Athel (8 page)

I need to find stronger material
.

Lukas
joins me and points the lens of his data feeder at the long droid leg. “You
know, we can use this thing.”

“Of course
we can. You think I’d leave it here to waste? It’s better than nothing.”

He takes
more pictures, then crouches and prods one of the joints, smiling. “Yeah. A lot
of cool stuff in here. Look at this ball-and-socket mechanism.”

I grab one
end and try to move it. “Stop drooling and help me carry it down. We’ll have to
figure out a way to tie it over Taeh’s saddle.”

We lift
the long piece of metal and haul it down to the bottom of the ravine. Kael
watches from his perch up on the wall of rock.

“Athel!”
Dottie calls me. “Come see!” She’s standing by the big boulder where I hinged
the trap yesterday and points a finger to the ground.
 

We settle
the droid leg on the ground and run over. A crimson stain sprawls at the base
of the boulder, forming a small, dried pool.

“What do
you think it is?” Akaela asks.

“Well,” I
start, not sure what to say. “It could be some kind of—”

“No,”
Lukas interjects. “It’s blood.”

Wes nods.
“Yeah. I’ve seen enough of mine flowing to the ground to know.”

“Interesting,”
Akaela says. “Because, you know, droids don’t bleed.”

She
squints and looks all snappish at me.

“Really?”
I retort. “Well, animals do. Could’ve been an animal caught in the fight with
the droid.”

Wes taps
on my shoulder. “Er. Maybe not,” he says, quietly pointing to Kael.

The bird
hops off his perch and dives down to the bottom of the gorge, something
flapping from his beak.

I whistle
and stretch out my arm. Kael perches on my shoulder and drops his find on my
hand. Everyone rings around me to see.

It’s a
piece of blue fabric soaked in red.

The same red that’s at the foot of the boulder
.

“Animals
don’t wear clothes,” Lukas observes with his usual lucidity.

Akaela
scoffs. “Great job, big bro. You got us in trouble again.”

Chapter Six

Akaela

I sit on the ledge of the sixtieth
floor and look away to the forest sprawling beyond the river. Kael sweeps in
and out of view as he circles the sky hunting for pigeons. Hot air blows in and
makes the long vines draping the walls sway. I grip the mysterious Astraca
cylinder in my hands and squeeze it.
 

The boys
are all in Lukas’s quarters, taking apart the droid’s leg. They’re so enthused
with their find they refuse to ponder the consequences of what we’ve done.
Somebody got hurt. There was so much blood by the boulder that I wouldn’t be
surprised if they lost a limb or even died.

Riding
back to the Tower the only happy thought I could entertain was the hope that
the blood belonged to Metal Jaw or his brother. But as we left the solar
fields, I spotted the two jerks sneaking out to the forest again, both of them
in one piece, not even a scratch or a bruise on their ugly faces.
 

Once we
entered our network, Lukas scanned our internal feed for news of any Mayake
missing or injured and found nothing. Nothing looked amiss here at the Tower
when we returned. No frantic mother screaming, no child looking for her parent.
A stillbirth was the only sad news in our bulletin today.

The boys
celebrated. No longer bothered by the pool of blood, they all scuttled to Lukas’s
place to work on the droid’s leg.

I refused
to join them. Come nightfall, one family will realize that one of their loved
ones hasn’t returned home. We collected all the pieces of wire, but I’m pretty
sure that if the adults open an investigation, they’ll find out what we did.
And this time Niwang—deactivation for good—will be unavoidable.

I wonder
about that. My deactivation button has been reset. It no longer works thanks to
a special chip my father implanted in my head when I was six. How would they
put me out, then? Shoot me in the face?

I squeeze
the cylinder and examine it one more time. Lukas claims I did remember its
location and that’s how I found it. He also believes that somewhere in my head
is another memory, the one that will reveal how to open it. That’s why he
agreed that I should keep it for now. I’ve racked my brains all day but come
back blank.

I inhale
and squint at the white sky, swirls of blanched clouds careening over the
mountains. Something catches my eye. The forest sprawls immense before me, and
toward the left a plume of gray smoke rises vertically from the treetops.

The brothers are back at it
, my first
thought. Yuri and Cal must have caused some big damage with their laser beam
weapon to raise a column of smoke like that.

I stand
up, my gaze straying across the vastness of the horizon. The breeze blows in my
face, calling me. I
have
to jump and
check out what happened. I secure the cylinder in one of my pockets, zip it,
and then whistle for Kael. The falcon appears moments later, his wings
elegantly flapping in the air. I follow his movements with my eyes, sensing the
currents through his trajectory. Then I take a few steps back, run, and jump.

I’ve been
gliding since I was six. My dad taught me. My sail, tucked away between my
shoulder blades, has become my second skin. Flying to me is like running for
Wes or crunching numbers for Lukas. Yet every time I jump, a shock of
adrenaline travels down my spine. I feel the pull of gravity and my heart beats
faster. I spread my arms and fall, wind whipping against my face until I ball
my fists and press the heels of my hands, making the glider frame pop out. The
sail swells and the thermals lift me.

Free
.

In that
instant when my fall stops and the winds carry me I finally feel free. No
constraints, no boundaries, no limits. Just me, my sail, and the whole world
spreading before me.

It’s never
as easy as that first moment, though, especially when I jump from the Tower,
where the winds could change quickly and slam me back against the walls. I have
to be quick, ride the thermal and not let it go until I rise over the building,
and the roof is only a tiny square in the distance. At about five hundred feet,
Kael swoops in front of me and the two of us glide in unison over the forest, the
treetops careening past beneath us.

The plume
of smoke is thinner now. Just a few of the gray swirls are left, barely
reaching above the trees. I tip my sail, lose altitude, and circle above the
spot. The vegetation is too thick for me to discern anything at ground level. I
drop in altitude, and by the time I reach one hundred feet, I realize I can no
longer rise. I’ve lost the thermals.

Stupid!

Dad always
warned me about gliding over the forest.

You lose too much altitude and you’ll be
forced to land,
he’d say
.

Except there’s nowhere to land in a forest
.

A sudden
flash bolts between the trees to my right. I steer and drop even lower, eager
to see what’s happening. Kael dips down and then soars again, swerving back to
the Tower. Whatever he saw, he didn’t like it.

Fifty
feet. I’m getting dangerously close to the treetops Dad warned me about.

I scan the
vegetation, searching for a spot to land. Birches are too thin, firs too thick.
I set my eyes on a large oak with robust boughs and tilt the glider toward the
target.
This is going to hurt
, I
think, but my brain doesn’t seem to care.

I can do this
.

When I’m
inches away from the oak, I close the frame and let myself drop.

The impact
is rough. Branches claw at me everywhere. I flail my arms trying to latch onto
something but the first bough I grasp snaps. I hit the next one with my hip,
fall off, but manage to grab the one below, my legs dangling in the void.

I catch my
breath and assess my situation.

The
closest branch is only inches below my feet and the one I’m holding is about to
give way. I sway, making it dip farther, and let myself down to the next
branch. As I drop, I brace it and latch onto it with my arms and legs. The tree
dips and then sways back but doesn’t break. Leaves and twigs rain down on me. I
close my eyes, hundreds of scratches, cuts and bruises suddenly burning all
over my body. I clench my teeth, willing the nanobots embedded deep inside my
nervous system to quickly release analgesic into my bloodstream.

A new flash
blasts in the distance and zips through the trees.

What the heck is that
?
Are those the laser beams
?

But if
they are, why is Metal Jaw wasting them like that?

Through
the branches I spot Kael’s black silhouette gliding high above the forest. If I
know him, he’ll keep looking for me for a few minutes longer and then fly back
home to the Tower.

I’m about
sixty feet from the ground, surrounded by thick branches and leaves. It’s going
to take a while to get down. I proceed slowly, cautiously assessing one branch
at a time with my hands and feet. As the nanoparticles of analgesic begin to
work, the soreness in my limbs burns away and I descend faster, hopping from
one branch to the next until I finally tumble to the ground. A sharp twinge
jolts up my legs as they hit the ground, but it’s soon dampened by the
painkiller. I get up and brush dead bits of leaves and twigs off my hair and
clothes. One of my shirtsleeves is slashed and my pants have holes at the
knees.

I’ll have to come up with some really good
story to tell Mom tonight
.

Not even a
bad fall from a galloping Taeh would justify my current appearance. And right
as I wonder about that, the ground starts shaking and rumbling. I stumble and
brace myself against the trunk of the closest tree.

Some kind
of projectile shoots out of nowhere and flashes right below me, sizzling twigs
and low vegetation as it zooms through the air. I blink and it’s gone, its
trail marked by a tail of smoke and the burnt tips of ferns. Thick black smoke
lingers in the air, covering the usual scents of moss and tree bark.

I wish I
could message Athel to tell him about what I’ve just seen, but our wireless
network doesn’t reach this far away from the Tower. Moved by curiosity, I
follow the trail of chipped bark and scattered leaves the flying object left
behind. It drilled a hole about a foot wide through the canopy of a large
spruce. On the other side of the tree, a rocket lies half buried in the ground,
the exhaust still hot and smoking. It’s small, no longer than three feet, and
dented all over.

I look
around, expecting to see Yuri or Cal make a sudden appearance, but the place
remains still. The leaves rustle. A few shy birds resume their chirping now
that the rumble has passed.

And then a
figure jumps out from behind the trees, grabs the small rocket and runs. It’s
all so fast I can’t even tell if it’s a man or a woman.

“Wait!” I
shout and give chase.

The person
has vanished, their steps so light and quick I can no longer hear them. I only
know one guy this fast, and even though the figure I saw looks nothing like
Wes, I call his name just the same.

“Wes?
Lukas? Guys?” I shout, thinking maybe the boys dressed up to play a prank on
me.

But I know
they’re all at Lukas’s place playing with robotics parts.

A thud
behind me makes me turn. A blow hits me so hard I bounce back and fall on my
bum. There’s no pain—my body still numbed by the analgesic released
earlier in my system—but my head spins and blood drips down my shirt.

Yuri
stands before me, his metallic jaw grinning eerily as he looks down on me.

“You
thought you were smarter than us, Freckle Face?”

Cal
appears behind him and spits on me. “Put her out, Yuri,” he screams. “Put her
out and leave her here to rot. That’s what traitors deserve.”

I slide
forward and kick Yuri in the shins. Before I can get back up though, he grabs
me by the hair and pulls me backward, forcing me onto my knees.

“Quick,
Cal. Push the button.”

I dig my
fingers into the dirt, fighting to get him off my back. Cal stoops down, blocks
my right arm and gropes for my deactivation button. He finds it and presses it,
and as they both wait for me to go limp, I grip a rock with my left hand and
throw it backwards. It’s a dumb toss, but the two are so shocked that my
deactivation button hasn’t worked that I’m able to wriggle away from Yuri’s
grasp and shove my elbow into his ribs.

My victory
is short-lived. Cal throws himself at me and pins me down while Yuri kicks me
in the stomach and legs.

“You were
spying on us again, Dirty Face,” Metal Jaw yells.

The pain
resurfaces, making me yelp. “If the rocket is for the Gaijins, why are you
hiding it?”

Yuri
swings back his leg to assess another kick and then freezes. “The—what?”

“Rocket.
She said rocket,” Cal says.

I shove a
knee into his stomach. Cal lets go of me, roaring in pain, but Yuri immediately
comes at me with his fist. I duck and he slams his knuckles into a tree.

Adrenaline
tells me to run. I sprint, and the cylinder I’ve been hiding in my pocket slips
out and drops on the ground with a soft thud. I press a hand against the empty
pocket and gasp.

Oh, no
.

The zipper
is ripped, likely torn while I was coming down the oak tree. I swoop down to
retrieve the cylinder, but Yuri’s faster. He grabs it, then raises his fist and
smacks me in the face.

I stagger
and double over, pain blinding me.

Metal Jaw
sneers, juggling the cylinder in his hands. “What’s this thing you were hiding,
huh?”

Cal waves
his hands up in the air. “Let me see!”

“It’s
mine,” I wheeze. “Give it back.”

Yuri
laughs. The pain from his last punch is too strong for me to react. I sink to
my knees, my body quickly giving in.

I close my
eyes and see Dad’s hologram. It’s just a memory, not a recorded message like
last time. Dad won’t be able to save me a second time. There’s that noise
again, the obscure rumble. I hear screams, feel the ground shaking under me.
The acrid smell of smoke fills the air. I open my eyes and it’s everywhere. It
infiltrates my nostrils, making me gag. I roll over and cough, pain seeping
through my throat and chest.

Something
soft flutters over my face. I squint and see a face peering at me through the
smoke. A girl, maybe. She stoops, grabs the rocket, and vanishes.

The rocket
!

I collect
my strength, willing my nanobots to numb me.

If I concentrate I can do this. Dad taught me
how.

I breathe
in and out, the pain slowly ebbing away, dampened by a new wave of painkilling
molecules released into my bloodstream. When I finally stand up again, the
forest has fallen back into silence. The girl with the rocket is gone, and Yuri
and Cal are nowhere to be seen.