by Peter Telep
“We think so. The Hall of Vines.”
“No, that ain’t it.”
“Excuse me?”
Tommy rubs his weary eyes and wipes off his face. “What I mean is, that’s not where we’re going.”
“But that’s where they are.”
“We’re going to Brandalynn. Anyone ever heard of it?”
I glance around the shelter. No one has.
“Well, I’m not worried,” Tommy says. “We’ll find it.”
“We’re not going there,” I tell him.
“Son, while I was with your father, he woke up for a spell, but he was so weak he couldn’t jump. He did say if anything happened to him, I should get you to Brandalynn. I guess all the answers are there.”
“Why the big mystery?” Meeka asks. “Why didn’t he just tell you about the masks?”
“Like I said, I’ve been his friend for a lot of years. But with this? He’s even got me locked out. I feel like he wants to tell us, but he’s afraid of something.”
“Are you kidding me?” Meeka asks. “He didn’t tell you anything?”
“Oh, I tried to get it all out of him before we came. I fought with him good.”
Meeka huffs in disgust. “I’m sure you did.”
“Look, I’ll be honest… there ain’t much that scares me, but this does.”
“Tommy, are you just covering for him?” Meeka asks. “You know what’s going on, but he made you swear not to tell us, is that it?”
“Young lady, as you already know, my whole life is about honor, courage, and commitment. I would rather crush you with the truth than stand here and tell you a bunch of lies. My word is my bond. Without it, I’m nothing.”
I get to my feet. “We’re done here. Tommy, we don’t have a clue where Brandalynn is, and that’s why we’re going to the Hall of Vines. If my father’s there, he’ll tell us what to do.”
“And he’ll get us off these drugs,” Meeka says.
“I’m so over this,” Steffanie groans. “We’ll find Pace. We’ll talk to her father. He won’t lie to us.”
“You keep assuming they’re still here,” Meeka says. “What if they got taken like everyone else? We’re supposed to waste time looking for people who aren’t here?”
“Then I’ll do it myself,” Steffanie says.
“Pace’s caravan is near the Hall of Vines?” I ask Steffanie.
“I told you, they roam around there.”
“Good. We’ll look for them on the way. And if this is some kind of trap, we’ll be ready.”
“How?” Meeka asks.
“We got help.” I gesture to the ivies and the grren.
And then I look to Tommy, and, for the first time in my life, I challenge him with my tone. “Sir? Do you have a problem with any of this?”
He stares me down like a bulldog. “The only problem I have is... I wish your father were here to see you—because he’d be mighty proud.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
As we head toward the buckets, I pull Hedera aside and say, “I need to be honest with you.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good.”
“Well, it’s not the greatest news. So there’s this machine we call the engine.”
“The one Keane talked about?”
“Yeah.”
“Yep, I see where this is going.”
I cringe but try to sound hopeful. “Maybe we can fix it.”
“Or maybe not,” she counters. “So basically you can’t send my friends to Earth unless you repair your engine.”
“I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.”
“So you want us to help you on a maybe.”
“That’s all I got. And oh, yeah, we’ll need our bikes back.”
“What do you mean? You’re not riding all the way to the coast, are you?”
I shrug. “Hedera, I hate to say this, but I wouldn’t blame you if you just left. And that’s what your people will say when you talk to them.”
“So Doc, now it’s my turn to be honest.”
“Okay.”
“So we were going home… back to scavenging. We have nothing else to do.”
“Seriously?”
She grins. “Yeah, plus there’s something huge going on here, and if we can find out what these masks really are, then that helps everyone. Give me a second. I’ll be right back.”
Meeka and Steffanie come up behind me, and Steffanie’s holding Blink’s hand.
“Where’s she going?” Meeka asks, gesturing to Hedera.
“To talk to her people,” I answer. “I told her the truth about the engine. We can’t promise to send them to Earth if we can’t fix it.”
“Doc, holding back the truth is not the same as lying,” Meeka says.
“She saw the engine,” I remind her. “She heard Keane.”
“Someone call my name? Not that I care?” Keane asks, dragging himself toward us.
Tommy gave him a vest, and his helmet’s shoved into the crook of his arm. He’s like a skinny, half-dressed G.I. Joe action figure trudging toward us.
I slap a palm on his shoulder. “Dude, I’m sorry about all this. And when we get a chance, we need to talk.”
“About that thing,” he says, waving his hand between us.
“Yeah, the thing.”
“It’s crazy,” he says.
“Yeah, crazy. I heard your voice in my head, but I could feel you, too,” I tell him. “It was different than a connection, but similar…”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “And it’s like distance didn’t matter. I felt you were there, and I was thinking about that talk we had on the yacht, and I could share it with you again. I’ve never heard of anything like it. Anyway, we’re both here now, and once again my life sucks. I had big plans for tomorrow.”
“Big plans? Somehow I doubt that.”
“Seriously, I was putting a personal ad on Craigslist.”
“A what?”
“An ad, you know? Let me see. How did it go? Something like fun loving guy with great hair and an awesome heart looking for good times and possible relationship. And yeah, I know our phones are locked up, but I was going to ask Zach to see if he’d be willing to post it for me.”
“Whoa, that’s nuts,” I warn him. “There’s a bunch of creepers online. You never want to do that.”
“Keane, if you really want a girlfriend, stop looking so hard,” Meeka says.
Hedera approaches and apologizes for interrupting. “So right now it’s just me and Rattle coming along.”
“Who’s Rattle again?” Meeka asks.
“He’s the tall guy with the goatee,” I tell her. “The one who ate my granola bar.”
Hedera smiles. “Right. He’s like my older brother and my conscience, so he wants to come and make sure I’m okay. He’s always challenging me, but that’s his style.”
“Has he always been an ivy?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she answers. “For some reason his wreath went dormant when he turned thirteen, so he never got a chance to use his persona. That toughened him up real fast.”
“I guess it would,” I say.
“Anyway, the deal is, the rest of my caravan will wait here for us and guard the engine. If the despers come around, they’ll know what to do—either fight or hide.”
“Sounds good,” I say.
She continues, “We’ll take two buckets, but we’ll also take the backup batteries out of the other two buckets, leaving them with just their main batteries in case my people need to escape. We need those extra batteries because it could rain tomorrow, meaning no sun and no power, and it’ll take about eight or nine hours to drive out to the hall.”
“I’m glad you thought of that.”
She grins. “I banged up my ankle last week, so I’m not real big on walking right now.”
“Hey, Doc, the rest of our bikes are still on the platform,” Steffanie says. “The water didn’t get that high yet. We should take enough for everyone, just in case.”
; “Good idea,” I say. “Oh, one other thing. Hedera, we need you to connect with Grandpa again. Tell him we need the grren to dig out the engine. I’ll take a couple of pictures of it before we go. Maybe we can show them to my father if we find him, and he can see what’s damaged. In the meantime, like you said, your people will guard it.”
“Perfect,” she says.
As she heads off toward the pack of grren, Meeka leans in close to me and says, “Never forget this is Flora, Doc. And everyone wants something. She’s no exception.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she’ll put her caravan first. I know I would.”
“I don’t have a problem with that.”
Meeka sighs. “You will if she has to choose between us or them.”
“Hey, guys?” comes a familiar voice.
We turn to face Blink. “We’re here,” I tell him.
“Okay, what I did was…” he gasps. “It was horrible. So I’m thinking there isn’t much between here and the coast. Mostly just the Fallows and all that scorched desert. I want you to drop me off there. It’s what I deserve.”
“No,” Steffanie says, tugging at Blink’s hand.
“What’re you talking about?” I ask.
“Please, Doc, either that, or I’ll just leave now.”
“No way. We need you with us.”
“So I can freak out and shoot more people?”
“No, because we need your ears.”
“My what?”
“Your ears. You listen to Hedera and her friend Rattle. I mean everything they say. And you report back to us. Okay?”
“You don’t trust them?” he asks.
Meeka looks at me. I sigh before answering, “We just want to make sure everyone’s on the same page, all right?”
“Well, if you think you can trust me with that, I’ll do it.”
“Blink, you’re right. What you did was beyond terrible. There are no excuses. So now you promise you’ll never do that again. Not ever.”
“Of course not. I promise.”
“Good. Now don’t worry. These drugs can’t last forever.”
His voice shakes. “Thank you, Doc. I still don’t deserve any of this…”
Meeka grabs my hand and squeezes it tightly.
And now Steffanie’s eyes fill with tears.
* * *
Within minutes the grren, along with their personas, dig out the engine, and the thing is a mess.
The wreath in the center has been smashed into multiple pieces. The scuba-tank-like canisters are dented or cracked, and the long cables attaching various other components have either been ripped free or shredded.
There’s one other big problem, and I’m surprised Meeka and Steffanie haven’t already brought it to my attention.
Security access to the engine’s computer is biometric. Last time Flare, Solomon’s second in command, got us in. Maybe my father had a plan for how to deal with this?
Or maybe we just need a new computer system in addition to everything else. I’m sure we can just swing by the local home improvement store and grab one.
Wondering if I’m wasting my time, I take a few pictures, and then we’re off, rumbling through the night in two buckets with bikes loaded in the back.
Tommy’s at the wheel of the first vehicle carrying Hedera, Rattle, and Blink.
Meeka’s our driver and keeping close to Tommy’s bumper. Steffanie rides shotgun while Keane sits with me in back.
They’ve dimmed the headlights to save batteries and make it harder for us to be spotted. The weather hasn’t improved much, with showers coming and going. Tommy and Meeka do their best to avoid deep puddles that seep across the road.
Tommy suggested a pit stop every two hours to change drivers and take care of any “nature breaks” as he calls them.
Sure, we need food, water, guns, and ammo—
But the toilet paper he packed is nearly as valuable on any post-apocalyptic alien world.
Keane starts talking to me about some old movies he borrowed from my father’s Blu-ray collection. He thinks he’s a movie critic now, but I’m so exhausted that I can barely listen. It’s like we’ve been up for a month. I push back into the seat and try to get some rest.
* * *
I open my eyes and shiver. Despite Hedera’s prediction for more rain, the sun’s shining brightly, and Keane’s now at the wheel.
“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “I slept through everything?”
Meeka stirs next to me. “Actually you snored through it.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Because we weren’t letting you drive anyway.”
I give her the evil eye. “Are we close?”
“Almost there.”
“What about Pace’s caravan?” I ask Steffanie.
“No sign of them yet,” she says.
“Hey, you guys wanna see some badass driving?” Keane asks. “Watch me take this next turn…”
“No!” we all scream at him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The Hall of Vines lies below in a valley of blue-and-gray sand surrounded by gigantic rock formations. It’s similar to a rock concert arena, with dozens of faces of men and women carved into the colossal walls of glittering stone.
In an eerie way, they resemble the masks I saw above the ocean when I dreamed of the island.
“Wow,” I gasp. “This is insane.”
“Yeah,” Meeka agrees. “One of the most amazing things on the planet.”
Each face represents a former ruler of the continent of Centennial, and they go back for hundreds of years. Rulers are called “arbors,” and each year there’s a big event, “The Wreath of Immortals,” where the ancestors of each arbor gather together. The person carrying that arbor’s immortal projects it below the stone carving. Meeka says that people jump in from all over Flora to visit with these immortals, listen to their speeches, gain wisdom, and admire the work of different artists.
I tell her about Mount Rushmore on Earth, but we only have four American presidents carved into our mountain.
So this Wreath of Immortals sounds interesting, almost like Disney’s Hall of Presidents at the Magic Kingdom, only these are real pieces of Florans who ruled here, not lifeless animatronics reciting scripts.
As the faces continue to stare back at us, we turn down a steep slope. Ahead lies a road that weaves its way through hills of wispy grass and black trees twisted over like candy canes.
Once we reach a highway along the cliffs, Meeka points and says, “There it is.”
I pictured the hall as some enormous building like New York’s Museum of Natural History covered in vines.
I had no idea it’d be anything like this.
A series of gigantic arches soar toward the clouds and race off across the entire valley for mile after mile. I mean they’re huge. Incredible. Like the size of the Empire State Building.
Each arch is made of dull yellow stone that even from way up here looks worn and scarred, maybe a thousand years old. They’ve been constructed about five hundred feet from each other, and they’re connected by these monstrous intersecting beams like a trellis you’d see over a garden.
I can’t tell what the beams are made of, a brownish stone or metal, and I can’t see them very well because they’re mostly covered in thick blankets of vines.
But not just any vines.
These are way larger than anything back on Earth, with leaves the size of baseball fields and branches as thick as the trees up in the Highlands.
Even more cool are the colors—and I’m not talking about boring shades of green. The vines fade into various blues and reds and purples, with a few yellows and pinks and even an orange here and there. They all come together to form this spectacular living quilt. Meeka says if you stare at the hall long enough, the colors change because the vines react to the light, the wind, and the blowing sand.
Keane’s father would say that the vines used to turn dark brown or eve
n black to reflect the current state of political affairs within the government.
Meeka and Steffanie say they never heard that, but Keane swears his father saw it. His father told him the “mood of the arbors was always reflected in the vines.”
While they bicker over that, I stare through the windshield at clusters of smaller stone buildings with solar panels lining their roofs, rows of tents, and a fleet of buckets parked in ragged rows along the arches.
A much smaller archway, also covered in vines, extends about fifty feet from the first major arch. Keane says that’s the main entrance.
Nearby stand four more rectangular-shaped structures like warehouses. Two of them are currently being rebuilt from the remains of a third, and I catch my first glimpse of people down there. Workers. Hundreds of them.
“Looks normal,” Steffanie announces, staring through a pair of binoculars. “Lots of traffic. The usual. Like all the abductions in Violet never reached this far out.”
“That’s great,” I say, envisioning some doctors helping my father and Grace.
Buckets start passing us in the opposite direction, most of them overloaded with construction workers or the families of caravans that Meeka and Steffanie call out by name.
Within minutes we reach that smaller archway, and even before we climb out, we’re confronted by hordes of dusty-faced personas, maybe twenty or more who shout and wave all kinds of stuff.
I understand now. They’re traders from inside, and they’re selling everything from heavy blankets to weapons to bike parts. Their personas are like living billboards while their bodies remain at the shops inside.
Of course we attract even more attention from the beggars and spies and assorted armed drifters loitering outside, not because they consider us easy marks, but because we have six grren in our company who don’t want to eat us.
Sure, we debated bringing them because we knew this would happen. However, the hall is not the safest place—
Unless you’re walking around with a pack of grren.
While Meeka and Steffanie ward off the personas, I can’t help but lean back and stare at the nearest arch and that infinite tangle of vines. It seems higher than the clouds.
“What’re you? A tourist?” Keane asks, flicking me in the back of the head.
