Heir Ascendant (Faded Skies Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Maya held the last bit of dumpling and stared at it. “I’m going to try to get her back.”

  “Good luck with that kid… good luck with that.” Missy patted her on the back. “You got balls for a little thing. If the blueberries don’ kill you, come on back here and I set you up. Oh, and if you tell anyone I’m nice, I’ll cut all your toes off. Make necklace.”

  Maya gasped. Missy winked.

  She finished the dumpling, even though it hurt to pack even more food into her stomach, and drank more water so fast it streamed around her cheeks and dribbled down her chest.

  “Slow down.” Missy took the empty plate. “You choke.”

  “Thank you for the food. Are you sure you don’t want the knife?” Maya sipped the water down to a quarter of a cup. Her belly felt ready to burst open.

  “Yeah. I don’ do the knife thing.” She showed off the gun hanging at her hip.

  A pair of men stepped out of the next trailer to the right; each wore a long black coat and had an assault rifle over their back on a strap. One pulled out an electronic cigarette and raised it to his lips with a hand wrapped in dragon tattoos. The machine emitted a hiss as he sucked on it, and he leveled a cold stare at her while white vapor oozed from his nostrils. The other threw a sideways nod at her, while muttering something in Chinese. Missy shook her head.

  Organized crime…

  “I should go.” Maya stood. “The dumplings were really, really good.”

  “You serious about going to bust your momma out?” Missy raised an eyebrow.

  Maya nodded. “Yes. Can you help?”

  “Sorry kid. Over my head.”

  “Okay.” She smiled.

  Three steps later, Missy jogged up behind her and grabbed her shoulder. “Hold on.”

  Maya looked up at her.

  “I can’t believe you serious.”

  “I am.”

  “Two things.” Missy pointed north along the dirt road. “One. There this big-titted blonde in the Spread. Goes by name DeeDee. She ain’t to be trusted with a pretty little thing like you.”

  “Why?” asked Maya.

  Missy let go of her shoulder and patted it. “Look, you stay away from her. Don’ even let her see you.”

  “Oh.” Maya gazed down. “She’s a madam, right? The kind that won’t care I’m too little.”

  “Damn girl.” Missy laughed. “You should not be in such a rush to grow up. I can’t help you directly, but I know a guy might be able to give you little advice. Follow this road to the Spread. Look for place call Devil’s Hangover. Ask for Diego. Everything shady ‘round here go through him.”

  “Diego.” Maya rubbed her belly. “Okay.”

  Missy backed up, pointing at her. “Remember I could use good runner. If things don’ work out, you come on back.”

  Maya’s grateful smile faded to a worried stare once she faced the road. While this path appeared free of debris, drones, and offered nice soft earth to walk on, it also led to a place she dreaded going. Between AuthNet articles about gang wars, insurgent groups using the Spread to fire random rockets and missiles into the Sanctuary Zone, Authority raids, a woman who might abduct her for the sex trade, and desperate poor, she gave serious thought to taking her chances with drones. It would be unlikely they’d recognize her. The highway looked a mile or two away to the east across a veritable minefield of destroyed buildings likely to be littered with unexploded bombs from the war as well as equally dangerous Frags.

  Few Citizens recognized the difference between Nons and Frags, considering both mindless dreck who would just as soon kill her as say hello. Nons weren’t anything like what the ‘net said, only normal people guilty of the felony of being poor. They still clung to the trappings of civilization as it had been before the war. Frags, on the other hand, could be dangerous. Frags went way off the grid. An encounter with one of them could be as pleasant as meeting Missy or as terrifying as the bitch who tried to kill her with an arrow.

  Maya stood in the middle of the path, toes dug into the dirt, leaning forward into a wind that pressed her nightdress against her body and tried to knock her over backwards. Every road led to something scarier than the next. Maybe if she carried drugs for Missy, the woman could help her? No. She’d read enough about organized crime not to trust them. Sure, they’d take good care of her, but if they even suspected betrayal, all that kindness would disappear in a heartbeat. If they realized who she was, it could be Moth all over again… and this time she probably wouldn’t escape alive. Not the way Vanessa handled ransom demands.

  She glanced back at Missy’s trailer for a second before looking ahead down the road. She wanted to scream ‘Mommy’ until Genna swooped out of nowhere, wrapped her up in both arms, and told her everything would be okay.

  Maya stared at the dirt, and let the tears roll while the wind howled.

  No. Everything wouldn’t be okay.

  Not by a long shot.

  ead down, Maya fought her way forward into the wind. Without the barricade of high-rise buildings, the ocean-scented air protested her every step. The grey sky never quite made good on its threat to open up with a downpour, though a few isolated drops fell here and there. Being out in a field with nowhere to hide didn’t seem like a wonderful idea. Even if she carried a knife as big as her arm, who’d be afraid of her? She came close to dropping it for no other reason than her hand got tired, but she decided to keep it as a possible trade item. Maybe the man Missy spoke of would have a store where she could exchange it for better clothes.

  One hour melted into the next, yet neither the distant boxy shadows of the Spread on the horizon nor the silhouette of the Sanctuary Zone looked any closer than before. Her pace slowed as her subconscious called her foolish and stupid in Vanessa’s voice. Teaming up with Sarah to deal with Mr. Mason had been the most awesome thing she’d ever done. Having that special friendship might make it easier to cope with losing Genna. Maya stopped walking, sank into a squat, and wrapped her arms around herself. Why is it cold in the summer? Her teeth chattered with each gust of ocean breeze that seemed to pass through her flimsy garment as if it wasn’t even there.

  Maya glanced behind her along the road at the faint trail of small footprints. Missy’s trailer sat too far away to see anymore. She wondered if the woman might protect her if she asked for help going home to Block 13 instead of the city. Tears raced down her cheeks as her brain teased at accepting Genna as gone. Could she trust Missy? She didn’t feel safe trying to walk home from here. What if she ran into those three crazies again―or worse? Asking a favor from a woman connected to organized crime wouldn’t be a simple matter. They’d expect something in return, though how bad could doing a few deliveries be?

  They’d never let me stop. And when I got too big for the Authority to ignore, they’d make me shoot people or do what Missy does. Maya stuck her tongue out. Upon reaching the conclusion she had only one option―continue to the Sanctuary Zone―she sniffled and wiped her face on the back of her arm. If the Authority grabbed her, she could always lie and tell them she escaped the kidnappers.

  However, if she didn’t get caught…

  Vanessa had a terminal in each of her apartments and super-user rights to everything in the Ascendant system. If Genna remained alive, Vanessa―or a sneaky little girl using her terminal―could find her.

  Her heart beat with eager determination. Maya sprang upright and marched forward. A short while after the sun crested its peak and began the long slide into the western horizon, a rushing noise grew distinct from the bay of the wind. The thundering reminded her of waterfalls she’d seen in videos, though nothing like that should exist here. She walked faster, heading toward a square of smashed concrete surrounded by a chain link fence that had been knocked flat, the industrial complex she’d seen from Missy’s. Strange machines lined up along the back of the former building, a mixture of sea-green paint and rust. Pipes large enough for her to crawl into came up out of the ground about fifteen yards from the machines and connec
ted to huge round chambers.

  She thought them pumps of some kind, though by their condition, she didn’t think they’d been operational since before the war. Maya couldn’t suppress a giggle at how the Son of Jeva referred to the war as the Great Unmaking. She shook her head. “Yeah, aliens are going to throw the Earth into the Sun because we’ve been naughty. Right.” Hmm. Some people think aliens created Fade. She squinted at the sky. Enough plausibility for suckers to believe it.

  The roar of moving water became louder as she advanced. She stepped with care over a broken piece of fence, watching for sharp things on the ground. The entire area behind the building consisted of concrete tarmac well into the process of being reclaimed by nature. Green stuff sprouted from thousands of cracks, and much of the area looked charred. At the sight of a bowl-shaped crater in the ground up ahead, she wondered if a nuclear device had gone off here.

  Curiosity got the better of her, and though she didn’t want to waste too much time, she walked toward the hole. A metal sign on the ground lay with the words upside down to her. Maya walked around it and peered down.

  < Coagulation Pool

  < Aeration Tank

  Sedimentation Pool >

  Filtration Tank A, B >

  Maya scratched her head, shrugged, and kept walking. The rushing noise grew loud enough to require shouting if one wanted to be heard. About fifteen paces from the sign, she peered over the edge of the great opening in the ground. A moss-lined concrete channel, half of a rounded section six feet in diameter, carried a flow of water downward into a subterranean passageway. The splashdown of dozens of streams leaking from a maze of broken pipes around the edges lofted a cool mist that sprayed at her shins and feet.

  The massive chute ran about forty yards before it ended, pouring its contents down a short waterfall to another broken section of sewer pipe that took it deeper into the tunnels. She edged away from the hole, having trouble thinking under the burden of the heavy noise. It looked dangerous, though the tunnels did seem to progress in the direction of the Spread, and perhaps even the Sanctuary Zone itself.

  A sharp click to her left drew her attention to a white mark on the concrete. Before she could wonder who’d thrown a rock at her, a gunshot erupted with a crack in the distance. Maya gasped and dropped to all fours. She peered through the fluttering shreds of metal slats in the crushed fence, scanning the area for the person who’d shot at her. They had to be quite a ways off if the bullet got to her before the sound did.

  Far enough away for people to be no taller than grains of rice, two large crowds gathered on either side of the dirt road where it curved. The ones on the far side of the path fired guns at the ones on the near, who responded in kind. A handful ran at each other with clubs, bats, and even a katana or two. Here and there, blooms of fire erupted wherever the fighters traded Molotovs. Gunshots went off like a fusillade of fireworks, the distance muting them to snaps and pops.

  She exhaled a small sigh of relief. No one had shot at her specifically, merely a stray bullet since she found herself directly behind one of the warring groups. Still, she kept low. A bullet wouldn’t dodge around her because the person firing it didn’t want to hit her on purpose.

  Another projectile struck one of the big pumps behind her with a clank. Three whistled overhead. Maya looked around in a frantic search for cover, but the only option that didn’t involve standing up and sprinting was the hole. When another bullet chipped off the concrete less than an arm’s length away from her, she swallowed her fear and leapt onto the incline, intending to hover right below the level of the ground.

  Slimy moss-covered concrete took her feet straight out from under her. She slid on her butt for about ten feet, fell three more, and landed sitting in armpit-deep water. The current plus frictionless gooey biomatter beneath her swept her along the forty-yard chute in a matter of a few seconds. She screamed when sliding became freefall at the end. Maya clamped her eyes shut and held her breath before landing flat on her back in the next section of tunnel, underwater.

  The torrent churned and swished her side to side, carrying her feet-first down the slippery channel. She slid up against the wall around a tight turn, went under again, and caught air as the captive river dumped her out the end of one broken segment of pipe into yet another chute.

  Maya managed a shriek and gulped down air before she splashed into chaos again. Her fingers scraped at ooze and congealing algae, her effort to slow down useless. She rolled to the right, powerless against the current carrying her around a leftward curve; her stomach and thighs brushed the wall. Maya gulped water and air in equal parts, struggling to breathe. The turn abruptly straightened, and she shot off the end into a fall, pedaling her legs and windmilling her arms. An attempt to scream triggered coughing. This drop gave her enough distance that she flipped over in midair and hit the next section of rushing water flat on her chest, arms stretched out over her head.

  The landing knocked a bubble out of her lungs; she scrabbled and clawed in a desperate search for breathable air. When her hands touched the bottom of the concrete tube, she realized the current no longer swept her along. Maya pushed her head up, breaking the surface, and gasped. After a momentary coughing fit subsided, she got her knees under herself and shivered in a shoulder-deep bath. Strands of green plant matter dangled overhead, interspersed with daylight leaking in from copious cracks and smaller holes overhead. The deafening rumble of dozens of little waterfalls had faded to distant background noise, and her panicky breathing echoed around her. A current still existed, but this far down, it didn’t have enough power to push her along.

  Maya knelt in place until her heartbeat slowed to normal. She spat and coughed more, covering her mouth with her hands and shivering. A burp brought the taste of dumplings back. When she finally stood, she cringed at the feeling of inch-deep slime squeezing between her toes. The water almost reached her hips. Her soaked nightdress, smeared green down the front as if she’d slid over paint, clung like a second skin.

  She gathered it up into a roll and wrung it out while looking around. The channel she’d fallen from poured a thick stream of water into her current pipe about ten feet behind her, over a clear patch where no algae could grow. The end hung at least four times her height overhead, vines draped from it like a beard, though they didn’t look thick enough to support her weight, especially climbing face-first into the pour.

  Forward, the crushed sewer pipe continued to a maze of others, crisscrossing like a gargantuan version of one of those novelty waterfalls in a fancy restaurant. She walked along the only route she could follow, flapping her nightdress to help dry it. Gunfire and angry screaming continued outside, easily thirty or forty feet overhead. At least she’d gone somewhere well out of reach of stray bullets.

  Her right foot shot out from under her when she encountered a particularly snot-like patch of algae, leaving her flat on her back underwater again. Maya sat up and spat out the foul-tasting liquid, somewhere between rust, dirt, and moss. She gagged, but didn’t throw up. After swishing her foot back and forth to rinse the slime from it, she stood and managed another eight yards before stubbing her toe on a chunk of concrete hiding under the muck. That time, she fell forward.

  Maya pushed her head above the surface again and sighed. “So much for drying off.”

  She decided against standing and pulled herself along sorta-swimming, walking her hands on the bottom while kicking her feet in the water. At the end of the pipe, another one a few feet below ran at an oblique angle. It passed from behind and left to forward and right, going about fifty yards to a huge chamber full of more pipes. Maya turned herself around and descended feet first, happy at least to find one intersection short enough for her to climb back up if she had to.

  The water in the next area only came up to the bottoms of her knees. She tried walking again and made it to the end without falling, though she slipped and skidded on her heels several times. She crouched with her toes over the edge, grabbing the rim of the broken
concrete tunnel on either side of her feet. From her perch, she looked out over a gigantic underground chamber full of dangling vines draped among twisted steel girders and lit by shafts of sunlight. A few birds flitted around near the top, where they could easily duck out one of the cracks to get to open sky. She felt like a rhesus monkey high in the trees of the rain forests that now only existed as images on the AuthNet and memories in old people.

  “Wow.”

  Water pressed at the small of her back, flowing around her to spill into another section of pipe. The bottom of the chamber had a green pool, some twenty or so feet below. Momentary temptation to jump in came and went. No. That could wind up being only a few inches deep and I’d die. Maya looked left, right, up, and down, trying to figure out where she was and where she had to go. She let her feet slide from the edge and sat. Here, the mild current had no chance of pushing her loose, even with the slimy green stuff everywhere.

  She checked herself: feet, knees, elbows, and hands, for scrapes or injuries. Other than sore spots from banging into the pipe, she found nothing to worry about. A relieved sigh escaped her and she slouched. In that moment of stillness, her teeth chattered.

  I have to get out of this water or I’m going to get sick.

  Maya leaned back, the way Vanessa did to ask the ceiling why things always got difficult for her, as if the only person in the world who ever had something go wrong was Vanessa Oman. Her gaze settled upon a scratch in the dark stone that formed the shape of an arrow pointing left.

  She raised her arm to touch it, but couldn’t reach. Even if she stood as tall as she could stretch, it would be too far overhead. Her mind presented her with two theories: an adult made it, or the rats here were geniuses and could fly. She decided to trust option one, and not trust sticking around until the sort of person who lived down… in whatever this place was found her. With nothing else to go on, and no idea which way led where, she decided to follow the arrow.