside her but with his back against the same wall.

  Scout took a long pull from the bottle. The sugar raced right to her brain, making every nerve cell sing like a choir of angels. The caffeine was still in her blood, spreading through her body, promising to perk up every bit of her in just a few blinks of an eye.

  “It’s in short supply around here, but I’m pretty good with thieving when I have to be,” Tucker said, then held his hand out to her. She handed the bottle back and he took a quick sip. “Yep, just as good as I remembered.”

  “Good at thieving, huh?” Scout said. He handed the bottle back to her and she wiped the opening with the edge of her shirt before taking another drink.

  “Hey, it was Ken who took your stuff. He promised he’d fess up.”

  “He did,” Scout said as the second rush of sugar washed over her brain.

  “I’m sorry about all of this,” Tucker said, moving closer to her as she handed him back the bottle. Shadow was between them and growled without lifting his head, a sort of proximity warning. Gert was across the room examining the empty food bowl.

  “You should be,” Scout said as unkindly as she could.

  “I know, I know,” he said, taking another sip, then handing her back the bottle.

  “What time is it?” Scout asked.

  “Nearly dawn. Maybe an hour ’til.”

  Scout looked at the bottle in her hands and took another drink. “And Joelle’s father?”

  “He’s here. He’s got a lot on his mind at the moment. Frankly, it’s better for you if he forgets you’re here for a little bit. We’ll keep you fed and all that, no worries, but we should give him a few days to deal with some other issues before he gets to the issue of you.”

  “I can’t do that,” Scout said. “I have a place to be. I only have a little bit of time left to get there. I have to go.”

  “Sounds serious,” Tucker said, taking the bottle of jolo from her hands. “Are you in trouble?”

  “No, it’s not that,” Scout said. He looked relieved at her answer. The jolo was mostly gone and he had to tip his head back to take another drink. Scout watched his throat move as he swallowed. It was strangely fascinating. Perhaps that was the head injury talking. He left the last bit in the bottle when he handed it back to her, then dried his lips on the back of his sleeve as he watched her drink the last of the fizzy goodness.

  “What is it?” he asked. He tried to move closer to her again and Shadow gave another low growl. Scout put her hand under his hind end and gently encouraged him to join Gert at licking the last of the long-gone flavor from the sides of the food bowl.

  “Can I tell you?” she asked, looking over at him. He was very close now, his sleeve almost brushing hers. She fixed her attention back on the now-empty bottle, turning it over and over in her hands.

  “You can tell me anything,” he said. “You were going to tell me something before, weren’t you?”

  Scout said nothing, just kept her focus on the bottle. She felt weird, floaty, like she wasn’t really there or was perhaps too much there. It wasn’t that bottle-of-jolo-on-an-empty-stomach feeling; she knew that one well. And the throbbing had stopped hours before, so she didn’t think it was from the bump on her head. But something was definitely different.

  “Do you want me to guess?” he asked, and his hands slid over hers, following the lines of her fingers to gently slip the bottle away and set it aside. “You’re going away. Far, far away. You’re going to escape, not just this room but this whole world. Am I right?”

  She swallowed back that strange feeling and looked up at him. How had he gotten so close? Their noses were almost touching. “Yes,” she said. His hands were back on hers, so warm. Hers were still icy from clutching that bottle.

  “Were you going to ask me to come with you?” His voice was teasing, but his eyes were deadly serious.

  “If I did, what would you say?” she asked. She swallowed again; her throat felt so thick.

  He smiled. Not the same smile he had kept unleashing on her since they met, the smile that was so eager for her to smile back, too eager. This one was smaller, more genuine.

  Well, smaller on his lips. But bigger in that it extended to his eyes.

  “Is that a yes?” Scout asked, but the end of the last word never quite made it out into the world. His lips were on hers and all the words died.

  His hands touched her hair, her face, her arms. She felt like she was floating, but floating down, drifting down to the ground like driftwood flowing with the current of a river. She held on to him to keep her equilibrium, his shoulders and his arms.

  He smelled indescribably good. He tasted like jolo, a cool tangy zing to each of his kisses. One of his hands slipped back up to touch her cheek with infinite tenderness, like he adored her beyond wor
ds and could express it only through this touch.

  His other hand slipped down her hip.

  No, not her hip. He was in her pocket.

  Scout broke the kiss, shoving both forearms between them and pushing him away, but too late. He rolled away from her, holding something in his hand close to the light from the little lantern. His back was to her, she couldn’t see what he was examining, but she didn’t need to. She felt the cold absence of those two little data disks from her pocket.

  “No!” she said, lunging for him, but he slipped from her grasp. He stopped in the doorway for a moment, not looking back at her.

  “Malcolm needs this,” he said, as if that explained everything.

  Then he was gone.

  Scout pounded her already-bruised fists on the hatch and shrieked until her throat gave out, but there was no bringing him back.

  Oh, she had been stupid. So very stupid. And now she had lost everything.

  18

  Scout sat with her back against the door, her head in her hands. The rush of sugar and caffeine was fading, but not before reawakening the throbbing pain over her eye. Her hands throbbed as well from pounding ineffectually at the door. Even the spot on her chest where that kid had hit her with a rock two days ago was making itself felt again.

  She heard the dogs snuffling about in the corners of the room and guessed she was going to have some fun new smells to go with the aches and pains in just a few minutes. And if nobody let her out soon, she was going to have to contribute to the smells herself.

  Scout tipped her head back to gently rap it against the door behind her. How could she have been so stupid? She couldn’t even work out the exact moment when she had just decided to trust Tucker. The idea that she had never decided, that it had just happened, bothered her more. How could she have let it happen?

  But how had he known she even had those disks? She had never mentioned them. She had resisted the temptation to touch them. Had he discerned their shape through the faded khaki of her shorts?

  But then, had he even known what he was taking? He must have known. The way he had looked at them before leaving the cell, very cursory, like he was just making sure. Not like he was examining some strange thing he had happened to find.

  They knew she had been there, where Ruth had died. They hadn’t found what they were looking for in the town car or in the remains of the way station or in the rover when they had searched it. So they had deduced that it had to be on her person. That had to be what happened.

  Scout groaned aloud and rapped her head against the door again. How could they have searched the way station so quickly? It wasn’t possible. Perhaps they had decided to search her to be sure and, sure enough, had found what they were looking for.

  Unless . . . what was the faster search method Bente had used on the town car? And had Tucker and Ken’s mission been to bring this . . . whatever to Malcolm and Arvid so they could use it on the station?

  It seemed likely she’d never know.

  It would be too much to hope they wouldn’t have any more luck than she had reading what was on those disks. At least one of them had been meant to be read by them, the rebels, at some point.

  The snuffling in the corner was growing more persistent and Scout crawled closer to see what the dogs were up to. Had they smelled something? Gert was making that whining noise she always made when her prey was out of reach. Slowly, Scout realized she could see. Not much, but the faintest of lights was outlining the dogs’ heads, making Shadow’s white fur shine ever so softly.

  They were digging in the corner, getting increasingly excited. They had smelled something, had found something.

  A way out.

  Scout crawled in between the two of them, both frantically digging. Yes, there was something, a vent so low the packed earth of the floor had completely covered it. Scout tried to help dig, but the dogs were much more efficient than she was, and she sat back out of the way until they had the vent entirely uncovered.

  Whatever the dogs were smelling on the far side of the vent was driving them mad. Gert dug at the metal and Shadow tried pulling it apart with his teeth, but it was no good. They couldn’t pry it away.

  Scout leaned in. With the light coming from the other side it was hard to make out the details of how the vent was attached, but her fingertips felt the heads of four screws holding the vent tight against the wall.

  She checked her pockets again but the only thing she still had on her was Gertrude’s lens. It was too delicate to use as a tool to remove the vent; she would just end up shattering the lens. She tried using her nails, but even after ripping each to the quick she had not so much as loosened the first screw.

  She needed something metallic.

  Her zipper.

  Scout quickly pulled off her shorts and grasped the tag of her zipper in her bloody fingers. It was a bit small, but it might work. The first turn was the hardest, but after a few rotations there was enough of the first screwhead exposed to continue unscrewing it with her fingers.

  The dogs saw what she was doing and started pawing at the vent again, anxious to get through. This made it harder to work but Scout persevered, removing the other three screws one by one. Then she stepped back and let the dogs go at it.

  The vent still refused to move.

  Scout tried digging her fingertips around the edges but couldn’t get a hold anywhere.

  The dogs were whining, as frustrated as she was. Scout laid down on the floor and started kicking at the vent with both legs, over and over. Finally the vent dented in the middle and broke away from the wall. One more kick and it was completely free, spinning through the air to land somewhere in the far corner of the room.

  “Yes!” Scout cried. There was a tussle as the dogs both tried to go through at once, but Shadow, being smaller, slipped ahead. The glow of his white fur grew as he crawled, then Gert blocked Scout’s view with her big black body and Scout was once more alone in the dark.

  Scout pulled her shorts back on, then poked her head inside the hole. She could just fit through the opening in the wall, but the vent beyond was not squared off and regular like a proper vent. It looked more like a wormhole tunneling through the rock. It was wider just beyond the wall, but what if it got narrower again further in?

  How far did it go? There was light ahead of her again but no sign of the dogs. They had turned a corner, but either the tunnel got larger or they were out of it entirely because their bodies were no longer blocking the light.

  She couldn’t tell if it got narrower or not. She wouldn’t know until she tried. But what if Scout tried to follow the dogs and got stuck?

  Then again, the alternative was to wait in this room until her captors decided how to dispose of her.

  Scout had just put her head and shoulders inside the hole when the dogs ahead of her started barking. Scout gripped with her bloody fingertips and pulled herself along the tunnel as quickly as she could, pushing with her toes but not having enough room to use her knees. She wiggled as fast as she could, but she was all too aware of how slow that was.

  Her dogs needed her. She wriggled faster.

  Then she got stuck. She was almost at the point where the tunnel took a turn to the left, but she wasn’t close enough to it to see anything. She reached out and grabbed the largest outcropping of rock she could find, but it still wasn’t large enough for her to grasp it with her hand.

  The flesh on the ends of her fingers was going to be completely gone before she got out of this hole.

  If she got out at all. Her hips were caught, and no matter how she pulled or twisted she couldn’t get free.

  And her dogs were calling for her.

  Scout screamed in her frustration, screamed until her lungs were empty, then kicked and pulled.

  It did no good. She was stuck. She put her head down to cry but bumped the sore spot hard enough to see stars.

  Something was scuffling toward her through the tunnel, blocking off the light. The dogs were still barking like m
ad, but the sound was muffled. Whatever they had been barking at had gotten past them and was coming for Scout.

  She tried moving backwards, but that was impossible. Her flesh was starting to swell up all around her hips. That wasn’t helping.

  Then someone clasped one of her outflung hands. Not like they were capturing it, more like giving her a gentle squeeze to lend her strength.

  “Hey, Scout.” A young voice. Reggie. “Why didn’t you follow the dogs?”

  “I’m stuck,” Scout said, squirming.

  “Oh. Well, just lie still for a minute. I’m going to go get something.”

  Then he was gone. Scout held her breath, straining to hear what was going on. Was he going to help her or to tell his sister about her escape attempt?

  The light dimmed and was eclipsed before she heard the sound of Reggie returning.

  “Where are the dogs?” Scout asked as he crawled nearer.

  “They’re back in the cave behind me, eating. I brought water for them too,” he said.

  “What are you doing in a cave?” Scout asked.

  “Trying to get you out,” Reggie said, then, “take this. It’s a stone file. If you can get it between your body and the sides of the tunnel, you can probably file off enough of the stone to get through. It’s pretty crumbly here.”

  Scout took the long, flat metal tool and felt the end of it with her fingertips. It was smooth on one side but rough on the other with metal nubs sharp enough to prick at her hands. She squirmed a bit, then found a place where she could force it past the back of her hip and file away at one of the rocky protrusions.

  “Thanks for the help,” Scout said as she worked. “But what brought you down here in the first place?”

  “Like I said, to get you out,” Reggie said. “Joelle sent me. She knew about this tunnel but there wasn’t any way to tell you about it. The cell is monitored. I mean, only Ken is watching most of the time, but when one of us goes in there, my dad watches the whole time. So we couldn’t tell you about the buried vent. Then I remembered something about dogs. It took a while to make what I needed. Good thing I’ve been learning how to print plastics for one of my classes, and that we had a printer in the warehouse. Otherwise I don’t know how I would have ever found one.”