Akaela

by E. E. Giorgi

  The only one who could get back to the Tower on time is Kael.

  Kael.

  I let go of Wes’s hand and jerk back to my feet. “I’m going back right now.”

  A deep scowl crosses Athel’s forehead. “How?”

  “With wings, that’s how. The trail has been wiped out by the tide and littered with debris. We’ve only got one horse left and night is about to fall. My sail is all we’ve got left at this point.”

  Athel looks at me dumbfounded then exchanges a quick glance with Lukas.

  Lukas shrugs. “She’s got a point.”

  I look up at the looming walls of the gorge, now wet and stripped of all the vegetation. Up high, the sky offers the view of fast-moving clouds.

  “The winds are picking up.” I point a finger up. “I can make it back to the Tower in less than an hour.”

  Athel shakes his head. “It’ll take forever because you’re going to kill yourself.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Niwang awaits me,” I say. “I’ve got nothing to lose. If I succeed, I’ll be able to bring help for Wes. If I fail”—I swallow—“nothing changes except I don’t have to go through the humiliation of Niwang. ”

  And once I say that, neither boy has anything more to object.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Athel

  Day Number: 1,533.

  Event: Our mission failed.

  Number of Mayakes left: 431.

  Goal for today: Save Wes’s life.

  I brush my hand against the steep rock. It’s cold and wet.

  “It’s going to be slippery,” I say.

  Akaela looks up and squints at the strip of sky framed by the walls of the gorge. “The sky is clearing, the clouds are rolling fast. The winds are perfect.”

  She can be so stubborn.

  “You don’t get it. The winds can be perfect, but I doubt you’ll get up there with this kind of terrain. I know you did it once already, but it was broad daylight and the rock wasn’t wet.”

  She stares back at me, her face blank, as though I’m missing the obvious. “There’s no other way, Athel. Wes is going to die if we don’t do something.”

  She’s right. Wes is in really bad shape. I found him splayed in the mud as I was looking for Maha, his right titanium leg crushed by a rock. The implant was already clinging to his bone and flesh by a thread. I did the unthinkable and yanked him off the weight of the rock, tearing it apart. Wes’s outcry of pain still rings in my ears.

  “What are you going to do once you get to the Tower? They’re not going to listen to you. You’re a traitor now. The minute they see you they’ll take you straight to the Kiva Hall and condemn you.”

  “I’ll make sure they don’t see me and sneak into Uli’s workshop. He’ll listen. You said it yourself, that’s what we should do. Uli is our last chance.” Her eyes are pleading now. “I know you don’t trust anyone, Athel, but we have no choice now. Uli’s our friend, he’s known us since we were babies. He will listen once I tell him how bad Wes is.”

  He will listen. But what can he do? I wonder. Will he drop everything he’s doing to come to our aid inside a damned gorge, a place we’ve been admonished to avoid since we were little?

  I swallow and look up again. There’s no way she can make it, I tell myself. But then again, this is my baby sister we’re talking about, a one of a kind cyborg, stubborn, relentless and fearless. Literally fearless.

  “I’ve got to stay here and help Lukas,” I say, knowing it’ll take some time to install the implant, wire it up and then haul Wes on Taeh’s back. And then it’ll take forever to head back through the debris and torn vegetation. “But I’ll be here while you climb, watching your steps, Dottie. You may have wings, but I’ve got the best eyes.” I wink. “Can’t deny that.”

  Akaela bites her lower lip and cracks a smile. She throws her arms at me, which is something totally unexpected that makes me blush to the roots of my hair.

  “Ok, then,” she says, brusquely pulling away from me. “Tell me where to start.”

  I inhale and scan the wall of rock looming in front of us. “Pick a vertical slab with enough edge to give you a grip. Test everything before trusting it with your weight. The tide has draped everything in mud and what may look like rock can be just a blob of dirt.”

  Akaela squints at the sky. “Looks to me like it’s washed most of the rock.”

  “It’ll be slippery. Just be careful, will you?”

  She smiles at me, and this time it’s a devious smile. She raises an arm, gropes for her first handhold, then steps up. I watch her climb without a kink for the first ten, fifteen feet, just a well coordinated routine between her arms and legs. Kael settles himself on a protruding rock and bobs his head, carefully following Akaela’s moves.

  You’ve got two pairs of watchful eyes on you, now, sis.

  She loses her grip in a couple of instances but manages to shift her weight on time, her other foot or hand always well planted. I’m awed by her steadiness, her lack of fear keeping her nerves calm.

  My nerves are everything but calm right now. Adrenaline courses through my body, making my legs jittery and my breathing fast. I worry for Wes, for what’s going to happen next. I got into this because Dad was in danger and I wanted to save him. Instead, I put my best friends in danger. Even if Akaela makes it back to the Tower, there’s no guarantee she’ll be able to contact Uli before they sweep her away and condemn her to Niwang. And what if Uli decides not to listen to her?

  I push the thought away. Kael hops closer to Akaela now that she’s about twenty feet up. Twenty-two and six inches, the built-in inclinometer in my retina tells me. The sight is frightening. She’s just a black silhouette painted against orange rock. If she falls now she’s doomed. I look away.

  Taeh stares at me from behind a jumble of torn bushes. She’s moved from her comfort spot by the rock to cheer Akaela. I step away from the wall and pet her. She salutes me with a bob of the head and rubs her nose against my face.

  “Good girl, Taeh,” I say, hugging her. “Good girl. Not like that stupid sister of yours.”

  Damn, I miss Maha. I wish I could’ve kept her closer and protected her better. But there’s no time to think about Maha now. Wes is in danger, and Akaela—

  “Athel!”

  Lukas waves at me. I shoot one last glance at Akaela, now over thirty feet up and click my tongue at Taeh, signaling her to follow me over to Lukas.

  Wes looks as pale as ever, his face a white moon in a mud covered landscape. I kneel next to him and check his wound first, then his breathing. Slow and steady, just like his pulse.

  “You were right,” I tell Lukas. “Putting him out did help. In the vegetative state he’s in now, the blood loss is significantly reduced.”

  Lukas nods, but his face looks grim. The device he’s been making lies on the plastic sheet in front of him, half assembled. He cups his face in his hands and stares at me, the lost look in his eyes worth a thousand words.

  “What’s up, man?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m missing a piece.”

  I suck in air. My eyes stray back up to the wall of rock. Akaela’s still steady in her climb to the top. Twenty feet away from the edge, the inclinometer tells me. It’s also the steepest part, the rock dry now and probably brittle and slippery.

  I bite my lip and avert my eyes, trying not to think about what she’s doing now.

  Think about Wes.

  “Let’s haul him up on Taeh’s back and get going, then,” I say.

  “The rocking of the horse could resume his bleeding.”

  “Damn it,” I mutter. To think I’d managed to acquire so many precious parts from Uli’s closet. All for what? A sentence to Wela and the mess that followed. They took my backpack away from me and everything with it.

  I dip a hand inside my pocket. My pants are sodden wet and stick to my skin, yet I manage to fish out a small transparent plastic bag.

  Everything but one tiny object.

  Lukas frown
s. “What’s that?”

  I stare at it. “That thing you said you needed when we met in the barn.”

  “That’s not a bridge rectifier,” he immediately corrects me.

  I droop my arms. “Great. I got myself into Wela and didn’t even manage to get the right part.”

  Lukas walks around the rock and stoops next to me. “Let me take a look.”

  Up in the sky, Kael squeals. He’s flying in circles over the top, the clouds almost cleared out of the way and the golden hue of sunset setting over the edge of the gorge.

  I squint, quickly scan the wall of rock, but I can’t see Akaela. I hold my breath, let my eyes run up and down the wall’s full length, yet I can no longer see my sister.

  And suddenly she pokes her head over the edge and beams at me.

  “I made it!” she yells, waving at us.

  I exhale a sigh of relief and wave back. “How are the winds?”

  She points at Kael gliding over the mesa and gives me two thumbs up.

  “Good luck!” I shout.

  She vanishes again, probably searching for a good spot to jump from.

  The hardest part has yet to come, I think.

  You can climb walls, you can jump into the currents and fly, you can survive a twenty-foot high surge of water. And yet you can’t change someone’s heart.

  Lukas taps on my shoulder. I beam at him, still dazed that my baby sis made it all the way to the top. He doesn’t seem to share my enthusiasm. He holds the part I mistakenly thought was a bridge rectifier, something I’d taken off the shelves in Uli’s closet, and shoves it in front of my face.

  “I think we have a problem.”

  And from the gloom on his face, I know it’s something I don’t want to hear.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Akaela

  Now that the storm has passed, the sky burns into the reds and golds of a vibrant sunset. Blown away by the wind, ribbons of puffy cumulus clouds roll along the horizon. I reach the top of the mesa and rejoice at the sight of the wide horizon after so many hours spent in the constrictive space of the gorge. Excitement builds in my veins.

  I need to fly.

  I want to fly. Desperately, like an itch at the pit of my stomach that doesn’t subside.

  Kael swooshes past me and shows me the currents.

  The mesa is a flat line across an orange sky. Warm winds blow in my face as I bask one minute longer in the last rays of sunshine. I feel goose bumps on my skin, my whole body still cold and drenched. It’ll be worse once I’ll be up riding the currents, but at least right now the last rays of sunshine are taking some of the chill away.

  The dry terrain of the mesa feels like a different planet after walking for so long in the slosh and humidity of the gorge. Swirls of sand curl at my feet with every step I take, and wherever I turn, all I see is the flat edge of the land staggering against a golden sky. It feels like I could walk straight into the clouds. The mesa itself, though, is wider than I’d originally thought. It feels like it’s taking me forever to get to the ridge. But when I finally do, the view is stunning. Beyond the steep cliffs sprawls the forest that once was Astraca, our ancestors’ city, fallen after decades of war with the Gaijins. Yet now, unscathed by the bloodshed and nourished by our father the Kawa River, the green extends beyond the horizon, lush and vibrant as if it had a life of its own. A flock of herons rises from the fringe of the trees, flies into the setting sun and vanishes behind the clouds.

  Kael glides in front of me and then veers to the right. I follow his path along the ridge, knowing he’ll point me to where the hot air released by the earth clashes against the rocks and turns upward, creating the lift I need for my dive. There’s a ledge a few hundred feet ahead, a slab of rock leaning out over the edge of the mesa. A lonely juniper is perched at the end like an old sentinel lost at sea. I always marvel at the most unlikely places where you can still find life. Old and contorted, the juniper clasps the rock with its naked roots, its branches bowing to the dying sun. I step over the ledge and look down, the drop before me at least a hundred feet deep.

  I raise a hand and feel the wind blow through my open fingers.

  Kael circles low over the mesa, his broad wings bracing the currents. My heart starts racing. The drop, the thermals, the cumulus clouds. It’s all so perfect, and yet it may as well be my last flight, I think gloomily.

  “Well if that’s the case,” I say out loud, “we’ll have to make sure this one last jump is epic.”

  As the sun dips beneath the horizon, its last rays painting the clouds red, on my far left I spot the eerie glow of the Gaijins’ factory. I think of Dad one last time, my heart heavy with the notion that whatever danger he’s in right now, we failed to help him.

  And then I jump.

  The wind slaps me hard in the face and my whole body goes rigid, my damp clothes freezing against my skin. I spread my arms and give in to the pull of gravity.

  I love of freedom I get from jumping. I love the adrenaline rush, the intoxicating notion that I’m so close to death. I could leave the sail closed and feel the rush until the end, the ground coming closer and closer.

  I could.

  But I know I won’t.

  I ball my fists and press the heel of my hand. The flap between my shoulder blades pops open and my built-in frame slides underneath the open flap of my shirt. The sail instantly springs open to its full twelve-foot width, and as soon as it does, the thermal catches me and lifts me. The trees turn smaller again, the ground snatched away from my sight.

  “Kaheeee,” I scream as I soar above the mesa and into the low clouds, the last remnants of sunset painting the sky purple.

  The thermals are strong, the winds steady. Kael flies ahead of me, and, as always, I envy his elegance and the perfect control he has over the glide.

  We will never beat what Mother Nature did.

  The air whipping against my face is gelid, yet the exhilaration at being up in the sky again, free, one last time, makes every fiber in my body vibrate with excitement. The thermal whisks me away from the mesa and down along the ridge. I glide over the forest and watch the Kawa River unfold before my eyes as it snakes through the forest.

  About forty minutes later, I finally spot the Tower emerge at the end of the forest. The thermal is still strong beneath my wings and, for a moment, I wish I could glide past it and fly long into the night, following the river all the way to the ocean.

  But that wouldn’t be fair to Wes, or Lukas, or my brother.

  Each one of us has a story arc to complete, a mission to follow, whether it succeeds or not. We try, we fail, we keep trying.

  Nighttime is falling. The first stars glimmer in the sky as a last dab of orange rims the horizon. The Tower now glows with its lit up windows. The forest spreads apart and the solar fields appear, dark panels spread out in a grid.

  I wish I had my brother’s eyes so I could see better, but I’ll have to content myself with the experience gained from my one successful night landing only a few days ago. I already know the best landing spot is by the stables, so I circle around it as I drop in altitude. Kael circles with me then dips down and dives toward the Tower. I whistle, trying to stop him, but he’s already flying to our window.

  That’ll give me away, I realize.

  But then, what choice do I have? I have to find Uli, and find him fast. Maybe Kael’s sudden presence at our windowsill will alert Mom to call Uli. Maybe it’ll make things easier for me.

  I concentrate on the winds. I tilt the sail and shift downwind to lose speed, and then back into the wind to prepare for landing. As I focus on my landing spot, I catch a quick light shining from the ground. It points straight at my face and then disappears. I brush it off and focus on my landing, nervous for the little visibility I have now that darkness has fallen.

  Thirty feet from the ground, the stables come in full view.

  Twenty feet.

  Fifteen—

  I see it a split second before it hits me. A dark object
rises from the ground, opens up to a net and coils around me, catching me in midair. My sail crinkles backward and I start spinning, plummeting down to the ground. I kick and flail my arms, desperately trying to wriggle out of the net. Broken and tilted, the left side of my sail stretches back, slowing down my fall. In the maddening seconds that follow, all I can think of is to bend my knees and cover my head. I hit the ground feet first, throw myself to the side, and roll to reduce the impact. The net tightening around me until I stop.

  Silence. My heart thumping wildly against my chest.

  What the hell?

  I make a quick assessment of my bones, limbs, head. The sail is broken, the frame kinked and tilted. I try to retract it but it won’t. I can hear the mechanism uselessly whir and clang between my shoulder blades. My arms and legs are stuck against my body, the net tightly wrapped around me, making it impossible to move. I grunt, wriggle and tug at the rope with my teeth while wondering who the hell would do this to me.

  I don’t have to wonder for long.

  “Oh look. Quite the catch tonight, Cal, wouldn’t you say?”

  I freeze. Metal Jaw. How could I ever forget that voice?

  “You filthy liars!” I shout. “Thanks to you, Athel was condemned to Wela! How does that make you feel?”

  In the shallow darkness I spot their shadows approaching from a patch of trees not too far away. The same patch of trees from where I spotted the light shining in my eyes minutes ago.

  They ambushed me. They spotted me up in the sky and ambushed me.

  Yuri’s metal jaw shines eerily in the dim light of the night as he stoops down and ogles me. His odd grin tells me he’s feeling quite accomplished right now. Unfortunately, his jaw is not the only shiny object glimmering. He’s holding a penknife in his right hand and no matter how hard I think about it, I’m pretty sure it’s not to cut the ropes holding me hostage.

  His brother Cal leans over his shoulder and the two stare at me with their dumbass smirks plastered all over their idiotic faces.

  “Get me out of this!” I grunt. “I’ve got an important message to deliver and you can’t stop me now.”