by E. E. Giorgi
“You’d rather do nothing than risk your life, then?” I snap.
“Why are you so convinced they won’t do anything about it?” She guides Taeh to her pen, but Taeh, sensing our tension, stomps her feet and balks.
Akaela sighs. “Oh, come on, now, Taeh.”
I offer Taeh an apple and lure her inside the pen, petting her neck. “Skip’s not the first one to die of battery failure,” I say. “There have been other deaths before him, all swept under the rug by the Kiva Members. Lukas’s own mother died of battery failure. And what are they doing about it? Absolutely nothing.”
“That’s not true,” Akaela retorts. “They elected the Ambassadors. Dad and the other men went to beg the Gaijins for technology to make new batteries!”
“Well, it was too damn late, wasn’t it?”
She heaves a deep breath and slams the pen closed. We finish our chores hastily, without uttering another word. The horses sense our negative mood and bob their heads nervously. Akaela kisses them good night and closes the stables.
We don’t talk much on our way back to the Tower, either.
“I hope Kael’s okay,” Akaela mumbles at one point.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I say.
“Really? You’re always so sure about everything!” she scoffs.
I let it ride, mostly because I don’t want to tell her how not true that is.
As it turns out, I am right about Kael. We find him perched on a stand in Uli’s workshop, his left foot wrapped in gauze. To my relief, Uli’s nowhere to be seen, which reduces the chances of Akaela spilling the beans.
As soon as he sees us, Kael hops between the two ends of the stand and squawks. He doesn’t like to be restrained, and it’s a relief to see that he has enough energy to let us know. Akaela ruffles his neck feathers and unties his leash.
I look around the room for signs that Uli had to rush for an emergency call, but all the TCB chargers are neatly lined up on the carts against the wall. It’s almost sunset, and Uli should be back any minute now to close the workshop.
I take Kael’s hood and glove out of my pouch, a few ideas crossing my mind.
“Should we wait until Uli comes back?” Akaela asks.
I rub Kael under his beak and slide the hood over his head. He meekly complies, eager to go home. “Why don’t you go ahead and take Kael home?” I say, handing her the training glove. “I’ll wait for him here.”
She frowns, unconvinced.
“Kael’s probably hungry,” I add, trying to sound casual. It’s hard to deceive somebody who’s known you since you were two. Hard, but not impossible.
Akaela lowers her voice. “Are you going to talk to Uli?”
I clench my teeth. “No. And I’m not discussing this again.” I take her right hand and slide Kael’s training glove on her arm. “Just take Kael home. Trust me. This one time.”
She flashes me one of her “don’t do anything stupid” looks and scuttles off, her left hand around Kael’s chest to help him balance on her arm. I follow her to the door, take a quick look down the hallway and then rush back inside.
How much time do I have? Five minutes? Fifteen?
I go back inside the office and open the cabinet doors under the countertop. Lukas needs a piece of electronics to make a portable charger—a bridge rectifier, that’s what he called it—and if there’s one place where such thing can be found, it’s Uli’s workshop. I begin by searching for Skip’s faulty TBC charger. I know Uli still has it in the shop somewhere, and I’m sure he wouldn’t notice if a part went missing. But the broken TBC is not where I last saw it and a quick look inside the various cabinets uncovers a hoard of wires, drills, and toolboxes, but no TBC or TBC parts.
I exhale in frustration and spin on my heels. There’s a narrow door at the very back of the office. It’s gray and inconspicuous, with no handle or tag.
Could it be a closet?
I push it, but it doesn’t yield. Steps resonate down the hallway. I duck and hide behind the cabinets. The one in the corner doesn’t have shelves. I shove a tangle of robotic parts out of the way, slide inside, and close the door.
“Yes.” I hear Uli’s voice boom into the workshop. “Barium titanate and methanol solution. I have them both in storage, I’ll bring them right away.”
Even though it sounds like he’s talking to someone, I hear only one set of steps rush across the floor. Through the thin gap between cabinet doors, I spot Uli’s legs come right to the sink next to the cabinet I’m in. I hear him pry open a glass bottle and fiddle with containers. Something drops in the sink with a loud clonk.
“Crap, this is not enough,” Uli mutters.
He fishes something out of a drawer and walks away. I can’t see him anymore, but I hear metal grating against metal and then a click.
The closet! He’s unlocked the closet at the back!
I pry open the cabinet door just enough to glimpse him vanish behind the metal door. A voice in my head tells me this is my chance to slide out of my hiding spot and vanish before I get into trouble. I stay where I am and tell the voice to shut up. Uli comes out of the closet holding a small plastic bag in one hand. He walks back to the countertop, fumbles a bit more with some glassware, and then rushes out of the room.
I hold my breath. A small miracle just happened.
In his hurry, Uli left the closet door ajar.
Run, Athel. Get outta here fast.
No. He forgot to lock the closet. You don’t walk away from an opportunity like that. I sneak out of the cabinet, take a quick glance at the office door then sprint to the closet. I step inside, leaving the door ajar just like Uli left it. The closet is narrow and dark, with two shelved walls on either side. Bits of electronics are stacked on the shelves, larger robotic pieces on the bottom and smaller parts on the top, organized in plastic canisters. I frantically sift through the containers looking for the black plastic squares similar to the one Lukas showed us at the stables. I come across something that looks close enough. It’s tucked in a small transparent bag sealed at the top. I shove it into my pocket and keep looking. I find more random parts that I stick in my pouch because you never know what we’ll need once out there in the middle of the night.
Two and a half minutes into the closet, the read-out on my retina tells me.
That’s plenty of time, get out now, Athel.
But what if I still haven’t gotten the piece Lukas needs? I can’t risk it.
So I wade deeper inside the closet. And that’s a mistake. By the time I hear Uli’s steps, he’s already back into the workshop, walking straight to the closet door.
“Give me one second and I’ll be right with you, Tahari,” Uli says. “I left the closet open.”
I flatten against the wall. Uli pushes the door closed and locks it.
A shiver runs down my spine. “No!” I yell. “No, please—“
And then bite my lip.
Akaela would’ve never done that. Akaela knows no fear, she wouldn’t have panicked like that. I close my eyes and hope Uli hasn’t heard me.
The key rattles once more inside the hole. Uli opens the door and slowly peeks inside.
“Athel?”
Chapter Eleven
Akaela
I bang at the door and shout, “Lukas! Open up, Lukas! Something’s happened and you have to come now!”
I hear the drag of a chair and other random noises, then steps, finally, coming to the door. Lukas opens, his face ashen and his eyes slowly blinking, taken aback by my sudden haste.
I swallow, not sure how to break the news. “Athel has been taken to the Kiva Hall. A special assembly has been called.”
Lukas tilts his head, processing the information. Man, for someone who’s faster than his own data feeder, he’s being freaking slow right now. I grab his hand and try to drag him out in the hallway. “Come!”
He pulls away from me, the incredulous stare still clinging to his eyes. “Wait. What happened? What did he do this time?”
&nbs
p; Oh, goodness. How do I tell him? I’m embarrassed to even say the word. “Stealing. That’s all I know. He’s been taken to the auditorium for sentencing. Mom’s in tears, but she won’t tell me anything more. I just—I want to know what happened! My brother’s stupid, but not that stupid. Please, help me!”
“Wait,” he says and runs back inside. His place is a hole—two rooms, one after the other, probably an office suite back in the days when the Tower was a hospital. He lives alone with his uncle Akari now that his dad left with the other ambassadors.
What a mess, I think, staring at the messy state of his place. Lukas can be such a nerd at times, the annoying kind. What part of “We need to go right now” does he not get?
He comes back, satchel weighing down his shoulders and making him look even tinier and skinnier.
I flinch. “Why do you need all that?”
“Because you never know.” He pushes me out the door. “Let’s go. I know how to eavesdrop on the Kiva.”
Now he’s talking.
* * *
Lukas drops his bulging satchel on the ground and points to the metal cabinet against the wall. “Move that,” he says.
“Say what?”
“The cabinet,” he insists, pulling his data feeder out of the satchel. “It needs to be moved away from the wall.”
I’m annoyed at him. When Athel gives me orders, I stick my tongue out. But now there’s no time to be wasted. I pull the metal cabinet and drag it forward. I’ve no idea how long Athel has been in there and what they’re doing to him. How could he get caught for stealing? There’s no forgiving for something like that. The Mayake people aren’t allowed to even think about stealing.
I push the cabinet away from the wall and uncover an air vent on the floor. Lukas sticks his fingers between the slats and pulls the grate off.
“Athel discovered it,” he explains, whispering. “Hear those voices? They’re from the Kiva.”
I get down on all fours and press my right ear against the vent. Lukas returns his attention to the data feeder. He pulls more cables out of his satchel and connects them to the various ports in his device.
I hear a man’s deep voice, one of the Kiva Members most likely. “They’re waiting for the full assembly to come in,” I say.
“Good. That’ll give us a few more minutes.”
“What are you doing?”
He connects a tiny box with a two-inch antenna to his data feeder and then taps a bunch of commands on the feeder’s terminal. “When I come with Athel, he pops out his right eye and drops it down the vent. If he throws it hard enough, it reaches the end of the vent and dangles down the ceiling, allowing him to see what’s going on down there. Without him, we have to be more ingenious.”
I frown at the tools he’s lined up on the floor. “What do you mean?”
“I left the microtransmitter in his eye this morning. Once Kael came back wounded and exhausted, you guys rushed to see Uli and I forgot to take it off. So now…”
He pompously taps his thumb on the screen and leaves his hand suspended in the air, waiting. The screen flickers, then a grainy image appears. It’s upside down from where I’m sitting. I slide next to Lukas so I can properly stare at the picture. The screen shows a raised stage in the middle of a large hall—the auditorium, I guess. On both sides, slanted walls staggered by pillars converge to the stage where, behind a cracked podium, a man sits on a big chair, his arms crossed and his face a web of anger and disappointment. Two rows of empty chairs depart from his sides. Behind him, a black screen hangs from the ceiling, split in the middle by a deep gash.
If this is the sacred Kiva Hall everyone talks about, it is deeply disappointing. The walls are cracked and peeling, the chairs made of chipped wood. It’s no different than the rest of the Tower, a subtle reminder that our future is really in the past, the place we call home a mere ghost of what once was and never again will be.
The camera shifts to the right and I spot Uli hunched over at the end of the first row of seats. Mom’s sitting in the row behind him, nibbling on the hook of her prosthetic hand.
I think of the hand we stole from the droid so Mom could have a brand new prosthesis for her birthday. After what just happened, will Uli ever trust us again and make a new hand for Mom like he promised us?
“Where’s Athel?” I whisper. The image flickers again, panning back to the stage, and I finally realize what’s happening. “Goodness, we’re in his head!”
“Not quite,” Lukas replies. “But we’re seeing things through his eyes. Eye, actually, the right one.”
We watch on the screen and listen from the air vent. Athel turns to the Kiva entrance and watches as two adults walk down to the stage, followed by two kids. One of them turns and locks eyes with Athel, the bottom half of his face shining eerily against the overhead light.
“Metal Jaw!” I say. “What the heck is he doing there? Kiva is closed to anyone under eighteen!”
“There are exceptions,” Lukas replies. “Stealing is one.”
“It’s all a mistake, my brother would never do such a thing!”
Right, Athel? I almost message him but then remember what he said earlier.
Any Kiva Member can tap into the network and read messages as we type them.
“Shh!” Lukas hisses and points to the screen. “Tahari’s about to speak.”
The man sitting on stage rises. “Here are our witnesses.”
No way! Cal and Yuri … witnesses?
About a dozen men and women file up on the stage and occupy the chairs on either side of Tahari. I recognize the elder who threatened Ash the other day. These are the Kiva Members, I think, heart pounding in my throat.
What did you do, Athel?
Athel keeps his eyes on Yuri and his brother, probably wondering what the heck those two up-to-no-good rascals are doing there.
“It’s all a mistake,” I whisper. “It’s all a big, huge, mistake. I’m sure once they realize the misunderstanding, Athel will be cleared.”
“Depends on what he’s done,” Lukas says.
“Oh, shut up!” I hiss.
He blinks. “I was just saying the truth.”
You and your truth, Lukas.
“I declare this Kiva open under extraordinary circumstances.” Tahari’s voice booms from the stage, bounces up the twisted air vent, and reaches our tiny closet one floor up. “Uli, do you want to explain what happened?”
Uli lifts his gaze, then sends a sideways glance to Athel and shakes his head. “Tahari, I’ve known Athel all his life. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for what he did.” Again, he looks at Athel, his eyes almost pleading.
Tahari scowls. “I was there with you, Uli, when you found the young man in your workshop closet. I asked you to look into his backpack and, had I not done that, you would’ve never suspected him a robber. I believe you are biased. You are therefore excused from testifying any further.”
One row behind them, Mom wails. Seeing her like that angers me. Why is she not standing up and defending her son? All she does is hide her face and sob.
“I know my brother does a lot of stupid things, but if I were there in the auditorium, I’d walk right to that Tahari guy’s face and tell him Athel’s no robber.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Lukas says. “Nobody talks to Tahari like that.”
I want to reply but don’t want to miss what Tahari is saying. He recounts how Athel was caught red-handed stealing from Uli’s workshop. Uli and he had just stepped inside the room and found Athel in the closet, his backpack full of parts he’d lifted from the shelves.
Tahari looks down on Athel, then back to the men and women seated at his sides. “Do my fellow Kiva Members have any questions?”
Athel scans the faces of the men and women on stage, their eyes narrowed with spite. “How long have you been stealing?” one man asks.
“I’ve never stolen anything,” Athel replies.
“A liar, too!” Tahari bellows. “I saw you with
my own eyes.”
Athel turns to Uli, perhaps hoping for a word in his favor, but Uli reverts his gaze and says nothing.
“Let the witnesses speak!” Tahari says.
A burly man brings Yuri and Cal to the stage. From up there, Yuri looks down on Athel and smirks, the bastard. Tahari nods and Metal Jaw chatter about all the stuff he “overheard” us say at the stables.
It’s the final straw. I stomp my foot, fuming. “Overheard my boot, the prickle head eavesdropped on us!”
Lukas scowls. “Shh!”
“Athel meant to steal the stuff,” Yuri says. “He and his friends wanted to make batteries but were missing some parts. My brother and I heard them say how they didn’t have everything they needed.” He shrugs and flashes a disgusted look toward Athel. “I guess he found it convenient to go take a look in Uli’s shop.”
“He’s making that stuff up!” I protest. “That’s not what we said!”
Lukas blows air through his tiny nostrils. “I know. I was there too, remember?”
I snort and keep my mouth shut this time.
“Who else was there plotting with him?” Tahari asks.
Yuri’s eyes sparkle with pleasure as he replies, “His sister was there, together with the nerdy guy, Lukas. And the super fast one—”
He frowns, searching for the name.
“Wes,” Cal chimes in. “The super fast kid’s name is Wes.”
Tahari shifts his gaze to the man who’s accompanied Yuri and Cal into the hall. “Go find them,” he says. The man bows and leaves while Yuri and Cal gloat. Tahari dismisses them and, as they exit the stage, their eyes meet Athel’s. Yuri looks straight at us through Athel’s eye and his gaze is so full of triumph and hatred I almost shriek with the urge to punch him in the face.
“I should’ve taught the prick a lesson when he came after me the other day. I should’ve kicked him in his privates, him and that doofus brother of his.”
“Stand up, Athel,” Tahari orders, stepping down the stage. He stands in front of my brother and looks down on him. “You are hereby found guilty of treason and deemed unworthy of the Mayake’s people trust.”
