None of them moved to follow him, and he made his way back to where they stood frozen in awe. "You would think you guys have never seen a city before."
"Not one like that." Ginger motioned toward the sea of glass.
Elton quirked his eyebrow in confusion. "Does Palumbra not look like this?"
Gray gave a short laugh. "No. Palumbra definitely doesn't look like this."
Emery coughed, then said, "How does that force field work?"
"I don't understand it all," Elton said, "But in school we learned that it was made with magnets to deflect harmful energy weapons and lasers to create the camouflage aspect."
"But how did it know to let you in?" Tristan asked.
"Biometric data. The force field recognizes fingerprints and voice cadences. Some places use iris scans to determine whether you're cleared for admittance."
"Does everyone just give up their biometric data to the government?" Tristan asked.
Elton furrowed his forehead as if he had never encountered that question before. "As far as I know. Why wouldn't they?"
Gray and Maeve exchanged skeptical looks. They knew all too well what could happen when you gave the government too much control.
Emery coughed again, and Elton motioned them forward with a wave of his hand. "Come on. We need to start looking for that antidote."
"How long will it take to get there?" Thomas asked, looking with trepidation at the steep incline down to the city.
"Not long if I can get the hovercar to work," Elton said.
"The what?" Gray asked.
"The hovercar." Elton spoke slowly as if he was talking to a young child. Maeve saw comprehension dawn in his eyes. "You don't have hovercars."
Gray shook his head.
"Does everything still work if everyone is gone?" Emery asked.
"It's only been a few days since we fled. The interface is designed to run on its own for at least a month."
Elton began leading them down the steep incline. Rufus took a few steps on the steep terrain and lost his footing, the large dogs gangly legs splaying out from his body as he landed with a thud on his broad chest. He whined and gave Thomas a reproachful look.
Thomas gave him a pat on the head and urged him to his feet. "You can do it, Rufus."
"He can just stay here if he can't make it down to the hovercar," Elton said.
Thomas turned with a look of fire in his eyes. "Rufus is coming. I'm not leaving him."
Elton held up his hands as if to protect himself from Thomas's words. "OK, OK. It was just a suggestion."
They picked their way down the incline to a plateau where two vehicles stood waiting. They were like nothing Maeve had ever seen. While there weren't a lot of cars in Palumbra, the few that existed had sleek lines and four wheels and stayed firmly on the ground. The hovercars, like their name implied, hovered about a foot off the ground, no need for wheels. They were clearly designed to carry a group of passengers with a boxier shape than the cars Maeve was used to seeing.
"We should go in one car, and Emery should go in one by herself," Elton said.
"What?" Ginger cried. "No way. What if something happens to the second car?"
"I'll ride with her," Tristan said.
"No," Emery said quietly from her spot at the back of the group. "Elton is right. Those cars are pretty small. I don't want to infect the rest of you."
Thomas leaned over and whispered in Rufus's ear. Rufus cocked his head as if to say, "Are you sure?" Thomas nodded and said, "Go."
Rufus trotted over and sat down next to Emery, waiting for his next instruction. "Rufus can go with you," Thomas said.
"Are you sure?" Emery asked even as her hand burrowed into Rufus's shaggy coat.
"You shouldn't have to travel alone. Rufus will keep you company."
"Thanks, Thomas."
"Don't thank me. Thank Rufus."
Getting in the hovercar was trickier than it looked. The car bobbed up and down on its cushion of air, making the surface unsteady even though it was just a foot off the ground. Maeve stepped up and wobbled, but Gray placed his hand on her back to steady her before she fell back to the ground. She gave him a grateful smile.
As Gray and Thomas climbed in behind her, she marveled at the interior of the hovercar. Where the outside was boxy, the inside was sleek and sparkling. She ran her hand across the back of one of the metal seats and squinted her eyes against the glare of the sun reflecting off the seat.
"What is this place?" she whispered to Gray.
Gray leaned his head close to her ear. "I don't know, but I'm not sure I trust it."
Ginger looked anxiously out the back window of the hovercar, watching Emery and Rufus board the one behind them.
"How will Emery's car know where we're going?" Ginger asked Elton.
"They have autopilot," Elton said. "I told her what to do to sync up with our car."
Maeve gave Ginger a one-armed hug. "She's good with technology. She'll be OK."
"Plus she has Rufus," Thomas chimed in. "He'll make sure nothing happens to her."
Ginger leaned into Maeve's hug, took a deep breath and straightened her spine. "She'll be fine," she said without conviction.
Tristan leaned down to look in Ginger's eyes. "She will be fine. She's smart and strong. And like Thomas said, she has Rufus. Her car will be tied into ours. Nothing's going to happen to her."
Ginger took another deep breath and straightened her shoulders. Looking directly at Tristan, she said in a strong voice, "You're right. She'll be fine." She sent a pointed look toward Elton and muttered under her breath, "She'd better be."
Elton ignored her and began to fiddle with the controls at the front of their hovercar. Gray watched him closely.
"Where are we going?" Gray asked.
"There's a building in the city center that was a research lab. We might find what we're looking for there."
Gray looked out the front window and surveyed the city below. "If there was an antidote, why didn't the government of Bellus use it?"
Elton's hands paused over the controls. "I heard rumors that some people had gotten it, but those people just disappeared. Everyone just assumed they had died from the disease, too."
"Should we be worried about touching things?" Tristan asked. "Are we going to get sick from using this hovercar?"
Elton shook his head. "That's what was so weird about the whole thing. They told us you could only catch it from someone else, and they had to touch you. It should have been easy to stop, but everyone died."
Tristan leaned against the side of the car. "How long did it take for the disease to spread."
"About a month. Some people got it and died quickly. Others got it and lingered for a week. No one knows what the difference was."
Gray watched Elton closely. "How did you and Shalara avoid getting it?"
Elton hesitated, then shrugged. "Just lucky, I guess. Our parents were some of the last ones to get sick. They were making preparations to leave, so they just sent me and Shalara out into the desert, hoping we would make it to Palumbra."
Ginger continued to peer out the rear of the car. Emery gave her a quick wave from the console of her hovercar. "What about Sarge and his friends? How did they survive?"
"I don't know." Elton pulled on a lever with a red knob on top, and the car started to move. "It makes me wonder if other people survived, too. You guys might want to sit down. Sometimes there are air pockets on the trip down the hill, and it can be a little bumpy."
Maeve and Gray sat on one seat while Tristan and Thomas took the rear-facing seat. Ginger remained at the back window.
"Come on, Ginger," Tristan coaxed. "Sit with us. You can see Emery's car just fine from this seat, and you won't have to brace yourself to keep from falling."
Ginger gave Tristan a dubious look, but carefully made her way to the seat in the swaying car. They were quickly gaining speed as they plunged down the hill toward the city.
"Have you ever driven one of these before?
" Gray asked Elton.
Elton didn't answer immediately.
"Elton?" Maeve asked.
"Um. Not exactly."
"What do you mean 'not exactly'?" Ginger jumped to her feet and quickly grabbed the back of the seat to keep from falling.
"Well, I've taken the training class, but you can't drive a hovercar until you're 18."
"That's my sister back there. She's sick, and you're telling me you've never actually driven one of these?" Ginger took a threatening step toward Elton. The gesture lost some of its menace when she swayed and almost fell as the ride got faster and bumpier. "You had better hope nothing happens to her."
Elton gave Ginger a fearful look and went back to working the controls. Tristan tugged on Ginger's hand and motioned to her seat. "There's nothing we can do now. Sit and let Elton do his best. You can beat him to a pulp when we get there."
"Can you believe that guy?" Ginger sat with a huff.
"He did get us this far," Maeve said.
"Are you defending him?" Ginger asked in disbelief.
Maeve crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I'm just saying that he's doing the best that he can. We don't have any choice now except to trust that he's going to get us down this hill and into the city."
"Why exactly are we trusting him?" Gray asked in a quiet voice. While the hovercar was fast and sleek, it was also loud. Between the rumble of the engine and the air rushing by outside, it was unlikely Elton could hear them.
"What choice do we have?" Maeve asked.
"We could let him take us into the city and then part ways," Tristan suggested.
"How does that help us?" Maeve pointed toward the hovercar behind them. "We need to find the antidote for Emery − quickly. We don't know where to even start looking." She gestured with her head toward Elton. "He does."
"He says he does." Ginger's voice dripped with skepticism.
"Like I said, what choice do we have?"
Gray opened his mouth to speak, but Thomas interrupted him when he jumped to his feet, grabbing Tristan's arm to stay upright. He pointed toward the back window. "That can't be right. What's going on with Emery's car?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ginger jumped up from her seat, stumbling against Tristan's legs as the hovercar made a swift turn.
"Stop! What is Emery's car doing?"
Elton frantically pushed buttons and twisted knobs on the hovercar's control panel.
"Where is her car going?" Ginger plastered both hands against the rear window and pressed her nose against the glass. She pounded on the glass. "Emery!"
The hovercar made another swift turn, and Ginger was thrown against the side of the car. Tristan and Thomas helped her up and all three peered out the back window where Emery's hovercar was moving away from their car. They could see Emery's face frozen in terror as she worked the controls, Rufus glued to her side.
Ginger pounded the window again. "Emery!" Her voice broke. "We should never have let her go alone."
Gray and Maeve were standing over Elton. "Get that car back, now." Maeve's voice and hands shook.
Elton looked up, and Maeve could see the panic in his eyes. "I'm trying. I don't know what's wrong with the tethering controls. It's like someone else is driving that car."
"Could someone else have taken control of the car?" Gray asked. His voice was so calm, Maeve had to look at him to see the muscle tensing in his cheek and the vein pulsing in his forehead to know he was angry. He clenched and unclenched his fist as if trying to decide whether to use it to punch Elton.
"I don't know. I guess. Maybe." Elton's voice faded away.
"Who could have control of her car?" Gray spaced out each word as if he were talking to a small child.
Elton continued to work the controls. "It would have to be someone with access to the transportation control center."
Ginger lurched her way to the front of the car. "I thought you said everyone was dead. How could someone have access to the control center?"
Elton refused to take his gaze off the controls. "I guess more people survived than I thought."
"Glad we figured that out now." Tristan's voice dripped with sarcasm.
"Turn around and follow Emery," Ginger demanded.
Elton's shoulders drooped. "I can't." His voice was little more than a whisper.
Ginger leaned forward. "What do you mean you can't?" Her voice seemed to rise an octave with each word. "That's my sister. Of course you can."
Thomas tugged on Maeve's hand. "Don't forget Rufus."
Maeve gave his hand a reassuring squeeze and looked down into his face. "We won't forget Rufus, I promise."
"The controls aren't responding." Elton pressed another button and turned another dial. "We can only go to the location I programmed in."
"So, let me get this straight," Gray said. "Emery's car is driving itself, and our car is stuck on a single location? We don't know who's actually driving these cars, and we don't know where Emery is going to end up."
"And Emery's sick," Ginger interrupted.
"That's about right," Elton said. He gave a button on the console one last tap and turned to face the group. "I never thought this would happen. I'm sorry."
"We don't have time for you to be sorry." Tristan leaned over the console to peer out the front window. The city that had seemed so far away was fast approaching. "We need to figure out how to get out of this car before it gets to wherever you programmed it to go. Whoever has taken over the control of the cars knows exactly where we're going. Can you slow it down?"
Elton shook his head. "The controls are locked. Everything is on autopilot now."
"Do we know when it's going to slow down? It can't keep up this speed on city roads." Gray scanned the console looking for anything that might look like a brake.
"It might slow down when we turn the corner to get to the research facility, but it would be really close to the building." Elton glanced out the window to the buildings that were now flashing by then turned back to Gray. "We really need to get off this thing before then."
"What's that?" Thomas's voice rose from the floor where he had sat down to keep from falling as the hovercar raced through the city.
"What do you see?" Maeve asked.
"That thing sticking up from the floor under the console." Thomas pointed at a pedal on the floor that was protected by a plastic case. Across the top of the plastic case was the word Emergency.
Gray leaned down to look at where Thomas was pointing. He flipped the manual latch and lifted off the plastic case. The pedal was about a foot long, with rods that stretched from the bottom into the floor. "What happens if we press it?"
Elton leaned forward in his chair and peered at the pedal. "I don't know. I've never seen anyone use it."
"They don't cover the emergency protocols in the training class?" Ginger asked.
Elton looked sheepish. "Well, it might have been a stretch to say that I had completed the training. I went to a single class."
Ginger's entire body radiated anger. "You had better hope we find my sister safe and sound. Because if we don't..." Each word dropped from Ginger's mouth like ice, and Elton shivered.
"We'll find her, Ginger," Maeve said, stepping between Elton and Ginger.
"I think we should step on it," Tristan said, drawing their attention back to the emergency pedal.
"What other choice do we have?" Gray asked. "Hopefully, it's some kind of braking mechanism. You guys find something to hold onto, and I'll step on it."
The rest of the group backed away to the seats. Maeve and Thomas sat on one of the sleek, shiny seats. Thomas wrapped his arms around Maeve's waist, and she wrapped hers around the pole at the back of the seat. Tristan and Ginger sat on the seat facing them, with their arms wrapped around another pole. Elton sat alone in the driver's seat with his hands gripping the console. Gray wedged his fingers into the netting covering the window and stomped on the pedal.
Maeve gritted her teeth as the sound of shrieking metal p
ierced her ears. The hovercar slowed, and just when Maeve thought it would stop, it began a slow turn, the back of the car spinning toward the front as if in slow motion. The car tipped to its side and began to barrel roll. Glass broke and shards showered throughout the car, slicing her skin. She ducked her chin into her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. Her muscles strained with effort as she fought to maintain her grip on the pole. She could hear the others screaming as the hovercar rolled over and over again in a seemingly endless cycle. Finally, the car came to a halt with a thud.
Maeve took inventory of her bruised body and looked around. Her arms ached from holding onto the pole, and she only hoped the others were OK. She could feel Thomas still squeezing her waist, and she looked down to find blood streaming from his hairline into his eyes. "Are you OK?"
Thomas nodded, raising dazed eyes to hers. Gingerly, she removed her arms from around the pole and cautiously brushed glass from Thomas's hair. She unlatched his arms from around her waist, stood and took stock of the hovercar, or what was left of it. Glass from the windows covered the interior, making the floor look as if it was covered in crystals glittering in the sun. Tristan and Ginger were in a heap in the corner of the car, trying to disentangle their limbs without cutting themselves on the glass.
"Don't move," Maeve said to Thomas who nodded in response.
Stepping carefully, she crossed the car to Tristan and Ginger. She pulled Ginger to her feet as Tristan steadied himself with a hand on the side of the car as he, too, rose unsteadily to his feet. "Are you two OK?"
Ginger brushed glass off her shoulder and shook out her ponytail. Glass shards hit the metal floor with a clink. "I think so. You might need to look at Tristan. He's got a good bump on his head."
Maeve gave Tristan a quick once-over. "Can you walk?"
Tristan nodded, then winced and grabbed at the wall again. "I'll be fine, but you'd better check on Gray and Elton."
Maeve looked toward where Gray had pressed the emergency pedal but didn't see Gray or Elton. Tristan placed both hands on her shoulders and turned her the other direction, toward the back of the car. Gray lay sprawled face down on the floor while Elton was slumped motionless in the corner next to him. As quickly as she could, she made her way across the glass to Gray, ignoring the small cuts on her arms that were oozing blood. Unable to kneel next to his prone form, she crouched down next to him.
The Lost City: The Palumbra Chronicles: Book Two Page 12
