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by K A Riley

  With that, we pile back into the truck with Brohn in the driver’s seat and me next to him in the springy passenger seat. Cardyn, Rain, and Manthy start out in the back. We trundle along the road for several uneventful hours, thankful to be closing in our first destination without any problems.

  “This is the life,” I sigh from my seat up front, locking my hands behind my head. “No more scratching and clawing our way through the wilderness. It’s so much more fun to cruise along in style. Not to mention how amazing it is to smell like a normal human being instead of death warmed over.”

  “I do like the not smelling like death part, but I’d hardly call this ‘style,’” Brohn laughs, practically shouting above the clang and grinding of metal on metal coming from somewhere under the truck. “I’ll just be glad if this thing doesn’t crumble into a heap of busted parts before we get to Reno.”

  As if on cue, one of the truck’s wheels hits a massive crater in the road, and the truck jolts hard to one side, sending all of us flying. By some miracle, Brohn maintains his vice-like grip on the steering wheel and keeps the big rig from soaring off the rutted highway.

  Unfortunately, the jostling and jolting seem to have knocked out the bank of lights on the front of the truck, so now we’re flying blind. Brohn has no choice but to pull over and ease us to a stop at the side of the road.

  This time, it’s Rain who comes to the rescue.

  “I saw a couple of flashlights when we were rummaging around before. Maybe we can use those.”

  Despite the darkness surrounding us, Rain manages to scoot into the back of the cabin and flip open a silver panel to reveal one of the vehicle’s storage compartments.

  “See?” she says. I can just barely make out her silhouette holding something up to show us.

  “No,” I reply with a chuckle. “I can’t see.”

  With a grunt, Manthy rises to her feet and flicks on an overhead light that faintly illuminates the cabin.

  Rain waggles the little light at us. “We can totally use this.”

  “You think that’ll be powerful enough to replace the lights we lost?” Brohn asks. “The thing looks more like a pen-light for night reading.”

  He’s right to be skeptical. The bank of lights on the front of the truck were massive, powerful and bright enough to enable us to see for a good mile down the road. Thanks to that kind of visibility, we’ve been able to avoid every potential deadly obstacle in our path. That includes overturned passenger vehicles, deep cracks in the pavement, endless strips of melted asphalt, and dozens of boulders that had tumbled onto the road from the steep and spikey cliffs along the way.

  Standing under the dim overhead light, Rain fiddles around with the small device, turning it over in her hand as she looks for a switch or some mechanism for turning the little flashlight on. When she can’t find anything, she squints at the tiny writing embossed into the side of the delicate-looking device. “It says, 20K-L, MT 900m, and 156K-C. I wonder what that means?”

  Before I can stop myself, I launch into what I’m sure must sound like an annoyingly pompous explanation. “Artificially-produced light is measured in Lumens, Throw, and Candelas. Lumens measure the light’s output. Throw is the distance the light travels before it reaches point-two-five lux, which is the approximate brightness of the moon on a clear night. Candelas is the measure of the light at its brightest point. So it’s 20,000 Lumens, a Maximum Throw of 900 meters, and 156,000 Candelas.”

  “First of all,” Rain says with a hand on her hip, “you need to stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “You know. That thing you do where you suddenly have all the knowledge of the entire universe at your fingertips.”

  “It’s hardly all the knowledge of the universe,” I whine, irritated with Rain for being so unnecessarily dramatic. “It’s just a tiny bit of information I remember from something my dad taught me in the Valta.”

  “When you were six.”

  “So?”

  “So remembering something like that from when you were six isn’t normal.”

  I don’t know whether to blush, scream, or cry, but as it turns out, I don’t have to decide. Brohn comes to my rescue and whips around to face Rain. He growls, “Normal is just another word for boring, and Kress is the least boring person in the world!”

  Scowling, Rain looks like she might either strongly object or possibly lunge at Brohn, but she thinks better of it and exhales instead. “Fine,” she says. “I just think her whole memory thing is…”

  “What?” Brohn challenges.

  “Well, definitely not boring,” Rain admits, chastened.

  “And?”

  “And it’s an amazing gift,” Rain concedes, “and I’m glad she’s not dull. Now can we drop it?”

  Brohn seems satisfied with Rain’s pseudo-apology.

  And suddenly, I don’t feel so bad.

  Because it occurs to me for the first time that Rain is jealous.

  Jealous of me.

  How did that happen? How can the girl I was terrified of when we were growing up possibly be intimidated by me in any way? This is Rain we’re talking about. Girl genius. Confidence personified. The girl who never met a puzzle she couldn’t solve, a person she couldn’t control, or an argument she couldn’t win. She’s pretty, charming, overwhelming in every possible way other than stature.

  This strange reversal should probably overwhelm me, but it doesn’t. Instead, it gives me a sense of comfort and strength, like I matter because, for the first time ever, I’m good enough to be some kind of threat to the great and powerful Rain.

  Brohn, his head scrunched down in the low-ceilinged cab, puts his hand on my shoulder, pulling my attention back to the matter at hand. He smiles and says, “Now Kress, about that light…”

  “Based on those specs, it’s going to be pretty bright,” I offer without hesitation. “Military-grade bright.”

  “Ha!” Cardyn chuckles. “‘Military-bright.’ Now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.”

  Rain plops down onto the metal bench seat, the flashlight in her fist. “Okay, Miss Miracle-Memory. How do we turn it on?”

  “Let me see,” I say, extending my hand.

  Rain slaps the little device into my open palm. “Good luck,” she mutters.

  Brohn scowls at Rain and tells her to stop being a baby. She throws him a rude harrumph and crosses her arms in defiance.

  Ignoring them both, I skim my fingertips along the surface of the flashlight. “Since it’s bound to be powerful, it likely has a safety feature built in. Yes. Here it is.” I hold the black cylinder up to the overhead cabin light to show the others the nearly-invisible finger pads. “See, you have to put your fingers here to activate it. It’s so you don’t accidentally set it off in someone’s eyes, including your own. Dad called it ‘poka yoke.’”

  Cardyn laughs. “’Poka’ what, now?”

  “‘Poka yoke.’ It’s a Japanese term for a kind of error-proofing. It’s like a safe-guard in anticipation of a potential risk. See?” I press the fingertips of my left hand onto the markings and tap the end of the device with the heel of my right hand, and it suddenly feels like we just drove into the sun.

  “Whoa,” Cardyn gasps, draping an arm across his eyes. “That’s beyond bright! More like blinding.”

  Shielding my eyes and pointing the light down, I slip into the front of the truck. It turns out that shining the powerful beam through the front windshield causes a painful glare that reflects back at us, and the side windows don’t roll down, so I can’t even hold it while Brohn drives.

  “Great. The most powerful light in the world, and we still can’t see anything,” Cardyn complains.

  Rain reaches into the cab and asks for the light, her mood improving. She’s always happiest when she has a problem to solve, and this is a good one. “I have an idea.”

  Brohn nods his assent in my direction, and I hand the little light back to Rain, who aims it at the floor as she fumbles around
in one of the storage compartments and yells, “Perfect!” After a second, she holds up a long white rope for us to see.

  She slides the truck’s side door open and hops down to the ground. She tosses the braided rope underneath, just behind the front wheels, and loops it back around the top of the hood, where she ties it into a solid knot.

  “See?” she beams as she clambers up onto the bumper, “I can hang onto this rope with one hand and keep the light pointing forward with the other. That way, we can still see the road and maybe just get to where we’re going without driving off a cliff or into a crater.”

  Back in the cab of the truck, Brohn and I exchange a look that I’m pretty sure is a perfect blend of impressed with Rain’s ingenuity and doubtful about her sanity. Manthy quickly covers her smile with her hand and turns her head to stare at the truck’s cabin wall.

  “Great idea!” Card shouts at the window to Rain, who I’m sure can’t hear him through the thick and grimy glass. Turning back to us, he shakes his head and cuts loose with a twittering chuckle. “I always figured Rain had a special ability of her own. Who would’ve thought it would be as a hood ornament?”

  “I just hope she tied that rope tightly,” I say under my breath. She and I may fight on occasion, but the last thing I want is to lose another friend.

  With the transport truck grumbling and pitching, Rain holds on as best she can while Brohn navigates us off the highway until we reach the pitted side road Vail told us about. Just as Rain predicted, the little but mighty flashlight of hers does the trick and proves to be a life-saver. We’re able to drive along in relative calm, avoiding nearly all the big gaps and cracks in the long-neglected road as she angles it perfectly.

  Until we reach what looks like a dead end, that is.

  Just when we think the road is going to disappear completely, we spot a shadowy structure up ahead.

  “That must be it!” Brohn says as Rain points to what appears to be a large square shed of some kind. “The garage Vail mentioned.” Sure enough, as he limps the truck closer, we’re able to make out the edges of a building made of corrugated metal nestled within a semi-circle of large red boulders.

  “Not exactly a five-star hotel, is it?” Cardyn jokes.

  “We don’t need flashy,” Brohn says. “Just safe.”

  When we’ve pulled to a stop, Manthy and I hop out to find a long double chain rising up from the ground and disappearing into a large housing at the top of the banged-up garage door, which has been painted in splotchy patches of red, orange and brown to camouflage it within the splotchy desert surroundings. Together, Manthy and I grab the chain and pull, hand over hand, until the big metal door rises high enough for us to get the truck through.

  Manthy steps to the side to inspect her red and blistered hands while I wave Brohn forward.

  Brohn inches the truck into the garage, bringing it to a final grinding halt. The engine sputters and coughs like it’s decided we’ve arrived at our destination, so it’s okay to finally die.

  Brohn, Manthy and Cardyn hop down from inside the truck, and Render, who’s either ridden on top of the cabin or flown above us for the entire trip, comes fluttering in to land on a nearby table. Rain releases her grip on the rope and slides off the truck’s hood, landing with the perfect precision of a champion gymnast on the smooth concrete floor.

  “Not bad for a baby, huh?” she says to Brohn.

  “No,” he concedes with a laugh. “That was pretty impressive for a baby.”

  Rain gives him a playful, two-handed push to the chest, and Brohn fake-stumbles backward.

  I spot a sensor-pad on the wall by the door and wave my hand in front of it, and a bank of overhead lights flickers to life.

  The garage is a dingy mess, but the temperature is good, and it seems like it’ll make a good home base while we collect ourselves, get our bearings, and, hopefully, fix the truck up enough to get us to San Francisco in one piece.

  “First things first. We need to track down this thermonic sensor cartridge,” Brohn says, getting right to business.

  “And you really think this Saucy person will have what we need?” Rain asks.

  “Vail said she was good for it, and I trust her judgment.”

  “So what are we supposed to do? Just waltz into town and go door to door asking if anyone knows someone named Saucy who happens to have a thermonic sensor cartridge we can borrow?”

  “Vail gave us enough information to get started. Riverwalk District, just north of Wingfield Park. That should help narrow it down enough so we can do a bit of investigating and see what we can come up with.”

  “The five of us walking around together might look suspicious,” Rain says, and I nod my agreement. She’s right. We can’t keep lunging blindly into unknown situations. We’ve been lucky up until now, maybe even a little skillful on our better days. But all the luck in the world will only get us so far, and it’s bound to run out sooner or later. “We need to take care of whatever’s broken on the truck, anyway,” I suggest. “How about if we split up? Brohn, you and Rain can help me track down the cartridge. Manthy, you’ve kind of become our resident mechanic. I hate to ask, but do you think you could have a look at the truck?”

  Manthy turns to rummage and clang through a tangled pile of tools on the long wooden work table against the garage wall. “If the problem is what I think it is, maybe I can fix it,” she mutters.

  “Really?” Cardyn asks.

  “I think so.”

  Cardyn taps his finger against his temple. “Using your…uh, gift thing?”

  “No,” Manthy snaps, holding up a lethal-looking silver sonic-wrench and brandishing it menacingly at Cardyn. “Using this.”

  Cardyn takes a step back, apparently unsure if Manthy is bluffing or if she really plans to club him to death. He puts up a hand in a desperate attempt to calm her down. “I was going to say, ‘using your…uh, sonic-wrench.’ That’s all, I swear.”

  “No you weren’t,” Manthy growls.

  Probably in an attempt to get as far away from her as possible, Cardyn walks the length of the truck and drops to one knee to peer underneath it. “Probably the drive shaft,” he says with a macho false bravado I can tell he doesn’t really feel. “I’ll stay with you, Manthy. Help you get this thing fixed up.”

  She scowls at him and crosses her arms. “I don’t need help.”

  “That’s fine,” he replies, leaping to his feet. “I don’t know what I’m talking about anyway. How about if I just watch, and you can enjoy my charming company while these three are off on their mission?”

  “Your company is a lot of things,” Manthy sneers. “Charming isn’t one of them.”

  “It’s better if he stays with you,” I tell her. “We don’t want to attract too much attention out there. We’ll need to move fast, and Mr. Charming here will just get in our way.”

  Cardyn plunges his freckled hands deep into his pockets and stares at the ground. “I’m feeling pretty unloved at the moment.”

  “Don’t worry, Card,” I tell him, striding over and dropping a hand on his shoulder. “We still love you just as much as we always have.”

  “Thanks…I think?”

  With a grin, I mime a tip of the hat and give him my best rolling-hand royal salute before turning back to Brohn and Rain.

  “We should probably set out now, before the sun comes up and it gets too hot to function,” Brohn says.

  “Any idea how to get where we need to go?” Rain asks.

  “I’m going to see if I can stay in contact with Render while we’re on the move,” I tell them. “Vail and Roland gave us enough information that I think I can pass it along to him. It won’t be perfect, but it does include specific geographic locations in the city, so I think he can get us close. Besides, if what Vail said is true about this place being dangerous, we’re going to need as many eyes on our backs as possible.”

  “Can you stay in contact with him for that long?” Rain asks. “Like, in his head?”


  “Not sure. I’ve never tried to do it for more than a few minutes at a time. I could wind up getting pretty dizzy. It might even be painful. If I start to go wonky, you guys…”

  “Don’t worry,” Brohn says. “I’ll stick close and keep an eye on you.”

  “Thanks,” I tell him as my cheeks heat up. Brohn’s promise to look out for me is music to my ears. If I do pass out, there’s no one whose arms I’d rather fall into.

  I look around the garage until I locate a pair of sunglasses and pull them on. “In case my eyes go dark,” I tell the others. “We don’t want people asking questions about the weird raven-lady.”

  “Good point,” says Rain.

  As the other two are getting ready to leave, I pull Cardyn aside. “Please try not to annoy Manthy too much, okay?”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” he says with a sly smile. “I’ll just be here if she needs help with anything. You know, if she needs me to fetch any tools or hold anything for her or, you know, tell her some totally hilarious jokes.”

  “Oh, God,” I say with a massive eye-roll and a slap with my hand on the side of the truck. “Please just let her do what she needs to do to fix this thing, and don’t bug her. We need this truck in working order, and I don’t want to come back and find that the two of you have killed each other.”

  Cardyn crosses his heart with his finger. “I’ll be every bit as sweet as an apple pie.”

  “And hopefully every bit as quiet as one, too,” I say.

  He sticks his tongue out at me.

  “Yes,” I say as I turn away. “Definitely Mr. Charming.”

  Leaving Cardyn and Manthy to get to work on the truck, Brohn, Rain and I head out of the dingy garage.

  It’s a short hike the rest of the way down the road toward the Reno city limits. In less than an hour, we find ourselves stepping into what feels like the middle of an old Western movie.

  19

  I scan my tattoos and connect with Render. From his location high in the sky, he helps us navigate the dirt roads and plank-covered sidewalks of Reno, sending me signals—sometimes images, other times feelings—that let us know which roads to take and which ones to avoid. Some parts of the town are deserted. In others, people walk along, most with their heads down. Although we do get a few odd stares, for the most part, our hike is pretty uneventful.