“Can’t you?”
“Of course I can.” Why did this guy always make me sound so indignant? Not only sound it, but feel it. Like I had something to prove. It was getting on my nerves.
“If I’m blindfolded and you’re flying, no secrets are revealed.” His voice was tired. My guess was he’d been up for a few days straight before his sleep last night.
“Once we’re in, we go our separate ways.”
“Fine.”
“How do I know you won’t peek?” I asked. It was a logical question.
He met me with a stare that carried weight. It covered my body like the blanket I’d tossed on Daze and was just as nauseating. “I give you my word.”
Taking him at his word could get me killed, but I had little choice at this point. I nodded. “Set her down.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The lonely patch of ground we landed on was desolate to say the least. We both opened our doors at the same time, light drizzle pattering from the sky. The air carried a hint of salt, but no echoes of the waves. We’d traveled inland a few kilometers. “We’re farther south than I thought,” I said as I walked around the front of the craft. “I lost track after Port Station.”
“We’re approximately fourteen kilometers southeast of the city.”
We passed each other. I had to look up to see his face, which irritated me. But honestly, what wasn’t irritating about this situation? His expression was bland. I hated not being able to read him. He was tricky and likely withholding a lot of necessary information. But I didn’t feel threatened. If I had, I would’ve incapacitated him already.
I wasn’t sure what I felt. Uneasy? Angry?
If I was being honest, most of my anger was directed at Daze and this guy Tandor for wanting to take over my city and forcing the kid to play me. But I also held a nugget of pissed off for this out-of-towner militia man who knew more than I did about what was going on in my own town.
I situated myself into the pilot’s seat and pulled the door down with more force than necessary, causing it to crack loudly. The controls looked similar to Luce’s, but there were some differences. The control levers had buttons on the top. I had no idea what they were for, but I wasn’t about to ask. This was going to be a learn as-I-go endeavor. I punched the craft on and toggled a switch that retracted the landing gear, lofting us a meter off the ground.
The response time was quicker than my craft. I made note of that so I didn’t overshoot. I glanced pointedly at Case, waiting for him to cover himself up with something.
He frowned. “What? You want me blindfolded now? We’re fourteen kilometers away. You hardly have a secret route from this patch of forest to the city.”
I drummed my fingertips, now gloved, on my thigh. “Either you find something to cover your eyes, or we stay right where we are.”
His jaw ticked. “Do you even know how to get to the city from here?”
“Unless the fractured buildings are obscured by a magical force field, I think I can figure it out. Go north thirteen kilometers and take a left. What have you got in here to use as a blindfold?” I turned to rummage around in the backseat. It was shamefully clear of clutter. My head jerked toward Case. “Where’s all your stuff?” He shrugged. He hadn’t bothered to clip into the harness and wasn’t going to look in the backseat where I was currently jabbing an angry finger. “People can actually sit back here.”
His lips quirked. It was the most emotion I’d seen thus far. “Yank the back of the seat down.”
I had to lift my hips, stretch, and twist to finally grasp the top of the seat, slamming it down.
Supplies, weapons, and other utilitarian things spilled out. With relief, I said, “Whew, for a second there I thought you were an amateur.”
“Nope.” His voice was calm and cool. “I just prefer people be able to ride when necessary.”
I ignored him, searching for something that would cover his face fully. I found it in the form of some sort of shiny insulated cover-up. When I grasped it, the material crinkled in my hand, making an irritating noise. “Is this a Teflon suit? Or what’s left of one?” I held it up. It looked like it’d had pants attached at some point, but they’d been sheared off, the ends ragged, threads dangling. He wouldn’t be able to see through it and it would make him sweat. Perfect. I thrust it at him. “Tie that around your face.”
He gave me a long look but complied, the material making satisfying rasping noises as he tied the arms in a big knot at the back of his head. Once he was done, he held up his hands. “Are we good?”
I waved an open palm in front of his face. He didn’t react. “We’re good.” I settled into the driver’s seat, getting comfortable, wrapping my hands around each of the controls. They were bigger and more cumbersome than Luce’s, but I’d deal. I punched the props up a notch as I eased back with my left hand, at the same time maneuvering my right hand forward.
We sailed smoothly into the air, the craft easing north as I accelerated.
Man, this felt good. “What do you call her?” I asked as I took us higher, not another craft in sight as far as I could see.
“I don’t.” His voice was pleasingly muffled.
My eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t name your craft?”
“Nope.”
As I gained altitude, the ride smoothed out even more. I eased off the throttle. “Seven.” The info panel digitized all of the components, a few more than Luce had, such as barometric pressure and a terrain monitor. “That’s what I’m going to call her.” We were traveling at a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour, which was a fairly standard cruising speed at forty meters above ground. I knew the Q7’s were built for speed. I waved my right hand in front of Case’s face again, just for fun. He didn’t react. “How fast can she go?”
“With or without hydrogen injection?”
My face showed my surprise, but Case couldn’t see it. I was careful not to allow my voice to mirror my reaction. Luce had a hydrogen boost as well, but it wasn’t anything that came standard with dronecraft, even the later models. Vaporized fuel was hazardous, especially during a crash. Having it on board meant that the chances the craft would blow up upon impact were almost a hundred percent. Not good for the insurance companies.
That meant Case was either a talented mechanic, or he knew someone who was.
I settled on, “Without boost.”
“Over two hundred, but it gets touchy to steer.”
I accelerated past one-fifty to one-eighty.
The topography beneath us rapidly began to change. Single-family homes decimated in the aftermath of the meteor began to spring up. They were nothing more than shells. Hunks of roofs and other housing materials lay scattered across the expanses, turned up at odd angles, like scattered bones. Remnants of walls, less than a meter high, gave ghostly reminders of what had once been.
It was always hard to see and made me think, once again, of all the loss the world had endured over the last half century.
So much loss.
We flew in silence for a while. Then I decided it might be best to pump Case for as much information as I could before we parted ways. “You said you know where they took Daze last night. Is that where Tandor has his operations set up?”
“No, the bastard keeps changing his location.” The material crinkled as he readjusted. It was too bad Case couldn’t see my happy face.
“Do you have a solid plan for defeating him?”
“I’m assuming a laser blast to the temple will do the trick.”
“When he’s gone, will his followers rise up and see this thing through?”
“One or two might pose a problem, but I’m fairly certain I can be convincing to the contrary with enough force.” His voice held an edge I couldn’t name. It wasn’t as much angry as it was resolute. Or a combination of the two. Tandor had made him mad. There was no doubt that Case had the conviction and the means to back up his claims of bodily harm.
“Why warn me last night, instead of just re
taliating?” I asked. “If you knew the pico was a plant, why not wait outside for them to grab me, and then follow them back to Tandor?”
“I didn’t think you’d bring the boy with you.”
I pursed my lips, angling the craft slightly northwest. “So you modified your plan when you saw us together?” That seemed a little implausible. “To survive in our world, you have to be tough. I wasn’t going to baby the kid.”
“You didn’t take him inside.” Case brought his hands under the material, making tons of noise, likely to mop up the sweat.
“No, I didn’t,” I agreed. “I decided it was best for him to stay outside. I was supposed to be in and out in under ten. The kid would’ve held me up.” Some plan that turned out to be. “I’m still not following. What was your actual goal?”
“My plan was to get you both out unharmed, but you separated before I could reach you.” He shrugged. “I decided to go in, because the kid will remain alive to use as a bargaining chip as long as you’re still around. If I’d taken him and left you there, you would’ve been killed, and Tandor would’ve achieved his intended objective.”
My head twisted in Case’s direction as I snorted. It was a loud, aggressive sound. “I wouldn’t have been killed. You know nothing about me. And what do you mean keep him alive? Daze is working for Tandor. The kid lied to me because Tandor asked him to. Of course they’d keep him alive.”
Case shook his head, the material slipping. He resecured it in back and slid his hands under to tent it up so he could talk more freely. I narrowed my eyes, inspecting to make sure he wasn’t peeking. “I told you already, the kid was caught stealing. If he hadn’t played his part, they would’ve killed him and his friend. Painfully. It wasn’t his choice.”
“It was his choice,” I countered. “He could’ve confided in me once he was in my craft. He had ample opportunity later on. I would’ve helped him.”
“He didn’t know you.” Case’s tone was resolute and unbending, his reaction immediately making me think he’d been a street kid himself. “Why would he feel he could trust you after only a few hours?”
The craggy outline of the broken skyline became visible in front of me, silhouetted in the distance, dark clouds swirling, providing a sinister backdrop as rain pelted the windshield. It was hard to imagine how this metropolis once looked in its prime, with megascrapers dotting the horizon, the easy rise and fall of the buildings in between, bustling dronecraft in their appropriate lanes, hypertubes and air buses moving large groups of people to where they needed to go. The streets vibrant and busy.
It was as if the planet had forgotten as well.
My brain circled back to the kid. I wasn’t the forgiving type. “I gave Daze every reason to trust me. He could’ve ratted Tandor out anytime before we arrived at Port Station.” The kid had been reluctant in the end, but he’d followed through with the plan. Breaking my trust was right up there with putting a gun to my head and threatening to pull the trigger.
Case brought his leg up to the console. I wasn’t the only one who needed stretching room. “The kid was a pawn to get to you.”
“That may be true, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Daze had a choice. He chose Tandor.”
“He chose saving his own neck and his friend’s life. You would’ve done the same at his age, as I would’ve.”
“You were a street kid.” It wasn’t a question.
“I was.”
“Yeah, so was I.” The difference was I never would’ve sold Bender out. Not even if I’d known him less than a day, and I’d been Daze’s Bender. Daze had chosen wrong.
Case didn’t comment. “Are we getting close?” He was irritated. “This thing is going to asphyxiate me.”
I stifled a snicker. “We’re closing in. I’m bringing her down outside the east wall.”
“I don’t care where you go, just do it soon.”
“I can’t believe you never named your craft.”
“Didn’t occur to me.”
As the city loomed closer, I reached into my vest and pulled out my tech phone. “It’s Ella—”
Case interrupted me. “Don’t use your regular channels,” he warned. “They’re monitoring them.”
I took him at his word and dialed the phone to channel four and depressed the button. “Larry, it’s Kate.” I popped my finger off and waited. After twenty seconds, I tried again. “It’s Kate. Anybody out there?” No answer. I thumbed the dial to channel seven and brought it back up to my mouth. “Don, it’s Maggie. I need to get a hold of you about breakfast.” Nothing. I swore, pocketing the phone. “How do they know so much about us in such a short period of time?”
“One of your friends got involved in something over his head. They were able to get information out of him.”
My head snapped in his direction. “What are you talking about? Who?”
“A guy named Darby.”
I reacted so swiftly the dronecraft bounced in the air before I could regain control. My breath came in shallow, measured increments. “How and when did they get information from him?” My voice was a step away from cracking.
“As far as I know, a few weeks ago. They’ve got this laboratory or something set up in the canals. He thinks he’s participating in something about Plush, but it’s just a ruse.”
I took my hands off the levers and slammed my fists into either side of the dashboard. The drone jumped and rocked, but I didn’t care. “Fuck!” This went so much deeper than I’d anticipated.
“Try not to crash,” he said wryly. “I plan on living for at least a few more years.”
I leveled us out, reclining my head back against the seat. My helmet was still on the passenger side, at Case’s feet, where I’d left it the night before. “How exactly did they get him to talk?”
I closed my eyes.
I didn’t want to hear it.
“Babble.”
I couldn’t reveal to this stranger that I’d just taken Darby into my home and shared my deepest secrets with him—assuming that if the government didn’t have Babble, no one would.
Static came over the line. I reached for my phone just as Bender’s words filled the craft. “Maggie, it’s Sam.” His voice conveyed his mood even through the tiny mic. Happiness wasn’t a normal emotion for him, but raw impatience wasn’t either. “Your breakfast is getting cold.”
“On my way,” I replied with the button down. “Overslept.”
“Come in the back door. Front’s locked.”
I couldn’t risk asking much over the radio waves, but I tried. “Is the entire family going to be there?”
“No. Just Don.” Static. “See you in a few.”
“Will do. Maggie, out.” I stuffed the phone back in my vest.
“Trouble?”
I was in no mood to discuss anything about myself with this stranger. “We’re landing soon. Brace yourself.”
“Why do I need to—”
I whipped Seven around in a wide arc, jamming my hand to the right while aiming my left hard toward the floor, dropping altitude while turning. Then I began to back her up quickly. I didn’t take as much pleasure in seeing Case’s hands splayed on the console in front of him and hearing him gasp, the ridiculous fabric covering his eyes crunching and crinkling, because I was furious. My family was in harm’s way and I’d had no idea. “Nobody said getting to this entrance was going to be easy.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Entering on the east side took finesse. I guided Seven in between obstacles in reverse, bringing her down on the dead earth right outside of a shattered building.
This was the only entryway we had that wasn’t radio controlled, operated by a switch on the building itself. Once Seven was stabilized, I leaned over and scooped up my helmet, settling it on my head as I popped open the door. “Stay here, and don’t even think about peeking. We’re almost in.”
Case grunted in response.
At the building, I ran my gloved hands over it, searching for the toggle t
hat would open things up. It was well hidden for a reason, and I could never remember exactly which quadrant it was located in. We hardly ever used this entrance, since none of us came from the east very often. This particular section of the wall was a graphene composite mix, with lots of bumps and burrows, making it ideal to modify. I finally found what I was looking for and flipped the tiny switch that was set up under a deep groove. Then I took a few steps back.
The wall began to swing upward and outward.
I headed back to the craft. The ground was rocky and waterlogged, but stable under my boots. It would take some time for the passageway to reach its full height. I slid in, closed the door, and engaged the props. Seven hovered a meter off the ground.
Once the opening was at max height, I crept her in backward.
The space was tight.
There was barely enough room on each side to squeeze her through. Darkness crept over her like an advancing cloud as I eased into the space, leaving the outside behind. Engaging the landing gear, I set her down four meters in. Satisfied with her placement, I punched her off.
We’d landed in the lower floor of another building, but this one wasn’t a parking garage. It used to be an auditorium of some kind. The vaulted ceiling soared high above our heads, seats fanning up a short incline. Several balconies lined the back wall. Now, other than a few scattered chairs here and there, the space was empty.
My footsteps echoed as I made my way across the stage to close the passageway.
I hit the button, and the door began to close. Then I made my way toward another panel on the wall. This one was disguised behind an old video monitor. I flipped the screen and punched in a sequence of numbers. The light above the small board flashed yellow, then began to blink.
I was over the blink.
“Can I undo my blindfold now?” Case called from the craft.
“Nope,” I said as I made my way back, scanning the auditorium in front of us, waiting for Lockland to activate the next passageway. I couldn’t do it from this craft. I’d had to back Seven in, because the angle we needed to make the exit was too tight to maneuver in a full circle. I closed the door. “I’m late for breakfast, so you’re going to keep that on until I say so.” My plan was to take the craft all the way to Bender’s, land on the roof next door and make Case fly away before he saw where I was headed.
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