by Anna Silver
Her eyes glanced over the top of several stacked boxes in the back of the truck. No telling what they’d find in there. Ernesto could have just about anything under the sun stashed away at any given time. People came to him for drugs, booze, scraps, weapons, technology, and a host of fake licenses and papers—which were the hardest of all to obtain. At least there was still room to squeeze a few bodies in there, though Avery might have to take Zen’s lap on the ride back. Not that he would mind.
Then something occurred to London that hadn’t before. Something big. Something serious.
If they managed to find Avery and rescue her, what then? They were wanted. Fugitives. Maybe Ernesto was the murderer, they’d uncovered that much, but he took his orders from higher-up. Everything pointed to the Tycoons themselves. Harlan thought so. And Tora. And Ernesto had practically said as much. Which meant there was always going to be a price on their heads. Even if they managed to stop Ernesto and his goons.
And what about the Otherborn? Taking down the Tycoons, “ending the tyranny of the Old,” if that’s what they were really meant to do, was not going to happen overnight. They would need time to think and plan. They’d need supplies. They’d need information. Where would they get that kind of stuff? Especially outside the city walls?
London shook off the myriad of worries blurring her mind like the storm clouds overhead, and refocused on the dwindling path. They’d managed to maneuver around the hog pit where Zen first fell. Now she needed to get them to the Ten, and the path was disappearing. The Outroaders wouldn’t have wanted it to be visible from the road. They wouldn’t have carved it all the way through to the Ten.
London spied a crushed gap in the encroaching brush and veered for it. It was clearly where one of the trucks had come through in the first place, leaving behind broken branches and smashed shrubbery. A downed building of some kind to the left had kept back the trees, leaving only a mass of weeds and brush around the concrete foundation. She let the guys push as she steered them that way. She could turn around in there, face front, and start this puppy up.
It took some doing, but they finally circled the truck around towards the direction of the Ten, which had to be just ahead. London wrestled the stick thingy into P position, like Rye had told her to do when they finally stopped. She scooted to the passenger window and leaned out, her heart dropping at the sight of the S and crown she’d so carelessly overlooked.
“Come on, boys,” she said. “We haven’t got all day. Hop in.”
“Who’s driving?” Kim asked.
Rye and London said in unison, “Me.”
“London, no. If anyone should drive, it should be me,” Rye said.
“Why?” she argued.
“Cause you’re sick and Kim’s a moron.” Then to Kim he added, “No offense.”
“None taken,” Kim replied.
“I’m not sick,” London hissed. “My idea, my keys, my truck. Period.” She pushed back over to the driver’s side as Rye opened the door and Kim climbed in, crossing her arms defiantly and stomping a booted foot up on the dash. She’d always wanted to be behind the wheel of one these things and she wasn’t about to give away her only chance.
Rye rolled his fox-colored eyes and climbed in on the other side of Kim. “Fine, but one screw up and you’re shoving over. Got it?”
London flashed him a sideways smile. “I won’t screw up. I may not have driven one of these before, but I’ve seen it done on TV. I know what I’m doing. Watch and learn, boys.”
London gripped the key in the ignition and waited for the signal flash. Lightning always struck before the thunder sounded, and they needed the cover of thunder to hide the rumble of the engine starting. Come on, come on, she thought to herself. Sure enough, a brilliant crack split the sky, striking a nearby tree and setting it ablaze.
“Whoa!” the boys said in unison.
One, two, three…she counted silently. Then, she turned the key. The truck rumbled back loudly as the thunder sounded like a massive snare drum in the heavens. She let go.
The engine wheedled a moment then settled into a contented purr, and London looked uncertainly at the dash and controls. “Now what?” she asked.
TWENTY-THREE
Crossroads
“Scoot over,” Rye said, exasperated.
“How do you know you’ll be any better than me? Just because your dad drove one and you can turn the key and move the stick doesn’t mean you know how to drive a truck.” London huffed.
“You’ll just have to trust me.”
London stared at him a moment and a flash of something strange ripped through her mind like quicksilver. An image, brief, but bold and vivid, of a circuit board of some kind, like none she’d ever seen. Pearly blue and copper, intricately laid out across a rippling surface. She couldn’t place it, not right away, but she had a hunch her Otherborn could. Was this a message from Si’dah? A message to trust Rye?
“Well?” Rye said, startling her out of her daze.
“All right already.” London scowled and scrambled over the seat to the back of the truck, parking herself on a double stack of boxes.
Rye climbed over Kim and settled in behind the wheel. He studied the gauges for just a moment, then grabbed the gear stick and pushed it into position, D. Slowly, carefully, the wheels began to creep forward.
“It’s going!” Kim exclaimed. “You must be doing something right!”
Rye laughed. “Let’s hope so.”
“We’re very impressed, but at this pace, they’ll catch us in no time. Come on, Rye, you gotta get this thing to move,” London urged.
“Okay, okay. Let me get the pedals sorted.”
A beastly roar sounded and the truck lurched forward.
“That’s it!” London assured him. “Keep it up!”
It took some doing, but eventually Rye figured out how to ease the truck steadily forward until they were rolling at a solid pace, picking up speed. It bounced over the uneven terrain on its oversized clown tires, plowing down the low growth in its path, like a trampoline on wheels.
“Just keep to this trail where they came through,” London directed.
In no time at all, a flicker of rain-soaked asphalt appeared between the trees. Rye gave the pedal a little punch and steered the truck to the right, out of the shrubbery and onto the sunlit path of the Ten.
“Look!” London tapped his shoulder. “That’s them, up ahead!”
Sure enough, Zen’s hulking form and Tora’s packed silhouette could be made out walking on the shoulder of the road.
“Pull up alongside ‘em,” London guided. She reached up and flipped a pink switch overhead, and the droning tinkle of Ernesto’s dying music poured out of the speakers into the afternoon air.
Rye brought the truck up next to their friends, initiating a brisk stop. Zen and Tora had begun backing toward the heavy underbrush but London rolled open the little side window, leaning casually on the stainless steel counter.
“Need a ride?” she asked, waggling her brows.
Zen broke into a wide grin, and Tora laughed in relief. “We didn’t know if it was you coming to save us or the Tigerians coming to get us,” she said.
“It’s good to see you, too.” London nodded, feeling a sudden and unanticipated warmth for her heretofore nemesis. Tora wasn’t all bad. There was a reason they’d come across her. She knew that now.
London swung the back doors of the truck open and held a hand out to the Outroader girl. “Welcome aboard,” she said. And she meant it.
~
They’d been ambling west down the Ten all day with no sign of where to go from there. The crossroads they found were overgrown with foliage or pitted and potted from neglect. Surely those didn’t lead to the Tycoons. And they were getting fewer and farther between. Tora explained that the paths the Outroaders used were seldom visible from the Ten because they didn’t want their campsites to be discovered. So there was no luck there. Aside from a few obvious game trails, nothing looked promis
ing. And they had no idea how long the truck’s tank of gas would last. They could end up stranded even farther from Capital City than they intended. Dusk was settling over the road, reducing visibility, and the storm had left behind a growing fog.
“If we don’t find something soon, we’ll have to stop,” Rye said, straining to see through the descending mist. “We won’t be able to see much longer.”
“Don’t the Outroaders know where the Tycoons live?” London asked Tora. “They certainly have a decent handle on where you guys are.”
“We have scouts. They keep tabs for us. But only the camp Elder receives their messages directly. Harlan would know where to find the Tycoons, but…” Tora turned her gaze back to her feet, her face suddenly sullen.
“But Harlan is dead,” London sighed.
“You said you spied on Harlan and his contact that day, the one who mentioned Avery, who thought she was a Sympathizer. You didn’t hear anything that might indicate where they’d taken her or where they are?” Rye asked.
“No,” Tora replied. “He wasn’t that specific. And at the time, Harlan wasn’t sure what it meant to the camp, if anything. He didn’t ask a lot of questions.”
“What about your Sight?” London pressed, certain Tora must be able to give them something they could go on. “It isn’t telling you anything? No hunches? No visions?”
“No. Not yet anyway.”
“Well, can’t you ask it or something?” London was aggravated and it was starting to show. She didn’t like getting this far only to end up feeling just as lost as when they’d first left the city.
“London,” Rye scolded. “Give Tora a break. This isn’t her fault. We decided to take the truck. We thought it would be faster.”
London ignored him and kicked a nearby box in frustration. It tipped but righted itself again. There was no telltale sound to indicate what might be inside. No clinking metal or thudding plastic.
“I’m sorry, London,” Tora said quietly. “It doesn’t work that way. I can’t control it like that.”
“She knows,” Zen offered from his post on a box near the back doors where he’d been hunched and silent, brooding over Avery’s fate. “It’s the same for us. We don’t control the dreams.”
“Not yet,” London muttered. She turned to the little side window, where Ernesto would greet his customers all over Capital City, using the truck like a mobile underground. She could see why the Tigerians had chosen these vehicles to restore and utilize. They were perfect. Big enough to haul all kinds of illegal goods. A window for making quick transactions or for shooting from behind the cover of the truck’s hard metal shell.
London slid the window open a crack and let her fingers touch the passing wind, the taste of fog damp on her skin, a night kiss. Forlorn, she pushed the window open more and leaned out a little, careful for the thwack of overgrown branches, feeling the humidity on her nose and cheeks, a strange Astral comfort. London closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, imagining she was Si’dah on the Midplane. So wise and knowing. Wondering if she would ever be like that. Wondering why the Otherborn had chosen her, such a rash and impulsive thing. Tempestuous. Sensitive.
Her lashes fluttered in the sticky air, and, for a second, she caught sight of something dappling through the gray twilight.
“Stop,” she said, searching the passing scenery for another glimpse of what she thought she’d seen. But the night air sucked her words away, and Rye didn’t hear from his seat up front.
Then she saw it again, racing to keep pace with the rolling vehicle, sliding in and out of the mist. It was the moth, trembling like a pale leaf caught in a twister.
“Stop!” London shouted.
Rye slammed the brake with too much force, sending Kim into the dash and Zen and Tora onto the truck’s floor. London smacked her head on the side, but she jumped up anyway, not caring about the purple knot surely growing there.
“What the crap, London!” Rye shouted. “Are you trying to kill us?”
“It’s her,” she shot back. “It’s Avery! I just saw her!”
“Where?” Zen scrambled to the window. “Where was she? On the road? Is she okay?”
“No,” London shoved at him. “Not her her. The moth her. I just saw it but…but now it’s gone.”
“God, London,” Rye growled. “Maybe it’s just a moth. Did you ever think about that?”
London glared over her shoulder at Rye. But Tora was at the window now, too, craning her head out to look up and down the road.
“No, it’s not,” Tora said. “It’s Avery. She’s found the way.”
She pointed a graceful finger just up the road where a wide turn-off could be seen. An aging sign, covered in an aggressive nest of kudzu vine, stood like a lonely sentinel at the near corner, its message erased by the elements. And perched upon it, on a wide, waxy leaf, the Luna Moth was softly flapping its wings.
When they first made the turn, it seemed like a mistake. Dense growth shrouded each side of the two-lane street, the kudzu draping everything in a runaway display of neglect. Surely the Tycoons didn’t live here, down this dark abandoned street to nowhere?
But then Rye noticed something, his analytical side picking up what the rest of them were missing. “Look at the street,” he said. “It’s black as tar.”
And it was. A long, jet streak cutting through the green and vanishing into the fog.
“It’s new,” he told them.
“Hey, you’re right,” Kim agreed. “There’s no sign of wear. No indentions, no potholes. Not even any old faded markings.”
“Like they just laid it,” Zen added.
“Covered it,” Tora corrected. “They recovered it.”
London stared silently, her chest filling with an urgent desire to turn around and go back. Back to Capital City. Back to the comfort and safety of the walls. Back to a life of tickets and rations and papers. Back to predictability. Safety. Everything the Tycoons were selling.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to see how the Tycoons lived anymore. So little was known about them. Who they were…how many. What they were exactly. When she was a kid, they used to swap stories in school about the Tycoons. Some kids said they were monsters. Others said they were robots. Some said they didn’t even exist. But then the parade of cars would wind its way like an uncoiling snake through the city to the presidential compound, windows like polished obsidian, impossible to see behind. And they knew something or someone was riding in those cars. But what? Who?
London slapped her hands over her eyes like a scared child, the panic overtaking her. “Stop, Rye. I don’t want to do this. I…I can’t.”
“What?” he almost laughed.
“I mean it! Stop the truck. I’m not going down there. I don’t want to.”
Rye pulled to a stop and turned around in his seat. “London, what gives?”
She shook her head, her face hidden behind pale, trembling hands. “No. I can’t. What if they’re not human? Did you ever think of that? What if they’re something else? Something horrible?”
Zen’s eyes widened. “But they have Avery.”
“I don’t care,” London spat. “Screw Avery. I don’t want to die for her. I want to get out of here.”
She felt like a cornered animal, wounded and petrified. The air in the truck was shrinking, she was sure of it. Or her lungs were. And they were closing in on her, the vines, her friends, the unknown choking and strangling her.
“London,” Tora said gently, carefully peeling away one hand then the other so she could look into her face. “Listen to me. They’re just men. The Tycoons are just men. I know this. All Outroaders know it. They want you to be afraid, so they keep themselves shrouded in mystery. It’s just a trick. They don’t want you to know what they’re up to, so they hide themselves out here away from the cities and the walls. Away from prying eyes. It’s a trick, London. A very good one, but just a trick.”
London stared at Tora with guarded eyes. Could she believe her? What did Tora really kn
ow?
Tora tucked a strand of dark, rebellious hair behind London’s ear. It was a tender gesture, something she remembered her mother doing years and years ago, before the booze and hopelessness settled over their lives like the fog outside.
“Think about it, London,” Tora said. “You’re the one who’s not human. It’s the Tycoons who should be afraid of you. And they are.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Phantom
“Okay,” London swallowed, straightening her shoulders and trying to sound brave. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Rye turned around and started the truck rolling again. London might be feeling better thanks to Tora, but everyone else still seemed on edge, the tension in the truck swarming with the questions they’d never asked before. The fear was palpable.
“Easy,” Tora advised Rye. “Go easy.”
“W-why?” he stammered, terrified of what the fog might be hiding.
“Wherever this leads, we can’t just go rolling in there. We need to see where they are then sneak in somehow, undetected. They have weapons, Rye. And guards. They work hard to keep Outroaders away from this place. Anyone. Everyone. Why do you think all the plants and farms are east of Capital City? Only our scouts get close. Only by stealth.”
Rye squinted, concentrating. “This damn fog. I can’t see a thing.”
“Well, with those lights on they’re likely to see you coming first. Better turn ‘em off,” Tora said.
“But then we’ll be totally blind!” he exclaimed.
“She’s right,” Kim said from his seat next to Rye. “Just go slow. We’ll be okay if we stay on this road.”
