by Michael Ford
“The shipment is ready,” said Kobi. “Just give the word and we can call it in.”
Suddenly the door burst open, and a man stumbled into the room. He was clutching a sharpened piece of scrap metal in his fist, which he brandished at them. They all stepped back. “Give it to me!” he said. “I need Horizon!” He clearly did, Kobi thought with a sinking feeling. His face was covered in open sores, his lips were cracked, and his eyes were a sickly yellow.
Leon held out his hands defensively. “Stay back!”
The man lunged—but then he tripped. He fell to the ground, and Kobi saw his back was slick with sweat. The veins across his arms were bulging.
“We can help you,” said the doctor, casting her eyes about. Kobi wondered if she was looking for medicine or a weapon.
The man began to crawl toward them, and they retreated farther. Kobi backed up against a shelving unit, keeping his eyes fixed on the desperate patient.
“Now,” the man groaned. “I need it now. . . .”
Suddenly he leaped up in a burst of strength and charged toward the doctor. Rohan moved quickest, flinging himself in the way, but the man dodged him and fell into Kobi. Pain shot through Kobi’s shoulder, and he shoved the man away harder than he intended, flinging him into a set of shelves, which went crashing to the ground.
“Whoa—easy!” Leon shouted.
“I’m sorry,” mumbled Kobi. “I didn’t mean to . . .” He caught a flash of red and looked down to find blood seeping into the front of his shirt. Then he saw the end of the makeshift blade protruding from his shoulder. “Oh.”
Leon was staring in shock between the wound and the man moving weakly on the floor when another member of the staff hurried through the door. “Sorry, doctor. He pushed past . . .” His eyes widened. “God, what happened?”
Kobi reached for the metal shard.
“No! Don’t touch that—” the redheaded doctor began, but Kobi slid the blade out of his flesh, clenching his teeth and groaning at the explosion of pain. The doctor moved quickly, pressing a roll of gauze to Kobi’s bleeding shoulder. “Now the wound will bleed more. Come on, through here.” She led them past the shelves to another door. “You take care of him,” she said to the other staffer, and pointed to the infected patient still writhing on the floor.
Beyond the door was some sort of exam or treatment room, judging by the bed surrounded by old-fashioned hospital equipment. “Sit down. We’ll need to get your shirt off,” said the doctor.
Leon cleared his throat, entering with Kobi. “Um, doc—he’ll be fine.”
“Really, I’m okay,” Kobi protested. He was thinking of the mission. What would Mischik say? This would only prove his point. “We should call in the delivery of Horizon.”
The doctor was pulling on a pair of gloves. “Are you kidding? It’s you who needs the cleansers now. That man who attacked you was a Stage Four, maybe Five. There’s a very high chance the Waste will be directly in your bloodstream.”
“It doesn’t affect me,” said Kobi, but the doctor was already cutting into his shirt with a pair of scissors.
“Lie back.” Kobi did as he was told, then the doctor used a sponge to clean the blood from his shoulder. She frowned. “That’s odd. It looked much deeper than that. Right. Let me find a bandage.” As she went to a cupboard in search of a sterile dressing, Rohan turned conspiratorially to Kobi.
“Should I tell her, or do you want to?”
“Tell me what?” asked the doctor. She came back to Kobi’s side and then froze in astonishment. Kobi glanced at his shoulder and saw the wound had almost completely healed up. “That’s . . . not possible,” she said.
“Told you we weren’t exactly normal,” Rohan said, grinning.
“I don’t understand,” said the doctor. “You healed yourself?”
“I’m different,” said Kobi.
“Okaaay,” the doctor said, grabbing a syringe. “Well, let’s give you a shot of Horizon anyway.”
“I don’t need it,” said Kobi. “I could use a new shirt, though.”
The doctor gave him a curious look. “You can heal Waste infection too.”
“I’m sort of immune.”
For a few seconds the doctor was speechless, then she said quietly, “So it’s true.” She put down the syringe. “I mean, we’d heard rumors. That one of the fugitives—the kids from the CLAWS experiments—was the source of the Horizon drugs. To be honest, I didn’t believe it.”
“Well, here he is,” Leon said. “The Caveman.”
“The Caveman?”
Kobi nodded. “I grew up in Old Seattle. Kinda wild out there.” The doctor stared at him. “A scientist at CLAWS kidnapped me from CLAWS when I was a baby,” he explained. “Thought we would be safer, and he could use the Waste environment to help create Horizon.”
The doctor looked a little faint as she sat down. “If that’s true—why not make yourself known to the world? You could give people hope that there’s a way past this disease! Why aren’t we giving over all our resources to creating more Horizon?”
Kobi met her gaze. “CLAWS.”
The doctor paused and furrowed the thin, freckled skin of her brow. “Are you saying they wouldn’t want knowledge of you to get out?”
“Well, they tried to kill me. . . . So, no. They’ve been suppressing the supply of Horizon, trying to destroy Sol. They block all our communications and call us terrorists.”
The doctor had gone pale, and she ran her fingers through her hair. “I knew CLAWS had a lot of power. I could have guessed they’d want to hold on to it. But I thought essentially they were good. I didn’t think . . .”
“Your contacts at Sol haven’t told you much, have they?”
She shook her head. “I don’t ask questions. I don’t want to risk losing our supply of Horizon. The drugs were everything Sol had said they would be. But apparently I’ve been a fool about CLAWS. We’re all so desperate for something powerful enough to keep us safe from the Waste. . . . I guess we never see what they truly are.” She looked up at Kobi. “Tell Sol they can trust me. My name is Maria Cahill. But please, the way to stop this is to show the world. I have contacts at a few nonprofits, at medical journals . . .” But she trailed off as Kobi shook his head.
“Sol thinks it’s too risky to draw that much attention,” Rohan cut in. “CLAWS has spies everywhere—if they knew where Kobi was, they’d squish him like a bug.”
“But this news might be what the people need,” said the doctor. “They’d rise up—”
“And CLAWS would squish them too,” said Rohan. “It’s not worth it.”
“How can you say that?” said the doctor. “There’s nothing more important than fighting the Waste. You’ve seen how it is out here. They need you.”
Kobi found it uncomfortable under the doctor’s prolonged gaze. It was the same look the other scientists gave him at Sol’s base. Hope. That’s what it is. That’s what people see in me.
The worst part of it was Kobi thought she might be right. Maybe he could make a difference and not just with his blood. He thought of the poor people waiting in the line. Waiting and longing for a cure that might never come, all because of CLAWS. But if they did rebel, in great enough numbers, it might be enough to break the hold CLAWS had over New Seattle.
“I would be happy to do it,” said Kobi truthfully. “But I have to trust Sol. They know CLAWS better than anyone.” As he spoke he found himself believing in Mischik’s plan again, feeling proud that he was part of the resistance.
“Word will spread about Horizon,” said Rohan. A spark lit his eyes. “Revolutions start underground.”
“We need the all clear to deliver the Horizon,” said Kobi, realizing they were lingering too long.
The doctor took Kobi’s hand. “Tell Sol whatever they need, I’m in. I want to help. And thanks for coming here. One day, people will know your name.” She let his hand go. “You can call in the delivery. Around back—as usual.”
Kobi gave the code
phrase over the radio. “‘Dawn breaks.’”
As the other two boys turned to leave, the doctor touched Kobi’s arm, and he hesitated. “Please think about what I said,” she whispered. “We do what we can here, but we’re fighting a forest fire with buckets of water. You could put the whole thing out.”
Kobi nodded to her, but he felt the weight of responsibility like an anchor in his stomach. He hurried out into the clinic’s lobby, Rohan and Leon on either side of him. It was still chaos in the waiting room. Kobi and the others filed out past the line and into the square.
The first thing he noticed was Yaeko, who was standing at the front of a ring of people all surrounding a girl in colorful clothes, with olive skin and dark straight hair. What is Yaeko doing? Who is that? He quickened his steps toward her—and then realized that the other girl, the one holding everyone’s attention, was Niki. The Healhome girl looked a little taller and her hair was longer, and the jumpsuit she wore at Healhome had been replaced with an outfit that looked expensive and bright.
Kobi quickly ducked under a scrap metal–stall awning. What was she doing here?
“It’s okay,” said Leon. “It’s just another ad drone.” But his voice was uneasy. “Yaeko shouldn’t have come down here into the open though.”
As Kobi watched, Yaeko raised a hand and passed it through Niki’s chest. Around her, people were watching her like she was crazy.
“No!” exclaimed Rohan. “What’s she thinking?”
Rohan darted off in her direction, Kobi and Leon on his heels. Yaeko was completely transfixed; she didn’t look at them even when they reached her side. The hologram was talking, not to anyone in particular but turning on the spot to address people around the street.
“I thought no one cared, but I was wrong. Melanie cared. She adopted me, a Waste-infected orphan. They thought I’d be dead within a year. So did I. But I was wrong. With Premium Regime I’m almost completely cured, and stronger than ever. Just one pill once a week, and it’s enough to wipe ninety-nine percent of the Waste infection from my system.” She held up a small blue pill and popped it in her mouth. “Easy as that! Get your Premium Regime today from your local health center. Thanks to CLAWS, I have a life to live. CLAWS: Healing the Past, for a Better Future.”
The image faded, and the drone floated upward.
“She looks so happy,” Yaeko said, finally glancing at Rohan.
“That’s because she’s brainwashed,” he hissed at her.
“Come on. It’s not safe here,” Kobi whispered in Yaeko’s ear. “We need to go. Now.”
Above them, the drone had stopped. It rotated in the air, pointing what looked like a lens toward them. Then it bobbed closer. Kobi couldn’t shake the feeling it was performing some sort of scan.
“Uh-oh,” said Leon. “I really don’t like that.”
The drone came closer still, its lens moving between their faces. Others in the crowd had started to pay attention. Suddenly, Rohan shot out a hand, grabbed the drone, and thrust it into a nearby trash can. After he slammed the lid on top of it they could hear the drone bouncing blindly around inside.
“Let’s go!” Rohan said.
They made it less than five steps before people started to shout in alarm, and Kobi made out a whirring sound he knew all too well. And then he saw the first Snatcher.
It came from the south, low over the rooftops. The quarantine drone was the size of a car, kept aloft by thrusters under stabilizing wings. Its eight metal legs unfolded, their talons flexing, and the visual array of segmented eye-parts glittered. It was followed by a second, identical drone. They circled once above the square, emitting beeping sounds. The crowd scattered, and for a second Kobi and his friends were exposed.
They didn’t wait for the Snatchers to descend. They ran for their lives.
4
THE SHADOWS OF THE Snatchers were closing in.
“Follow me!” Kobi said, veering off down a narrow alley. He heard a bang and looked back to see the Snatcher stuck at the entrance, trying to squeeze between the buildings with a screech of metal. It gave up and shot into the sky.
“We need to lose them,” Leon huffed.
Kobi slowed his steps, darting into another passage that was no wider. He closed his eyes a moment and tried to still his panicked thoughts. The drones had all sorts of sensors—thermal, Waste detection. There was nowhere to hide. “We need extraction. Now!” he said into his radio.
Most people were heading indoors, slamming doors behind them. Kobi had learned that Snatchers were used in New Seattle too, to remove contaminated people trying to cross from the slums to the central district.
An elderly man collapsed in the road ahead, and several people just jumped over his body in an effort to flee. Kobi stooped to help the man up. “Don’t let them take me!” the man said.
“Get to cover,” Kobi said to him, pointing to a makeshift bar in a crumbling brick building, where people were huddling under tables.
Kobi spotted Rohan and Leon yards away, beckoning to him from a crossroads. “Quick, Kobi, hurry!” Rohan said over the radio.
He sprinted, legs powering him through the emptying street, until he reached their position. Yaeko was ahead in a wide lane across the intersection, leaping between the awnings of market stalls and the sides of buildings. She looked back at them. “What’re you waiting for?” she called over the radio.
They hurried after her, keeping under cover, beneath the awnings of the stalls. “I think we might have lost them,” Leon said.
The stall in front of them collapsed in a heap as a Snatcher thumped down, crushing the merchandise. People ran screaming. A hundred blinking red eyes whipped toward them, covering the rounded steel head of the giant insectoid drone. It let out a series of beeps and whirs, and a stinger-like tail rose from beneath its metal carapace. Kobi heard some sort of mechanism shift and lock into place. He could just make out a vial of yellow liquid being loaded into the barrel of the stinger.
Pfft!
Kobi braced himself, but in a flash Rohan’s hand whipped out in front of his chest. He’d caught the dart around the shaft.
“They’re firing poison darts now!” shouted Rohan, staring at the syringe in his hand. The yellowy liquid swirled within the glass casing. Snatchers could vary the concentration of toxin—either tranquilizing or killing organisms that had been contaminated by Waste. The chemical temporarily paralyzed mutated cells throughout the body, but in a big enough dose it could cause organ failure. When Kobi had last encountered the Snatchers, the toxin was delivered by an extendable stinger hidden beneath the drones’ underbellies. Now the Snatchers were even deadlier.
“Looks like a lethal dose from the color,” said Kobi, analyzing quickly. He stared around and in a second plotted a twisting route through the market stalls that would delay the Snatcher as much as possible while keeping himself and the others under cover. He pulled Rohan away, and he was about to shout for Leon, who he couldn’t see, when he heard the whir of the Snatcher reloading. It scuttled after him. Kobi had just turned toward it when he heard a shout, and Leon appeared at the Snatcher’s side. He was carrying an electric stun baton. Okafor had given one of the weapons to each of the kids except Kobi. Apparently it was part of the protocol. “I don’t want you to worry about fighting,” Mischik had said. “If there’s danger you run. Run immediately. The others can stay and fight.” Kobi wondered if Mischik was worried about arming Kobi in case he went looking for trouble—seeking revenge against CLAWS for everything they had done to him.
Now I’m just defenseless, he thought.
A crackle of electrical sparks leaped from the end of Leon’s baton and connected with the Snatcher’s hull. At once the eight legs spasmed, and the creature hit the ground belly first. Its eye-scanners flashed randomly, and then it juddered before lying still.
“Come on,” Leon said. “It’s only temporary.” When the Snatcher’s system had rebooted it would be back fighting again. Maybe some guns would have been more
effective, thought Kobi with a hard grimace.
Yaeko’s voice came through his earpiece. “Past the bread stall,” she said. “There’s a road heading down the hill to the extraction point.”
Kobi saw it. The stall-holder was hiding under a table, peering up at the sky, where the other drone was hovering. The fallen Snatcher began to quiver. Its legs locked straight on one side, making it lean unevenly, then the others did the same.
Leon’s right. We can’t wait around.
Rohan and Leon flanked him as they ran toward the road. Kobi could only hope Yaeko was looking after herself. They heard shouts and the hum of thruster engines. The Snatcher was airborne again, drifting just off the ground. It locked on to them, advancing slowly, in no hurry.
And then Kobi saw why. The street was a dead end.
“We’re trapped,” said Rohan. His large yellow eyes dazzled with fear.
“No,” said Yaeko. Kobi realized he could hear her and not just in his earpiece. He glanced up and saw her clinging to the side of the wall above them. “There’s a window to your left.”
Kobi spotted the window and shattered the glass with the heel of his boot. “We can lose the Snatcher in here,” he said. Leon cleared the shards of glass with his baton, then jumped inside, followed by the others. Kobi came last. He found himself in a humid room lit with dingy strip lighting. It was a laundromat, with clothes hanging on lines and washing machines all around whirring. A few people holding clothes were staring at Kobi and the other kids.
Kobi heard a whirring from the other side of the broken window. “Snatcher cut me off,” said Yaeko. “I’ll meet you on the other side of the building.”
There were a slam and a groaning of metal as the first Snatcher tried to ram its large body through the small window. “See ya!” Leon called to it, waving his electric baton. Rohan had drawn one too.
