by Michael Ford
“Asha, leave it,” said Kobi. He thought clearly in his head, widening his eyes, trying to get her to read his thoughts. “We need to make him feel strong, not like a victim.”
But if Asha read his thoughts, she didn’t listen. “They infected you with Waste, Fionn, before you were even born. If you let your powers define you, they’ve won. Don’t let them control your destiny.”
Fionn turned on her, eyes flashing. His thoughts were projected accompanied by a wave of fury. “Should I let you control my destiny instead?”
“Fi, that’s not what I meant!” she replied.
“Then stop telling me what to do!”
He turned and disappeared into the foliage. Kobi heard the shuffle of leaves as he scampered away. Asha shouted for him to come back.
“He’ll come back,” said Kobi. “If we all get lost, we’ll only put ourselves in more danger. Give him some space for a while. He needs to figure out who he is without the Waste. I’m figuring out the same thing.”
“We all are,” said Asha quietly, sitting down on a large knot bulging out from the tree branch.
Kobi didn’t want to admit it to Asha, but he was worried about Fionn; he didn’t have a compass or a map. Kobi thought back to his first training session in the Wastelands. “Never run off again. Got it?”
And, thinking selfishly, Kobi knew that they needed Fionn. Without him, without his ability to control Waste organisms, they might not make it to Mercer Island.
They made camp, laying out blankets inside the termite hole. Yaeko chatted on awkwardly, mostly complaining about the hardness of the tree branch, about getting eaten alive by mosquitoes—literally. But Kobi knew in her own way she was trying to make Asha feel better. Yaeko handed out some flatbread; supplies were almost out. They’d need to start scavenging tomorrow.
“I’ll take first watch,” said Asha. She took the stun baton from Kobi. “Don’t think I could sleep anyway while Fionn’s missing.”
Kobi found some strong-smelling flowers in a nearby tree that would mask their scent and repel insects. They couldn’t afford a fire: the smoke and heat signatures might attract Snatchers. At least the tightly knotted branches of the oak kept them protected, and the nearby fir trees were dotted with giant cones that had mutated protective spikes, which would also deter predators.
Kobi crawled into the hollow alongside Yaeko. “Almost makes me miss the dorms at Sol,” she said, wriggling to get comfortable. Soon she was snoring softly. Kobi became aware of another sound: the occasional gentle sob or sniff. He looked over at Asha. He couldn’t imagine the strong, determined girl crying; the sight of it shocked him. He climbed back out of the hole and sat opposite her silently. He waited for her to speak when she was ready.
“I know you think the same thing as Fionn,” she said eventually, her voice firm as she wiped away the tears. “That I’m too controlling: the ways I read your mind and boss you around.”
Kobi began to protest, but Asha continued. “You know, the problem with being able to read people’s thoughts is that you see things they don’t. You want to help them, but it only pushes them away. It’s frustrating.” She was quiet a few more seconds, and her eyes were glassy. “You know, I never told you before. It was me who convinced Fionn to help CLAWS with the experiment with the bear. He was scared, but I told him it would be okay. I was doing it for Melanie. She wanted it so badly that I did too, just to make her happy.”
“It’s not your fault,” Kobi said.
“I should have protected him, but I didn’t. I betrayed his trust.” She peered into the darkness among the branches. “Just like with you. When I called in the Snatchers at the lab.”
Kobi was taken aback for a moment. “You thought you were making the right decision.”
“Everyone thinks they’re doing the right thing,” said Asha.
Kobi had never seen her feeling so low before. “That’s not true,” he said. “I bet Melanie Garcia doesn’t.”
Wordlessly, Asha reached inside her jacket and pulled out a small folded piece of paper or card. Kobi frowned at it, and as she opened it, his heart thudded. It was a photo. Even before she turned it for him to see fully, he recognized what it showed. He couldn’t believe it. He thought he’d never see it again. It was a photo of him and Hales taken on a Polaroid camera about two years ago while they were still at Bill Gates. They stood side by side, arms around each other. Kobi felt a well of emotion overcome him.
“How did you get that?” he asked, voice quiet.
“I took it,” she said. “From the school where you lived with Hales, when you took me, Fionn, and Niki back there. It was just in case we got separated, so I could prove to CLAWS we’d found you. I . . . stole it, and then, afterward at Sol, I wanted to give it to you, but I thought it would be better if you forgot about Hales. I thought you’d be angry too.”
For a moment he felt a prickle of anger, then he sighed. “I understand,” he said, and took it carefully. “Thank you for keeping it for me.”
She wiped her eyes. “No problem. He loved you, you know. Despite the lies. It doesn’t stop him from being your dad.”
Kobi felt his own eyes go moist, blurring the faces of the images of Hales and himself grinning, arm in arm. Hales’s words echoed through the night, from when he’d just rescued Kobi from the orca.
“I thought I’d lost you. I thought I lost you, son.”
“I’m going to sleep,” said Kobi, feeling a little embarrassed at all the emotions. “Wake me up in a few hours and I’ll take over. And don’t worry. Fionn will come back.”
She smiled at him. “Sure.”
Kobi joined Yaeko in the termite hole, trying to get comfortable. The chorus of the forest grew louder in the evening: the spine-chilling howls of wolves in the distance, the flap of giant bird wings—ravens, Kobi guessed from the rhythm of the wing beats—and the hum of giant lethal insects. He drifted through memories that rose like bubbles from the depths of his mind, thoughts he hadn’t dwelled on since he’d first left the city. Mostly they were small things: the smell of the gym back at the school, the simple meals he and Hales had enjoyed by candlelight, the old DVDs they’d watched on the battered TV hooked up to the solar generator. . . . The flashes of the past soothed him, made him feel safe.
But the last words he thought of before sleep overtook him were Asha’s.
People make a home, not a place.
12
KOBI WOKE, INSTANTLY ALERT. He’d slept too long. Dusk was coming. He climbed from the termite hole, leaving Yaeko snoring softly, a strand of drool hanging from the corner of her mouth. Asha had fallen asleep on her watch. She was leaning back against the bulbous tree knot, head lolling and eyes closed. Fionn’s head rested on her lap, pillowed with a thick, waxy oak leaf. Kobi felt a deep relief at seeing Fionn safe. For a while he watched them as the younger boy’s head rose and fell with Asha’s slow, peaceful breathing.
Taking care to keep quiet, Kobi lifted himself higher into the web of thick, twisting branches, using the large twigs as handholds, and before long he had picked his way twenty feet higher, up into the sparser upper canopy. Straddling a few interconnected branches and supporting his shoulder against another, he took out the map of Old Seattle from his pocket. Trying not to think about the seemingly endless drop below, he scanned the map, comparing it to a distant stretch of water he could see through the branches, and beyond that, the gray towers of central Seattle. Kobi estimated his position to be somewhere on the outskirts of the city, close to the southern part of the area once called Bellevue, which meant it was only a mile or so until they’d reach the shores of Lake Washington—the body of water he could see ahead, in the middle of which lay Mercer Island. The trees blocked his view of the nearer part of the lake. There was a bridge marked on the map, linking Bellevue with Mercer Island. Kobi had crossed it out with a pencil, replicating his dad’s map: all the bridges from Mercer Island had been blown up in the days after the disastrous launch of GAIA as the military tried to
contain the Waste. They’d have to get across some other way.
“Stay away from the water, Kobi, at all costs!”
“This time we don’t have much choice, Dad,” said Kobi. Dad. Kobi realized he’d called Hales that again. Whether the word had come automatically because Kobi was back in Old Seattle, where he had lived with Hales as father and son, or if there was some deeper feeling that had been stirred inside him by the photo Asha had given him, Kobi couldn’t work out.
Climbing back down, he glanced across at Fionn. On their last trip to the Wastelands, Fionn had nearly died twice, his body overwhelmed by Waste, shutting down. They had Horizon now, but the closer they got to Mercer Island, the more concentrated the Waste. Perhaps Horizon would hold the Waste back; perhaps it wouldn’t. He remembered the last drone message sent by Jonathan Hales.
“It’s going to be difficult to get there, impossible for me—for everyone—but there is one person who can do it. Kobi!”
Kobi would much rather that others could come with him, and he’d have a hard time persuading Fionn he couldn’t come.
Kobi coughed loudly, and Fionn and Asha stirred. They stretched, looking around confused.
Their features were drawn, eyes rimmed with red, and they got to their feet stiffly. “I feel so tired,” said Asha.
“It’s the Waste,” said Kobi. “We’re getting closer to Mercer Island, where the contamination is stronger. You both need to take some more cleansers. So does Yaeko.” He called over to the termite hole, softly. “Yaeko!”
The girl peered out, hair falling in a mess over her face. “What!” Her throat sounded dry, and she coughed. “I don’t feel good.”
Kobi watched as Asha handed her a syringe, and the others all took their cleansers. He wondered how long the dosage would last. The Waste in their blood would retreat for a few hours, but out here, in the heart of the Wastelands, it wouldn’t be long before it came back even stronger.
“When we get to the lake, I’ll go on alone.” He tried to keep his voice firm, but the truth was the thought filled him with dread. “You guys are too sick. Hales said in his message that I had to go out there—that only I could survive.”
Asha shook her head. Yaeko was nodding hers. “What?” said Yaeko, holding up her hands as Asha frowned at her. “Hales knew his stuff! Kobi thinks he needs to go out on his own, and I think he’s right. We can’t survive the epicenter of the Waste.”
“Hales didn’t know about us,” said Fionn.
Kobi nodded. It was true. He could see there was no point arguing. “We’ll monitor your condition,” he said. “But remember that we’ll need to up your dosage of Horizon and we don’t want to run out later on.”
They headed out. The trees became sparser, and Kobi noticed that several seemed to be dying, their branches drooping or their trunks twisted or split open, bare of leaves. One span that looked sturdy enough must have been rotten because it cracked under Asha’s feet and almost sent her falling to the forest floor. They decided to descend to ground level. They found a conifer with branches growing close together and long solid spindles that could be used like ladder rungs. Yaeko went first, scuttling down and swinging and leaping between them with a smug grin on her face. She pointed out routes and gave them advice on how to get lower. It wasn’t always appreciated.
“Reach your left foot, Asha. Come on. A little more.”
“A little more and I’ll fall.”
“You’ve just got to trust me.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem!”
As they reached the lowest main branch forking off from the trunk, Kobi made everyone wait, hidden, as he listened and watched for any signs of movement. “Patience is your greatest protection, Kobi.” He gave a signal and they hopped down one by one, keeping low in a field of patchy, dry gorse. There was a cluster of spotty brown mushrooms ahead, each as big as a pitcher’s mound, but they were falling apart and gave off a putrid stench. The trees were sparse and leafless, their bark moldy and diseased.
“I don’t get it,” Asha said. “The Waste’s stronger than ever here. But things are dying.”
“Maybe it’s too much Waste,” said Kobi. “At these levels it must even be toxic to plants and animals.”
Yaeko winced and rubbed her eyes. “Tell me about it,” she said. “I’ve got the worst headache, and my stomach feels like it’s going to heave up my lunch. If you can call a tiny piece of flatbread lunch. Those mushrooms smell gross.”
Kobi felt a tingle of dread. “Maybe you guys should wait here—really, I can go on alone.”
“No way,” said Fionn, his expression fierce.
“We told you. We’re in this together,” said Asha. Her brown skin shone with an unhealthy sheen of sweat.
“Yeah, just try and stop us,” said Yaeko, unconvincingly. Her voice cracked into a wheeze. “Actually, don’t.”
Kobi scanned the terrain. “We’ll be on more open ground from now on. Keep your eyes peeled for trouble. You sense anything, Asha?”
“Only the trees.” She scratched her head. “They sound almost . . . in pain. The Waste, it feels different here. Like it’s one thing. I can’t hear the plants and animals anymore, just . . . the Waste itself, drowning everything else out.”
Kobi experienced a feeling of dread that he realized now had been growing since they had had begun to get close to the diseased landscape—a kind of panicky fear spreading at the back of his mind—and he wondered if it was just the quiet, or if it was something else. Something from outside himself. He cut off his thoughts before they could unsettle him too much. “Okay, let’s go. I move first. Wait for my signal.”
They scurried one by one from the shade of one tree to another, but soon the earth became muddy and dark and sucked at their shoes, and the trees died away to broken stumps as big as jeeps.
They reached a single large building, with slithering vines moving in all the broken windows. Fionn grinned and held up his hand, and the vines twisted up into the air, waving back. Asha glanced at him uneasily.
Kobi saw a sign and could just make out a few letters in flaking paint: “SOUTH BELLEVUE GOLF COURSE.” The greens and fairways were brown and sparse.
“I don’t like this place,” Asha said.
“Me neither,” said Kobi.
They moved more quickly and reached higher ground on the far side of the course. Beneath them a freeway snaked past, choked with the wrecks of cars and collapsed in places where landslides had torn down the hillside. Beyond that was a vast expanse of dark water filled with low-lying mist. It looked more like a swamp than a lake, and fear stole over Kobi’s heart at the sight, an instinctive stab that took him right back to the orca.
He took a long breath and checked the map. Mercer Island was within sight from the shore, but the flat water seemed to him to stretch forever. In his memory Hales stood in front of him, speaking urgently.
“Never go near the water, Kobi, under any circumstances. There are things in there. Terrible things. Always stick to dry land.”
Something pushed him from behind. He turned to protest, but it was Asha, with her finger over her lips. She pointed to the sky. A moment later Kobi heard it: a mechanical buzzing sound.
Snatcher!
Yaeko beckoned them toward a tree that had fallen nearby, exposing a tangled nest of roots that formed a sort of shelter. They scrambled toward it, cramming together. Through the twisted roots, Kobi saw a shape drifting overhead, at a height of maybe a hundred feet. It wasn’t a Snatcher. It was smaller, a simple disc shape with an array of reflective panels underneath. It doubled back. Kobi squinted at the drone. He had never seen anything like it before. It had no weapons that he could make out, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t summon dozens of Snatchers in an instant.
He could hear the breathing of the others around him. Yaeko gave a slight cough, and the drone juddered in the sky, dropping lower. Yaeko slammed her hand over her mouth, and Kobi’s heart rattled. After a second, the drone moved off again. They waited a g
ood five minutes before emerging from their hiding place. The sky was clear once more.
“Sorry,” said Yaeko. “My cough is back.”
“We know,” came Fionn’s voice in Kobi’s head.
“Hey!” said Yaeko. She bent over. “I think I need more cleansers.”
“We need to ration them,” said Asha. “Sorry.”
Yaeko grumbled as Kobi set off ahead in a low crouch. Occasionally he saw scurrying ripples of insects and rodents. He kept his stun baton ready.
They walked down the slope toward the lake’s edge. A row of old wooden houses, mostly collapsed, lined the shore. Their timbers were brown and rotting. Mist hung over the water ahead, seeping up over the swampy bank. They had to pick their way carefully. Everything felt dead, with a rotten stench filling the air. They didn’t talk. Yaeko’s muffled coughing and the squelch of their footsteps were the only sounds, eerily hollow under the cushioning fog.
“Never trust the silence, Kobi. It means something is out there. The Wastelands sense danger before you do.”
Kobi edged closer to the lake’s lapping edge. He imagined a dark shape rising up from the depths. The others held back. Unlike the water in Elliott Bay where Kobi had been attacked by the orca, here it was black and still, completely covered in a layer of algae that looked like thick, lumpy tar. Half-sunken boats jutted from the shallows.
Whether Fionn meant to project it or not, Kobi sensed his fear: being back in the Wastelands for the first time, he was scared. There was Waste here but nothing life-giving.
“I don’t see a way across,” said Yaeko. “What’s the plan, Caveman?”
Kobi glanced up and down the shore, and spotted what he was looking for. At the back of one of the derelict houses was a trailer covered in an old tarp. He walked over and cut through the bindings with his makeshift machete. Underneath was a ten-foot motorboat—in the filth of their surroundings it gleamed like something from another world.
