by Nick James
I stare at the insignificant button. Tracked, all this time. “Disable it.”
She nods, twisting the button until it comes apart in two pieces. Inside is a thin round chip. She removes it and snaps it in half. “I was only doing what they asked.”
“Yeah.” I glance over at Avery. “Seems like a lot of that going around.”
Eva sighs. “I’m sorry, Jesse. Skandar and I begged Alkine to let us come down with the battalion. I want to help. I told him that we’d have the best chance of convincing you to head back to the Academy-”
“Wait,” I interrupt. “If you-”
“-but I’m not here to convince you of anything,” she continues. “We’re here to have your back. I promise.”
Skandar stares at the Pearl in my arms, laying his finger on top of the swirling energy. “Man, where’d you manage to get one of these?”
“I caught it,” I reply, keeping my attention on Eva. “So what’s Alkine’s plan now?”
“He was hoping to pick you up,” she responds. “I guess the Unified Party had the same idea.” She pauses. “Wait a second, did you just say you caught it?”
I nod.
Her eyes widen. “Alkine was right. There is something different about you. Back at Lookout Park… that was you, wasn’t it?”
Before I can answer, Avery swears, cradling her forehead.
Skandar glances at me. “What’s wrong with her?”
I lay my hand on her shoulder. “Headache again?”
Avery nods, speaking through clenched teeth. “They’re getting worse.”
Eva frowns. “Why is she down here, anyway?”
I rub Avery’s back. “She knows what’s going on,” I mutter, “from Madame’s side.”
“From Madame’s side?” Realization dawns on Eva’s face. “Wait, she’s a spy, isn’t she? I always thought there was something going on there. Flunked out of the program, yet you know how to hack into our com-pads.”
“She’s not a spy,” I lie. “She’s my friend, Eva. Drop it.”
Avery runs her hand through her hair, managing the pain. “I work for Jesse,” she whispers. “No one else.”
Eva nods. “Then I guess we have something in common.”
Skandar elbows my side, grinning like this is all some fun little game and I’ve just won them both as prizes.
Eva sighs. “How did you find out about Alkine, Fisher?”
“Air vent,” I say. “Your little closed-door meeting wasn’t as secret as you thought.”
“Then you saw how much it was killing me to do it, to follow you around like I was your mother. I swear I didn’t know anything. Alkine asked me to protect you. I thought it was some sort of mentor thing.”
“Yeah,” I reply. “Well, I don’t need your protection.”
She nods. “We’re going to Seattle, I assume.”
Avery takes a deep breath. “What’s left of it.”
“Alkine will follow us,” Eva starts, “with or without the tracer. Watching your path so far, he realizes what’s happened. He knows that you know. He’ll try to stop you from doing something stupid.”
Avery scoots closer to me. “With those cruisers dropping out of the sky one after another, he might not have a chance.”
“He’ll get there,” I say. “It’s just a matter of who gets there first. We’ll need to-”
A voice interrupts me, words I’ve never heard before, swirling around my head. Whispers. I close my eyes and try to focus on the sound. There’s no one else in the trailer. A string of nonsense echoes around me.
“We’ll need to what?” Eva asks. “Jesse, are you all right?”
I set the Pearl on the ground between my knees. The whispers stop. Everything’s quiet. I open my eyes. Everyone’s staring at me.
I glance around the trailer, then place my hand on top of the Pearl once more. Whispers again. Nothing but cryptic babble. I lift my fingers from the surface. Silence. Somehow, the voice came from inside the Pearl. These things just get weirder and weirder.
“I’m fine,” I mutter.
“Oh!” Skandar digs through his pocket, “I almost forgot.” He pulls a chain necklace from inside and drops it into my hand. Attached is a silver key. I run my finger over the curved metal head. It’s the same as the one from my dreams.
Eva clears her throat. “I swiped it from Alkine after the meeting. It’s important, I think. He always talks about it when he’s mentioning Seattle.”
I hold the chain between my fingers, allowing the key to hang above the Pearl, glinting with the reflection of the wavy green light. “Thanks.”
She shrugs. “I told you I was on your side.”
I pull the key up into my fist, clutching it tightly as our van speeds out of the city and toward the mountains. “We were so close to finding answers without the Academy.”
Eva sighs. “The Academy’s not your enemy, Jesse.”
“Yeah,” Skandar says. “Alkine’s worried sick.”
I scoff. “Alkine doesn’t get worried.”
Eva nods, her eyes pleading with me to understand. “I know. And that’s the scary thing.”
I bow my head, getting lost in the Pearl energy, and try to convince myself that everything’s fine. But I can’t ignore the cruisers back in Lenbrg, or Cassius’s grim determination to find me. This isn’t just some fancy scavenger hunt amidst the ruins. There are weapons involved. Armies.
I should be worried. I should be mass worried.
39
Cassius laid on the accelerator, propelling the sports car up the side of the mountain pass. He’d found a gun under the passenger seat and used it to snatch a canister of water and a quick meal from a pair of Fringers on the outskirts of the nearest town. He’d dumped the guy’s body from the trunk as well. Less weight in the car.
Now he sped along a narrow road between miles of dry forest, much of it blackened by continual fires. The Northern Cascades-once a lush, snow-clogged drive to Seattle, now a thinning forest fire waiting to happen.
He felt strange sitting behind the wheel of a car. The warm breeze pushed against his face through the half-open window. Families used to take trips in automobiles before the Chosen Cities-radio blasting, hands sticking up out of the sunroof. Now everyone crowded onto the Chute system, except those lucky enough to afford a shuttle of their own. Driving felt all right. Freeing.
He drank from the water canister before dropping it onto the seat beside him. The motor puttered up the steep incline. He prayed it wouldn’t give out entirely. Still, if he had to get out and push the fraggin’ thing, he’d do it. The sooner he got to Seattle, the sooner this nightmare would be over.
Suddenly, he saw movement in the forest ahead of him. He slowed down slightly, peering out the dust-caked window.
Then, a heavy whoosh. The trees crashed to the left of his car, bending forward to let something through. He watched as a large, dark shape flew through the forest up into the air, casting a shadow against the hood of his car.
He slowed to a stop as a boulder the size of an oven smashed into the pavement, fracturing the already busted road and nearly pancaking the front end of the car in the process.
The trees settled back into place, swaying gently in the breeze. All was quiet and still.
Breathing hard, he stared at the giant rock blocking the center of the pathway up the mountain. He looked at the sky, half-expecting something else to fall. But the boulder hadn’t come from the heavens. People had done this. He wasn’t sure how, but he wasn’t alone on the mountain.
He grabbed the gun from beside him, surveying the woods.
Nothing.
With one hand on the wheel he backed up, swerving to the left. Shifting gears, he curved around the right side of the boulder, darting his head from window to window.
Halfway around the rock, a gunshot rang out from the forest and nicked the corner of his bumper.
He sped up immediately, rocketing around the boulder and back onto the road. A second shot shattere
d the passenger window. Glass spilled onto the seat. He ducked, car weaving as he tried to stay on the road with one steering arm and limited vision.
He glanced at the rearview mirror and watched as several gangly figures bounded out from the trees onto the road, running after him. He kept his head low and stomped down on the accelerator, flying up the hill as fast as the car would take him. The figures fired shot after shot, some of which hit the back of his trunk. Others ricocheted off the pavement. He longed for one of the government’s concussion grenades, or even a proper shotgun instead of the peashooter he held now.
He kept a constant, breakneck speed, whipping around a cluster of dying trees before straightening out once more. Then he saw it, half a mile ahead, stretched across the road. A wooden barrier. It was at least a foot thick, with two words carved in jagged marks on the bark. Cascadia Territory. It’d crush the car no matter how fast he was going.
Two choices: stop the vehicle and defend himself, or off-road it.
He glanced over to the right. The forest ended, replaced by a vast rocky basin-an evaporated lake, no doubt.
Without giving himself time to reconsider, he swerved to the right, flying off the highway and down to the basin. The car was airborne for no more than a second before smacking into the dirt. Hard.
His chest bashed into the wheel as the front tires bounced on the rock, but he managed to keep control and steer the vehicle safely into the basin. Once he was level again, he gunned it, kicking up dirt and rock as he sped onward-a tiny red insect in the middle of a massive, empty hole in the Earth.
Lucky for him, the Cascadians hadn’t booby-trapped the basin. The chances of someone being reckless enough to try and steer their way through the uneven landscape were too slight. But Cassius had exploded twice in the past week. Nothing was too reckless anymore.
He took a quick right to avoid an outcropping ahead of him, which led him up a mound of rocks that sent the car flying through the sky once more. He landed with a crash, bumping his head on the ceiling.
Once he was a mile beyond the barrier, he headed back for the highway, climbing up over the gentlest slope he could find and tearing through the backyard of what used to be a ski cottage. He rejoined the roadway at a downward slant. Beyond was the West Coast. Within minutes, he’d be off the mountain.
No more bullets or boulders. He’d made it, though the small victory didn’t mean much. The mountain pass would be nothing compared to Seattle. Things were going to change down there, one way or another.
He watched the speedometer soar until he was in triple digits again. The Cascadians were long behind him. He didn’t look back.
40
After an hour of driving over relentless potholes, our van slows to a stop. The inside of the trailer reeks. In all the run-for-my-life excitement I didn’t realize the smell until we were about twenty minutes out of town. It’s like a skunk took a bath in two-month-old milk. Once we get out of here we’re gonna smell like this for days.
Even worse is the heat. It’s like a dark, smelly sauna. We’re breathing each other’s air, leaving puddles of sweat on the already dirty trailer. A meager stream of air flows in from the cracks in the doorway. I need someone to let us out. Like, now.
The van slows to a stop. I hear footsteps approach outside, then a soft muttering from up front.
“It’s the Cascadians,” Avery whispers.
I nod. “Bobby said something about a toll. We better not be part of it.”
Eva and Skandar exchange confused looks, but don’t press us for information. I steady the Pearl with my ankles, making sure it doesn’t bang against the metal and make any unnecessary noise. “If Barkley opens the door and turns us in, then we run. No questions… just bolt into the forest.”
Eva smirks. “Look who’s giving orders now.”
We wait and listen. I hear George’s voice, but the words are muffled. There are at least two others outside. One is a woman.
The conversation lasts a few minutes and ends with the slam of a door. The engine rumbles. I breathe a sigh of relief. Getting over these mountains is the first thing that’s gone right all day.
Skandar stretches his arms. “Anybody else think this place needs some in-flight entertainment?”
“Here,” I hand the Pearl to him. “Hold this.”
He cradles it in his arms, staring at the radiant glow coming from within. The van lurches forward. We’re heading down.
“I don’t know what we’re gonna find in Seattle,” I start, “but if you really wanna help, the best thing you guys can do is cover for me if Alkine shows up.”
Eva shakes her head. “He’s not here to stop you, Jesse. The cat’s out of the bag.”
“Has he told you anything? About a lab?”
She shrugs. “Listen, what you heard at that meeting is all I know. As far as I can tell it’s all he knows, too.”
“There’s a lab,” I mutter. “I saw it in my dream.” I wind my fingers around the chain necklace. “It’s where I was given this key. I think it happened right before Alkine found me. I remember Seattle, covered in mist.”
“The chemicals from the bombings,” Avery interjects.
I nod. “And I remember the lab. Everything in between is blank.”
“So you’re going to try to find this place?” Eva stares at the key lying on my chest. “You think it still exists?”
“It’s all I’ve got to go on,” I reply. “Maybe the key opens the door. Maybe there are answers inside. Why else would I be remembering it now, after so long?”
Skandar frowns, holding the Pearl in front of his face. “Meanwhile, there’s gonna be a whole army of Pearlhounds looking for this thing.”
“I’m not worried about them.”
Eva laughs. “ Jesse Fisher not worried about an army of government soldiers? Do I need to remind you about what happened back in Syracuse? And that was just one of them. A trainee, no less.”
“Yeah,” I start, “ that was back in Syracuse. Besides, you’ll hold them off.”
“Hold them off?” She grimaces. “What do I look like, a freaking tank?”
Avery scoots closer to me. “You owe him, Rodriguez.”
“For what? For saving his butt for nearly three years?” She crosses her arms. Apparently the generous, guilt-ridden Eva has left the trailer.
“For lying to him,” Avery responds.
She rolls her eyes. “Coming from you, that’s rich.”
Skandar darts his head around the side of the Pearl. “I never lied to you, mate.”
Eva sighs. “That’s because you’re incapable of lying, Harris. It would require a level of self-awareness that’s completely beyond you.”
He glares at her, confused.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “If you’re with me, be with me now. We’ll talk about everything else later.”
“If there is a later,” Eva mumbles. I pretend not to hear her.
Other than the occasional attempt to get a conversation going, we spend the next hour in silence. My mind attempts to formulate some sort of a plan, but it’s impossible. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into. If there’s a lab-if there’s anything -I don’t even know where to look.
And all the while Skandar plays with the Pearl like it’s some kind of toy. I know what’s really inside-a concussive force strong enough to flatten an army. I’ve seen it happen, triggered by my own hands. I’d never heard of a Pearl exploding before last night. These things have been poked and prodded, dropped off buildings and transferred to reactors, but never once exploded. Until I caught one.
The van comes to a sudden halt.
We freeze, careful not to make a sound. My heart thumps double-time, urging my body to get out of the tight space.
I hear the driver’s side door open and shut in one motion. We’re here. We must be.
Someone shouts, followed by a flurry of voices. George’s isn’t among them.
I press my ear against the wall. Just like back on the mount
ain, the individual words are too muffled to make out.
A loud blast rips through the air. The trailer wall vibrates with the echoing sound. I stumble backward, slamming my elbow on the metal.
Then it’s quiet again. I listen for George’s footsteps to come around the side. I wait.
Nothing.
Instead, the voices come back, murmuring at the front of the truck. The hairs on my neck stand on end. Avery squeezes my arm, sensing my tension.
Footsteps make their way from the van’s cabin to the side. Suddenly, I realize that we’re trapped. There’s no way to open the back door from inside the trailer. If this is who I think it is, then we’ve just cornered ourselves. Big mistake.
The footsteps tread around the van until they’ve reached the back door. I hear breathing, followed by the jangling of keys. The lock turns and clicks open.
We scoot back as the door rises, a crack at first. Even with my heart in my throat, I relish the breeze that streams in from outside. Polluted Surface air has never felt so amazing.
But as the door continues to pull open, my worst suspicions are confirmed.
This isn’t George or his son. It’s not Alkine.
It’s a mini army of soldiers wearing Unified Party combat gear.
They’ve got guns.
And they’re pointing them directly at us.
41
The soldiers’ faces are shielded by government gas masks, their bodies hidden behind thick, genderless uniforms. They’re completely anonymous.
The ones in front reach in to grab us but the leader motions them to stop, stepping forward and extending a gloved hand.
“The Pearl. Surrender it.” The voice sounds robotic and alien from behind the gas mask.
I glance over to Skandar, who clutches the green orb close to his chest.
“Count of three,” the soldier warns. The mass of weapons beep and whirr as they lock onto our chests. “One… ”
I turn to Skandar, motioning for him to toss the Pearl to me. He shakes his head. “I’m not letting them have it.”
