Regenerate

by Emily Goldthwaite

  When I come back she’s mindlessly clicking on the interface pad, trying to get it to work. Maybe she’s in shock. I put my hands on her face and look into her eyes—her real eyes—for perhaps the first time in my life. They’re brown like mine. I always thought they were hazel. Her pupils are dilated and vacant. She is in shock.

  With all my strength, I push her chair away from the table and try to roll her out of the seat and onto the blanket, but a wide security belt is holding her in place. I tug and pull but can’t dislodge it. When I find the locking mechanism on it, it’s shorted out like everything else and won’t disengage.

  I step back and into the hall, trying to think of how to solve this. Thick smoke is drifting from our front room towards us. My limbs feel heavy and weak. The fire has reached us. My breathing quickens, making me cough. Mom coughs too but doesn’t seem to care.

  I’ve got to get us both out or we’re going to suffocate. Think, Averi. Focus. I realize my fingers are searching for the comfort of my shears that aren’t there.

  “That’s it!” I shout.

  I race to my room and find my purse buried beneath the piles of my overturned things. I rip the shears out as I run back to Mom. These things are only meant to cut plants, but I hope they’ll work.

  I force the blades around the belt and squeeze.

  Nothing happens.

  I squeeze again, harder this time. I think I feel a slight give, but it could be the shears’ springs. “Please don’t break,” I whisper to them.

  The smoke is getting so thick my eyes are burning and I can hardly see through the watery tears and haze. My lungs feel tight and I know my asthma is setting in fast. If I black out now, we’re both dead.

  “Averi, where’s that drink?” Mom says in her whiniest tone. “Hurry. I’m dreadfully dehydrated.”

  Oh yeah? Well, soon you’re going to be a full-out raisin if I don’t get you out of here, woman. I glance up at Mom and try to brush off my annoyance. I need all my energy right now to focus on the shears.

  My hands scream with pain as the metal handles dig into my scrapes from earlier. I squeeze and squeeze until I feel blisters rising on my fingers and palms, but keep squeezing anyway. My hands shake, tears are streaming down my cheeks, and I can’t draw a good breath. The handles of the shears are starting to warp beneath the pressure.

  “Come on. Please!” I cry through my teeth.

  I draw one last deep, smoke-filled breath and bear down with everything I’ve got.

  SNAP.

  I fall forward onto my hands as the belt breaks free. I did it! Then I realize that beneath each of my bracing hands are pieces of the red pruners. I lift my shaky body up off the floor and stare down at the broken and twisted red handles of my dad’s shears. My stomach sinks and I can’t stop the tremble in my lower lip.

  With wheezing breaths, I pick up both pieces and cradle them to my chest. I shut my eyes, ignoring the stinging burn. They’re broken. Gone. Jo and Lander are gone. Dad’s gone. And I might not live to see him again.

  “Averi?” Mom asks. “Averi, are you still here? See if my vSpecs arrived. And where’s my drink?”

  Her voice and the thickening smoke compel me to set down the broken pieces of my heart and get back to work.

  I roll Mom out of her chair and onto the sheet. Ignoring her mindless objections, I dig my feet hard against the ground. I make it halfway back to my room before the smoke and my coughing forces me to my knees. Clawing on the floor, I get little traction. I try to use my legs, the wall, anything to give me enough leverage to move her, but I just can’t.

  I collapse beside her, coughing and wheezing. The smoke is getting worse. My instincts scream at me to run for my window and get myself out before it’s too late. But I refuse. I’ve left too many loved ones behind in my life. I won’t abandon Mom. But I can’t move her on my own. Is this how it ends, then?

  In the darkening fumes I hear my name, coming from a familiar voice. “Averi?” Raxtin calls out. “Averi, are you in here?” He coughs.

  I gasp for air, my throat raw and burning and my lungs so tight I can hardly fill them. I’m not hallucinating, am I? “Help!” I squeak out.

  Everything is dark and spinning. I think I’m lying on my back. Raxtin’s masked, bright face breaks through my disorientation. He drags me over to my pod window, propping me up where the air is the clearest.

  “Raxtin, what are you doing here? What about your dad?” I ask through foggy thoughts.

  His brow pulls together. “I came to help you. My dad can wait.”

  I nod and try to blink away the cloudiness of my thoughts. “Why would you risk your life to save us? Aren’t you still mad at me?”

  He reaches out and touches my cheek, his gorgeous eyes soft and his left dimple showing. “Averi, I’ll always care about you.” Then Rax disappears out my door and down our hall.

  The amber bottle of Jo’s Asclepias tincture glistens on my floor in the afternoon light. I scoop it up and drip the acrid, biting liquid into my mouth. Within a minute my breathing loosens, the wheezing stops, and my head clears.

  Raxtin hasn’t returned. I crawl to my doorway, keeping low to the ground. Raxtin is towing Mom on the blanket, and like I was, he’s struggling to keep traction.

  I crawl to them and grab the other corner of the blanket. “Together, on three.” I say. “One, two, three!”

  We pull with all our might and move her about two feet before losing momentum.

  “Again,” he says between coughs. “One, two, three!”

  Over and over we pull through the choking, burning smoke. Each time we inch a little closer to the window. I can hear the flames now, and the floor is starting to feel warm. I think the fire is closing in.

  I look over at Raxtin on the next pull. His strain and exhaustion are twisting his strong features into an expression that is deeply vulnerable. Despite everything that’s happened these last few days, he’s risking his life to save my mom for me. How did I ever find such a loyal friend?

  Finally, we make it the rest of the way to my window. I heave a sigh of relief and smile over at Raxtin, who smiles back with a nod. My eyes drift to Mom, who’s moaning on the floor. The moment of triumph dissolves into one of despair. Now what? How on earth do we get her down? I bite my lower lip and look over at Raxtin. “How do we save her? We can’t carry her down. It’s going to take a miracle to get her out.”

  Raxtin’s left dimple appears by his smiling lips once more. “Well, I think you’ve got one.” He points to a huge spread of fabric that, until now, I’d been too frazzled to notice. It runs from my bed and out the window.

  I try to blink the burning of smoke from my eyes. “Did you carry this up?”

  He nods.

  I look outside. At the base of my residence column are Jett and several male tubers holding the end of the huge bolt of fabric. The other end is secured to my bedframe, which is anchored to the floor.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  He crosses his arms over his chest, his proud grin widening. “A makeshift slide.”

  I clap my hands to my heart. “That’s brilliant!”

  Raxtin and I struggle to lift Mom up and over the twelve inches of wall to my windowsill. Mom’s protests and whining are interrupted only by her coughing. We position her feet-first onto the fabric. Below, Jett directs the others where to grab and hold the bolt to give it sufficient tension.

  “We’ll push her out the window and down the slide on the count of three, ok?” he says, ending with a cough.

  The smoke in the room thickens. I nod and brace for the count.

  He takes a deep, ragged breath. “One…”—cough, cough— “two… three! ”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Other than Mom’s screams of terror, I’d say it goes pretty well.

  Rax and I follow her down, and once we’re all safely on the ground, I throw my arms around him. “Thank you.” I whisper. “Thank you for helping me save her.”

  Raxtin hugs me back
. “Of course,” he says. The warmth of his breath rustles my hair as he talks. “You’ll always be my best friend, Averi. No matter what. I promise.” He pulls back and gives me his dimpled half smile, his hazel eyes meeting mine. “Besides, they’re our parents. What else could we do?”

  We head to Raxtin’s building next. Its fire is on the eighth story, and Raxtin’s quarters are on the ninth floor. We take the stairs up to the seventh level, then slip out a window to climb the rest of the way up. Our limbs have not had time to recover from saving my mom, and using them so soon is agony. It’s all I can do to pull myself up one hand at a time.

  Once we’re finally inside, we search the house.

  Raxtin moves stiffly from room to room, as if he’s bracing himself at every corner. “Dad?” he calls.

  No one answers.

  The muscles in Rax’s jaw twitch, and I can see the strain of apprehension in his eyes.

  Despite what we say we feel about our Lost parents, they are, in our hearts at least, still our parents.

  We walk down the hall, towards his dad’s pod, but just before we reach it, I stop and touch Raxtin’s arm. “Rax, do you want me to go in and check first?”

  His arms tremble slightly and his jaw muscles bulge, but he shakes his head. “No,” he says in a rushed way. “He’s my dad. I should be the one to find him.”

  I nod and hang behind while he slides open the door and goes inside.

  “Oh, Dad.” Rax’s voice pitches and breaks.

  Folding my arms tightly around myself, I don’t bother wiping the tears that fall down my cheeks. I sit outside the room and listen to Raxtin’s quiet sobs within.

  After a few minutes, once his sobs have subsided, I quietly slip inside. There, propped up in the bed, is the large, motionless form of Rax’s dad. I don’t look at Mr. North’s face too closely, but the vSpecs he’s wearing are charcoal black.

  Rax is kneeling at his dad’s bedside, his head ducked and his tall frame shaking with his tears. I pull the hunter-green bed sheet up and over Mr. North’s face, and then I put my arm around Raxtin.

  He wipes his eyes and slides his arm around me too. We sit quiet for a while, until finally Rax speaks.

  “I didn’t think it would feel like this, you know? I thought I didn’t really care. I guess you don’t realize you have hope that things will turn around someday . . . until you run out of somedays.” He wipes at his nose with his free hand.

  I nod. “I’m sorry, Rax. I wish he’d gotten to know you. I wish you’d had a real dad.”

  Guilt tugs at the edge of my thoughts. I did get to have a real dad, and I told Raxtin all about him. How thoughtless that was of me.

  “Thanks, Averi.” He draws a deep breath then looks at me. A sad smile pulls at the corner of his lips. “Let’s see if there are any other Lost we can save.”

  Our slide works perfectly for the buildings where dragging them down the stairs is not an option. We work for hours trying to save as many other Lost as we can. Sadly, there are fewer survivors than I expected. Like Raxtin’s dad, none who’d been wearing tech on their heads survived.

  Jett’s mom is ok. She lived on the first floor, so his Grand and a few tubers were able to get her out before we even got here.

  All of us work our way through the village. Rax and I search the floors that have been cut off by fire. We have to stop and move to the next residence column whenever the fire gets too close. That part is definitely the hardest for me.

  The tubers and Grands who are spry enough load up the rescued Lost in Jett and Rax’s bi-ped cart and wheel them to the village gymnasium.

  In the late afternoon, Raxtin and I have to stop for a while. Our bodies just can’t keep going. We are nearly collapsing from exhaustion, and my lungs feel scorched. All the buildings on fire have been cleared of living victims. The tubers and Grands can handle the remaining columns for now.

  Rax and I stretch on a street bench beneath one of the bare ash-elms and eat an unheated food packet to try to regain our strength.

  His shoulders hunch forward and he looks painfully alone and withdrawn. I hate seeing him like this. “Do you think your Grams will try to make it back here from your Aunt Victoria’s?” I ask.

  Raxtin doesn’t look up, but his chewing slows. “Not if she thinks I went where I was supposed to go. If what Lander said was true, I imagine this evacuation scenario played out in every village.”

  The mention of Lander’s name feels like a punch to my stomach. It takes a moment to find my breath. If they did survive, they should be back by now, unless they’re injured.

  “How’s Jo? Did she make it out ok?” Raxtin asks gently, stirring his noodles around in their red sauce.

  My jaw aches and the food I’ve swallowed now feels like a rock in my stomach. “There was an explosion, Rax. I think the detonators at Jo’s went off.” My nose stings and I bite my lip so I won’t start crying. I’m too tired to cry.

  He turns to me, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. “Is that what that sound was? We heard it, but I didn’t realize… Ave, I’m so sorry.”

  I sniff and keep my eyes trained down at my all-but-tasteless chicken noodle soup.

  “Do you think there’s a chance they got out?” he asks.

  I can’t answer. I don’t want to think about what I think. I shrug, but my shoulders feel weighted. “I don’t know. Lander radioed that he was there, and that Jo was still alive but in her burning house. Right after that, the explosion happened . . . and the radio went dead.” My voice pitches at the last statement.

  Raxtin leans forward onto his knees and runs his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  “It’s ok, you don’t have to say anything. It’s probably best if you don’t try to. I’m going over there at first light.” I squint at the setting sun. “I don’t think I can manage traveling there in the dark or I’d leave right now.”

  Raxtin nods. “I understand. I’ll go with you, if you want.”

  I give him a smile that feels more sad than anything. “Thank you. That would be good. I might need some extra help, depending on . . . well, depending on what I find.”

  He straightens and places his hand on my back between my shoulders. “I’d be glad to. Averi, know that I’m here for you, whatever you need.”

  I study the square lines of his face, his thick dark eyebrows, and watch the breeze catch his hair. For a moment I wish we could do it over, have a chance to really date and see what there is between us. But there’s no going back, only forward now. “Thank you, Raxtin. I do know. Are you doing ok?”

  His lips form a tight, thin line, his hand drops from my back, and he looks away. “I guess you’re right—sometimes there’s really nothing a person can say.” He glances at me again, but those familiar hazel eyes now reflect something I’ve seen within my own. Loss. It seems out of place in him. “It is what it is. You know? It sucks, but there’s nothing to be done.”

  We finish our food and stand up, my muscles screaming in protest as I use them.

  Raxtin pats my shoulder. “Why don’t you stay here and rest a while longer. You look like you could use it. I’m going to get back to work till it’s too dark to do anything. Hang in there, Averi. Things are bound to start looking up.” Then he heads off into the L building to help with the search.

  The L building. That should have been Lander’s. I’m glad he was in mine instead. I slump back onto the bench and moan. The food I ate feels like it’s having second thoughts. I wrap my arms tight against my stomach, then curl up on the seat. The cool of the bench’s smooth surface feels good against my face. I lost everyone today, except for Mom.

  But I lost her a long, long time ago.

  I focus my gaze on the setting sun ahead of me. Part of me hopes it won’t rise tomorrow, that this day is the last. It feels like it ought to be. The glow of the sunset backlights the air tram tracks, throwing them into a dark line of shadow. I watch absently for the tram to pass. Oh, yeah. It’s not
going to, ever again. Life, if one can call it that, is going to be so different. So empty.

  Movement on the shadowy line of tracks draws my attention. It’s so far away, whatever it is looks like a blot of dripped steak sauce sliding over the flat surface.

  Wait—no, not sliding, walking. Someone or something is walking into town on the air tracks. I bolt upright, squinting to make sure I’m seeing correctly. My heart does a huge flip and I can hardly stand to hope I’m right. That walking blot of shadow is a person, I’m positive. And I think there’s something in their arms, but it’s hard to make it out clearly in the dim evening light.

  I jump to my feet and run towards the nearest tram dock and up the tracks. The closer I get the more certain I am. “Lander?” I call. “Lander, is that really you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me, Averi,” he calls back. His voice sounds exhausted and strained. “Jo’s hurt pretty bad.”

  My steps slow as recognition sets in. The shadowy form in his arms is a body—Jo’s body.

  I catch my breath and it hitches. My feet feel wooden, and it’s like the spinning of the earth slows to a stop. But she’s the strong one. She’s the one who knows just what to do and how to heal injuries. She can’t be the one hurt. I need her.

  “Averi,” Lander says, his voice and form getting closer by the minute. “I need your help to get her down from here. I don’t think I can manage the slope on foot, it’s too steep.”

  My thoughts snap back to the events of the afternoon saving the Lost. A slide might be too risky depending on her injuries, but the bi-ped cart should work. “I’ll get Jett’s cart. I’ll be right back.”

  I race to the gymnasium and grab the cart that we left right outside the doors. My lungs are starting to wheeze a bit, but I don’t want to waste any time taking something for it.

  I climb back up to the top of the tracks just as Lander reaches the slope.

  Even in the twilight, I can see that his face is coated with a layer of ash and drenching sweat. His clothes are ripped and singed, and his skin beneath, from what I can see, is covered in cuts, scrapes, and several burns. He looks like the history unit pictures of war-time survivors.