Akaela

by E. E. Giorgi

  Somebody enters the room, just one person, judging from the steps and the lack of dialogue. The door closes, metal instruments rattle on a hard surface. The noises come from somewhere to my right. I take a chance and open my eyes, turning slightly toward the noises.

  Uli.

  I recognize him even though he’s got his back toward me. He’s standing by a stainless steel sink, all garbed in a surgical gown, face shield, and blue sterile gloves. Sprawled across the counter is my broken sail, the nylon slashed and the aluminum frame crooked and broken. A painful memory resurfaces.

  I was attacked last night!

  I arch my shoulder blades and feel the emptiness between them. Is Uli preparing surgery to reattach my sail? But if so… why was I discharging instead of recharging?

  I’m tempted to sit up and tell Uli he made a mistake. Instead of fixing me, he almost killed me, and if it weren’t for Dad’s message …

  Dad’s voice rings in my head: You’re in danger, Akaela.

  I’ve installed technology that many Mayakes would kill for.

  Uli is so focused in his task he doesn’t realize I’m watching him from the corner of one eye. He lifts the lid of the sterilizing machine and takes out a set of clamps, scalpels and forceps. He lines them up on a surgical tray, ordering them from smallest to largest, almost religiously. He stares at his orderly tray without moving, as though upset by something. He walks to a nearby cabinet and opens several doors until he appears to have found what he was looking for.

  A Stryker saw.

  I blink.

  A Stryker saw?

  A chill travels down my spine. As hard as I try, I can’t think of any good reason why Uli would need a Stryker saw to reinstall my gliding sail.

  Uli adjusts the facemask over his mouth, lowers his face shield, and rolls the cart over to the table where I’m lying. I shut my eyes and don’t move. The cart stops. I hold my breath and hear nothing. No rolling cart, no clinking of instruments against a stainless steel tray.

  Uli.

  A brother to our father, an uncle to us.

  Uli would never want to hurt me.

  It’s impossible.

  A couple more steps. The squeaking of gloves against metal.

  He’s noticed the charger.

  The flick of a switch flipping.

  He’s inverted the TBC again. I can immediately feel it as juice starts draining from me. And this time I don’t stop to ponder his intentions. I’m still weak, but the quest for survival fuels my strength: I yank the cable from my arm, roll under the table, and push the cart of instruments against Uli.

  “Holy Kawa!” he yells, stumbling back and yanking the cart away. It rattles against the wall and turns over, the instruments skidding in all directions across the floor. I snag a scalpel by my feet and point it at Uli.

  “You tried to discharge me,” I say, gritting my teeth. “Twice. Once could be a mistake. Not twice.”

  His lips stretch into a calculating smile. This is not the Uli I’ve known throughout my life. This is a hateful, hideous Uli who’s determined to kill me. He grabs the Stryker saw from where he left it on the counter and squeezes the handle, making the blade swirl and grind the air.

  “Don’t even think of getting away from me, child.”

  I’m cornered, only the stainless steel table standing between the two of us. The scalpel I’m holding looks completely useless compared to the Stryker saw Uli is brandishing. He sniggers and pushes the table toward me. I step backward and bump into a metal cabinet propped against the wall.

  “Why are you doing this?” I shout over the grinding sound of the saw.

  I read spite in his eyes.

  “For years I’ve run on second-hand batteries and old technology just so you people could have the very best out there. Guess what? It’s over. No new technology is being developed. It’s time for me to get back what has always been mine from the beginning.”

  “My implants and nanobots do not belong to you,” I retort. “Dad installed them.”

  “Well, Dad’s not here to help you now, is he?”

  I swallow. Uli grabs the edge of the table with his prosthetic hand and gives it one more push toward me. I slide around the file cabinet and knock it over against the table. The top drawer rolls off its hinges, slides over the table and slams against Uli’s chest. He drops the Stryker saw and staggers backward. In the few seconds it takes him to recover, I manage to push the table away and run for the door.

  The hallway is dark, this part of the Tower unfamiliar to me. It smells damp and moldy.

  “Come back!” Uli storms through the door and charges after me, his legs longer and stronger than mine.

  There are no windows, only small nightlights installed above the baseboards. The walls are raw and unfinished, the cement mottled with green patches of mold.

  Basement! I’m in the basement, I realize.

  I bolt down the corridor, desperately looking for the fire door to the stairs, an exit, anything. Uli stomps after me, the thudding of his heavy boots getting closer and closer.

  There are old, rusty carts lined along the wall. I grab one and push it back toward him, but it’s a useless strategy. He lets it roll past him and then charges back, gaining ground on me. I slam against every door that looks like a fire exit until I find the one at the end of what looks like a dead end. I breathe a sigh of relief as the door swings open and dart up the stairs, my steps echoing through the stairwells.

  “Help!” I yell, hoping my screams will awaken somebody. “Please! Somebody help!”

  I’m out of breath, out of energy. Uli devours the steps three at a time and is soon on me. He grabs me by the hair and shoves me down. I slam against the wall and roll all the way back down to the landing.

  I wipe the blood trickling down my lips and gaze straight into his angry eyes. “How can you do this to me? Dad trusts you,” I snarl.

  He smirks at that. “Your father can’t help you anymore.”

  He leans over and wraps his metal fingers around my neck. I uselessly dig my fingernails in the rubber lining of his prosthetic arm and flail my legs at him. His forehead is pearled with sweat, his eyes polluted with rage.

  How could I have thought this man to be my friend?

  I wheeze, his fingers closing around my throat. “You won’t get away with this! When Dad comes back—”

  “Your father? Come back?” He laughs and slams me against the wall. “You don’t get it, do you? Your father won’t be coming back. He’s gone forever.”

  His flesh hand slides behind my neck, looking for my deactivation switch. To no avail I pound my fists against his prosthetic arm. His fingers reach the switch and press it, yet I keep flailing my legs and pounding my fists. A pang of disbelief crosses his face.

  “You—you’re not—the switch isn’t working!”

  In that one moment of vulnerability he relaxes his arm enough for me to jab my foot into his stomach. He doubles over and lets go of me, but as soon as I scramble back to my feet, he catches me again. He shoves me to the ground and pins me down, the edges of the stairs jammed against my ribs.

  “I will—”

  “Uli.”

  The voice is deep and reaches us from above, somewhere up on a higher landing. I know that voice. Tahari.

  Uli keeps his weight on me and looks up. “I caught this traitor, Tahari. I’m sure you’ll appreciate my efforts.”

  I hear nothing, and then Tahari’s slow and deliberate footfalls coming down the stairs. “What should we do about her, Uli?” he asks.

  “Why, condemn her to Niwang, of course! Not only did she breach the sacred doors of our auditorium, but she also did the unthinkable: she awakened her brother from Wela, letting him escape a rightful punishment.”

  More steps. One, two, three.

  “Have you found her brother, Uli?”

  Uli shakes his head. “No, sir. But I swear, if I lay hands on that little thief, I’ll make sure both of them get the punishment they deserve.”<
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  “Ah.” Tahari comes down three more steps. More sounds from above follow, more people coming to watch.

  The whole Kiva has come to condemn me.

  “Well, I have,” Tahari says.

  Uli blinks. “Have what?”

  “I have found him. The thief.”

  Uli shifts. I wiggle out of his grasp and pull myself up. Tahari looms one flight up and points his finger to the upper level landing, where Athel—eyes narrowed and jaw clenched—leans from the railing and looks down on us.

  Athel! No!

  Uli scrambles back to his feet and stares at my brother. “You’ve disappointed me, Athel.”

  “So have you,” my brother replies. “You killed my father.”

  His words flatten me. I gasp, unable to breathe.

  No. It’s not—it can’t be true.

  I crawl against the wall, blood trickling down the corner of my mouth, and brace myself. Uli’s jaw twitches. He looks at Athel then at Tahari and attempts a deceitful smile. Tahari doesn’t reciprocate, his eyes as hard as stone.

  “You’re not believing the word of a thief, Tahari, are you?”

  Tahari raises a fist and opens it. On his palm rests a small, cube-shaped piece of electronic. I can’t tell what it is from the distance.

  “He brought me proof, Uli,” Tahari says.

  Uli steps back, his hands searching for the fire door. He pushes it open and then runs. I spring to my feet but a wave of dizziness makes me stumble against the wall. My eyes stray to Tahari, as I wordlessly plead him to do something, to catch the traitor, the man that for so long I thought a friend.

  Tahari closes his hand over the mysterious object and stares vacantly at the fire door.

  I want to say something, yet words fall short. I want to run after Uli, yet my legs fail me. Seconds go by. Tahari stands and says nothing. He doesn’t look at me or at Athel. He doesn’t condemn us. Just stares at the fire door while more steps echo from farther up the stairwell, people coming to stand on the upper landings from various floors.

  And then the fire door next to me swings open again and Uli’s face reappears, this time swollen, his nose cracked open. Akari, Lukas’s uncle, holds Uli by his arms and shoves him to the floor at Tahari’s feet.

  “Caught this one fleeing through the boiler room. I hear he’s a filthy traitor.”

  “He killed your brother, too,” Athel says from the top of the stairs. “He killed them all,” he adds, choking on those last words.

  “Put him out!” somebody from the upper floors yells.

  “Out!”

  More voices join in.

  “Filthy traitor!”

  “Assassin!”

  Uli attempts a last plea for his life. “Lies,” he shouts. “They’re all lies!”

  Tahari raises a hand in the air, silencing all voices. He looks at Lukas’s uncle and then says, “Put him out.”

  “What?” Uli hollers. “No! You can’t do this, it’s a mistake!” He tries to run again, but two more men come down the stairs and pin him face down to the floor. Akari bends over him and cups a hand at the nape of Uli’s neck.

  Uli cranes his head up and flashes a spiteful glare at me. “No! You won’t put me out. You can’t! She—she didn’t deactivate. The switches are faulty. You won’t—”

  His last cry echoes up the stairwell and then dies.

  There’s a moment of silence in which a million thoughts assault me, leaving me breathless. I slide down to the ground, my back pressed against the wall.

  Dad. Uli killed Dad.

  Hot tears roll down my cheeks. Hot tears and no words whatsoever. Chaos follows. Several men and women storm down the stairs to pick up Uli’s limp body and take him out. They shout their shock and outrage. I sit there and think nothing, the wound in my heart so overwhelming it drowns everything else.

  A hand drapes my shoulder and, as I look up, I see my pain reflected in my mother’s eyes. She pulls me into her arms and I bury my face in her chest and cry.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Athel

  Day Number: 1,536

  Event: Tahari’s announcement.

  Number of Mayakes left: 428.

  Goal for today: Fight back.

  I peek down the hallway. The place is packed with people: all Mayakes have come to Tahari’s special announcement. The auditorium wasn’t going to fit us all, so they set up the podium in the lobby on the first floor for him to speak. All Kiva Members are gathered around him. They nervously exchange last minute words, as Tahari’s speech will have to represent their unanimous consent.

  “It’s packed,” I tell Lukas, pushing him back toward the side corridor we’ve come from. “Let’s wait here until Mom and Akaela show up.”

  Lukas doesn’t even look at me. He sits by the wall, crosses his legs, and returns his attention to the video game on his data feeder. I sigh. He too, just like me, is going through a lot. He’ll come out of it, but it’ll take time. I stand by the wall and keep an eye on the waves of people who have come to hear Tahari’s speech.

  Murmurs, hushed conversations, and nervous steps fill the vast hallway. People cram close together and exchange glances. Some go so far as to guess exactly what Tahari will be announcing. Our future is at stake. Tahari won’t be able to give us another “Let’s wait and see” speech. The three men who’d volunteered to pave the way to a new peace treaty with the Gaijins got slaughtered, and not by the Gaijins themselves, our historic enemies. No. By our very own, their bones scattered in a shallow grave not too far away from the landfill.

  That’s where Kael had retrieved the piece of metal with Dad’s serial number on it. I let the falcon fly back there yesterday. Tahari, two other Kiva Members, and I followed him into the forest and made the gruesome discovery, the definitive proof that Uli had ambushed and murdered the three ambassadors shortly after they’d left for their mission.

  I seethe at the thought, the betrayal so fresh and so deep I can’t come to terms with it. When Lukas told me Uli had to be the traitor, I drew on the anger to push through the night and make it back to the Tower in time to save Wes and Akaela. Lukas recognized the serial number on the electronic piece I’d stolen from Uli’s shop. I could only think of one thing: revenge. Never in my life have I wanted something more strongly.

  The piece had belonged to Alejan, Lukas’s father. It was his piezoelectric energy harvester, and it carried Lukas’s dad’s unique integrated circuit identifier. No wireless messaging is possible without it. Yet Tahari had been receiving regular updates from the ambassadors, updates that had to be sent from the piece we were now holding in our hands.

  Uli had been sending the fake messages.

  “This is my father’s integrated circuit,” Lukas told me in the gorge, pointing to the chip on top of the energy harvester.

  “What are you talking about? I told you already. I got it from the closet at the back of Uli’s shop.”

  “It has my father’s serial number. I know it by heart.”

  “Well, maybe your dad got a replacement. Uli saves everything so he can recycle parts and make new ones from the old.”

  Lukas shook his head. “No. This particular piece is implanted under the skin of the neck. Right here, see?” He brushed a finger along his own scar to show me.

  We all have that scar, about two inches long, on the right side of our necks. It’s a Mayake mark. I never knew it nested the integrated circuit and energy harvester.

  “You see,” Lukas told me. “It’s quite visible when you replace it. You get stitches and all. And Dad never needed a new one since I can remember.”

  We stood there, night approaching fast, our clothes drenched, and a very sick kid sprawled on the ground between us.

  The realization was overwhelming. Our fathers had never made it to the Gaijin factory. In fact, our fathers probably never even left our own land, caught in an ambush from the one they trusted the most.

  Lukas wept, one long tear rolling down his cheek.

 
That’s when I shook it off. My pain, my anger, my loathing. Wes was dying. We’d done everything wrong, deceived by our own stupid hope that we could still save our parents. We’d lost everything, and if we didn’t act soon, we were going to lose Wes, too.

  I hauled the three of us—including Wes’s limp body—on Taeh’s back and pushed that heroic horse of ours through the muddied terrain of the gorge.

  Behind me, Lukas held Wes and didn’t speak a word. I know he was crying. I would’ve cried too if I had tears because it wasn’t just Wes that was losing his life. Akaela was also in danger. By now she’d landed straight into the devil’s hole.

  We got lucky. We made it on time. Tahari probably would’ve never even listened to us if it weren’t for Wes’s torn leg. He saw Wes first, then the energy harvester and circuit identifier Lukas showed him. That’s when he believed us and shared our pain.

  We’re all related, us Mayakes. It’s the way it is when you’re stuck in isolation for so many generations. Alejan was Tahari’s cousin.

  As soon as they took Uli away, Lukas and I dashed to check on Wes. The surgeons worked on his femur for several hours. The techs fixed the torn implant and managed to reattach it to his bone.

  He’ll need a few weeks to recover and regain his strength—he lost a lot of blood and it’ll take a while for his wound to heal. But he’ll make it. They woke him up around noon and even though he was still groggy and weak, the first thing he asked for was sticky rice candy. The head surgeon said it was a good sign.

  Wes’s mom hasn’t told him about his dad yet—the third man murdered by Uli. They found all the implants and nanoelectric technology Uli had harvested from each one of our fathers hidden in the basement room where he’d locked Akaela.

  I haven’t been in that room yet. I can’t get myself to see it. My father died in there, his blood spattered all over the floor as one greedy man cut him open and dissected him just so he could have his implants and technology.

  My sister squeezes through the pressing crowd, our kitten Ash cuddled in her arms, and taps on my shoulder. Mom arrives with her. She kisses my cheek and then moves over to greet the other families standing nearby, her new prosthetic hand—the droid hand Akaela and I stole a week ago—shining from her left arm. After all the events of the past few days, we’d completely forgotten about the droid hand until it resurfaced in Uli’s workshop. Mom didn’t want it at first. We told her she had to. We told her Dad would’ve wanted her to have it.