by E. E. Giorgi
Akaela almost ran to Mom that instant. I had to make her calm down and think, make her swear to keep it secret.
Yes, Uli could help us with our plan, but he would tell Mom, too. And if Mom finds out, she’ll never let us go forward with it. Provided they would believe us, they’d first assemble the Kiva. The Kiva Members would discuss and cast a vote, wasting precious time while we could be looking for Dad and the others instead.
No. We need to act in secrecy. I’m not even sure I can trust Akaela to keep her lips zipped, but at this point she knows too much to leave her out of it.
Uli covers Kael with a cotton sheet, then leans against the countertop, crosses his arms and stares at the two of us. “Guys, I know what’s going on.”
“You do?” Akaela blurts out.
I elbow her in the ribs, cold sweat trickling down my back.
Uli nods gravely. “Your dad’s been gone—what, now? Two weeks? Your mom’s a nervous wreck and you guys are dead worried. Did you try and go look for your father with Kael?”
“We did not,” I say, my face as unmoving as the darn eyeball that keeps shifting inside its socket. I squeeze against Akaela, slide a hand behind her back, and pinch her.
Don’t say a word, I message, and then regret it. Not even messages are safe. Any Mayake has access to our wireless network and can tap into it.
I jump to my feet and drag her up with me. “We need to go feed the horses. When can we come back to pick up Kael?”
Uli tilts his head and gives me the hint of a smile. Maybe he’s better at outguessing me than I give him credit for, given that he’s known me since I’ve come to the world, butt naked, blind, and free of implants. He turns to the table, where Kael is still resting, the LED indicator on the TCB charger next to him still blinking.
“I figure it’ll take another hour or so to recharge,” Uli says. “Come back once you’re done with the horses. I’ll feed him and take good care of him.” He winks and then adds, “In the meantime, you two stay out of trouble. Your father’s going to be fine, I promise. The Ambassadors set off for no easy task, but they know what they’re doing. You’ll be hugging your dad again sooner than you think.”
I nod, nervously wiping my hands against my jeans, then start to the door.
“And Athel,” Uli adds, lowering his voice. “Remember what happened to Skip. Be careful.”
I open my mouth to say something but then refrain.
Skip was murdered.
I do remember.
“Thanks so much, Uli,” Akaela says softly.
I grasp her arm and pull her out of the office.
“Did you have to play the victim like that?” I snarl, once we’re out of earshot.
She wriggles her arm away from my grasp. “What are you talking about?”
“You kept glaring at me and looking at Uli as if you were about to spill the beans.”
She stops in the middle of the hallway, her face flushed red and her fists balled. “I am going to tell him, Athel. This secrecy you’re insisting on makes no sense. We need help and we need it now. You’re acting like you’re the sole mastermind who can save the world. Get real, brother. Dad and the others are in danger, and if we waste another minute—”
Not here. Not in a place where everybody can hear.
I press a hand against her mouth. “Don’t make a scene here,” I hiss.
“Hey guys!”
We both flinch as Wes sprints by and darts down the hallway. That kid doesn’t walk, he can only run—that’s what his flexible titanium legs are for. A thought crosses my mind.
“Ok, Dottie.” I whisper. “You say we can’t do this just by ourselves. I think you’re right. And I know exactly who else to recruit.”
Her face lightens up and for once she’s willing to listen to me.
Wait until you hear what I’ve got in mind.
“Wes! Wait up!” I call.
* * *
Wes looks at me dumbfounded. “You think they’re dead?”
“No,” I reply. “I think they’re in danger and we need to go help them. Nobody else is doing anything about it. They’re all sitting around and waiting.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “I’m not sure, man. Tahari has been telling us they’re fine. He got a message from them when they got to the other side of the mesa.”
“Tahari’s lying,” I say.
Wes’s forehead ripples with doubt. “Tahari—lying?”
“They’re outside of our wireless zone. The only one who can communicate with them is Tahari through a portable hotspot they brought along. There’s no way to check that Tahari’s telling the truth.”
“This is—crazy. We’re not supposed to—you know.” He shrugs, big eyes bulging. “Have secrets and stuff.”
Damn me for talking too soon. Wes may not be a good choice after all.
The horses whinny nervously as soon as the four of us—Akaela, Wes, Lukas and I—enter the stables.
“I’ll let them out,” Akaela says. “They’ve been cooped up all day.”
She leads Maha and Taeh out of their pens while Lukas flips open his cloth pouch with all his tools. I sit on the floor against the bales of hay and pop out my right eye.
“Make it quick and painful,” I say, grinning.
“Actually—” Lukas replies.
“Oh no. Not another one of your ‘actually’ facts,” I protest.
Lukas frowns, miffed at my comment, then starts soldering my eye back to the cables I’ve pulled out of my empty socket. “Actually,” he iterates, “not feeling pain in our electronic parts is one of the major drawbacks of our technology. Really, if I had a lab of my own, I’d work on adding neural impulses for pain and build them inside our implants and prostheses. It’d be a major improvement.”
“The heck I’d let you snip off my eye to make a camera if I had that.”
Lukas hands back my eye and shrugs. “You have a point.”
I pop it back into place and turn to Wes. He’s sitting in his corner hugging his knees, an empty look on his face. He’s almost two years younger than me and still immature, but the kid can run like a gazelle. I definitely want him on our side, I just have to find out how much I can trust him to keep our secret.
“Wes,” I say, startling him. “You’re either with us on this or not. If you aren’t willing to risk your life for something this important, then I have to ask you to leave now.”
He licks his lips, eyes darting from me to Lukas, then back at me. “Our lives? We’re risking our lives?”
Lukas thumbs through his data feeder. “Of course,” he says. “You risk your life every day. Your batteries have an average lifetime of sixty years, which means they can die out as early as twenty and as late as one hundred, with the chance of dying out increasing by one percent every day. Now, if you didn’t get new batteries for starters—”
“Lukas,” I interrupt.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
Wes rocks his titanium legs. “Hey,” he says. “This could be our best adventure ever.” He swallows and inhales, his nostrils widening the slightest bit. “I mean—no way I’m going to let you guys down.”
I tilt my head. “You sure about this, Wes?”
The kid’s eyes bulge. “What do you want me to do?”
“The thing you do best,” I reply. “Run.”
Akaela comes back to the stable, leaving the door ajar. Taeh nudges it open with her nose and follows my sister inside, tugging her shirt.
“Oh no, Taeh, not now,” Akaela says, pushing her back out. “We’ll go riding in a bit, okay?”
The horse snorts and shakes her head. I hear her stomp behind the door for a few more minutes, and then she reluctantly trots away. Akaela sits on the ground across from me, dips her chin, and looks at me the way she does when she’s upset. She’s still mad at me about Kael. The bloodied flap of metal with Dad’s serial number troubles her, making her angry. And that doesn’t help.
“Wes is one of ours,” I announce.
/>
She presses her lips together and scowls. “I want to know what’s gotten into your mind, Athel. Why not talk to Uli? He could help us out, he—”
“He’s part of the Kiva, just like everybody else. I heard them talk after Skip’s death. They’re scared but they don’t want to do anything. And also…”
I inhale and look at the three of them, unsure how much I should disclose. The heck with it, if we’re in this together, they need to know. So I drop the bombshell: “There’s a traitor lurking among the Mayake people. Skip was murdered.”
Akaela’s jaw falls open. Wes’s eyes grow wider, while Lukas just stares at me. I know they won’t believe me without evidence, so I provide it: “Skip’s battery had been tampered with. Uli showed me.”
Remember what happened to Skip, Athel. Don’t do anything stupid.
Uli didn’t want Akaela to know. They don’t want anybody to know.
“Until we know who the traitor is, we can’t trust anyone. We can’t talk to anyone about this, not even message one another. Our network is not encrypted. Any Kiva Member can tap into it and read our messages as we type them.”
Akaela scowls at me. “Athel, we can trust Mom and Uli.”
“We can’t trust them to keep quiet, though. They’ll tell the Kiva Members. That’s what Mayake people do. They do whatever the Kiva Members tell them to.”
Lukas thumbs through his data feeder. “Let me show you guys the map I made with the data I collected from Kael’s flight.” He taps the screen and a light on the side turns on. He sets the data feeder on the ground and props it against his satchel, projecting the map onto the white wall at the end of the stable.
“The distances may be a little off,” he says, “since the falcon didn’t always fly in a straight line. I estimate about twenty-two miles from here to the factory. Might be a bit longer for us since we’d be getting there through the gorge, which also doesn’t follow a straight line.”
I blink. “Through the gorge?”
Lukas nods. “That’s what I was trying to tell you while Kael was flying, but you were too busy dodging bullets.”
Right. How foolish of me.
“What were you trying to tell me?”
He points at the map. “The gorge. It’s not closed like we were told. It crosses the whole mesa and opens up to the other side, where the factory is. Don’t you get it? It’s a shortcut. We can get there much faster than we originally thought.”
“Nobody’s ever explored the whole length of the gorge,” Wes says. “My mom says the ones that tried never came back alive.”
“An urban myth the adults use to keep us from going there,” Lukas insists. “Kael showed us what’s at the end of the gorge: the Gaijins’ factory. The Kiva Members said the men’s route was to be kept secret for fear of the Gaijins spying on us. Whatever route they took, they went from the top of the mesa because everybody says the gorge’s too dangerous. But now we know the fastest way is through the gorge.”
“We might as well jump off the cliff,” Akaela snaps. “The sniper droids on the top of the mesa will shoot us dead anyway. If the scavenger droids don’t finish us off first.”
Of all people! How many times my sister and I wandered at the mouth of the gorge, and she decides to nix it now?
“I have a plan for that,” Lukas says, casting away Akaela’s doubts. “We go at night after the scavenger droids have retreated into their shells.”
“What if they wake up?” Wes asks. “They came all the way to the river the night Skip died.”
“That’s because—” Akalea starts. But then she bites her lip and says nothing.
“Look,” I say. “Akaela and I know how to take care of the scavenger droids. We’ve had some practice with that. And Kael can divert the sniper droids’ attention once we get to the other side.”
Akaela plays with the hem of her pants. “I used to think they went through the forest. When Dad told us about the last expedition where they stole the latest batteries and implants, he said the Gaijins chased them through the forest.” She dips a hand in her pocket and pulls out a white handkerchief. “I was wrong.” She carefully unfolds the handkerchief and shows Wes the piece of scraped metal with Dad’s serial number on it. “This is what Kael brought back from the Gaijins’ factory.”
Wes stares at the piece of metal and swallows hard. I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking of his own dad, out there, in danger, just like ours. “I can run twenty miles in less than two hours.”
“Not inside the gorge. It’s going to be rough terrain. There might be flowing water at the bottom. And there will be the sniper droids waiting for us at the end.”
Akaela shakes her head. “This is crazy.”
“Are you scared?” I challenge her.
“Of course not. You know I never am. I’m just being rational about this.”
“Nobody’s more rational than Lukas,” I say. “Right, dude?”
Lukas nods. “I think we all agree we need to go at night. The snipers are probably equipped with thermal imaging technology, but we can fool them by hiding in the vegetation. The gorge itself will be at a higher temperature than the mesa, and the boulders will release heat during the night, all to our advantage.”
I tap my fingers and smile. He may be a geek, but boy, I love this kid.
“What if we don’t make it in one night?” Akaela asks. “Mom will raise the alarm as soon as she gets up in the morning and doesn’t see us in our beds.”
“We’ll leave notes,” I reply. “Something like, ‘We went to ride early this morning.’ Just to delay her.”
“Eventually they’ll find out,” Wes says.
“By then we’ll be back with our dads,” I say. Confidence is a virtue.
Lukas picks up his data feeder and turns off the projector. “So now for the hard part,” he says.
“Right. Cuz what we discussed so far is easy peasy,” Akaela snorts.
Lukas gives her his usual flat stare and resumes his speech. “I’ve got flashlights for everyone but Athel, who doesn’t need them and who will be our look-out. I’ll carry my emergency and first aid kits, but we need to bring along at least one recharger.”
“A TBC? Those things are too heavy to carry,” Akaela objects.
“A full, solar powered TCB would be too big to carry along all those miles, but I can make a small pulse charger just to bring along for emergencies. If the men are in bad shape, they might need it.”
Can’t object to that. Look at what happened to Skip. “What do you need to make it?”
Lukas fumbles inside his satchel and shows us all the little treasures he’s collected over many trips to the landfill. “I’ve got most of the stuff. However,” he says, showing us a square piece of plastic with four metal flaps coming out at each corner. “I need another one of these.”
Wes leans forward and squints at it. “What is it?”
“A bridge rectifier. Can’t make the charger without it.”
As if that made it any clearer.
Akaela scoffs. “I told you this is impossible.” She jumps to her feet and walks out of the stable.
“What’s wrong with her?” Lukas asks.
I shrug. “Can’t handle too much tension.” I point to the black piece of plastic in his hand. “Where would you go to find one of those?”
Lukas sighs. “Other than the landfill? In every TCB charger. Except nobody’s allowed to touch those. We’re lucky to have the ones we have and—”
“Guys!” Akaela yanks the stable door open and storms back inside. “Did you hear anything from the outside?”
I shake my head. “No, why? Are the horses ok?”
She nods, catching her breath. “They are. But Yuri and his brother were lurking out here. I saw them running when I got out. I think they were spying on us.”
“Yuri and Cal? Are you absolutely sure?”
She nods. “Positive.”
Crap.
* * *
I ride Maha back to the T
ower and then along the riverbanks looking for Yuri and Cal, but it’s as though they’ve vanished in thin air. They’re not even by Skull Rock, where they usually like to hang out. I begin to wonder if Akaela made the whole thing up. If they’ve been eavesdropping on us, they could easily give us away. They’d get a kick out of that. I bet they’d even tell their parents, who happen to be Kiva Members, something the dorks never fail to brag about.
Darn it.
I let Maha amble along the riverbanks, too absorbed in my own thoughts to care about where she’s going. One night is all we have, I think. We need to be back by morning or else the adults will come looking for us.
And what if they do?
Maybe that will alert them, at last. They’ll realize what’s going on.
Somebody needs to get the ball rolling, and that somebody is us.
I hear a whistle and see Akaela galloping toward me on Taeh. “Did you find them?” she whispers, once she’s close enough not to be overheard.
I shake my head.
The river gargles down its path. A flock of blue herons lands a few hundred feet downstream. They ogle us briefly then wade in the low water, looking for frogs and small fish. I kick Maha’s flank, prompting her to a sprint, and gallop in their direction. They screech and quickly take off again, etching the sky with their elegant wings.
I keep the fast gallop until we get back to the stables. Lukas and Wes have already left. The plan is to meet again tomorrow to finalize the details of our expedition. I dismount the horse and wish I could ignore Akaela’s nagging voice.
“It’s just too dangerous,” she says, walking the horses back to their pens. “How are we supposed to rescue Dad with zero chances of making it to the other side of the gorge? If we tell Uli instead—”
