by Michael Ford
Apana seemed a master at working the truck through the terrain. He simply revved harder if they got stuck or rolled the steering wheel around a clump of roots—or the spore sacs or a carcass of a giant bat, its leathery wings constricted in the grip of a slimy branch of thorns. Its great white eyes were slowly sucked into the ground.
Soon the jeep broke out into light on the banks of the island. They arrived shortly at an old boathouse on the shore.
“I used to love sailing on Lake Washington,” said Apana. “All water sports were my thing, but it’s a bit cold for surfing around here and no waves, of course! Waterskiing. Now that’s a rush. It used to be that on a good day, there’d be hundreds of boats out there.”
Staring out over the mist-covered expanse of stagnant water, Kobi found that very hard to imagine.
“Ah, here we are.” Apana’s boat was a twenty-foot sailing vessel. It too was covered in a film of dusty black spores.
They exited the truck, and immediately Kobi felt a swell of panic rise up and the voice of the Waste louder in his ears. Come back. Come back to us. . . . He saw strange movements under the water. Hallucinations. He blinked, ignoring them. Apana, unaffected, led Kobi along a dock toward the boat. “I haven’t taken the Nurturer out for a spin in twenty years, you know. But I must say I am glad to see her again. And look: not even any mold. I suppose the concentrated Waste kills it too fast. Remarkable, isn’t it?”
Keep a clear head, Kobi told himself as his heart raced and his eyes went moist with the toxicity of the air. Kobi had to help Apana on board. Though he didn’t know a thing about sailing, he followed Apana’s instructions, and they were soon tacking slowly over the water under a light breeze. It felt good to see the island retreating behind him into the mist. Hendrix was conserving power, resting beside the tiller—Apana said the GrowCycle drone’s charging capacity had dipped over the years, and he couldn’t find any compatible battery cells or fix the ones currently installed.
They followed a bearing given by the drone, aiming for the last known location of Asha and the others—and almost as soon as the far bank was in sight, Kobi spotted a small fire on the hillside above.
“There they are!” he shouted.
Asha must have sensed him because she came running down to the shore with Fionn and Yaeko behind her. Apana ordered Kobi to turn into the wind and lower the sails, and he dropped the anchor.
Asha stared around at the water, clearly checking for danger, then waded out to the boat. “Kobi! What happened? Are you okay? Where did you get the boat?”
Kobi grinned and with one heave hoisted her over the gunwale and on board. “Yes to all of those questions. Except ‘what happened,’ and you’re never going to believe me when I answer that.” She hugged him. Yaeko scurried up on deck and gave Fionn a hand up.
“We thought you were dead!” Asha said to Kobi.
Even Yaeko looked pleased to see him, tapping him awkwardly on the arm. “Back from the dead, Caveman. You know you really took us by surprise when you jumped overboard. Bold move. We thought you were toast.”
“I would have been,” said Kobi. “If it wasn’t for him.”
Apana stepped out from the back of the boat, making the others jump in shock. “Meet Dr. Alan Apana,” said Kobi.
None of the Wastelings moved an inch. Apana gave a small smile. “Greetings.”
“The Alan Apana?” said Yaeko. “The guy who caused all this?”
“I can explain that,” said the old man.
“It was Melanie,” said Kobi. “She caused the Waste disaster. She was about to be fired from GrowCycle and switched GAIA 2.0—the one that worked—with an old, failed version, which turned into the Waste. Apana didn’t have any idea what she was planning.”
Asha’s eyes shone. “A working GAIA?”
“Hales was right!” Kobi answered, grinning. “GAIA 2.0 really works—I’ve seen it with my own eyes. That garden from the GrowCycle commercial was real. It filters Waste naturally. It’s the cure! Think about it. A way to cleanse the Waste from the environment so once people are treated with the cleansers, they’ll never get reinfected. We’ve been thinking about it all wrong. The cure isn’t just a vaccine. It’s a way to purify the entire world!” Kobi explained Apana’s plan to use the Space Needle to broadcast their message to everyone with a CLAWS app, and Asha, Fionn, and Yaeko nodded, taking it all in.
Apana began to remove his bio-suit. “It’s a clever plan. But it does rely on my not keeling over.” He coughed. “You don’t mind administering a dose of the Horizon to this poor old man? Otherwise this suit will slow me down. Not that I can get much slower.”
“Of course,” muttered Asha.
She prepared the dose, passing the syringe to Apana. As soon as he’d administered it, his face glowed. “I feel better than ever!” He sniffed the air and looked around. “It really is remarkable to be out here.”
Kobi saw Asha tensing her jaw in anger. He knew what she must be thinking. It wasn’t remarkable for the millions the Waste killed. Melanie might have caused the Waste disaster, but Apana had played a part too, even if it was unintentional.
“How do we avoid the Snatchers?” Yaeko asked. “You said the Space Needle is where they, like, roost? Seems like a bit of a problem. A lot of a problem, actually.”
“Ah,” said Apana. “Hendrix!”
The drone rose from the deck of the boat, making everyone jump again, but Kobi held up a hand. “It’s okay—he’s on our side. He operates on the same frequency as the Snatchers. He scrambles their signals.”
Kobi pulled out his map and laid it on the deck. It had gotten soaked when he’d jumped into the lake. He’d dried it out by the fire at Apana’s mansion, but the pencil marks were faded—not that they mattered now. Hales’s landmarks weren’t important. The map wasn’t for surviving now or finding any labs. They just had to get to one location. He traced a path with his finger from their current position, up Lake Washington, and around the north of Old Seattle, looping back south to the west coast of downtown, near the waterfront where Kobi, Asha, and Fionn had first found Hales’s secret lab. From there it was only a few blocks farther to the Space Needle. Kobi showed the others the route. “We’ll sail most of the way. Hendrix keeps the Snatchers from seeing us, but most of us should stay belowdecks to limit heat signals.”
“Quite a sail,” said Apana. “I’ll take the tiller, shall I? I’ll call you up when we need to tack, but we should be running with the wind until we turn west.” Kobi helped him hoist the sail, then joined the others belowdecks in a musty cabin. As the boat rolled, pans rattled in cupboards. Kobi took out a knife sharpener and ran the steel over the edge of the ax that he’d brought from Apana’s until its edge was razor-thin.
“I thought axes were my style,” said Asha. Kobi remembered the blunt hatchet they’d scavenged in the underpass last time they were in Old Seattle; how Asha had used the weapon to hold off the attack of the rats.
Kobi smiled. “This time it’s mine. You’ve got the stun baton. Keep your senses alert for any animals. I don’t fancy meeting another orca. And Fionn, we might need you to keep things away.”
Fionn was staring out a porthole. Kobi felt a wave of sorrow from him and headed over, but before he could speak, Fionn said, “You want to kill the Waste. I won’t have any powers.” Tears were brimming in his eyes.
Asha was watching them with a concerned expression, but Kobi shook his head at her. “You lived without them before,” said Kobi, turning back to Fionn. “It has to be done.”
Fionn nodded. “When I saw you jump into the water, I was scared,” he said. “I felt helpless. It made me realize how Asha must feel watching the Waste consume me.” He pointed to Asha, Yaeko, Kobi, then to himself. He said out loud, “Home is us.”
Kobi smiled. “Right. We’ll all be together. Whatever happens afterward. If we ever defeat CLAWS, we stay together. We’ll have each other. We’re a family.”
“So now you’re back to speaking out loud all the
time?” Asha teased.
Fionn shrugged, cheeks flushing slightly. “I need to get used it. Being normal.” He rolled his eyes.
“You are not normal,” said Yaeko, and everyone laughed.
The sail took two hours. Kobi occasionally scuttled out on deck to help Apana maneuver. Apana was smoking another cigar and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the expedition. “I just saw a salmon the size of a great white!” he shouted at one point, with another manic grin.
When they curved around the north of the island, Kobi called the others up to watch gigantic bats roosting under the broken end section of the bridge. “Fionn,” Kobi said nervously. “Can you . . . ?”
Apana reached for the hunting rifle resting in the cockpit, aiming it at the bats, but Fionn pulled his arm down. The fair-haired boy held up his hand, and the bats simply stared down watching. The end of the bridge was covered in hanging creeper ivy, jagged thorns blocking the way ahead, but Fionn made them slither aside. Apana’s cigar almost dropped out of his mouth. “You kids really are something special,” he mumbled.
As they neared their landing point, Kobi found if he glanced back to the southwest he could see West Seattle Bridge. Somewhere beyond where the bridge reached West Seattle, concealed by a thick patch of heavy forest, was Bill Gates High School. When all this was over—and if they were still alive—he promised himself he’d go back there. Even if the memories were painful.
Finally, Apana steered the boat to a jetty, and Kobi and Yaeko tied it up. There were twenty long wooden jetties stretching out from the rock harbor side. Downtown Seattle rose up before them—a forest of giant trees, like a barricade, the colossal trunks sending the sounds of the harbor echoing back to them: waves slapping against the hulls of discarded boats, the honks of a few seals reverberating through the night air. Kobi tried to ignore the sinking fear that the rippling water brought out in his stomach.
Kobi glanced at the map, gray and faint in his night vision, and they headed inland. Asha went first, sensing for danger, Fionn behind her, ready to control any hostile Waste organisms. Kobi accompanied Apana, occasionally allowing the old man to lean on his shoulder. Yaeko followed at the rear, muttering fearfully, her skin changed to a dusky blue-black to camouflage herself. Overhead, Hendrix whirred. Already the lights of Snatchers could be seen above, flying to and from the towering spire of the Space Needle. I just hope that thing works, Kobi thought, watching the small old GrowCycle drone.
As they moved carefully through the city blocks, scurrying between giant Douglas firs and silver birch and beating through the coarse grass breaking through the broken roads, Kobi organized them each to watch in a different direction so they had their whole perimeter covered. When he heard any signs of movement—birds rustling in the trees or the rumble of tremors beneath their feet—he would check with Asha.
“No Chokers. Only some raccoons nearby and a few rats. Fionn can deal with those.”
“I can deal with Chokers too,” said Fionn.
But ten paces on, Asha stopped beside him quite suddenly. “Don’t move,” she whispered.
The others had frozen. “Cougars,” said Apana.
Three big cats, one enormous and two smaller, were standing directly ahead. Even the younger ones stood almost as tall as Kobi. The largest, which must have been the mother, eyed them, her muzzle wrinkling into a snarl. Kobi could see every one of her ribs. With a growl, she left the two cubs behind and padded a few strides in their direction.
Apana lifted his rifle from his shoulder.
“Don’t,” said Fionn, breaking from the group and standing in front of Apana. “She’s just curious.”
“Really? Because she looks hungry,” said Yaeko.
“Move,” said Apana.
Fionn remained where he was.
The cougar padded closer but stopped a careful distance away. Her eyes were sickly yellow with Waste as she looked between them. She cocked her head as her gaze settled on Fionn. Either he’s talking to her, or she’s looking for the weakest one to attack, Kobi thought.
Fionn moved nearer still—took another step, then another. He looked tiny beside the big cat.
Kobi drew a sharp breath as the young boy reached out and touched the cougar’s face, ruffling its fur with his fingers. The big cat tossed her head, licking his hand. Fionn’s lips were moving, but there was no sound, and the cougar straightened up sharply before turning around and walking back toward her cubs. Apana’s bearded jaw hung low. “I’ve never seen . . .”
Fionn still faced away from them, watching the mother rejoin her young. Kobi had never come across cubs in the Wastelands before. Hales had often said he thought infected animals were infertile, unable to breed, but he must have been wrong. This was a family, or at least part of one.
With that realization came a prickling sensation along the back of Kobi’s neck. As Fionn turned around, the look of happiness of his face dropped away. In almost the same instant Asha drew a gasp. Kobi spun around to see another cougar running toward them on heavy paws. Bigger even than the female, it had ragged fur that was torn and bare in patches, its eyes bloodshot. One leg was gone, and half of its face had been eaten away by disease, exposing its jawbone and rotten teeth. But it closed the gap impossibly fast. Its gaze set on Yaeko.
16
KOBI HEARD THE RIFLE crack, and the creature jerked—but kept coming. Kobi threw himself into its path, swinging the ax and feeling it bite into flesh. The weight of the creature knocked him off his feet, and searing pain flared from his leg. The cougar’s bulk slammed into the ground beside him. At once blood began to pool beneath it, and he realized his ax was embedded in the big cat’s flank. There was a bullet hole in its neck as well.
But Kobi was bleeding too, from three deep slices across his thigh. He almost retched at the sight of his own flesh torn open. Asha rushed toward him, throwing down her pack and pulling out a roll of bandages. She pushed a bandage hard against his wound. The others congregated around him, and Fionn looked completely distraught. “It’s okay, Kobi,” Asha was saying. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I didn’t see it coming,” Fionn said, weak with shock.
“None of us did,” Kobi bit out. The pain came in waves, and the bandage was already soaked through. “It’s not your fault.”
“They were hunting us,” said Yaeko. “They tricked us.”
The massive male was still breathing very softly, but its eyes were closed. Apana stood over it and aimed his rifle for a point-blank shot. Fionn jumped as the old man put the creature out of its misery.
“What now?” said Apana. “We can’t go on.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Kobi. As Asha lifted the bandage away and replaced it with a fresh one, he was relieved to see that the blood seeping from the claw marks was already clotting. It still hurt though. Asha tied off the bandage and got back to her feet.
“Kobi’s right,” she said. “We haven’t come this far just to turn back.”
Kobi winced with every step at first. They walked along what had once been 6th Avenue, the Space Needle clearly in sight, Snatchers drifting to and fro all around it. Apana activated his drone’s scrambler, and they kept close beneath it while also sticking to the very edge of the road, where the vegetation that clung to the bases of the former office buildings at least offered partial concealment. None of the Snatchers came directly toward their position, but Kobi caught occasional glimpses of their menacing shapes moving across the intersections.
It felt completely wrong to Kobi—for years the Snatchers had been the single most dangerous hazard in the city, and Hales’s first rule was to hide if he ever saw one. And if he couldn’t hide, run. Yet here they were, heading right into the highest concentration of the deadly drones he’d ever seen. No doubt CLAWS had cameras on each and every one, so if the scrambler failed and they were spotted, any one of them could relay their location back to CLAWS.
The Space Needle loomed large ahead as they reached the end of the street. On the map, a pa
rk surrounded the base of the tower, threaded with footpaths. Now it was a meadow filled with a riot of exotic wildflowers of every color. Hales had told him the Needle had been the city’s foremost tourist attraction in the days before the Waste.
“There’s an elevator in the spine of the tower,” said Apana.
“Will it be working?” asked Asha.
Apana nodded. “It should be. The entire tower was fitted with solar cells—part of GrowCycle’s green image.”
“How can we get there?” asked Yaeko. “There’s no cover. We can’t just run across.”
“We have to trust Hendrix,” said Apana. “Hendrix, proximity one,” he said, and the drone drifted right over his head. “As long as he’s switched on, the scramblers will keep us hidden.”
“Are you sure?” said Yaeko.
“I’m a scientist,” said Apana. “I’m never completely sure.”
“Okay,” said Kobi. “We don’t really have a choice. Here goes. Stay close together.”
They moved in a tight group, right out in the open. Kobi kept his eyes fixed on the sky, looking for any indication they’d been detected. It would only take one drone to spot them, and the rest would come in a swarm; they’d have no chance at all. But there were no obvious patterns in the flight paths of the Snatchers, and none came close to ground level, instead zipping off to other parts of the city. Now that they were nearer the base of the Space Needle, Kobi saw there were hundreds of the drones clinging dormant to the central spire of the landmark like larvae ready to hatch from a nest.
They arrived at a glass door leading into a lobby area. Inside it was a blanket of moss and flowers and ivy covering various tourist signs pointing to a gift shop, lavatories, and a café. Kobi pushed the door open, and they crossed the empty space to a bank of elevators. Just as Apana had promised, the doors opened almost as soon as he pressed the button to summon the elevator. The five of them climbed aboard, and Hendrix floated in beside them. “Hendrix, deactivate,” said Apana, and the drone came to rest on the floor at his feet. Apana pressed the topmost button for the “Observation Deck.”