Range

by JA Huss

  Go invisible, Junco!

  "I can't," I croak out. "HOUSE has that power!"

  Sera appears in front of me now, pulling me to my feet. "God, you are more trouble than you're worth. Do you really think—"

  Another bolt of plasma flies past us, the arc reaching out to grab my arm, and I start shaking uncontrollably.

  Sera drops me back to the scrub and turns.

  I have just enough time to see the red fire she is emitting from her eyes before her rage turns into a crackle of electrons.

  Electricity is pulled from a nearby power line and she wields it with the authority of Tesla himself. I duck my head, partly from the pain of the plasma burn and partly to avoid the dancing electricity.

  Everyone else follows suit and the firing stops.

  Teleport now, Junco!

  I fling myself again and this time the tunnel is short and the landing quick. I crash into the side of a boulder next to a giant red rock, my shoulder flaming with pain as I look around to see how far I got.

  Not far.

  I laugh a little. Not far at all. About a hundred yards. Sera is gone now and the small troop of attackers are running around in a panic. I wait for them to see me but they are aiming at something else now. A cloud of dust and dirt is heading straight towards me from the east and I squint my eyes to see what it is.

  A vintage HumVee. Like the Goat.

  The armed men, who I am unable to identify by uniform but who might be Desert Republic soldiers, are following the racing vehicle on gravs.

  Frantic screaming comes from the vehicle and I try and dial up the vision to see what's up.

  A girl, it looks like. Flailing her arms out of the driver's side window.

  She's screaming my name.

  I try to get up and wince as the blood leaks out of the wound in my side, then crack a smile as I realize who the crazy girl is.

  Selia!

  I stumble over a few large boulders and half limp, half run towards her. She gets about fifty feet away, turns the wheel and skids sideways in the sandy dirt, then grabs a high-powered rifle and climbs to the back of the vehicle and starts spraying bullets. I reach the vehicle and take her place at the wheel.

  "Drive!" she screams.

  The engine is idling so I throw it into first and the tires spin for a fraction before finding traction, and we lurch forward. I shift again, and again as we pick up some speed.

  I look back at my friend.

  "What the fuck is going on?"

  "Go north, Junco! We gotta get out of the Utopia!"

  Oh shit. The Utopia soldiers do not fuck around if you're in their country illegally. I shift again, press on the gas, and we bounce along the uneven desert scrub. I come straight up out of my seat when I take the dozens of prairie dog holes at more than a hundred and ten miles per hour. I groan as I land hard on the seat and Selia curses at me in the back, but I'm preoccupied for a fraction by the pain in my side. My right hand reaches down and comes back sticky and red with blood.

  I take my attention back to the road as the whine of grav bikes catches up with us and Selia starts shooting again.

  "Get over the border, Junco! We gotta make the border!"

  I can see the border. It's not that far away actually and I'm pretty fucking sure we're gonna make it. But the problem is that there's lots of soldiers over on that side of things as well.

  "Those guys friendlies, Sel?" I scream at her.

  "No!" she comes back with. "You gotta port us somewhere far, you got it, Junco? Somewhere far!"

  "What the fuck? I just learned how to do that like five minutes ago, ya know! I'm not a fucking exp—"

  "On three!"

  "On three, what?"

  She stops shooting, throws the rifle out the back window and then climbs up into the front passenger seat. "Port us!" She's flush with adrenaline, her face red and her eyes racing. "Right now!"

  "This does not sound like a plan," I say back to her. But I have no time to wonder because they are shooting at us from the front now too.

  "One!"

  Oh shit. Tier is gonna kill me. So bad.

  "Two."

  We are only about fifty yards away now and I push down on the gas as we gain some speed. Bullets fly by my head as plasma fire reaches out to grab the metal chassis and the entire truck is electrified as Selia screams—

  "Three!"

  I tap her shoulder like Lucan and Tier do to me and pray to God she'll come along for the ride as I fling us forward.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  We fling forward in silence and I have a fraction to experience relief that Selia is indeed next to me. I can feel the tunnel more than see it this time, and I instinctively know that when the light becomes brighter the fling will end, so I concentrate on going faster, keeping the tunnel open, elongating it.

  I only get a few second into practicing this new skill when we abruptly exit and roll in a jumbled heap until we crash into something relentlessly hard.

  Another boulder?

  No.

  The hard thrum of music is interfering with my thought process as my hearing comes back.

  I recover before Selia. She's shaking uncontrollably next to me even though the sand we're lying on is still rather warm from the sun that is still disappearing behind a relatively small mountain range.

  "Sel? You OK?"

  I push on her shoulder as her teeth chatter together and she manages a stiff, "Yeah, just great. Where did we end up?"

  I look around. The hard thing we crashed into is a large truck and the music comes with party laughter.

  "I think we're at a party or something."

  She props herself up, her teeth chattering beginning to fade. "Who the fuck would have a party in the middle of the desert?"

  I have no idea. It's all beyond my realm of worldly experience. We landed between two parked trucks actually, and when I crawl on my hands and knees to peer out behind the one closest to us, I realize it's a makeshift parking lot of sorts. There are people stumbling along and I have a small moment of panic that they will see me, but it dissipates when I realize they are all pretty fucked-up drunk.

  I slink back to Selia who is sitting up now. "We're definitely at a party. They've got lights and listen…" I point my ear up towards the sky to show that I'm listening. "A generator to power it all."

  Selia leans over and pukes.

  "Gross, Selia."

  She spits and drags her hand across her mouth with a snarl. "You're one to talk, you puke all the time."

  "Yeah, but that's different. Anyway, what do we do now?"

  Selia considers this for a fraction and then shrugs. "We get a ride to Vegas. We're meeting Irin there. And maybe Lili, but she's such a bitch, Junco. I cannot even explain it. Everyone makes fun of Ashur for being a piker, but shit. That girl has a stick so far up her ass she's ready to scare crows."

  "Huh." I shrug back at Sel. "She saved my life back in Runout, so I gotta like her. Sorry."

  Selia stands, wobbles a little, then shrugs off her backpack and starts to untie the sparkly gold halter top she's sporting. Her bottom half is a micro mini made of leather.

  My eyes follow her tanned legs down to her high heels.

  "Selia?"

  She's fussing with the spaghetti ties that wrap around her waist now. "Huh?"

  "Did you just go into a firefight dressed like a whore?"

  "Shut up and gimme your shirt."

  I"m shaking my head when she flips my arms up and yanks my sniper tee off my body.

  "Shit, Selia, you really gotta stop undressing me like this."

  She stuffs her shirt in my hands. "Now put that on and take off your pants."

  In the end I'm the one who looks like a whore and Selia has on my sniper tee, although she's cut the sleeves off and made it shorter so her belly button shows, her black mini, and my combat boots.

  I'm wearing that ridiculous gold halter and it barely covers the bandage Sel slapped over my side to stop the bleeding. I figu
re that wound is no big deal since I'm an Archer now, but it doesn't hurt to be prudent.

  I also have on her high heels and she's cut my perfectly good avian light armor pants into shorts that practically go up my butt crack.

  Selia grabs a brush out of her pack and starts tugging on my hair, then separates it out and begins to braid it up like how Lili wears hers. The plaits run down the side of my head and the end in two long tails that drop in front of my chest.

  "My hair is so blonde," I say, picking up the tails that trail down my chest.

  Selia grunts as she twists the ends together in a hair tie. "Yeah, and your eyes are pure blue now too. What's up with that?"

  I shrug. Like I would know. I'm always the last to know anything around here.

  She finishes and steps back to look me over.

  "Well," she huffs, "it will have to do."

  "Thanks a lot, Sel. Way to make a girl feel special."

  "Oh stop, Junco. You're amazing. I was talking about your disguise, you dumbass."

  Oh.

  I take a few hesitant steps towards the dirt alley between the parked cars. "I can't walk in these heels, Selia. Trade me."

  "No, Junco. People will associate these field boots with the military and we need them to see you as anything but military. Besides, they're not heels, they're wedges."

  I shake my head at her. "The fuck are you talking about?"

  She squeezes my lips together and paints on some bright red lipstick. I just roll my eyes. "I'd really like to know what your plan is, Sel, because if you think I'm gonna fuck strangers to get something, I'd rather just kill them."

  She lets out a little laugh before she can lock it down. "Junco, we just need a freaking ride to Vegas. Just be pleasant and follow my lead, we won't need to do anything, but we have to look like we might. We just need a ride."

  "If you say so, but if they touch me I will not be responsible for—"

  "You will not," she emphasizes, "kill anyone tonight, Junco. If you do we'll blow everything. If we didn't need to be careful and avoid detection I'd just steal this fucking truck and we'd be on our way. But we need a ride that cannot be traced, understand?"

  I wave her on.

  Whatever.

  Like she's the grand pooh-bah of tactical war games or something. I'm the queen of war games. Hell, I'm the Goddess of War Games.

  She grabs my arm and pulls me along with her towards the throngs of people, clustered around a raging bonfire. The September night is a little cool, even for the desert, and my serious lack of proper clothing makes me long to stand next to it.

  People start staring almost immediately and this makes me nervous. What if they recognize me like Cora did?

  If Selia feels my apprehension she doesn't let on. If Gideon was here he'd be calming me right now because I'm not that great in crowds, and crowds of young people that require talking are really not my thing.

  My breathing starts to speed up and Selia stops.

  "Knock it off, Junco. It's a goddamn party for fuck's sake. No one cares about you, they're here to drink and screw. Got it?"

  I nod. I guess she's a lot more like Gideon that I thought.

  She leads us into the crowd and the throbbing music that was just a minor annoyance back where by the truck is now pounding in my head.

  We weave in and out of various small social groups, then stop briefly to grab some plastic cups of beer near the keg, before continuing our circulation.

  I taste the beer and spit it out all over some girl. Nasty. The girl gives me a death look and I growl at her.

  "Sorry," Selia says as she pushes me to move away quickly. "Junco, come on, work with me here. I cannot find us a ride and babysit you all at the same time." She stops us and turns around. "OK, I found some possibles. Don't look now, but the two guys over my left shoulder… fuck, Junco! I said don't look!"

  "Those guys standing over by the fire?"

  "Yeah, are they looking at us?"

  I shrug and look behind me to assess the possibilities, but no one else is even close to us. "How should I—Oh, no, wait. Yup. They are. He's motioning for me to come over to him."

  Selia fluffs up her hair and says, "Ready?"

  I wave her on. "Do your thing, Sel. I'm gonna head to the fire and get warm, I'm freezing my ass off here."

  Regardless of what anyone tells you, the desert at night is almost always chilly and I'm practically naked, so I can't get to that fire fast enough.

  We walk in that direction and just as the tall guy who was motioning to me starts to talk I circumvent him and continue walking. I hear Selia explain my behavior. "She's mute, don't mind Abi. So what's your name?"

  I laugh internally because Selia must've finally run out of lies to explain why I'm not allowed to talk to people. I make my way over to a little log and cop a seat. It's a little close to the fire so I turn my back to the flames and look up at the stars.

  And sigh. My stars.

  I have no urge to count at the moment and I take that as a very good sign. This has been one of the better days since I was brought out of the morph. It's a lot like life in the old days—constant action and excitement. I've sorta missed it. Hanging out on a tropical beach is fun for a day or two, but it's boring.

  Soft footsteps behind me make me jump up into a ready position but it's just the tall guy I was avoiding before.

  "Ah," he says. "Then you're not deaf as well?"

  "I'm not a mute, either. She tends to lie a bit." I sit back down and continue my survey of the sky.

  "Mind if I sit?"

  I shrug. "Mountain Republic is still a free country, right? Sit if you want."

  "Not interested in the party?"

  "I'm cold, that's all."

  He walks out in front of me a few paces and then takes a seat on a small rock across from my log. "Your friend back there told me your name, but I'm not interested in her lie. So, you wanna tell it to me? Or should I guess?"

  I look him in the face. He's got sandy blond hair from what I can tell and the firelight dances across his face in a way that creates shadows over his eyes, preventing me from seeing their true color. He's wearing a white tee shirt and a pair of jeans with those sneakers that are so popular in the Utopias. He sorta reminds me of Gideon with his looks.

  "Go ahead and guess."

  He drags his hand through the loose dirt for a few seconds and then looks up at me through the hair that partially covers his eyes. "Junco."

  I'm not surprised, not really. "So what do you want?"

  He straightens up at my questions. "Who says I want something?"

  "So you're just here to what? Check up on me? See how I'm doing? Give me a break. Just tell me what you want, OK?"

  He stares at me and I meet his gaze. It's pretty intense, enough to make me want to pull my eyes away, but I force myself to hold steady. "Maybe I should introduce myself first? Would that work?"

  "Hey, it's your party. You can do it—"

  He grabs my shoulder and we are… somewhere else. It's not space, because there are no stars. It's not a ship because there are no walls. It's… it's just nothing. Nothingness.

  I take a breath and swallow down the fear. "Typically a name will do."

  He lets go and turns me to face him. "I am Caleb. Do you know who Caleb is, Junco?"

  There are probably millions of Calebs in the world but I know exactly which one he's talking about. "A spy."

  He exhales a rush of air in an obvious sigh of relief. "Yes. Well done. I had my doubts about your father's early training methods but I guess those were unfounded. Continue."

  I stare at him as these words sink in. "My father? What the hell does he have to do with anything?"

  "Later." And then he prods me on with a slight wave of his hand.

  "A spy who went above and beyond his call of duty to report back accurate intelligence to the Hebrews when they wanted to invade Canaan."

  The description of Caleb slides off my tongue with ease, a result of my rather e
xtensive recall training as a child. RR Sunday School was an endless barrage of memorizing passages and descriptions of every important person and act in the Bible. I went for fourteen years and never missed a day if you don't count my periodic bouts with insanity, and considering that I have a near perfect photographic memory of anything written, this recitation is not difficult.

  "Nice," he says as his eyes sparkle with pleasure. "Those marks on your back, do you know what they mean?"

  I shake my head.

  "Try."

  "Archer scars, I guess."

  "They are the mark of the Fallen, Junco. You have been claimed and marked by Inanna for Lucan. And this will not work for us. It's unfortunate the way it turned out, and I'm sure we're not the only ones who are disappointed, but it cannot be undone, I'm sorry."

  I blink at him.

  "I'm Caleb and all I want is the truth so I can report back accurate intelligence. So tell me, Junco—who do you answer to?"

  I know this answer as well, it was part of my Sunday school training along with the freaking Bible bullshit, but I suddenly have to urge to go off script. "Gideon," I say with satisfaction. "I answer to Gideon."

  He sighs and turns his back to me for a moment as I take a small bit of pleasure in his disappointment. "But you made your promise back in the Runout valley, Junco. Surely you remember that?"

  Wait. "What?"

  "Was Gideon saved or not?" He turns back and his eyes dart back and forth, searching mine for answers.

  "You know he was."

  "So, I don't understand your confusion. You begged for his life, said you'd do anything, remember?"

  I will do anything, God.

  Anything.

  Just save my friend.

  "Gideon's powers come from us, Junco. So his survival is our gift to you."

  I close my eyes and admit defeat. I prayed for his life to be spared. I should've known there'd be strings. I should've known. "I remember."

  Caleb smiles and seems pleased with my admission. "You must not enter the Pillar with anyone else. Especially Gideon, Junco. Do you understand?"