Shattered Roads

by ALICE HENDERSON

  Walking around to the other side, he gazed outside. It still looked sunny and calm. Swinging himself into the plane, he landed in the pilot seat. “Take that buckle there and strap it in the middle of your chest,” he told her.

  She reached down, finding two black straps that went over her shoulders and lap, and latched them in the middle with an antique metal buckle. She felt a reassuring click.

  He started up the engine. The blade on the nose of the plane began whirring, so fast it blurred. Then he eased the plane out of the storage shed and into the daylight. Angling it out onto the runway, he looked over at her. “Ready?”

  She bowed her head.

  “Then here we go.” He eased the plane forward, gaining more speed on the runway. Suddenly she could feel the wind buffeting the wings. “Winds are always a little high this time of year, but we’ll make it,” he reassured her.

  They zipped down the airstrip, traveling faster than she ever had before. The end of the strip loomed up before them, beyond which lay rocks and a small rise. She gripped the seat as the rise grew impossibly close, and then the nose of the plane tilted up. She felt the plane rock to the right, lifting slightly as the wheels left the ground.

  And then they were airborne. She let go of the seat and gripped the doorframe, staring down as the airport buildings shrunk beneath them. She could see the dusty road she’d driven on with Rowan and, glinting in the distance, a tiny square she imagined was the solar panel on the roof of her car. Rowan was just now pulling away, heading south toward the other camp.

  Then they drew higher, and she took in a vast landscape, the likes of which she’d never seen before. All of Delta City lay before them. As they rose in altitude, she could see the gleaming of the atmospheric shield, stretching across horizons. All along the base she saw carbon dioxide ports like the one she’d entered. Soon they passed the perimeter, flying over the shield itself. She could see the PPC tower where she’d made her pirate broadcast. Around it, millions of gray buildings bristled upward. Long, dirty streets that had been so insufferably crowded on the ground now looked like dark little ribbons winding among the buildings.

  Soaring over the tops of buildings, she peered down through the shield into the teeming chaos.

  They flew for more than two hours like that, the view of clustered buildings and narrow streets all blending together. At last they reached the far edge of the shield, and the entire scene changed.

  She could see the shapes of hills, dried riverbeds, and brown dust extending endlessly. The wind caught the plane again, and the craft dipped. She gripped the seat, her heart crawling up into her throat. She looked over at Gordon.

  He grinned. “We’ll be okay. See this?” he said, pointing at a dial that floated in some kind of oily liquid. She read 270˚ W on the bobbing device inside. “That tells us which way we’re heading.” He pointed at the icon of a little plane, titled slightly above a flat line. “This tells us how level we are.” He pointed at another dial. “And this is our air speed.” She blinked at it: 140 mph? Could that be right? If so, she was elated. No cracked roads to drive over, no potholes that could destroy a car’s axle. No night stalkers. No flooded streets. Her body started to relax. She felt like the birds she had read about. She gazed out at the clouds nestled in the blue sky and felt a freedom she’d never known.

  He caught her expression and smiled. “Great, isn’t it?” He pushed back in his seat, relaxing his shoulders.

  “How long can we fly before we have to refuel?”

  He looked at the gauge. “About five and a half hours if the methane tank is full. Of course, just crossing Delta City eats up a chunk of that.”

  She studied him for a while, the way he turned the controls with the ease of experience. “How long have you been a pilot?”

  “Sixty-five years. My parents taught me when I was fifteen. They were both pilots too.”

  She looked down at her lap, then turned to the window. “What was that like?”

  “Hell, the best feeling in the world! They were both crackerjack pilots. They could do all the stunts. They had a sweet little red biplane with yellow on the wings. I love that plane. Still got it in storage. My grandfather was also a pilot, and before that, his mom. A whole family of aviators going way back.”

  She looked at him awkwardly. “I mean . . . what was it like to have parents?”

  He met her eyes, and his face dropped. “You didn’t know your folks?”

  She pursed her lips. “It wasn’t like that where I grew up . . . parents didn’t raise their kids.”

  He squinted in the sunlight. “I see. You’re from one of the city centers?”

  She thought about how Rowan said he could be trusted. “Yes.”

  “Rough break. Of course, it’s no picnic out here either.”

  “Picnic?”

  He smiled. “It’s when you eat outside.”

  “Oh. I see.” She didn’t see.

  “Anyway, I’d say having parents is one of the most comforting feelings in the world. You always have a home to go to, no matter what. You have people who love you unconditionally. When I was young, I struck out on my own to open my first airfield. Back in those days, more people lived outside the city centers, and I actually made a decent living at it. But I always knew that if I failed, I could go back to my parents, and they would welcome me. It’s a damn shame you didn’t know that feeling growing up.”

  She remained silent.

  “So who raised you?” he asked.

  She stared out at a scattering of clouds, imagining that they were a family of opossums. “Different people. We call them caregivers. They’re workers like me, only with different assignments. They were always changing shifts, and I didn’t know any of them too well. When I was six, they put me up in a living pod and gave me my first job.”

  “Not much of a childhood. What was your job?”

  “Cleaning places, mainly. Toilets, sinks, that kind of thing.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a very fun life for a little kid.”

  Fun? She’d never thought about that before. “No, it wasn’t, but it was a lot better than my later job.”

  “And what was that?”

  She stared down at the parched ground, watching waves of dust flowing over the surface like gauzy sheets. “I, uh . . . removed corpses from buildings and incinerated them.”

  He whistled. “Wow.” He went quiet then, stealing looks at her now and again. She felt awkward about her upbringing, so she just kept staring out.

  As they flew, the clouds grew menacing. Billowing gray soon gave way to strange green, balls of fluff. They flew under the thick cloud layer, beyond which the blue sky was completely obscured.

  “Cotton ball clouds,” Gordon said.

  “What are those?”

  “Dangerous. That’s a tornado sky.”

  “What’s a tornado?”

  “Let’s hope you don’t find out.” He looked at his fuel gauge. “Unfortunately, we need to land soon. We’re going to have to put down in this.”

  They started to descend, the now-familiar dip making her a little sick. The wind pushed the plane from side to side, but Gordon did his best to keep it righted. “Strong winds,” he said, pursing his lips. It was the most worried she’d seen him.

  Another gust hit them so powerfully that they surged down. Her stomach dipped wildly, and for a moment she hovered weightlessly above her seat. Then he regained control, and her butt met the seat again. She seized the grab bar.

  “This is going to be rough.” He glanced over at her. “You’re still buckled in, right?”

  “Yes.” Another sickening drop.

  Sudden rain poured from the clouds, pummeling the plane. The downpour slapped against the windows, drowning out the sound of the propeller. The plane swept back and forth, lurching up and down in violent gusts that robbed the breath from
her chest. As a fresh wind pushed the plane to the left, she slammed against the door, slapping her hand to the glass as she tried to stay in her seat. The belt dug into her shoulders.

  “Hold on.”

  Lightning flashed around them, while the thunder boomed and rumbled. Before them, a portion of the cloud started to funnel downward. She was fascinated by its spiral, twisting in midair, dipping ever lower. Then another cloud funneled up from the ground, arcing toward its earthbound twin. “Let’s just hope those two don’t touch,” Gordon said. He veered the plane off to the right, giving the strange clouds a wide berth.

  It looked like the clouds might vanish back where they’d come from. The one on the ground wound down and vanished, as the one in the sky lifted back toward the parent cloud. Then suddenly both returned with renewed strength, meeting in the middle. They churned and danced, growing thicker and stronger. She could see dirt and other objects rising from the ground, spiraling within the funnel.

  “Damn it!” Gordon cursed. He looked back at the fuel gauge. “We’re going to have to take our chances on the ground. We can’t stay up in this, and we can’t turn back. We’d be stranded with no fuel and a hell of a long way to walk through some dangerous country.”

  She gripped her seat. “So we put down?”

  “We put down.” He banked sharply to the north, steering away from the funnel cloud. “We’re about twenty miles from the fuel outpost. I think we can skirt around this thing a little and still make it.”

  She stared out at the raging storm, the lightning flashes burning her retina. She had to trust in Gordon, trust that he knew what he was doing.

  She held on tight and gritted her teeth.

  Chapter 25

  The tornado changed directions, shifting northward toward them. They’d almost skirted around it now, dipping low toward the ground. The plane whipped around in the gale-force winds, and H124 felt so sick she didn’t think she’d ever be able to eat again. Below them the ground raced past, the plane plunging so low she felt as if she could stick her legs out of its bottom and run along the dirt.

  “Almost there.” Gordon gripped the controls, leaning forward as he made adjustments.

  Then an old airfield came into view, its ancient markings barely visible on the cracked pavement. A tattered flag hung from a rusted pole, and a few collapsed hangars lay in piles along the northern side of the runway.

  She craned her neck to the south, seeing the monstrous tornado gyrating in a furious storm of dust, rain and other things churning in its dark depths. Then the wheels hit hard, and she bit her tongue. They slowed, jostling along the weathered runway. Gordon’s lips pressed together so tightly that all the color had drained from them.

  He looked over his shoulder as the plane came to a stop next to the fuel pumps. “Can you see if that thing’s changed directions?”

  She looked through his window at the funneling black cloud. She watched it wind and spit its way across the terrain, trying to judge its distance and course. Using a small hill in the backdrop as a frame of reference, she realized with a sinking feeling that it had shifted north. “It’s headed this way.”

  Gordon jumped out of the plane. “We have to be quick. Can you help me?”

  “Of course!” She unbuckled her belt and climbed out, instantly feeling the heat rising in waves off the old runway. The air hung heavy and humid, blistering around her. Sweat beaded on her back and forehead as she hurried around to the fuel pumps. The rain soaked her. Gordon opened the plane’s tank, and she pulled off the hose, hurrying toward him. But when he tried to fill the tank, nothing happened. He pressed the lever again. Nothing. “It’s empty,” he said.

  She had a delayed reaction. “What?”

  He hurried back to the plane. “We have to try the airfield’s backup tank!” The wind picked up speed. “Get back in!”

  She ran around to the other side of the plane, and he started it up again. They taxied down the runway, stopping in front of the last collapsed building. Jumping out, he raced over to the ruined edifice, got down on all fours, and shimmied through a hole in the rubble. She watched his legs and boots disappear, then she climbed out of the plane. The wind whipped around her, plastering her hair to her face. She brushed it back, and gazed into the horror of the funnel cloud. Churning ever nearer, it plowed toward them, kicking up debris. A low rumble sounded forth.

  She ran over to the hole in the rubble and knelt down, staring into the dark. She couldn’t see him. “Gordon?” She could barely hear herself above the roar of the approaching tornado. “Gordon!”

  His face appeared then, framed in the dim filtering light of the afternoon. He crawled back through the debris, and she stood to aside as he got out. He held up a small key, then jogged over to a rectangle in the runway. “Give me a hand!”

  He pulled up a chunk of pavement, which flipped open on a set of groaning hinges, revealing a metal door with a lock. He slid the key in, then pulled up on the handle. Beneath lay a series of secondary tanks. She allowed herself to breathe again. “Are they full?”

  He reached inside, pulling out a hose. “We’re about to find out!”

  She rushed over to the plane’s tank and opened the fuel door for him. Behind them the tornado chugged inexorably closer. Now she could really see the debris cloud around it, a revolving mass of heavy objects that would kill them instantly if it got close enough.

  “That thing still headed our way?” he asked as he filled the tank.

  She watched the monstrous funnel tear up the terrain. “Yep!”

  “Figured! Wouldn’t want the trip to be too easy!”

  She laughed in spite of the situation, and that made him chuckle. A gust of wind hit her so hard she lost her balance and knocked against the side of the plane.

  “Now don’t get blown away!” he said. “I’m starting to get attached!”

  She braced herself against the tail of the plane. “I’ll do my best!” The tornado was deadly close now.

  “Halfway there!” Gordon said, but she didn’t think they’d make it. The pump was filling the tank too slowly.

  “Can we take off with what we have and fill it up somewhere else?” she yelled.

  He shook his head. “There is nowhere else! It’s this or nothing!”

  “We could go back!”

  “Not with half a tank, we can’t!”

  She bit her lip.

  As he kept the hose in the plane, she watched the black cloud fill her view. She could hear its cacophonous roar.

  Three-fourths full.

  The howling wind tore off the roof of a building at the end of the runway. “Time to go!” Gordon shouted above the din. He unhooked the hose, and they jumped back in the plane.

  Not bothering to strap in, he started it up and gunned down the runway. Wind tore at the wings, shuddering the plane. She gripped her seat, her teeth clenched. The little plane jerked side to side, and suddenly they were airborne, speeding away from the funnel cloud. He banked the plane sharply away from the storm. “You got nerves of steel,” he told her as they rose higher and higher.

  The plane dipped beneath the heavy cloud layer, toward a section of sky that now shone clear in a few patches.

  “Do we have enough fuel?” She leaned toward the fuel gauge. It was a little over three-fourths.

  Gordon grimaced. “Not to get to the airfield I wanted to reach.”

  “What do we do?”

  “There’s another one, but . . .” His voice trailed off as he chanced a look back at the storm. The plane stopped shaking so violently. “Should be smoother now.”

  “But?” she prompted.

  He glanced over at her with worried eyes. “It’s a bad place. Bad people. It’s dangerous, and I wanted to avoid it.”

  “PPC?”

  “Badlanders. And not the ones like Firehawk belongs to. Dirty bastards who like
to kill, who live for it. They’d tear us apart if we landed there. They’re called the Death Riders. I’ve heard stories . . .”

  “About what?”

  His eyes looked haunted. “I’d rather not say. Not to a young thing like you.”

  “I can take it.”

  “I’m sure you can, but I can’t. I have no interest in robbing you of any more innocence than you’ve already lost.”

  “Can we land somewhere else?”

  He shook his head. “Not with this little fuel. When we get there, we’ll have to fuel up fast.”

  She tilted her head. “Faster than we just did?”

  He bit his lip. “Faster.”

  Before long the air cleared, showing long patches of sapphire. As the hours passed, they talked about weather, and he taught her more about flying. The sun beat down through the windows, heating up the cabin. The ground was brown in every direction. In some places, the ancient paths of rivers, now long dried up, were still visible. She saw charred patches and strange spires dotting the landscape.

  “What are those?”

  Gordon looked down. “Trees. Old ones. Burned a long time ago. Whole forests of them. Now they just stand there, blackened sentinels of a bygone age.”

  This was what Raven had been talking about. The scorched forests.

  They flew over a dense patch of dead trees, then rolling hills, brown in most places, and black from grass fires in others. Soon a giant column of ash and smoke appeared on the horizon. It billowed upward, filling the distant sky.

  “Fire,” Gordon said.

  “Natural or humans?”

  “Don’t know. Could be natural, all this lightning we’ve been having. But it could also be the Death Riders. They burn the camps of other Badlanders. I’ve even heard that when they’re running low on food they . . .”

  She looked over at him, but he didn’t finish.

  “We’ll have to land soon. The fuel stop’s just on the other side of that fire.”