by Ramona Finn
His eyebrows shoot up high on his forehead and he stares at me like I’ve got a third eye sprouting in the middle of my face. “Raj is dead. You know that.”
I shake my head. “But maybe not. He could have survived.”
Wolf gives me a sympathetic look and tells me, “No, he couldn’t have. And it’s not your fault. Raj knew the risks going in. Probably better than you did. You had to save the clan.”
I don’t answer him. I think about that day often, though I try not to. Sometimes I feel guilty because I’m here and he’s not. Other times I don’t, and that makes me feel worse. I should always feel guilty. Because we both should have gotten out of there—or neither of us should have.
“Besides, we don’t know that Raj is alive,” he tells me softly.
I shake my head. “Bird thinks he is. She sees him in her visions.”
Wolf looks legitimately surprised by this. “She told you that?”
I think about explaining that she didn’t tell me, but that I actually just overheard the conversation, but decide it’s better to just say yes. He can’t question it then, or suggest that I misheard her. “Yeah, she did.”
He frowns, still looking unconvinced. Then he sighs. He knows Bird’s visions better than I do, and I know he believes in them. Running a hand through his hair, he says, “And you’re sure you won’t wait?”
I shake my head. “I wish you wouldn’t go. I didn’t… I didn’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
His frown deepens. “You weren’t sure you were coming back.”
His guess is spot-on and it makes me wince. “I hoped I would,” I tell him honestly.
He curses again and, for a long moment, I’m sure he’s going to yell at me. Tell me that I’m crazy or reckless or something else along those lines, but then he just takes a deep breath. Releasing it, he says, “Fine. But I’m going with you. And we’ll figure out what the AI’s plans are, and save Raj—if he’s alive—and get out of there.”
Part of me wants to tell him to stay, but the rest of me is just grateful that he won’t.
“Well? I thought the time was of the essence?” he demands impatiently.
I smile a little. “Okay, let’s go.”
…
The ATVs are still damaged, so we have to walk. At least the night is cool, but it’s also more dangerous. There are more drones out at night. So we move slowly and carefully, watching for signs of danger. Halfway through the trip, I’m positive that something has been watching us. And I’m right. Behind us, a figure creeps after us. When the shadow gets closer, my heart sinks as I realize who it is.
“What are you doing here?” I demand angrily.
Skye shrugs her petite shoulders, and then throws her blonde hair up into a ponytail. I notice that she uses a bright red ribbon to do it. A ribbon she has to have gotten from Bird. “I’m coming with you. You might need my help.”
It’s the way she says ‘might’ that convinces me. Like she knows something we don’t. I share a quick glance with Wolf, who doesn’t look thrilled, and then I look back to Skye. My eyes dart to her hair and the red ribbon, and then back to her face.
“Bird told you to come?”
She shrugs again. “Like I said. You might need me.”
I sigh, because of the people who could have come with me, Wolf and Skye are not the ones I would have picked. Wolf because he means so much to me. Skye, because I’m no longer sure what she means to me.
But I don’t have a choice. If Bird had a vision, there’s every possibility that we do need Skye.
“C’mon, then,” I tell her. “We’d better get moving.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We reach the Norm before sunset, but just barely. The sky is already lightening when I see the ridge from which we’ve been watching the Norm. I know we can’t go there. If we do, the scabs and drones will likely attack again, just like before.
“How are we going to get in?” Wolf asks me, probably thinking the same thing I am.
I shake my head. I’m not really sure. I don’t even know how to get close enough to really look at the outside of the Norm right now. This is when I remember that I’ve packed my gear, though. Maybe the eyepiece is enough to at least get a closer look. And from that, perhaps we can find a way to get inside.
I pull out the small screen and am about to put it on when Skye snatches it out of my hand to stop me. “What are you doing?” she demands, her eyes wide.
Frowning, I shake my head. “We need to get a closer look, but we can’t get any closer. Last time, the drones attacked us when we did.”
She makes a frustrated sound. “Yeah, but you can’t use your gear!”
“Why not?” I demand.
“Because of your vision! Your gear will interfere with it!”
I think of the dreams. Of everyone dying. Of the AI walking towards me. “I think I’ve already had my vision,” I admit to her in a small voice.
Wolf is looking between the two of us, clearly confused. “What are you two talking about? What vision?”
Skye ignores him, focusing on me. “No, you haven’t. You would know if you had, not think. There is no mistaking a vision.”
We waste several minutes arguing about whether or not I had a real vision, when finally Skye sighs and says, “If I’m right, using your gear will stop you from getting your answers. If I’m wrong, it won’t hurt to not use the gear for a little bit longer.”
I’m annoyed by her resistance to the gear, but try to tell myself that she’s only looking out for me. “Yeah, except we can’t get any closer and we need to find a way in. The gear can help with that.”
Skye eyes it warily, and then finally sighs again. I think she’s given in and will hand it over to me, but then she surprises me. She puts it on herself. “How do you work this thing?”
My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Skye doesn’t use gear. “What are you doing?” I demand.
She gives me a look. “I’m here to help you, remember? You can’t use your gear and Wolf will have a harder time making it work, since he doesn’t have any experience hacking.That leaves me. So tell me how to work this thing already.”
Wolf keeps silent and the look on his face speaks volumes. The uncomfortable frown on his lips, the way his eyes are cast slightly downward. He doesn’t want to use the gear.
I hate the feeling that I cannot use my own gear. Part of me wants to forget all about this vision business and put on the gear. What will this vision really tell me? Nothing. But I see how Skye looks at me, determined and so willing to help… I remind myself that I can’t do everything alone. And if Skye’s going to come with us, then she needs the extra help, right?
Sighing, I explain how the connection is made—just like hacking—and tell her to concentrate on focusing. She examines the Norm far below us for a while. She’s silent as she searches before she finally tells me, “I think I found an entry point. But we’ll never get close enough to use it with all those scabs around.”
That’s what I have been afraid of. I worry that this whole trip is a bust until I glance off to the side and see it. A panel. It looks possibly broken, but if it isn’t—
“C’mon,” I tell the others, and hurry over to it.
“What are you doing, Lib?” Wolf asks nervously.
“I think I can disable the drones, at least for a little bit,” I explain quickly, knowing we don’t have a lot of time. “Just keep an eye out in case I start taking too long.”
“You sure about this?” Wolf asks at the same time that Skye says, “Should I come with you?”
I shake my head. “No. Stay out here. That way if I mess this up, you guys can still get away.”
Wolf looks like he’s about to say something, maybe about him not leaving me, but cut him off by reaching for the panel. I place my bare palm against the paneling, hoping against hope that it works. Almost instantly, I feel the connection. I blink and I’m inside the virtual world, the cool blue walls not as comforting to me as they usuall
y are. In fact, right now, they feel menacing. Oppressive. But I ignore all of that. I call up the screen and begin my search.
Drone/scab program.
It only takes a moment before it pulls up. There are several listed, and now I realize how much labor the drones and scabs have really been doing lately. But I don’t care about the labor. I just need the hunting program…
I find it and begin to work on it. I begin to rewrite the program quickly, aware that I have little time. In fact, drones could already be outside after Wolf and Skye. It makes me move faster. I rework the program so that it doesn’t see us as threats. It’s a temporary fix only, of course. The AI will find my adjustments quickly and reset them, but I just need them to hold long enough for us to get inside.
My skin prickles with the sense that I’m being watched. I jerk my eyes away from the screen, searching the virtual world. But there’s nothing. I frown, returning to my work. I rewrite the program, but all the while I feel as though I’m being watched.
I tell myself it isn’t the AI. She would stop me, wouldn’t she? So she doesn’t know I’m coming. She doesn’t know I’ve hacked into her drones. Not yet. But the sense that I am being monitored persists, and I finish the rewrite as quickly as possible. I disconnect right after that, not even lingering long enough to search for my answers.
There’s no time.
I blink and leave the virtual world behind. The desert surrounds me again, the sun trying to peek up above the horizon. I glance behind me to see that Wolf and Skye are watching.
“Well?” Wolf asks.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” I tell him. “So we’d better make this count.”
We do. It’s unnerving to walk into the line of fire, where I know there are things waiting and usually very willing to kill us. There’s no guarantee that my reprogramming has worked, which means we could be taking steps towards our death. But when we reach the ridge where we were attacked before and nothing happens, I feel a little more confident. And when we climb down the ridge towards the walls below and the drones ignore us, I feel better. When we reach the scaffolding that’s in place for the construction of the outer wall, I’m convinced this will work.
“Now what?” I ask Skye.
She’s still wearing the screen over her eye, and scans the area. Her gaze is upwards. She points above us. “There,” she tells me. “We have to climb.”
So we do. The scabs and the drones work around us, ignoring our very existence like maybe we appear only as drones to them right now. It’s unnerving, and we move carefully around them as we begin climbing the scaffolding. I remind myself not to look down, and to focus on the bars beneath my hands and feet.
Skye is in the lead because she knows where we’re heading. “We should be able to get over the wall here,” she tells us, eyeing a drone that’s watching her closely.
When we reach the uppermost platform, we pause. Skye points to where the construction has paused. There is a platform that seems to be awaiting more materials or maybe more scabs and drones to work.“There,” she tells us. We can see inside the Norm and into the world down below.
Wolf steps forward, reaching for the edge, preparing to climb over. But when his hands reach for the wall, an electric shock runs like a wave along the outside of the entire wall and beyond. He cries out in pain, a burning smell assaulting my nose. He jerks back from the wall instantly.
I turn awkwardly in the tunnel as quickly as I can so that I face Wolf. “Wolf! Are you okay?”
He nods, but holds his hands delicately. I force him to show me his palms, and see that they’re badly burned. “There’s some kind of field surrounding the dome.”
I frown. “We’re not getting through this way.”
He nods.
“I’m so sorry—” Skye begins, but we don’t have time. That drone is still eyeing her, and I notice a second one coming towards us. I worry that the reprogramming is beginning to fail.
“We need to find another way,” I tell her urgently.
She glances at Wolf, and then nods. “There,” she tells me, but I don’t like where she’s pointing.
To follow her gesture, we have to drop down into the wall, where they’re filling it in with what looks like complex wiring. I want to protest, but a third drone has found us. We don’t have time.
Skye begins to crawl into the wall space and I reluctantly follow her.
…
Skye leads us. We pick our way through the wiring and drones which are working on soldering the wires together to make connections. Wolf winces whenever he has to use his hands, but otherwise doesn’t complain about the burns. I know they must be painful.
We’re moving along the interior of the walls. There are wires hanging down amidst the scaffolding as we move. Wolf is barely small enough to fit, his shoulders brushing against the metal framing whenever we pass a support beam. We walk along them, too, since there’s no real floor.
Up ahead, Skye hesitates. “Okay, there’s an access tunnel here, but you’re probably not going to like it.”
“Why not?” Wolf asks, not sounding happy.
She glances back at us. “Because it’s for waste.”
I groan. This isn’t going at all as I’d hoped. But I don’t have to ask Skye to know that this is our best option. Especially since I can hear the mechanical whirring sound behind us, signaling that the drones are close. I can’t trust their new programming. We have to keep moving.
I nod at Skye and she leads us forward to a hole. I realize that we’ve climbed down quite a ways and wonder if we’re on the ground level now—or below it. Skye leads the way, crawling through a wide pipe. I’m relieved to see it’s dry. “I thought you said this was for waste?” I comment to Skye, wondering why there isn’t, well, waste in the pipe.
She glances back at me. “That’s what it’s listed as on the scanner thing.” She points to the screen hovering in front of her eye. “But I think it’s malfunctioning or something, because it says that up ahead there should be a continuation of the tunnel. But all I see is this wall and—” Skye stops abruptly as a cry tears from her throat.
“Skye!” I cry out.
The ground has opened up beneath her, sending her tumbling down a new opening in the piping. Wolf follows me as I crawl on to the edge of it, looking to see if I can see her. “Skye!” I call to her. My voice echoes down the new piping.
I look to Wolf. “What do we do?” I ask him. But before he can answer, a group of five drones appears at the end of the tunnel where we’ve just come from. We have no choice. We have to follow Skye.
Wolf nods for me to go next. I take a deep breath, and then I throw myself into the hole. A second later, Wolf follows. I expect the drones to come, too, but they don’t. I don’t have time to wonder why as I fall quickly down this new tube, the air rushing past.
I land with a loud splash, the water swirling up around my body. I clamp my mouth closed just in time. Beside me is another splash as Wolf lands beside me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I come up sputtering, splashing in the water. Wolf’s head breaks the surface next and he takes in a deep, gulping breath. I swim for a moment until I feel the ground beneath me. It’s slippery and slimy, but at least I can stand. After a few steps, the water reaches only my hips. I blink amidst streams of light. Where are they coming from? As soon as the question has formed I have my answer. Artificial lights are strung up everywhere. The water is a greenish gray color, telling me that it’s been through some sort of reclaiming process. Which means it is likely sewage water.
Ew, I think, but the thought is quickly replaced by the realization that I don’t see Skye. Wolf has followed me and now stands beside me, but where is Skye?
Panic grips me. Did she not get to the surface? Is she at the bottom of this sewage water somewhere? Or did she already get out and—
“Lib.”
I jerk around towards the sound of my name. It’s Skye. She’s not in the water anymore, but instead standin
g next to a man who holds tightly to her arm. When I see that she’s alright—for the time being—my gaze shifts to him. And I have to fight not to cringe.
His face is covered with scars. I think they’re burns. They’re raised and pink, ugly. His hair grows only on one side of his head, and it’s lank and dirty. The other side bears a nasty scar, as though someone cut open that side and then did a really poor job of putting him back together. But what I think is the most disconcerting part of him is his one flashing red eye.
Like the scabs have.
I have to suppress a shudder, and I can’t help but glance away. That’s when I realize that he isn’t the only other person in the room. All around us, people stand, watching. They make a complete circle surrounding us—and they’re all disfigured. Some have scars like the man holding Skye. Some have glowing eyes. Some are worse.
There’s a man missing legs who walks on what looks like two robotic hands. There’s a woman who has a glass case that reveals what looks like her own beating heart. Several of the people are missing limbs—or worse, they have replacements that were clearly taken from scabs, or even drones.
They’re both intriguing and horrifying. They make my insides twist uncomfortably, but I sense that saying so is dangerous. Because amidst their disfigured forms and scarred skin, I see that they’re also armed. They hold guns and lasers. They look dated, but I don’t doubt that they’re working. And effective. One of these guns is pointed at Skye.
“Please, let my friend go,” I say to the man who holds Skye. He isn’t attractive. In fact, he’s hard to look at. But he has presence, and I sense that he’s the one calling the shots.
He looks at me with one eye that’s the color of caramel and one eye that glows an eerie red. His mouth tugs down at the corners, making the scars look stretched and somehow worse. “You’re trespassing. We don’t like trespassers.” His voice is surprisingly sweet, almost soothing. At complete odds with the rest of him.
