by Kate MacLeod
“Runaway,” Ken said. “I left home . . . four years ago?” He stopped working again and his eyes rolled up and to the side as he counted back. “Yeah, four years. Wow. Seems like longer. Or else just yesterday.”
“Yeah,” said Scout, who had similar feelings about the time since her family had died.
“I was living in the alleys of the capital city.”
“That’s tough,” Scout said.
He looked up at her and arched one eyebrow.
“I deliver messages and packages by bike,” she explained. “I avoided the capital, but when I had to go, I always made sure to have a place to stay. How did you avoid the nightly street sweeps?”
“At first, I didn’t,” Ken said. “I was put in juvenile detention about a dozen times. The city patrols are vigilant about catching homeless kids and locking them up, as it seems you know, but the guards at the lockups are far laxer. It’s super easy to escape, especially for a kid with skills like me.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone escaping before,” Scout said. “Although I guess the kids I talked to about what it was like inside, they must have gotten out somehow.”
“Most get sent back to their families and run away again,” Ken said. “Some that escape use that story for cover.”
“That makes sense,” Scout said. “Is it as bad as they say? Inside?”
Ken stopped working again, raising and lowering the hand that held the ratchet tool as if testing its weight. “It can be,” he said. “The worst is that it’s so random. There is no way to follow the rules and avoid punishment. It’s impossible. The rules keep changing, and some of the guards just like breaking kids.”
This time when he turned back to his work, Scout noticed a silver line meandering across the back of his head, visible through the close-cut black hair. A scar. From what? Those days in lockup?
He would probably talk about it if she asked, but some stories she’d rather not know. “Did you ever think about going back and busting the others out?” Scout asked instead. “Fresh recruits for the rebellion?”
“We don’t really have the sort of operation that requires lots of manpower,” Ken said, but he flushed when Bente shot him a furious glance. Apparently, he had just said too much again. Scout moved closer as if to inspect Ken’s work. She wanted to know what sort of operation they did have. What exactly did they do besides steal and fight bandits? She was about to speak again when they were interrupted.
“How’s it going?” Tucker asked as he sauntered into view. He directed his question at Ken but his eyes were on Scout. She stepped back from Ken. With those bright lights it was impossible to know how long Tucker had lingered in the dark, watching her firing questions at Ken.
“Should be done pretty quickly here,” Ken said, glancing at Bente, who nodded her agreement. “This has got to be the oldest rover I’ve ever seen—I can’t believe it’s still rolling and not in a museum—but it’s been lovingly maintained.”
“Nearly done, good. I really should get going,” Scout said.
“At this hour?” Ken asked, looking from her to Tucker.
“I have someplace to be,” Scout said. She too looked at Tucker. “You promised. Dinner, repairs, then I was free to go.”
“I did, but—”
“It’s not happening,” Joelle said, her voice echoing through the canyon before she even appeared from between the floodlights. “No one is leaving. Not tonight.”
11
No one moved for a long moment. Bente had just packed up the tools in their box and was about to carry them away, the massive container Scout doubted she herself could lift with both arms dangling easily from one hand as she turned to look back at Joelle. Tucker was scowling and rubbing the back of his neck. Ken looked confused but tried to muster a friendly smile when he saw Scout looking at him.
Joelle had stopped as soon as they could see her, standing with her arms crossed and a don’t-mess-with-me look on her face.
Scout was quite prepared to mess with her.
But before she could speak, she heard the sound of running sneakered feet and many dog nails scratching rapidly over the hard earth. Reggie appeared from between the lights behind his sister, the dogs close at his heels.
Scout felt a momentary stab of jealousy at how quickly her dogs were bonding with this kid, but it melted away when first Shadow and then Gert spotted her and they both charged forward to jump all over her. They had suddenly found her gone, and judging from how furiously their tails were wagging now, they had assumed the worst.
“Calm down, you guys,” Scout said, but they kept jumping until she dropped to her knees to hug them both at her sides. The movement made her chest hurt. She was going to have to take a look at that spot where her ribs met her sternum before she went to bed. As tender as it felt, she was sure it must be very purplish black.
“Gert caught four more rats,” Reggie told her. “And Shadow got five, so they’re tied.”
“That’s a lot of rats for one evening,” Scout said.
“She tosses them up like they’re toys, but have you ever seen him shake a rat?” Reggie asked, his eyes wide.
“I have indeed,” Scout said. “And things bigger than rats.” Then she looked up at Joelle. “So what do you mean, it’s not happening?”
“It wouldn’t be safe,” Joelle said. “Not for us—we never open the gates when we see movement in the canyon on our sensors. Certainly not for you. Armored as this rover is, the bandits can penetrate it in a heartbeat.”
“But there’s nothing worth stealing inside of it,” Scout said.
“Believe me, that will just make them angrier after they fight their way inside,” Joelle said.
Scout let go of her dogs and stood back up. Tucker was watching her with that same earnest look in his gray eyes he always had, like he really wanted her to just accept everything so they could go on to being friends or whatever. Joelle, standing with her arms crossed, didn’t seem to care whether Scout believed her or not. The gate wasn’t going to be opened either way.
“Can I see this sensor movement?” Scout asked.
“No,” Joelle said. The stern look on her face said she was never going to bend.
“It’s just until morning,” Tucker said to Scout. “The repairs are done now. As soon as the sun’s up, you can go.”
“I can go?” Scout repeated. Joelle, expression unchanging, nodded. “I guess there’s nothing more to be said, then.”
“You won’t leave without saying good-bye?” Reggie asked. “You have to come wake me up. I don’t get up real early usually, but I want to say good-bye to the dogs. Promise?”
“We’ll say good-bye,” Scout promised. She didn’t think that would be a hard promise to keep. She’d have to wake someone up to let her out, after all.
“We have extra beds,” Tucker said, pointing back over his shoulder with one thumb. He seemed to be indicating a second floor over the one she had seen.
“No thanks,” Scout said. “The dogs and I are used to sleeping in the rover.”
Which was a complete lie. They had never slept in there. But she knew she’d feel safer with the door shut firmly between her and everyone else, even this crew that were more than strangers and yet still less than friends.
“Okay. Sleep tight, then,” Tucker said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She told herself to ignore the obvious disappointment in his voice. She would be leaving in a few days anyway, right? Now was not the time for trying to make new friends. Particularly not these friends.
“You too,” Scout said as coolly as she could manage and gathered Shadow up in her arms to set him inside the rover. Gert tried to follow, but although her front paws could reach the bottom of the doorway, her back legs lacked the strength to get herself up and inside. Scout bent and lifted up her back end until she could squirm the rest of the way herself.
“It was good meeting you,” Ken said. “Sorry we wrecked your rover, but it was a pleasure to put her back tog
ether. She’s a cool piece of history; it’s a shame she can’t stay. Good night.”
“Good night,” Scout said, then leaned to the left to look around him at Bente still lingering with that heavy toolbox in hand. “Good night, Bente.” Bente blushed and sketched a sort of salute, then turned and walked away. The floodlights kicked off again before she had taken more than a few steps and Scout was once more plunged into darkness.
She climbed up into the rover and shut the door behind her. She found her away to the bunks by touch then turned on the light in the wall over the pillows of the bottom bunk. The dogs were already there, curled up together at the foot of the bed, noses overlapping. Exhausted from the hunt, she guessed.
And yet she wasn’t ready to sleep yet. She took off her sun-protective shirt and let it drop to the floor next to the bunk as she squirmed out of her boots. She hung Gertrude’s belt and her father’s hat on a hook near the head of the bunk. Then she padded stocking-footed to the little lavatory and pulled down the neckline of her tank top.
Oh yes, a very nice bruise indeed. That would take weeks to even start fading to yellow. She probed it with her fingertips and, as much as it hurt, she didn’t think she’d cracked any ribs.
Lucky her.
Scout went back to the bunk, but she still wasn’t sleepy. She put Gertrude’s eyepiece over her left eye, then pulled the blank tablet from her belt and ran her fingers over the featureless surface where her eye saw buttons.
Liam had gotten her message about the body. His only response was to resend his last message. MEET ME with time and coordinates.
Scout put away the tablet and the eyepiece with shaking hands. Seriously? That was all he had to say? He never answered her questions or acknowledged what she said or did. What was with this guy?
Did she have any chance at all of getting off Amatheon? And what about the data disks hidden deep in her pocket? She was certain the information they contained was dangerous, but to whom? What could she possibly do with them that wouldn’t make everything on the surface and up in space infinitely worse?
Scout pulled her knees up to her chest and pressed her forehead against them. It had been a very long day, and the headache that had been fading in and out since she had nearly died of oxygen deprivation days before was stronger than ever. Not to mention the constant ache from her chest. She was exhausted, but she was going to have to calm down before she’d get any sleep. Letting the same unanswerable questions race around her mind in endless loops wasn’t going to help anything.
And yet. Why had Tucker been at the con man’s house? If he had gotten there on foot (why hadn’t he taken one of the motorcycles or the jeep?), he must have started out the moment the storm stopped. What was so important that he had to get there so quickly? And yet after she had arrived, he had seemed so blasé. The man he had come to see was dead, and he hadn’t seemed surprised or frightened or even so much as inconvenienced. Why?
And was there really something dangerous lurking just outside the gate? Was Joelle being honest with her or not?
For that matter, had Ken and Bente actually fixed her rover or only pretended to? She had watched their every move, but she knew nothing about repairing anything more complicated than her own bike.
Scout groaned aloud. She was so tired of questioning everyone’s motives from every possible angle as if her life depended on it. She could never be sure of anything. Better to be prepared for everything.
And the best thing she could do right now was get some sleep. Everything else could wait until morning.
With that thought, she put the tablet back on Gertrude’s belt hanging from the hook in easy reach of the bunk. Then she took off her cargo shorts and let them drop to the floor where she had left her boots, socks, and sun-protective shirt. Then she slipped under the sheet and blanket.
Shadow immediately got up and crept to her shoulder, then pawed at her until she lifted the sheet and blanket and let him crawl under to curl up against her belly. Then he settled back to sleep with a soft sigh. Gert sighed as well, putting her head on Scout’s ankle and a paw on her foot before drifting back into slumber.
It felt like Scout’s eyes had closed only for a minute, but suddenly she was wide awake again, staring into the darkness. Something was moving. Something large.
The gate.
Scout slipped her feet out from under Gert and climbed quietly over Shadow. If they woke they’d be barking, and she wanted to avoid that. They were tuckered out enough to prefer to go on sleeping provided she didn’t jostle them too much. The two rolled closer to each other to fill in the gap she was leaving behind as she crept away. Good.
She hissed softly when her bare feet hit the cold floor of the rover but quickly pulled herself up into the top bunk. It was cluttered with crates of loose engine parts and broken electronic devices, but there was just enough room for Scout to snake through to the back wall. There was a small window, low and narrow. She pressed her forehead to the glass as she peered out.
It was still full dark out there, nowhere near sunrise. The gate slowly swung until it was halfway open, then lurched to a halt. The ensuing silence was broken by the soft sound of a motor approaching.
Bandits? Sneaking in with the rebels completely unawares? Somehow she doubted Joelle was running such a sloppy ship.
Something was definitely approaching, but without light and at this point without a running motor. Scout found the lever that opened the window, only a few centimeters but enough to let in a bit of fresh air and whispers of sound. Her ears could faintly make out a soft grinding: tires over the baked earth of the canyon floor. No engine now, although she had heard one before.
Whoever it was, they didn’t want to be seen. They were rolling in, dark and silent. But was it friend or foe?
12
The jeep that rolled into view was not as heavily armored as the other vehicles parked in the canyon nook, but the design was similar enough to feel like it belonged here. Scout let out a breath of relief; not bandits. The jeep had no extra guns but someone had added plating to the exterior, particularly in the front, where it came to a point intended to ram—or more accurately stab—other vehicles.
Scout couldn’t make out the driver, but a man in the passenger seat was standing, one hand on the roll bar, looking behind them as they came in the gate. He looked older, with a short ponytail of silvery-white hair and many scars crisscrossing the sun-damaged skin of his massive arms. Some looked like burns, others more like the result of some sort of blade. A warrior’s arms. He turned to look forward again and Scout saw eyes the same deep, clear blue as Bente had. He must be her uncle. What was his name? Ken had said it. Right, Arvid.
The moment the jeep was clear, the gate started to close with a low rumble.
“What the heck is that?” Arvid asked, gazing up at the rover.
“Visitor,” Joelle said as she walked out of the dimly lit equipment room to the still-rolling jeep. The driver braked the jeep with a lurch and then stood up to climb out of the door. He landed on the ground in front of Joelle. This had to be her father. He towered over her, but their skin was the same deep shade of brown, and her no-nonsense body language and stern facial expression were a miniature of his.
“Visitor?” he repeated.
“Someone Tucker ran into this afternoon,” Joelle said.
“Tucker,” her father said. “Figures. This isn’t the time to be bringing strangers around.”
“I know. He had reasons, I guess.”
“Tucker was supposed to go see McFarlane,” he said with a frown.
“He did. McFarlane is dead.”
“Dead? How?” But before Joelle could answer, he took a step closer to her. “Did he get my stuff first?”
Joelle shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. He’ll tell you but he won’t tell me. He certainly seemed to be empty-handed. Anyway, with our visitor, we’ve been careful. It’s just one girl, and she’ll be gone in the morning. I didn’t want her leaving at night, maybe dra
wing attention to us. Since the storm ended we’ve been seeing a lot of motion in this area. Some of it is really close to us. I guess the bandits are getting hungry.”
“It’s not just bandits,” her father said. “War is coming. That’s starting to become obvious to everyone. It’s making people anxious.”
“Nah,” Arvid said with a shake of his head. “They don’t know. It’s just the storm. After a doozy like that one, lots of folks are starting to see the benefit of gathering in larger groups with better shelters.”
Joelle’s father stiffened, his whole body tightening up much like Shadow’s did when he saw something he wanted to chase. Or to fight. Apparently Joelle’s father didn’t like to be contradicted. Arvid, digging in the back of the jeep with his back to the others, didn’t notice his reaction, but Joelle did. Scout couldn’t see her face well enough to make out any expression, but she took half a step forward and touched her father’s arm to get his attention.
“Did you find her?” Joelle asked. She looked past her father to Arvid in the jeep. There was no sign of another passenger, unconscious or otherwise. “Did you at least find what we need?”
“No,” her father said, but some of the tension eased out of his body at her touch. “Arvid and I found her car and followed the tracks to some sort of underground compound, but someone had set off enough explosives to cave the whole place in, probably just this morning. If she was in there, she’s surely dead now.”
“Did you find her body?” Joelle asked.
“Not yet,” her father said. “We’ll have to go back with more people and more equipment. It’s going to be a lot of digging.”
Scout bit her lip. She was very afraid she knew exactly who these men had been looking for and what they had found. Or rather, what they hadn’t found.
They wanted the data disk. Ruth, the governor’s daughter, had been taking it to the rebels. Scout didn’t know what was on it; she only knew Ruth had risked much to get it out of her father’s house but then had hesitated to follow through with her plans. She had worried that bringing it to the rebels wasn’t the right call.