"It's a car." the boy explains. "They don't make them anymore, but a long time ago the people who lived here used to use them to travel on land. I've been reading about them, and I think I know how to get it to work I just need ..." The boy suddenly has an epiphany. "Sorry, I haven't even introduced myself. I'm Mason." He stretches out his hand towards her, a habit she had observed a few times for people getting acquainted. She is not sure if she should reciprocate. "That's good." She impulsively answers. The boy slowly takes his hand away with a confused expression. "So are you going to tell me your name?"
"I would if I knew it."
"How, do you not know your name?"
"I was never given one."
"Didn't the Haven people give you some kind of name?"
"Shore child?"
"That's not a name."
"Well, that's all they called me."
"What do you call yourself?"
"Nothing really. Well, the girl I grew up with has been calling my 'Lys' lately."
"Lately?" He asks as he puts his bag in the back of the car.
"Yeah, we tended to throw names at each other in the hopes one would stick. She was kinda easy to find a name for, but we never could find one both of us could put up with for me." Mason fiddles with the little bottle he had used to melt the steel of her cage, before settling on putting it on a counter.
"So what about 'Lys'? Does that name irritate you?" The girl only shrugs in response. "Would you mind if I called you that?" The girl glances at the 'car' which seems to have some kind of mirror attached to it. It is the first time in ages that she has seen her reflection. She supposes that she does look a bit like a 'Lys'. "I don't think I'll mind." The boy nods in satisfaction, and lifts up a part of the car.
"I'm just going to make sure the car can still function, can you wait there?" He asks, grabbing a metal box.
"Sure." she responds, as he takes what she assumes are tools out of the box. She looks around the room, as the boy fiddles around with the car. She takes a closer look at the lamps and candles, only to realize that the lamps smell strange and the candles appear to be slowly melting. 'Does everything out here melt?' she wonders astounded. She comes across the counter with the strange bottle. There are many kind of strange bottles on the counter. She takes a hold of one of the stranger looking bottles, curious of its contents. The bottle contains an odd-colored liquid. The color gives her the impression it might taste good, so she tilts the contents of the bottle towards her mouth, only to have it ripped out of her hands.
"Were you dropped as a child? That's detergent. Old detergent. Can't you read?!" The girl feels ashamed.
"I don't know what detergent is. And I can't read either." The boy gets a somber look on his face.
"I'm sorry. I should have known better. I had to teach myself how to read mostly too. I just figured everybody across that fence knew how to read since they could walk or something."
"That may be so. But me and Rosie were more like pets than people to them. We only learned how to talk based of words people would say around us when they would come to stare at us."
"Rosie and I."
"What?"
"Forget it." He says with a chuckle. The girl just gives him a strange glance. "Come here." he mutters as he opens another part of the car. It leads to the interior of the vehicle, which seems to consist of some archaic kind of machinery, and cushioned seats. When she climbs into it, she discovers that they are softer than the sleeping section of her cage, but don't adapt to her body's frame.
"I'm going to go out to find some fuel." he says as he grabs one of the steel bars from his pack. "I'll try to find us something to eat too on the way, just wait here and don't taste anything. You should be safe from the dogs here." He is about to step away from the car, when he turns around again. "You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"
"No, not really."
"Good, because I'm going to put all the lights out to avoid a fire. There's a blanket on the floor in case you get cold. Just try to get a little sleep. I'll need you awake once we get out of here."
"Why?"
"Well you're my guide, remember?"
"I am?"
"Cute." he states as he ruffles her head. "We'll discuss this when I return. Later Lys."
"Later Mason?"
"Uh-huh." he says as he blows out a candle. It doesn't take long before the room is dark again. 'Lys' briefly sees a light when Mason leaves the room through a smaller door that had escaped her notice. It takes a little longer than usual for her to fall asleep, since her mind is buzzing with excitement over the things that had happened this evening. She ponders the fact that lamps and candles are a small source of heat in this decrepit town, before nodding off.
'It's time to come home.' Is the girl's final fleeting thought as she wakes up. Even as she wonders why she would want to go back to her cage, something innately seems to tell her of a different home. Her thoughts are discarded as the sound of pouring takes hold of her attention. She looks out the window, and sees Mason pouring some foul-smelling liquid into a small hole in the car. It takes him a moment to realize that she's awake.
"Hey, I couldn't find much food, but I found a blueberry bush that's in season. Usually, it would be picked clean. Fortunately, the one perk of being left behind is more fruit." He nods in satisfaction, as he puts away the bottle, and the cone-like device. "You hungry?"
"Yeah, a little." He picks up a cloth bag, from the counter and hands it to her. She looks into the bag curiously, eager to see what passes as food for undesirables. It's disappointingly normal. True, it wasn't an average part of her diet, but she's sure she's seen something like it on top of some Haven citizen's desert, or decoratively on children's clothing. The fruit does taste good though.
"Why did they leave you?"
"Mmh?" he responds as he gets into the car, and takes a hand full of the berries.
"You said you were left behind, and although the other undis ... people filled up the flying vessel, I think there would have been space for you."
"Yeah, that was my fault. All of us were supposed to go near the edge of the forest at the crack of dawn. However, I had spent the night looking through old garages, to find cars with keys. It's not that it is impossible to drive without one, there just aren't many books on how to do that. Either way, I found this one eventually, and it still had the key in the glove compartment." He said as he pointed towards a tiny door near the machinery. 'Lys' nods as if she understood. "Yeah, so I was very excited, and was under the car, ensuring it was drive-able until the batteries in my flashlight ran out. I woke up to the sound of barking. I was so glad that the back door wasn't destroyed. However, I couldn't get out in time. By the time the dogs left, everybody was gone already. I'm not related to the others, and none of them were attached to me, so I'm not surprised that they didn't come back for me. I snuck out to the city limits in case there was more than one shore child. And once I saw you were still there, I made some plans, gathered the things I needed, and got you when the mutts were sleeping." Wiping juice on his shirt, he pauses as 'Lys' looks at her hands in fascination.
"Are you alright?"
"I think so. I just realized that I'm still messy. I've never been messy for this long."
"What, do they send someone to clean up after you?"
"No mostly just drones. Except on grooming days, then they send people called 'beautician apprentices.' If they could avoid touching us they did."
".... Really?"
"Well, some people wanted us to groom ourselves, but the government didn't think it was priority to teach us something we couldn't appreciate." A brief silence is broken by a few awkward pats to the girl's head.
"Why do you do that?"
"I'm sorry, do you not like being touched?"
"I don't know, that's just the second time you've done that. I don't understand why."
"It's just a sign of affection. It's just something we do out here."
"Oh ..."
"... Yeah
we should talk."
"Aren't we talking?"
"I mean about where we're going."
"I thought you were going to take us in this car thing."
"Well, yeah after I get used to driving."
"You don't know how to use the machine?"
"I know how to use it, I just never have. Look I just want to be sure you know where we're going."
"I have lived most of my life in a cage, in a fenced city. How would I know how to get anywhere?"
"That's the point of shore children. You're supposed to lead us out of here."
"Well nobody told me!" Mason grips the wheel in frustration.
"I got a full tank, it's bound to take us far enough."
"Aren't you going to take me back?"
"Why would I do that?" he says as he gets out of the car, and walks towards the heavy door.
"Because I'm faulty? Because I'm not prepared for anything, like Rosie?"
"I won't lie, I would have preferred to leave with the group who grabbed your sister,..."
"She's not my sister."
"K, the point is, I poured acid on your cage, and as unfriendly as the Haven dwellers are, there's really no reasoning with them after you've destroyed their property." he gets back in the car at this. "How much time until they notice you're gone?"
The girl looks towards a slightly brighter sky. "They won't deliver my food portion until the Sun's been up for at least two hours."
"That should give me enough time to figure this out." He is about to put the key in the slot when he hesitates. He turns towards the girl and gives her a sincere expression. “Look, I don't know how things are done in the 'Haven'...” he says that word with something resembling disgust in his voice. “But out here, we don't get rid of people just because we have no use for them. Or at the very least, I don't. So even if you can't take me where I want to go, I won't abandon you or take you back there, unless you really want to go back...?”
“I don't.” she answers immediately, that strange thought inside of her head from when she woke still quietly echoing inside her mind. She doesn't understand why, but it reassures her that she is making the right choice. Mason nods in satisfaction and with that he puts the key into a slot and twists it. The noise startles them both.
"I'll admit, I didn't quite expect it to be so loud. But It's good, that means it's working, now all I need to do is ..." He drones on with words that have no meaning to 'Lys'. With some difficulty, Mason manages to bring the car out of the strange room/building. He has to start the car a few more times before he understands how to keep it moving. The Sun is halfway in the sky by the time they have left the old town behind at a comfortable pace. At this point the boy sighs.
"Are you sure you don't know where to go?"
"I would tell you if I knew. I didn't even know Rosie knew, and she's lived across from me all my life."
"What about when you were found at the shore? Somebody must have put you there."
"True, but I was a baby. I don't remember what happened back then, most days I don't remember what happened the past week."
"It's just these messages we've been getting. All the refugees, around all the Havens. They told us if we found some mode of mass transportation, the shore child would take us somewhere safe." At his last words, something seems to light up inside her. Almost like when 'Rosie' had asked her about the rain, except stronger. She doesn't know how, but she can sense that they are going the wrong way. She wonders if this is what it feels like for her fellow shore child all the time.
"You need to go that way." She points off the road.
"There's nothing there."
"You still need to go."
"I thought you didn't know where to go."
"I don't, but you need to go there." He groans in frustration.
"The road was probably going to lead us to another Haven, anyway." He mutters as he follows her lead. The trip is filled with mostly silence, with the occasional change of direction.
"Alright, if you keep going this way, you should make it there before it gets dark."
"Good to know ..... So, I know you probably won't give me an answer I'll understand, but can you tell me how you know where to go now?"
"You said you wanted to be somewhere safe. This way feels safe."
"Clearly." He says as he drives over a bump. The girl settles down for a moment, only to grow rigid again.
"Can you hear that?"
"The car is just old, I'm sure it won't fall apart yet."
"No, I hear humming ... and barking?" 'Lys' lurches in her seat. Mason speeds up like he hadn't dared before, in an effort to leave their pursuers behind. The barking grows more distant; the hums don't.
"Young miscreant, surrender the girl and we will negotiate your punishment." A voice broadcast from the pursuing vehicles demands
"Are they for real?"
"I wouldn't know. I've never seen them deal with thieves before."
"Who are you calling a thief?"
"I'm not calling you a thief, I'm just talking from their point of view."
"I didn't steal any of their stuff."
"You stole me."
"What? That doesn't even ..."
"Miscreant savage, we have tolerated you loitering in our ruins, digging through our garbage, and plundering our relics. We are slightly impressed by your ability to make this archaic machine function and grateful that you have chosen to move away. However, we will not put up with your blatant disrespect. Return the shore child, or we will overtake you." The broadcasting voice nonchalantly orders.
"Faster, faster, faster." He says frantically as he presses his foot down further, and adjusts the stick between them. The girl closes her eyes in deep concentration. The land vessels have almost caught up to them.
"Does the path still feel safe to you?" Mason glibly comments.
"I'm trying to remember the rain."
"You having fun with that?" 'Lys' motions for him to be still. The Officers are almost upon them, with their stun staffs at the ready. Suddenly, they crash into thin air.
"What just ...?"
"Keep moving. No matter what happens you need to keep moving."
"Why on earth would I ...?"
"It's just easier to make a path than to lift the car."
"What do you mea ...?!!!" Mason chokes on his words when he notices that they seem to be driving up into the sky.
"So you made them ..."
"Yes."
"And now you are ..."
"Yes again."
"How long ...?"
"I don't know. Except, I think I could always do it, but I never used it much so I kind of forgot I could. You know, like forget you have hair until it tickles your nose."
"Oh, so you just had freakish powers all this time, and just conveniently forgot about them."
"Look, I've never done something this big before, and it would be easier if you didn't ask so many questions."
"Well excuse me if my concept of reality has been brutally shattered."
"What's a 'concept of reality'?"
"Something you clearly don't need to worry about." He takes a peek at the ground to see what the Haven Officers are doing. He can't see their facial expressions anymore, but the wall that 'Lys' had put up seems to have vanished. Some look towards them, a few look in the opposite direction, as if waiting for something to show up. The rest try to wrangle the dogs.
"I don't mean to worry you, but I think they might be calling for air support."
"We're almost there. Just keep going until I tell you to stop."
"Whatever you say." Once again, Mason wonders where they are heading. He begins to worry, when the ground they had been flying over begins to give way to the ocean.
"Will you be able to carry us so far?"
"It's okay, we're as good as there." The boy is really uncertain now. "In fact, you won't have to drive anymore soon."
"And why would that be?" he asks carefully.
"Because I'm going to dro
p this car."
"What?! No, no you can't. I know you were found on the shore, but humans can not breath underwater. At the very least I can't, so please just find some solid ground to put us down, and maybe we can. Holy ...!!!!" The girl ignores his frantic pleas and angry words she can't understand, as they drop into the large body of water. She tries to use her abilities to ensure that the impact with the water doesn't damage them too much. Once submerged, Mason is too busy trying to keep from drowning to attempt murdering 'Lys'. Though she is having trouble breathing, she feels serene. Perhaps delirious from losing air, but she still feels like they are heading on the right path. It is probably why she is putting all her energy into pushing the car down faster. She is on the cusp of passing out, when they suddenly pass through a strange barrier. Past the barrier, all the water that had been surrounding them drops away and they find themselves falling through air again. 'Lys' uses her abilities, to break their fall, bringing them to a halt on some kind of platform.
"Okay, we weren't really expecting anybody today, but based on that old vehicle I'm going to guess you're a refugee as well. In that case congratulations on making it." The voice comes from a woman who looks to be in her mid-thirties, and is as neatly dressed as a Haven dweller. Despite her words, she doesn't seem all that surprised. Mason is even more confused than ever.
"How ... What ... where is this?"
The woman displays an easy smile.
"This, young man, is the Private Commonwealth of Gentry. Open to all who have been oppressed by the Havens."
Sleep (Portraits of Gentry Book 1) Page 2
