by Holly Hook
My pinky trembled, then fell back to the floor of the walker. Calvin continued to fire until the beam ran out. He pressed the button again, expecting something to happen, but nothing followed.
“Why isn't this working?” Calvin yelled, more at the walker than at us.
We hadn't told him about the five-minute recharge on the heat gun.
I managed to lift my hand. It, like my pinky, flopped back down. Progress. Yay. Matt moved his lips a bit. The paralysis was wearing off, even though I felt like I was going to throw up. These electric batons could make people sick. They taught us that in school, mostly to warn us not to get in trouble with the law. Stories existed about people throwing up all over Enforcers. Right now, it seemed like a good idea.
Calvin slammed his hand down on the orange button again. His gaze shifted down to the ground, watching any action.
“Mmmph,” I managed.
With my ear pressed to the bottom of the walker, I could hear some shouting from below. There were people underneath us, all yelling and shouting commands at each other.
Calvin faced me. “I killed some of the Task Force,” he said. “You didn't tell me there was a recharge on this thing.”
I feared that he was going to threaten to drop a smoke bomb, but instead, he stepped over me as if I were a lump on the floor. I struggled to turn my head a bit, but Matt and I were still useless. Calvin twisted open the bottom hatch, and I realized what he was going to do.
“It's me, Calvin!” he shouted into the open air as the reek of smog rose into the walker. “Run! Take out your contacts and crush them! The Great Council are aliens! Look at their necks!”
At least he was saying something that made sense. I tried not to roll my eyes as Calvin closed the hatch and jumped over me to reach the pilot's seat. I hoped he had gotten enough glory. At least he was helping to spread the word about the real problems in today's world. Even us Earthers hadn't managed to do that.
All I could think of were Mom and Dad. I wasn't much better than Calvin, was I? I wanted to save the people I cared about, but my parents happened to be where we had to go to stop the Grounders. Calvin waited for a bit, maybe waiting for people to get out of the way. That meant there probably wasn't a pulse cannon aimed at us, which was a plus. The Great Council might have a limited supply of them. If I remembered right, there hadn't been too many made in the Unifying War since they were all pretty expensive.
Matt lifted his head. “What are you doing? What's going on?”
He had changed his tone of voice to one of caution like Dad had done when he turned me over to the Task Force. Calvin was in charge here, and we both knew. I had been swept aside all over again, but I was determined to make sure this was just temporary. I was an Earther, born to fight these Grounders, and sooner or later, Matt and I would take back this walking killing machine from this glory-hungry rookie.
At least he was serving some use.
Calvin faced us. “You were getting in the way,” he said. “The Enforcers need to know the truth. I'm piloting this thing from now on. I have the experience.”
Not only was he glory-hungry, but he also had a big ego. Bad combination. That gleam remained in his eyes as he stared down at Matt and me. We had just experienced mutiny. He had taken over.
And I had been the one to suggest letting him come along.
I wanted to hit myself, but all I could manage to do was lift my arm. Matt and I would have to wrestle back control from this guy, and we had to do it soon. But Calvin was waiting for us to try something. The truth was there in his stiff posture and the way he carried himself.
Calvin fired again, hopefully on more Grounders. The walker took two more huge steps.
With my ear still stuck to the floor, I could hear people screaming. Grounders didn't do that. Even when they died horribly, they didn't utter a sound.
Matt managed to push his upper body off the floor. He stared at me, not daring to speak. Calvin was out of control. We had warned the Enforcers and possibly saved them. He'd fulfilled his part. Mom and Dad were still at the Great Council, and they might have gotten converted into Grounders by now. If that happened, I would die.
Or better yet, I would kill Calvin.
I had a harder time than Matt getting off the floor, possibly because I wasn't as skinny, but I managed to stand on shaky legs. “Calvin,” I said. I had to tread carefully. I had to stay above his level. “Did you save the Enforcers?”
“I think I freed most of them,” he said, focusing all attention on the buildings ahead. We were in downtown, all right, above the Market square. The windows of the buildings all shone in the pale light. It was breakfast time. “Most of them ran off, and I killed most of the Task Force who had come to get them. I hope they heard my warning. I wish this thing had more than a horn on it for sound.”
“You do know that more Grounders are going to try to kill us,” I said. “They're going to bring more pulse cannons, and they might even try some worse weapons.”
“The cannons were the strongest thing they had in the Unifying War,” Calvin said. “Unless they get out nukes, and I don't think they will, we'll be fine. I'll just drop a smoke bomb if I see one.”
He didn't get it. “Maybe the Grounders like radiation,” I said. “They like smog, so why not? Do you think they care about ruining the planet?” Nukes hadn't been used at all in hundreds of years, though countries came close to it several times.
And what was I saying? Matt and I were about to charge the Great Council as soon as we wrestled control from Calvin. If they didn't get big weapons out for that, they never would.
And the other radicals were still setting up somewhere ahead of us. The rest of the cylinders were supposed to land around the Great Council.
We would soon get outnumbered.
“Well, if they nuke us, we'll just have to go underground,” Calvin said. “We'll strike them from below.” He took another huge step.
“The Grounders like the ground,” I pointed out.
Calvin plowed us towards a skyscraper, one with a sign designating it as the Unity Bank. One of the walker's legs crushed something. The tripod lurched, and I had to grab onto the side of the cabin to steady myself. It might take me a full hour to feel normal again. I felt as if I had spent months in deep space. My nerves wouldn't cooperate for a while, and another hit with that baton would turn me into overcooked pasta all over again.
“Whoa!” Matt shouted.
But Calvin wasn't listening. His hand hovered above the smoke bomb button. He had learned to steer the walker better, which only made him more dangerous. We had to get him off this walker and down below with his comrades. He could fight down there.
I peeled myself from the wall. Sooner or later, Calvin would drop one of the bombs. He would kill someone who didn't deserve it. I wanted to rescue my parents, but I didn't want to sacrifice others in the process. Earthers believed that every life on Earth was worth saving unless you had to kill for food or defend yourself. Collateral damage wasn't worth it. I would never live with myself if I let Calvin sacrifice people.
And he would. The faint screams continued. We were terrorizing the people of the city.
Calvin's electric baton hung on his belt, strapped into its holster. I would have to jump at him, overpower the guy, and take the weapon if we were going to save lives. Matt seemed to read my mind. He shook his head just a bit and instead, looked at Calvin.
He turned, barely missing the Unity Bank. We got a good view of the Market. Dozens of people bolted around food stalls and ran towards transport belts. Two kiosks had fallen. Tablets lay strewn on the pavement, glowing next to some stuffed animals.
“It's great that you got the warning out,” Matt said. “Now the Enforcers can tell everyone what's going on. Are we going to head to the Great Council now?”
“We need to do that to stop the Grounders forever,” I said. I crept closer to the seats, staying away from Calvin. He marched around the Market, circling it and all the vendors. Morning
shoppers scattered like ants, trying to escape from us. Several bodies in gray and blue uniforms lay in front of the Enforcer headquarters, the remains of fried Grounders. The blue light of the Enforcer HQ sign reflected off their suits, making them appear even more unnatural.
I had seen plenty of dead Grounders now. I had stopped counting. A couple of still-living Grounders stood in the doorway of the Enforcer headquarters, electric batons in hand. Calvin was circling back around to deal with them. Apparently, the Grounders had shown up with weapons, or they had stolen them from the Enforcers.
But I hadn't seen any dead people yet.
Until now.
A single Enforcer lay against the side of the building, crumpled and half-crushed. I turned away and searched for something to throw up in, but the walker hadn't come with trash cans, so I had to settle for undoing the hatch and doing the worst down that. Thankfully, no one was below. Only an expanse of concrete waited, so I had no guilt about doing what I had to do. Calvin was so reckless he had killed one of his colleagues. He might not have even noticed yet.
The walker took another step towards the headquarters, and I had to steady myself to avoid plunging head-first to the pavement below. One of the giant feet hit a food stall—Toni's bacon and eggs stall—and sent it and the contents spilling all over the Market ground. My only consolation was that Toni was nowhere in sight.
I had come home to a war zone as I feared.
We had to get control back, or more people would die.
Calvin wasn't like us Earthers. I wouldn't even entertain that thought.
Matt took my arm and helped me away from the hatch, but he was shaking, too. I closed the hatch with my foot. Neither one of us was in good shape. Calvin kept his hand over the black button, the one we had only used once. I didn't know how many smoke bombs the nanobots had built into this thing, but Calvin was going to give us the answer.
I lunged at him. I stumbled into him, almost losing my footing, but the element of surprise worked. Calvin backed away from the controls, and the walker stopped meters in front of the Enforcer headquarters building. The jolt from that sent me leaning into Calvin, which was both awkward and dangerous.
“I told you to stay out of this!” he shouted, reaching for his baton.
But it wasn't there.
Calvin's hand closed around nothing, while Matt lifted the baton from behind. Matt stumbled, gripped the back of the pilot's chair, and struck Calvin on the back with the humming stick. Calvin's eyes widened as he realized his mistake, and then his body gave way, and he crumpled to the floor, useless.
“Did you know that you killed one of your friends by walking all over the place like this?” I asked, grasping the chair. “You're a little power hungry, aren't you?”
Calvin couldn't move, but that didn't stop his pupils from widening in terror. The realization hit him, and he flicked his gaze away from me. I wondered if the rookie wanted to turn his head away. He was the monster, and the horror had just hit him. I hoped that it hurt. He had already risked too many people.
Matt sat back down in the pilot's seat. “We have to get going,” he said. “It looks like most of the Enforcers left. They got away from the Grounders.” It sounded like he spoke for Calvin as much as me. “We have to watch him at all times. As soon as it's safe, we make him get off the walker, and we leave.”
Calvin continued to look away. I figured he was stewing in his shock and misery. I sat down in the gun chair, because I wasn't sure what else to call it, and watched as Matt turned us around and walked around the Market. I envied the perfect way he got the walker to move. I spotted no more Grounders in the Market area. In fact, it had emptied of all people, including those manning their stalls. Toni had fled with the others. My heart constricted at the sight of the bacon and eggs stall on its side, with its contents all over the pavement. Calvin had stepped on one of my best memories of the Woking area. I used to stop by that stall every day before school to grab some breakfast.
But we approached the glass tunnel that housed a transport belt. “Is that the one to the museum?” Matt asked.
“I think so,” I said, leaning forward to read the holographic sign above the tunnel entrance. I could barely see past the fans that blew the polluted air away to keep the tunnel itself clear. A man in a business suit got off the transport belt and entered the Market, only to pause and stare up at us. The poor guy got back into the tunnel, hopped on the other side, and sped away.
“If only he knew we weren't after him,” Matt said, drawing closer.
“Wait,” I said. “The network towers!”
Matt slapped himself on the forehead. “I forgot,” he said. “Some soldier I am.”
“I'll tell you where they're at,” I said, thinking of the Grounders who must be calling for backup right now. We might already be too late, and it all had to do with the guy lying on the floor. Calvin lifted one hand, only to let it slap back down.
“Don't try it,” I said, brandishing the wand at Calvin. It hummed, ready to do its dirty work again.
We took another walk around the Market area, where four network towers loomed above everything else, almost touching the smog above. I had always thought they looked like minarets over a temple, only without the temple. Matt's solution to taking them down meant ramming into them, which worked. Each tower squealed as it bent, then toppled to the ground. It was easier than I expected. Anyone in this area who wanted to use their contact displays probably couldn't, unless they had personal backup towers. We had cut off Woking from the rest of the world.
Panic would follow if it hadn't already.
“Well, I don't know if that did anything,” Matt said, charging to the right glass tunnel again. A couple of women tried to get off this time, only to follow the suited man. Even in the greenish smog, I caught their forms zipping underneath the glass and out of sight.
But the tunnel had open space above it. All transport belt tunnels did, mainly because an underground one had flooded in a hurricane about ten years ago, drowning a bunch of people because rescuers couldn't reach them. The Great Council had passed a law saying that all of the tunnels had to have air above them free in case people needed rescue. It was one good thing the Great Council had done.
I wondered why they had bothered. These aliens didn't care if we lived or died. The whole government had been Grounders for the past eighty years.
It was a good thing for us, anyway. We had nothing but open space ahead of us as Matt picked up speed. Calvin turned his head to face me as we picked up the pace. We could move quickly, but not as fast as the transport belts, so we had some time ahead of us. The large buildings around us grew shorter as we left downtown behind. Thick red weeds grew alongside the transport tunnel, which looked like a glass snake sitting among the alien vegetation. I had never seen the world from up here before. It was a red expanse, a horrible one that didn't look as Earth had only decades ago.
“I forgot how much the Grounders had changed this place,” Matt said, looking out on the scene.
The countryside that separated Woking from Space Port Nine and the Solar System Museum was very, very red.
Like Mars.
My heart raced just staring at it. I had known that the red weeds had choked off most normal plant life, but I had seen this from inside the transport tunnels. Now that Matt and I were taking an unconventional way of travel, we could see the full horror. We lived in a red world. Only a few green trees dared to poke out from the red weeds, which came in everything from giant ferns to bulbous shoots to crimson algae that coated the trunks of the few remaining Earth trees. The greenish-yellow sky hung overhead, thick and ominous. Only a murky lake and a distant factory broke up the morbid colors. It was the world that people didn't see from within civilization. Even I, an Earther, hadn't noticed how bad the Grounder scourge had become.
“No wonder Grandpa tried to bomb the Great Council,” I said. Suddenly, I wanted to hear more about what he'd done.
“I wished he had succeeded,�
�� Matt said. “Fiona looks up to him.”
The walker jarred as one of the legs struck the side of the transport tunnel. Matt cursed and steered the walker back towards the middle. We were gliding over the glass tube, but with only three legs, one of which had to be in the front tricycle-style, it was hard to keep the feet from hitting the tunnel. I hoped that the dingy glass was as sturdy as the Great Council promised.
“I think they keep the glass dirty on purpose,” I said. “Grounders don't want people to see how it is outside.” I thought of the time Matt and I took this same transport belt. I'd been able to see the factory and a few of the weeds, but the gross coat of crud on the outside of the tunnel kept most of the horror at bay.
“I'm sure they do,” Matt said. “They know that nobody wants to go out and get lost in the smog.”
Calvin lifted his head. Now that we were out of the city, I felt safe turning away from the orange heat gun button. I had to focus on the rogue Enforcer on the floor. He turned his gaze up to me. I held the baton on my lap, ready for use. Thankfully, the device didn't paralyze the holder. Like the bathroom issue, scientists had spent years figuring out a solution.
I had also never thought I would kill, but at least I wasn't like Calvin. I had a purpose behind it. I had a mission to carry on. I would do this out of respect for my grandfather.
That, and revenge. I had the sense the Grounders had caused Grandpa's death. Viruses could usually be controlled nowadays with drugs. I found it hard to believe that one had taken down such a strong man.
We trudged on, crunching red weeds. The lake got more expansive as the tube curved. I saw tiny figures zipping below. People were still using this transport belt, coming and going from faraway places.
“We need to ditch Calvin,” I said.
“Where do we do that?” Matt asked, checking out the red expanse and the distant factory. A river snaked away from the collection of buildings, winding through the red jungle and towards us. It must be the river that Calvin had mentioned. We would have to trudge across. The walker's legs would be long enough. I couldn't imagine the river being that deep.
