Danger's Race

by Amanda Carlson

  “What do you know about flight fatigue?” I asked, raising a single eyebrow. Flight fatigue was real, especially over long distances. But nobody traversed very many kilometers at a time anymore, so it was rarely discussed. Fatigue happened because the environment out your front window never changed: same brightness, same color sky, same rain. It tended to dull the senses and, from what I’d heard, make you groggy.

  Daze eased into the passenger side through the open door. “My dad had a craft,” he told me as he crawled inside, heading to the backseat. “It was a C9. That kind was known for safety. My dad liked to be safe. He wrote about traveling from the South back to the city a bunch of times on the pico, and about how he had flight fatigue. He almost crashed once.”

  It seemed there was a lot yet to uncover about Daze and his prior life, and what he’d found on the pico.

  I met Case’s gaze over the top of Seven. “Fine. We go with the kid’s plan,” I said begrudgingly. “You take the first three. I’ll take the next. When’s the last time you were down South?”

  Case answered as he got in. “A couple months ago, right around the time Tandor rolled into town. Before that, I hadn’t been back in a while. I’m not sure who’s left, as Tandor took a bunch with him, but I know for sure a few of my sustainee siblings stayed behind. They should know something.”

  Our main objective was to find out where Tandor called home and head there, hoping to find the sodium alginate, either in powder or seaweed form. From what Darby could figure out from the notes on the quantum drive, Tandor’s father was the scientist behind the data, so we assumed Tandor had taken the drive and the supplies when he’d left.

  It was a long shot, but it was all we had.

  Punching a button, Case started up the craft, and the props whirred to life. He lofted us smoothly into the air. “If my siblings know anything, they’ll talk,” he stated confidently. “If not, I’ll make them.”

  If Case couldn’t, I would.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “You did that on purpose.” I crunched over the broken ground, pocked with holes filled with red-hued water. Case had finally landed Seven, and we were trading spots after four hours of mind-numbing travel. “There were plenty of places you could’ve set her down before this one.”

  We passed each other at the front of the craft. He grunted, “There’s a hard-and-fast rule when traveling outside city limits—always land where you know it’s safe. Otherwise, you can get into trouble.”

  I stopped, spreading my arms wide as I glanced at the topography around me, which mirrored all the kilometers we’d previously traversed. “You can’t tell me that you recognize this particular patch of land. It all looks the same from the sky. Gnarled, scarred trees and dead, barren earth as far as the eye can see.”

  He stopped in front of the passenger door, glancing at me over the top. “This happens to be an old farm where my Sun Optimist sustainer family dug an underground shelter for a season. I was thirteen years old at the time. Still looks the same.”

  My eyes ranged over the empty expanse of land, spotting nothing in particular. I peered back at Case. “Prove it.”

  His visor was down, but I could see his expression change to surprise. “You want to see our underground shelter?”

  “Why not? It would certainly go a long way in validating your past.” Case had relayed some of his backstory to me in an effort to cement some trust between us, but it’d been his word against nothing. There’d been no way to prove what he’d said was real—until now. Not to mention, he’d already played me a couple of times, so it was worth it to me to see if this part of his story checked out. If it didn’t, we’d have an issue.

  He leaned forward, his elbows on the craft, his face tight. “I didn’t lie to you.”

  I shrugged. “Your story was impossible to prove, until now.”

  Daze poked his head out of the craft. “Can we? Can we go see it? That would be so cool.”

  The kid was already climbing out. “We can,” I told him. “But leave the status reader in the craft, and while you’re at it, shut down Seven for me.”

  Daze did as I asked and hopped out, chipper as ever, not showing any signs of fatigue. I had to blink my eyes a few times to adjust to seeing darker colors. The clouds were a lot brighter than land.

  I glanced at Case, inclining my head. “Lead the way.”

  His facial expression didn’t change as he turned and made his way toward a copse of trees. One that looked just like all the others lining this patch of land he said used to be a farm.

  Daze and I trudged after him.

  We passed through several groupings of trees just like the first ones. I couldn’t pick out any defining features of the area. Then, abruptly, Case came to a stop. The tips of his boots touched a large square of graphene set directly into the dirt.

  The door was old and battered and looked as though it’d been there a long time, weathering years of rain—small divots of liquid had permanently gathered in the honeycombed pattern. I’d never seen a horizontal door set in the earth before. “How did you get it to stay in there like that?” I asked.

  Case leaned over and grabbed the handle, grunting as he hoisted the door upward. “It’s held up by a network of framing below. The hardest part was making it waterproof. The support structure had to be overlapped perfectly for it to work.”

  This seemed like a random place to build a shelter. “How did they pick this exact location?”

  “My sustainer father, Scott, was always trying to be strategic. He felt that when the sun finally decided to grace us with its presence again, we would need a farm with enough land to support the fifteen people that made up the group. He was very careful about choosing the spot. There’s a river near here and remnants of an old farmhouse fifty meters to the north. He always selected a place with ample tree cover, but none with roots too close. It had to be undetectable from the sky. That’s why the entrance is set into the ground.”

  “Sounds like a lot of thought went into it,” I said, impressed. “Did everyone in the group believe the sun would eventually shine?” It was a valid question. In order to be a part of a group like that, the members would have to believe, at least a little bit.

  Daze moved toward the open door, glancing down into the darkness. “I would’ve believed.” He slid off his helmet. “And if I didn’t, I would’ve wanted to believe. Having a family is everything.”

  Case studied Daze for a few moments. “I didn’t believe. But you’re right, I wanted to believe. And there’s power in that. Building these shelters kept us busy, and when we were done, we had a place to stay out of the rain. We followed Scott and Annabelle, my sustainer mother, all around this region. It wasn’t a great life, but it was good enough. It taught me to be a hard worker.”

  We all descended the stairs.

  The kid went first, followed by Case, then me.

  Daze’s voice carried from below. “This is so cool!” he cried, followed by, “Are those real animal bones?”

  The interior was fairly spacious, which was surprising. The hole had obviously been dug by hand, the dirt laboriously removed. Random panels of metal, all different sizes and types, some smooth, some corrugated, had been secured to make walls. The floor was nothing more than packed earth with a few metal pieces strewn about. There were a few rickety chairs, some very crude eating utensils, and not much else.

  My nostrils crinkled as I took in a breath. The air hadn’t been disturbed in a long while. It was musty, with a strong undertone of decaying matter.

  “Yes, those are real animal bones,” Case said to Daze. “My parents had us digging a lot, so we encountered bones frequently. When we found a full skeleton, we always brought it back and tried to re-create the animal it once was. I believe that one was a fox, based on old pictures we’d seen.”

  “Can I touch it?” Daze asked, stooping in front of an object that had been glued together with clear hydrogel. It didn’t resemble a skeleton, per se, more like a sculpture of eer
ie dead bones.

  “Be my guest,” Case said.

  I wandered toward one of the walls, extending my hand to touch the rough surface. My gloves came away wet. The ground above was always saturated, so seepage was a given. It was dark down here, the only opening casting any brightness was the one we’d just come through. I flipped on one of my shoulder lights so we could see better. “The space is deceiving from up top. This is more than big enough to hold fifteen people.” I turned in a circle. “But where did everybody sleep?”

  Case walked to the other side and pulled open a metal panel. I followed him in as he went through. It was a quarter the size of the other room. Inside, mats were laid out a meter apart, moldy and half eaten with age. Rough shelving units had been dug into the walls, and a few items lay there, long forgotten.

  “This is where we slept while we were here,” he said. “Building shelters gave us a concrete goal to aim for. Without the tasks in front of us, our lives would’ve been stagnant. Life without purpose can lead to madness, which my sustainer parents understood.” He turned on his own shoulder light, and a double blue glow effused the small space.

  I walked over to one of the shelves. “I’m glad you had something to keep you busy.”

  “Back then, I knew what we were doing was pointless, but it was good to have work to do.” He picked up a small item that had been left behind, turning it over in his hands. “It kept us focused on something more than just survival. I don’t miss it.” He glanced around. “How could I miss a place like this? But I do miss having the connection I felt to these people when I woke up every day.”

  I crouched by one of the mats on the floor. It’d been woven out of carbon fiber and was frayed at the ends and coated with mud. Not much protection between it and the hard ground. “It was just me and my mom for the first eight years. After that, it was Claire and Bender. Then my family gradually grew to include Lockland and Darby.” As I stood, I chuckled. “I stumbled on Darby one day in passing. It was a chance meeting. He’d been trying to find his way to Government Square, but he’d gotten lost and wound up too close to The Middle. He’d only been on his own for about a year at that point. His parents had passed away fairly close to each other. He was barely twenty years old. He was—and still is—the most innocent among us. Lockland was brought in by Bender.” I turned toward Case, the blue light too dim for me to see him clearly. Maybe that made it easier for me to speak about my family. Sharing wasn’t my specialty. “Without them, I wouldn’t bother getting out of bed in the morning. Daze is right. All that really matters is family. It binds us together and gives us a greater purpose, no matter what we’re doing—whether it’s building a shelter or scavenging for goods, fighting shitty zealots, or finding a cure for a drug that has ravaged the minds of innocent humans. Without those bonds, none of it matters.”

  Case looked as though he might say something, but instead tucked the trinket he’d been holding into his pocket and turned and walked out of the room.

  When I emerged, Daze had the skull of the dead animal in his hands and was bouncing around excitedly. “I don’t think this is a fox,” he said. “I think it might be too big. But I don’t know for sure. There are some animal charts on the pico. I can’t wait to look. Case said I could bring it with. Do you think it’s a fox?” He held it up to me like an offering so I could inspect it.

  “I don’t know, kid.” I grinned. “It just looks like a skull to me. But I do know it’s time to go. We need to make it to our destination before full dark.”

  “Okay,” Daze said as he trailed after me toward the stairs. “Maybe we can come back another time.”

  It wasn’t likely, but I wouldn’t say never. “We’ll see.”

  Once we were all outside, Case lowered the door back into the earth. Without comment, we followed him back to the craft.

  I climbed into the pilot side, and when everybody was secure, I took us into the air. Making sure the digital readout flashed South, I increased Seven’s speed and altitude. Behind us, Daze settled in with the status reader, murmuring to the egg like they were the opposite ends of two magnets drawn together by a mutual quest for information.

  For the next hour, we skimmed the same dead forest intermixed with barren stretches of earth. “Where are the cities?” I asked Case. “There should be something remaining. A broken building or two. Leftover concrete from old roads. Something.”

  “The path we’re on skirts all cities. The ones near the coast are all gone, reduced to nothing more than dust, and those inland are shells, their resources having been picked over long ago. But that doesn’t mean they’re vacant. Tribes are still trying to survive there. Some would do anything to get their hands on a craft. I was almost shot down twice flying over a city. They don’t have much, but they do have weapons. Weapons, for the most part, were designed to last.”

  I knew people existed out here, but that sounded harrowing. “How come no one has tried to help them?” My voice rang with some of the indignation that was bubbling up. “Why doesn’t our government send people out to find these folks and bring them back to the city?”

  Case gave me a look before he answered, one that seemed weary. “We’re hundreds of kilometers away from the main city, crafts are limited, and they can only carry so many people. Second, the city doesn’t have resources for its own people, much less bringing in more mouths to feed and people to clothe and take care of. It isn’t sustainable. Plus, the tribes, for the most part, would be hostile. They’ve been living on their own since the beginning of the dark days. Being forced to integrate into a different way of life would be difficult. Their instincts would be to hoard supplies and cut themselves off from everything else.”

  I sighed. He was right, of course. But that didn’t make it much better. “I get it on a rational level. But on a humanitarian level, it’s not right. We’re all human, trying to scrape by with our meager resources. We all deserve a chance. Including those not lucky enough to live near a well-populated area when disaster struck.”

  “I agree. Maybe if the elite hadn’t taken most of the essentials, we could’ve worked toward that point. But right now, that’s not happening. It would take a huge amount of supplies and a task force to get these people to the city, neither of which we have.”

  I narrowed my gaze. “We? You’re a refugee to the city, remember? An outskirt who decided to stay. What makes you any different than those tribes out there looking for a chance at a better life?”

  He grinned. “Because I come with my own supplies. I’m not a drag on resources, nor am I a threat to anyone’s well-being.”

  I snorted. “You’ve been a threat to me since the moment you threw me out a second-story window.”

  “Not a threat—a savior. If I hadn’t been there, you would’ve died.”

  I was about to rail on his ignorance but saw he was laughing. “It’s a good thing you’re easily entertained,” I grumbled. “And if you hadn’t interfered, I would have been fine.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  I chose to ignore him, as I wasn’t in the mood to be baited. Instead, I focused on the view out my windshield. We would reach Case’s old town in a couple hours. We were planning on waiting until first thing in the morning to talk to his siblings who’d stayed behind. “How are you planning to get your siblings to talk if they don’t want to?” I asked, curious about what tactics he was going to employ.

  Before Case could reply, the status reader announced, “At your present velocity, you will encounter an electrical storm in forty-seven seconds.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I spotted the first electrical pulse in the distance exactly three seconds after the egg had uttered her smooth, silky words. It was shockingly bright and lasted only a split second.

  Before this, I’d witnessed only two electrical storms in my entire life. Once, when I was around five, my mother had taken me to see the streaks brighten the sky during the solstice. I remembered it’d been the solstice, because it was the second day in
a row with no rain and longer nights. She’d made me wear a filter mask over my nose and mouth to keep the iron dust out. I hated those masks. They were uncomfortable for an adult, but when I was five, they’d been smothering and almost as big as my face.

  The second time, I’d been in my teens. I’d been salvaging a little farther outside the city than usual, in an old manufacturing plant. The facility had been thoroughly picked over and had ended up being a waste of my time. I had been ready to leave when it started, so I stayed put until it passed. I might or might not have taken cover under a few layers of ceiling tiles that had been conveniently stacked on the ground—or that I might’ve torn down out of fear. It was hard to remember all the details.

  I learned later on that the reason lightning storms were so rare was because the iron particles and other mineral deposits in the atmosphere didn’t allow voltage to build up. Instead, it provided a constant dissipation path.

  In front of us, several bolts of light blinked within the clouds. It looked like someone was rapidly punching a power button on and off. I gasped, my hands tightening around the controls. It was nothing short of terrifying.

  “The craft is fully grounded,” Case murmured, his voice low and steady. “Even a direct strike can’t hurt us. The frame has aluminum integrated throughout. We’re safe.”

  “Yeah, tell that to the weather,” I said quietly. Somehow, aluminum, one of the softest, most pliable metals, didn’t seem like much of a match against jagged rods of concentrated electricity powerful enough to damage a megascraper.

  “Did you see that one?” Daze exclaimed from his new position wedged between our shoulders.

  “Yes, I did,” I said. Blistering white light that could burn us to a crisp was hard to miss.

  “It’s amazing,” he cooed, his tone appropriately awe-filled. “I’ve never seen an electrical pulse storm before. I didn’t even think they were real.” Leave it to Daze to think something that could kill us was amazing.