by K A Riley
Out of instinct, I brace myself and prepare for the shock of landing, but I barely feel it when my feet hit the ground.
It’s the first time I’ve “flown” since the day we escaped the Processor, and a sudden surge of euphoria pushes its way through my delighted mind and body.
Laughing like a crazy person and waving the Special Ops badge above my head, I bolt from the woods and back to the plateau where Render is waiting patiently for me.
His emotions flood my mind like they were my own. He’s surprised and a little annoyed that I found the badge and won the game. He also senses my delight at surviving a thirty-foot jump I had no business attempting.
But another feeling is swirling around in that little black-feathered head of his as he launches himself into the air and glides off to find something to eat.
He’s proud of me.
13
After three more days and nights of helping, bonding, and trading stories about small-town life and about the pain and guilt of surviving when others haven’t, Brohn and I tell Adric and Celia it’s time for us to say goodbye.
It’s been good to have a little time to grieve, to think about everything that’s happened, to hold each other in silence when the pain grew too strong.
But we both know the longer we stay here, the farther we’ll be from the answers we need.
“We’ve done what we can in the time we’ve had,” Brohn tells Adric.
“Don’t worry,” I add. “You have enough supplies to keep you going for weeks. Maybe months. At least until you feel the Neos are prepared to move on to the next camp.”
I know Brohn’s been anxious about hitting the road ever since we returned from the Valta. “There’s nothing here for us anymore,” he confided in me one evening when he and I went for a walk in the nearby woods. “And if San Francisco has even a single answer, we need to get there, find it, and figure out who’s responsible for everything that’s happened. Not having answers is almost as bad as not having our freedom.”
There’s more to it, of course, even though he’s reluctant to talk about it. He wants closure. He wants to know what happened to Wisp, and if Granden’s the one who left us that message. If he’s the one summoning us to San Francisco, there’s a chance we can get the answers we need.
I understand Brohn’s desperation. For years now I’ve tried to accept the possibility that my brother and father are dead. But as long as I have the faintest hope, I find myself aching to believe they could still be out there somewhere. I’d give anything in the world to see them even just once to say goodbye. I know Brohn feels the same hole inside that’s torn me up all these years, only his wound is fresh and raw.
Card and Manthy have just returned from tending to Kella when the rest of us get started on loading up supplies.
“How is she?” I ask softly.
Cardyn shakes his head and pulls his gaze to the ground. “She’s not good. Not even close. It’s like…like she’s not even in there anymore.”
“Karmine’s death hit her so hard,” I remind him. “She never really recovered.”
“It hit all of us hard, Kress.”
“Come on, Card. You know they had a special bond. I think she loved him more than any of us ever knew.”
He shoots me a look that tells me he gets it. Much as we’ve all denied tacitly that love in a world like ours is impossible, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Kella and Karmine were a perfect match. I’ve never met two more compatible people in my life. When Karmine died, part of Kella went with him, and it’s a part she’ll never get back.
I ask Adric and Celia to give us a minute while we duck into Kella’s tent to check on her. As always, she’s lying on her makeshift mattress, a glazed-over look in her eyes.
Brohn kneels down next to her, his brow furrowed. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”
Kella stares out of her tent at the Neos who are shuffling around, poking at the fire, and dragging heavy sacks of food and other supplies over to the underground bunker we helped them build.
Brohn tries again. “We need to stick together, Kella.”
“He’s right,” I add. “We’re a Conspiracy, remember?”
Kella looks from me to Cardyn to Rain, and finally back to Brohn. “I’m going to turn into that woman, you know.”
“What woman?” I ask.
“The woman from the cave.”
“Asha?” Brohn says. “That crazy woman?”
“She wasn’t crazy, Brohn. She was hurt.” Kella taps her temple with her finger. “Here. Like me. She couldn’t take any more.”
“We’re not leaving you behind.”
“You’re not leaving me at all. I’m leaving you.” Kella turns her head to look away. “I’m sorry…” Her voice trails off, and her eyes close.
I give her a shoulder a gentle shake and check her breathing. “I think she’s fainted,” I tell the others.
“We can’t leave her here,” Rain says.
“We can’t take her with us,” Brohn replies. “You heard her. She can’t take it physically. And emotionally, well, if the trip doesn’t kill her, her own head will. I’m not about to force her to come on a hike that will take weeks.”
With that, Adric, who’s apparently been listening, steps inside the tent and sidles up to our little huddle. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of her.”
I’m thinking, How? You can barely take care of yourselves. But I don’t say it.
Brohn stands up and puts a hand on Adric’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he says.
It’s the only realistic solution, and we all know it. But Rain is crying now, and I’m on the verge. “She’s been through so much. We all have. But Kella has really…just, please do everything you can to keep her safe.”
“We will. She’s one of us now. You have your Conspiracy. We have ours. We’ll protect her like our own.”
With a grim series of quiet thanks, we walk out of the tent and into the clearing, where the Neos and Juvens all gather around and squeeze in tight. Some of them are crying, sorry to see us go.
Chace and Trax are the first to give us each a tight hug.
“I did these for you,” Chace says, handing me a small stack of white paper. When I riffle through the pages I discover that it’s a series of pencil drawings.
“You drew these?” I ask, astonished.
Chace blushes and pulls her chin down as Trax leans over her shoulder. “My sister loves to draw,” he brags. “We weren’t able to take much with us from Miner. Mostly food, blankets, and a few other things. But she insisted on bringing along her sketch books and a backpack full of pencils and markers. She even uses charcoal sometimes.”
Brohn, Cardyn, and Rain huddle around me as I flip one at a time through the drawings. Manthy pretends not to be interested, but I catch her casting quick glances in my direction, no doubt curious to see if Chace has drawn her.
“They’re of us?” I ask.
Chace blushes again and nods. “I draw what I like.”
“They’re so good,” Rain says.
Cardyn shakes his head. “Good? They’re amazing!”
Brohn agrees and tells Chace how impressed he is. “You have a gift,” he says, his voice deep and mature. “You should develop it.”
She’s managed to capture all of us on paper. The drawings are sketchy but wonderful. There’s one drawing of Brohn leading us through the woods.
A bunch of us gathered around the campfire.
Me with Render.
My tattoos.
There are drawings of Render in flight, pictures of Adric and Celia, and one of the Neos and Juvens gathered around me from the yesterday when I told them about ravens.
My eyes tear up at a series of pictures from the Valta, and when we get to a bunch of drawings of me and Brohn hanging out together, it’s my turn to blush.
It’s a strange sensation, seeing me and Render and the others represented like this. It makes me feel like we’re really a part of the world rather than just
a bunch of orphans passing through.
I go to hand the drawings back to Chace, but she shakes her head. “I want you to have them.”
I start to object, but she cuts me off. “Don’t worry. I have lots more back in my tent.”
A tug from a small hand on the sleeve of my jacket draws my attention away from Chace and Trax who have slipped away behind Adric and Celia. I look down to see Livvy—the owner of the little hand—beaming up at me with her saucer-sized eyes and a giant smile.
When I kneel down, Livvy and Ven run up and throw their arms around my neck.
I drop my Special Ops pin into Livvy’s small hand and close her fingers around it.
“I can’t accept a gift like this,” she says. “It’s yours and Render’s.”
“Oh, it’s not a gift, it’s a loan,” I say. “Don’t worry. We’ll be back for it.”
14
When we set out on our long journey, we find the highways abandoned once again. Endless open fields stretch out on either side of the road, leading us through a landscape devoid of any evidence of human life.
“These used to be crops,” Brohn guesses. “Probably corn or beans or something.”
I nod my agreement, but I have no way of knowing if he’s right. It’s hard to imagine anything ever growing in what are now huge red expanses of rocks and dust. Outside of the mountain, it’s hard to imagine anything green out here, period.
“It really is like the world’s given up on itself, isn’t it?” I ask with a shudder.
“Unfortunately, yes. But that doesn’t mean we have to give up on it. Or on each other.” Brohn takes my hand and pulls it to his lips. I breathe a long sigh, grateful as always for his touch.
We march for two days. At night we do our best to light fires in concealed locations. I spend the hours of darkness curled up with Brohn’s arm around me. By now there’s probably no doubt in the others’ minds what’s happening with us, but no one comments on it. Even if they wanted to, they’re probably too exhausted to bring themselves to care much.
The other three stay close together for warmth. Even Manthy, who usually keeps as much distance as she can from other people, lets herself press in close to Cardyn with Rain curled upon the other side.
During one long hike, Cardyn complains non-stop that we should have just stayed back in the camp with Adric and Celia. “We had food. Not much, but some. And shelter. Not the best, but it kept the heat out in the middle of the day. This is brutal.”
“We may have had food, but we didn’t have answers,” I say. “Or revenge for what happened in the Valta or the Processor. And there’s no way I’m hiding out in the woods with a bunch of Neos until I get both. Don’t forget why we’re going to San Francisco, Card.”
He goes quiet for a few more minutes before he announces, “I think maybe Celia had a thing for me.”
Brohn and Rain burst into a peal of simultaneous laughter. Rain is still wiping tears from her eyes when she asks the deeply-blushing Cardyn whatever gave him that idea.
“Just a look here and there,” he says meekly. “This one time, she touched my arm…right here, near my elbow. And she talked about how good I was with the Neos. Besides, is it so strange to think a girl might find me interesting? Maybe even…attractive?”
I give Brohn a little wink before turning to Cardyn and promising him that he’s the most interesting and most handsome person I know.
Card blushes another shade deeper, hangs his head, and kicks at a small stone on the ground in an “aw shucks” moment of guilty pride.
“Hey,” Manthy calls out, pointing to what appears to be some kind of fence in the distance, over the next ridge. It seems she’s not interested in talk of Card’s hypothetical love life.
“Looks like an army base,” Brohn says.
He’s right. Even from here, the fence looks tall and imposing, ringed at the top with menacing-looking coils of laser-wire, glittering faintly purple in the darkening night.
It takes us another twenty minutes to get close enough to be sure, but Brohn was definitely right. This place is some kind of military outpost.
I can’t speak for the others, but my mind has just filled to bursting with images of Recruiters in transport trucks swarming out to take us away. A wave of nausea sweeps through me to recall the horrors the Recruiters brought with them to the Valta.
It’s full-on dark by now, which is good because it gives us cover. The only problem is that we won’t be able to see much, let alone get our bearings if we need to make a quick getaway. The halo-like purple light from the laser wire and the bluish glow from a single ionic xenon bulb at the top of a tall wooden post inside the base cast strange shadows that make the night seem even darker, somehow.
Taking care to stay in the dark shadows, we slip from the road and make our way through the edge of the desert up to the synth-steel barriers and along the high metal fence surrounding two buildings, a green shed, and a small parking pad. A monstrous-looking tank-like truck with six huge wheels, a machine-gun turret up top, and a set of shuttered windows on its front sits idly on the parking pad like a napping rhino. Even from here, we can tell that the clunky gray-brown vehicle is covered in red dust, but at least it’s intact. Other than the transport truck that originally took us to the Processor, we haven’t seen a single vehicle that wasn’t a twisted, barely-recognizable wreck listing over on the side of the road.
Brohn points to the boxy truck and whispers that maybe we can get our hands on it, find a way to commandeer it and get out before anyone knows we were here.
“If it’s even working,” I whisper. “And if we can even get into this place. And if we don’t get killed trying…”
Brohn smiles and puts a finger to my lips. “That’s way too many ‘ifs.’ Let’s get in first and take it from there.”
Rain leans forward and peers through the holes in the wire fence.
“Don’t touch the fence,” I whisper, pointing up to the laser-wire along the top. “Electrified.”
Rain nods. “I don’t see anyone in there. Maybe the base has been abandoned.”
Cardyn shakes his head. “Or there could be fifty soldiers inside those barracks just waiting to blast away at anyone dumb enough to try to get in.”
I point through the dark to the two buildings—one a single-story cabin of some kind, the other a taller structure with a ring of windows up high near its roof—in the middle of the yard. “Looks like temporary barracks. Let’s go around. See if there’s a way in. We can investigate the buildings first. Then we can see about the truck.”
Brohn, Cardyn, and Manthy agree. “But Rain’s right,” Brohn adds. “If the buildings are clear, our next top priority has got to be checking out that rig. All this walking is for the birds.”
Brohn looks for Render and apologizes. “Figure of speech,” he says.
“Even if he hears you, he can’t understand you, you big dope,” I laugh. “But I’m sure he appreciates the sentiment, wherever he is.”
Even in the hazy moonlight, I can see Brohn’s glowing grin.
“Ready?” I ask.
“There are too many of us to move in close and check it out,” he replies.
I agree, and we decide that Cardyn and Rain should stay hidden with Manthy while Brohn and I run a quick reconnaissance mission.
“Maybe you should send Render in first,” Rain suggests.
“He doesn’t like to fly at night,” I reply.
Rain pauses but doesn’t take her eyes from my face. I can tell she’s being protective of us, trying to give us every chance to survive the next few minutes.
“Okay,” I say at last. “But only if he wants to.”
Rain smiles. “Fair enough.”
I slide my fingers along my tattoos and initiate contact. Render is out in the desert somewhere in the distance. As I thought, he’s sleeping. But when he senses my presence and my need for his help, he ruffles himself awake and pushes off from his perch near the top of a rocky butte a few miles up the
road. I get the sense he’s pleased but trying to hide it, like he’s been itching to make himself useful and has grown slightly annoyed that I haven’t called on him more these past couple of days on the road.
He arrives after a few minutes and flutters to a thumping hover just above us before dropping down to land on the upper part of my outstretched arm.
Cardyn gives a pretend shudder. “I still say that’s about the creepiest-looking thing ever.”
“Funny,” I say. “Render says the same thing about you.”
Brohn and Rain struggle to muffle their laughter, and even Manthy cracks a smile, which she tries to disguise with a pretend cough.
With Render in a quiet, stealth-mode glide just up ahead, Brohn and I start to make our way around the perimeter of the fence that encircles the base.
It’s dark but there’s just enough light to make our presence here risky. Who knows? We might have already set off any number of heat-sensors or motion detectors.
“Render would probably set off any sensors that would detect our presence,” Brohn says, reading my mind as the raven glides up ahead. “If there are any, they don’t seem to be turned on.”
There are no signs of life from inside the compound on the other side of the fence, but the active lights from the fence and at the top of the post seem to indicate that someone’s around.
“Maybe the lights are on a timer,” I whisper more to myself than to Brohn.
Either way, this is the first time we’ve seen electricity since we escaped from the Processor. At first, I feel elated to think of it, but then I grimace at how low my standards have gotten.
It doesn’t take us long to circle around the back of the base, where we get a better view of the two buildings. They’re pre-fab units, the kind they use for military rescue operations and temporary housing after natural disasters. The green synth-steel looks almost black in the night. A quick and stressful image flashes through my mind of the big Cubes in the Processor where we lost our innocence and two of our friends. Not to mention that it’s the place where the rest of us nearly lost our lives.
