“How would you even move her?” Pol demanded. “You can’t just haul her around in your arms.”
“With this,” Bee said. He moved toward us from the front of the pod. He pulled a meter long, thin pouch out from a loop on the side of his pack. “We get sick and hurt sometimes too.” Bee removed two long rods that were connected tightly together from the thin pouch. He knelt in a clear space on the pod floor. “Watch.” He pressed a button on one end of the rods, then set the rods down flat. They immediately extended, growing to double their length. A click sounded and they rolled apart slightly. Bee took a rod in each hand and pulled them apart. A thin, tough-looking cloth opened between them.
“It’s a stretcher,” Bee said, “so we can carry the ill with us.”
“That’s blaze,” Pol said. “And it’s strong enough to carry a person?”
“It would carry Scott here,” Bee said with a smile.
With Pol distracted by the stretcher, I walked toward the front of the pod. James had taken my spot in the copilot seat. I filled them in on what we’d decided.
“I don’t like it,” Melisa said. “But you guys are right.” She’d been flying us west. “Do we know where they’re going to be?”
“Scott doesn’t want to tell us,” I said, “but we’ll find a way.”
“Track him,” James said. “I’m sure there are trackers on the pod. Probably in the little compartment back there by the—”
“No. We’re not tracking the Wanderers,” I said. “I trust Scott. We’ll figure it out.” I called Scott over. “Okay, we agree. Now tell us where to take you.”
“Good.” Scott went up to give directions to Melisa, and I went back and sat next to Lexi.
I took Lexi’s hand. Tasha was dribbling water onto a clean cloth and wiping it across Lexi’s forehead. “Lexi, it’s going to be okay. The Wanderers will help.”
Lexi squeezed my hand a little.
“You saved those Wanderers. That kid, Wally? He’s going to remember you forever. He might even want to marry you.”
Her lips stretched in a small smile. I kept up the stupid chatter, trying to make sure she didn’t go unconscious.
“Let us out over there please.” Scott pointed out the front of the pod. I strained to see. He was pointing past one of many clusters of ruined buildings. I couldn’t help but notice how destroyed the roads here were—nothing like the flat, clean roads I ran away from New Frisko on. I wondered why they were so different. Maybe some roads had been made stronger than others.
We’d been flying for nearly an hour since the fight and hadn’t seen any sign of other Ranjers. The pod’s top speed was about a hundred kilometers per hour, but we could go even faster because we didn’t have to dodge around buildings or rivers.
“Already?” I gave Lexi’s hand a gentle squeeze and joined Scott.
“Yes. With this machine, you will arrive in San Francisco by the end of the day. You do not need us anymore and we should have Lexi to a healer before nightfall.”
“You have to tell us where you’re going to be. We have to know where to find you.” I held his eyes with the firmest stare as I could produce. “We have to know.”
“You can find us right where you drop us off. Three days from now.” He stared out the front window of the pod. His voice was rough and tired. The long scratch on his arm had darkened to a crusted brown line.
“Is that a promise?” I asked.
“Of course.” Scott turned away. “Please let us out down there. It’s time for us to go.” He said the last part to his triune.
“You could stay and help,” Pol said.
“We will not,” Scott said. “That is not our way. We are not killers.” He threw a glance at Lily. Or at least at the top of her head. She was still bent over.
I glanced at Melisa. She frowned at me and shook her head. Oh come on. I’m not gonna say anything. Even though he was calling us killers, too. It was like Tasha had said: sometimes you just have to do what’s necessary. But I could imagine what Scott was feeling. Wanderers were supposed to be peaceful—kind of separate from the world. He’d had Devera refuse that life just a few days ago and now two of his triune had fought back. That had to be world-changing for him.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I knew this wasn’t my fault, but it seemed like the thing to say.
Scott turned red-rimmed eyes toward me. His cheeks above his beard were wet with tears. “I do not blame you, Nik. I thank you for what you and your friends were willing to do for us.”
The pod’s whine changed pitch as Melisa put us down. “I’ll keep the power on. Keep the sensors active.”
“Got it.” James made sure the sensors were scanning and went to the back of the pod to help the Wanderers. The pod door opened. The smell of vegetation and clean air immediately filled the metal interior.
Bee appeared next to me, his long, thick hair tied in a tight bundle that hung down to his back. “See you later, my frien’.” He stuck out a hand.
I shook it, and suddenly remembered something. “Wait, what about the day the music died?”
He nodded. “I forgot to tell you, didn’t I?” He licked his teeth. “It’s like this. The music died twice. Once when these musicians crashed in an airplane.” He squeezed my shoulder. “And the other, and worst time, was when Bob Marley passed on.”
“Who’s Bob Marley?” And what musicians? I wondered if Bee’s strange accent was making me hear things he wasn’t saying.
“Oh, my frien’, I wish I could show you. One of the greatest musicians ever. And the best man.” Bee cocked a half smile at me. “If you get lucky and find us again, I’ll play you some music.” He stepped lightly out of the pod. I watched him go. How was he listening to music? I’d left my digital reader in my house in New Frisko and hadn’t heard anything like music in months. I counted the Wanderers gathering under some nearby trees.
James had stopped beside Lily and they were talking. She had tear tracks on her cheeks. Scott helped the other Wanderers get off the pod. I walked back to Lexi and helped Pol, Jenny and another Wanderer move Lexi to the stretcher. She moaned a little.
“Do you have any painkillers?” I asked Jenny.
“Tasha might,” she said. She and the other Wanderer lifted the stretcher. Pol and I followed them out, staying on either side of Lexi.
Tasha stood outside, keeping a lookout. She waved at me. Scott went back into the pod, I guessed, after Lily.
I repeated my question to Tasha.
“A little,” she said.
I helped her find a good injection spot on Lexi’s neck. Pol, Melisa, James, and I surrounded the stretcher.
“Lexi,” Pol said, bending close to an ear. “We’ll see you in a few days. Stay strong.”
Her mouth worked, but no sounds came out.
“Don’t talk. Just heal up,” James said.
Melisa leaned in and said something in Lexi’s ear. Lexi’s lips stretched in a smile.
Just stay alive. Get better. I took one of Lexi’s hands. “You’re going to get better. You’ll be walking patrol by the time we see you again.”
Scott and Lily emerged from the pod, and Scott turned to me. “Nik, I can’t say this has been entirely a pleasure. But I thank you for your quick actions back there.” He extended a hand.
I took it and squeezed. “Thanks for your help.”
“We will do all we can for Lexi,” Scott said.
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded. “Continue west. You will see a large—huge really—swath of deteriorating buildings at ridiculous heights. Then there will be a bay of water with more land on the other side. If things have remained unchanged since the last time I was there, you will be able to see two immense arches, red from corrosion, collapsed into the bay—but still visible. They’re not curved, though. More square.”
“Metal arches in the water?” I tried to imagine what that looked like.
“From a bridge, I believe.”
That made sense.
/> “The real city of San Francisco is across that bay. I believe this Grove street will be there.” He turned to go. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Melisa led the way back into the pod. I watched Scott join his triune. James stood at the door of the pod, and it looked like he was watching Lily, who was talking to Tasha. More like arguing. It was good to see life back in her face. Lily went over to Scott and the triune.
I nudged James. “Is she going to be okay?”
He glanced at me. “Yes. She’s really strong.”
Then the Wanderers were shouting. I jerked and ducked. Ranjers!
But it was Lily. She was yelling at Scott. “Of course I didn’t like it. But it was right! I saved most of our triune!”
Scott said something too quiet for me to hear. He pointed at the stretcher that held Lexi.
“I’m sorry, but this is what I have to do.” Lily hugged Scott. He wrapped his long arms around her. She pulled away and turned to the gathered Wanderers. “I’ll see you again.” Then she spun and ran back into the pod.
“What?” I stared at her.
Lily forced a flat smile. “I’m coming with you. I’m going to fight.” She lifted a keeper. “Who’s going to teach me how to use this thing?”
Chapter 18
We spotted San Francisco two hours later. I’d passed on Scott’s instructions to Melisa and we knew we’d arrived when we came to the edge of an unbelievably huge city. How had so many people lived in such a tight amount of space without going crazy? Maybe two or three thousand people had lived in New Frisko, but millions had lived here.
A huge, blue field spread beyond the city. Spam. That’s the ocean.
“Bug me,” Pol whispered. “I thought our city was big.”
“For real,” Melisa said.
The undulating swath of grayish blue stretched as far as I could see, meeting the clouds in the sky who knew how many kilometers away. The sun had lowered enough that it almost touched the edge of the water, making a shimmering gold reflection that rippled outward.
“You’ve never seen the ocean?” Lily sat on a bench toward the back of the pod. She was tinkering with one of the keepers in the pod.
“Never had the chance,” I said.
Melisa guided the pod toward the ocean. “Let’s take a look.”
“You might want to not do that,” James said. “If the pod goes down, do any of you know how to swim?”
“How hard could it be?” Mass displacement and buoyancy weren’t that hard to understand. “You just lie down in the water and move your arms.”
“Ever done it?”
“No.”
James smiled. “Want to take the chance that you might not be able to figure it out in hundred-foot-deep water?”
I chewed on a lip. “Good point.”
He laughed.
Lily joined in. “That is a good point. Swimming’s much harder than you might think.” She came to the front of the pod. “That water looks peaceful, but there are currents and waves and you would panic within seconds. And then drown.”
“Sounds fun,” Pol said.
“Sure, until you’re dead,” Lily said.
I stepped closer to her. “Have you ever been here?”
“No,” Lily said. “Been to old Mento, but not here.”
“But you’ve been to the ocean?”
She nodded. “Most of our gatherings are on big beaches south of here.”
“That’s where Scott and the others are headed?”
She nodded again, getting quiet. This had to be hard for her, leaving her people. As far as I could tell, she didn’t have any family, but from how Devera and Scott had been together, it was like the triune was a big family. Memories of nights with my parents in our plain gray home in New Frisko came back to me. Dad’s quick jokes and Mom’s better ones. I closed my eyes briefly against the pain in my throat. Please be okay.
Melisa angled us back around and flew low, taking us into the city. It was a massive space filled with huge buildings that were falling apart from the edges in. One building looked like it had been more than a hundred meters tall before, but now it was just a crumbling center with corroded beams protruding from the middle of it—where the top part had fallen in. Green carpets of grass and all kinds of other plants covered some of the smaller buildings and even reached up taller ones, like the plants were trying to pull the buildings down.
Pol was the first to spot the things that Scott had called arches from the collapsed bridge. They protruded from a wide bay that separated two sections of the city. They were not arches; they were just massive intersecting metal beams.
“Okay.” I pointed across the water to another section of city. “Scott said he thought Grove street was in there.”
“That bridge was huge,” Pol said. “That’s pretty impressive.”
“Pol? A little focus?” The kid was smart, but he got distracted too easily.
“So how do we do this?” Melisa asked.
“You’ll have to set us down,” James said.
“Yeah, we’ll do a ground search,” I said.
“Maybe we split up?” Lily suggested.
“Why would we do that?” Pol asked. James and I looked at him, wondering what he was talking about.
Lily glanced at me, a question on her face.
“Seriously? You don’t know?” Pol asked. He really could be frustrating sometimes. We continued looking at him. He’d get to the point eventually. “Wow, okay. We can set the pod sensors for pattern recognition and widen their search radius. Then we just fly in a controlled, methodical way. The sensors will do our search for us.”
“The sensors are going to find a word written on a sign?” James asked.
“Yes. They’re all cameras, basically.” Pol sucked in a breath. “So, the heat sensors are lenses that focus the infrared light that pretty much everything puts out. Then that focused light is scanned by elements that create a—”
“Pol, we believe you,” Melisa said from the cockpit. “Just come do it.”
Pol crossed to the copilot seat with a slight limp, his old ankle injury exacerbated by the most recent battle, and sat. While he worked, I watched the city through the front window. Unrecognizable heaps dotted the roads. I wondered if any of them had human remains. We hadn’t seen any yet in the junked old cars we’d passed. Would these be any different?
“Is old Mento like this?”
Lily was leaning close, watching the city unfold outside the pod. “Pretty much. Smaller and a lot less water. Less hilly too.”
Melisa took us in a loop around the city. Something felt wrong. There were roads, or what was left of them, intersecting everywhere, covered with debris of all sizes. Everything was layered with thick green plants, dirt, and sand. After a minute, I finally figured out what was missing.
“No trees?”
“No flooding either,” James said.
He was right. The ground looked dry. I looked closer. “Scott said the city was flooded. It’s not.”
“Maybe the water dried up,” Melisa said.
Lily looked back and forth between the rest of us, but kept her silence, a strange smile on her face.
“Got it,” Pol said. “Sensors are ready.”
“What do I need to do?” Melisa asked.
“The scanners are strong, but we’re asking them to recognize letters on a sign that we don’t know the size of. I had to amp up their sensitivity, which meant I had to steal some of the power used for distance.” Pol noticed our bored expressions. “Right, fine. Start at one side and fly down each street from one end to the other.”
I studied the city. “Bug me, there have to be hundreds of streets!”
“Yeah, but it’s better than walking the whole way,” James said.
I glanced at the horizon. The sun was more than halfway cut off by the ocean. “It’s getting late, and we need to find somewhere to sleep for the night. We can start the search in the morning.”
“Good point,” Melisa sa
id. “I saw a building back there that was just a bunch of layers of empty concrete with space between them.”
“What?” I tried to imagine what that looked like. “Empty concrete? What’s that for? Who would live there? Or work there?” I looked at James.
“I have no idea.” James shrugged. “That’s bizarre.”
“Mento’s got some of those. Never got close enough to figure out what they were for either.” Lily had a thoughtful expression.
“I’ll put the pod down on the top layer. Plenty of space to put this thing,” Melisa said. “Plus we’ll be able to see anyone coming from up there.” She banked to turn and we held on.
“Might want to be careful,” Pol said. “Could be too old and weak to hold us.”
“You might be too weak to hold us,” Melisa muttered.
I snorted a laugh, but held it mostly back. Pol sometimes seemed like he thought other people couldn’t use their brains.
Pol ignored her. “Why not just land on one of the streets?
“I don’t know,” Melisa said. “High ground seems safer?”
“Safer than what? Not getting crushed as the building we’re on collapses?”
“Animals? I said I don’t know. I just think high ground is a good idea.” Melisa pointed out the window. “See? There.”
The building was fat, squat, and totally confusing. She’d been right; it was eight floors of empty concrete. Wide, open spaces of just concrete. Walls came up halfway on each side of the building, letting us see all the way into its center. Was it an unfinished building?
All of us looked closely. “It looks like it hasn’t collapsed at all,” James said.
“Mento’s full of buildings that aren’t falling down.” Lily waved at the city outside the pod. “They built some of them strong back in the day.”
“Yeah, looks strong to me,” I said.
“Because you’re a structural engineer?” Pol said. “And you know solid buildings when you see them?”
The setting sun cast deepening shadows on the concrete. Melisa turned on the external lights of the pod, angling them toward the building. “Are those ramps leading from level to level?”
Push (Beat series Book 2) Page 12
