James paused and his face looked darker when he began writing again. Kale is part of something bigger. I have to make sure—
“James!” Kale’s voice filled the room and I gasped.
“Sir?” James clicked the button on his com device.
“I need you over here pronto to help with some parts.”
James rolled his eyes at me. “Got it. I’ll be right there.” He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand, in stark contrast to his businesslike tone. “Well, Tora, this looks as good as can be expected. Just let me know if you have any pain or discomfort. Okay?”
“Got it.” He stared into my eyes a second longer, before he took off to help Kale.
I exhaled slowly and attempted to regain my composure. The way I felt when he was near scared me, and I didn’t like to be scared. I reached down to grab the books and carried the stack into the front room, where Britta was busy sucking down some Caelia Pure.
“Let me in!” Markus yelled through the door. I opened it, helmet and books in hand, as he sauntered by me.
“Be back in a second,” I said and slipped through the opening.
Markus frowned. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I slid the door shut behind me.
“Hey—”
I ignored Markus’ protests and made my way up the ladder with the notebooks. Once outside, I placed the stack of tablets on the ground then stepped back ten paces. The sun would take care of them by itself, but I wanted to speed up the process. I removed B.K. from my waist, set it to burn, and took aim.
I pressed the button and the books erupted in flames, the smell of burned plastic wafting through the air. Hundreds of hours of my father’s work incinerated in an instant. A small pang of guilt hit me, but I shrugged it off. Though my father hadn’t intended it, his notes could be used to rekey the guns to any vibration. I couldn’t let that happen. Satisfied, I went back down and pounded on the emergency door.
Markus looked down at my now empty hands with a questioning eye. “Did you just shoot tablets? Because I really didn’t figure you for the book-burning type.”
I shrugged and kept walking past him and Britta, who just stared at me. “Just let me know when Kale and James get back,” I called over my shoulder.
I wanted some alone time. Once inside my room, I pulled up the ocean on my Infinity. My sister and I used to lie side by side looking at the screen, pretending we were on a family vacation.
Your pink swimsuit looks muy bonita on you, she would tell me, her seven-year-old voice mimicking an adult. We felt like rebels using Spanish now that it was supposed to be extinct too. Gracias, I’d respond, now let’s collect seashells in your purple bucket. It was a stupid game but it made us happy at a time when little else did. My father was always in his study and my mother … well, she was never happy.
I closed down the picture and opened the GlobalNet. Still no signs of life. Qué sorpresa. I’d neglected Surviving Burn Out the past two days. I tapped my fingers across the keyboard that had appeared in front of me. What to discuss? Coming under enemy fire by our own government? Admit to my vast readership that there is no surviving burn out—that death is the only real escape? Unless you can find a group of burners who want to “rescue” you so they can use you for your guns.
I didn’t notice the blinking light coming from the bottom of the screen at first. I’d never seen it before. Green and flashing rapidly. What the hell was it? It wasn’t like the battery could run low since it was powered by my own energy. I took my finger and scrolled down until my finger waved over the light. A caption popped up from the screen into the air in front of me. It was attached to my chronically recycled post.
My first comment.
Chapter FIFTEEN
HEY—JUST FOUND THIS ON THE NET. I’M ALEC. I’M SEVENTEEN. I’m the only one left in Sector 2. Maybe the only one left anywhere, aside from you. Please respond if you’re still there … por favor.
There was another survivor out there, and he knew Spanish. The por favor added a note of desperation to the almost nonchalant tone of the rest of the message. I called up a map to look at the sectors. Geography didn’t matter much when every zone was a dead one. Sector 2 looked to be about where Australia was before the final drought when the government restructured everything into sectors. When I started to type a reply, a new box came up, saying he was on GlobalNet and ready to chat.
Alec? I typed hesitantly.
The response was almost instant. Damn. I thought it was too good to be true.
My heart almost stopped in my chest. Though I’d faithfully posted on the Net each week, it felt like I’d been writing into a void. I’d stopped believing that I’d actually find a fellow survivor.
I’m here. I’m Tora.
My finger hovered over the send button, when my cynical side took over. I typed rapidly.
How do I know you’re not really a poser from the Consulate pretending to be a survivor?
A long pause stretched into what seemed like eternity before I heard back. The string of expletives he wrote back about the Consulate told me he was either an excellent liar or he really hated them.
Alec typed fast and furious. He told me that his family was poor—too poor for a pod city, and he’d only gotten lucky when he found a GlobalNet device in a dead family’s pod. He said Sector 2’s pod city actually had a name—Consulate City. Wow, they were as creative with their names as I was with my guns.
He’d lived on the outskirts of that city like we did here, meaning no dome for protection. Only single pod units with unreliable air and water systems. When those systems broke down, you either had to have money to fix it or you’d be toast. Literally. It was just him and his dad, until their water system began failing and their pleas for assistance were ignored by the government. Alec woke one morning to find a note from his dad saying he’d gone to demand help from the Consulate. Knowing that the Consulate wouldn’t help, he ran to a friend’s house. They didn’t have enough water as it was, but agreed to let him stay.
The guilt over not going after his father burned his insides more than the sun ever could.
Several weeks later, his friend’s home was stormed by the Consulate. Alec had grabbed an old sunsuit and hidden in a crawl space under the pod, but heard them murder his friend and his friend’s family.
I shook my head. It didn’t make sense.
Why? What did your friend’s family do wrong?
A long moment passed.
Nothing. The Consulate wanted the W.A.R. It was the only thing missing when I went back inside.
I didn’t understand.
Why would the government want a W.A.R. machine?
Alec wrote that he heard times were getting tough, even inside the pod cities, and the Consulate was looking for excuses to take the machines from the poor. A new planet hadn’t been found yet and even the government panicked. They started out just taking W.A.R.’s from the families of the deceased, and created a law that it was illegal to be in possession of a W.A.R. machine that wasn’t yours. So many people outside the cities took W.A.R.’s from the dead, but since they were government-issued, the Consulate knew who was registered to have one and who wasn’t. If you didn’t give it back, they killed you.
Alec continued typing at a rapid pace.
I think when the situation in the city became more desperate, they stopped waiting for people to die off and started taking the machines by force. The Consulate probably thought they were doing them a favor by killing them outright, instead of letting them die slowly of dehydration. I heard them accuse my friend’s family of treason, though I think that was a bunch of shit.
I knew the government had killed my father, but killing innocent children was unbelievable. I shuddered.
So a trumped-up treason charge helps those burners feel better about murdering people?
He responded:
Don’t you get it, Tora? Treason makes them the enemy. No enemy survivors. Which really means no witnesses. Trust
me, if they knew I’d been hiding out, they would have killed me too—then there’d be no survivor in my sector. I heard them marching up and down the pod streets, and the only sound was gun blasts.
He’d only survived because he found a hidden W.A.R. machine under a pod. Alec’s words sent a chill up my spine. No enemy survivors. Both Kale and James had referred to that earlier. Had James experienced something like that with the Consulate? I couldn’t work out how Kale figured into everything, or how James and Kale were connected.
My father’s genius was a mixed blessing. He’d created super-guns, but also had been able to restructure our W.A.R. machine to accommodate the drop in atmospheric water particles. The government didn’t have my father’s brains. It made sense that if they couldn’t make their existing W.A.R. machines more sensitive, they needed more of them to harvest enough water to survive. And they believed that their lives were of greater importance than those of the “lower class” citizens outside the cities. My dad’s super-weapons would have killed people faster and more efficiently than having to shoot multiple lasers at each person. And if they got lucky and found a planet, which they did, the guns would provide order in the new world.
My fingers flew across the keyboard, telling Alec that if I wasn’t killed by the assholes I was living with, I’d find a way to get there and rescue him. I also mentioned that I noticed his Spanish and loved the language. We logged off and I promised to rescue him if I survived. His parting words gave me hope.
Buena suerte, Tora. You’re pretty damn strong if you made it this far.
I went back into the front room just as James and Kale signaled their return with a knock on the sliding door. I’d decided not to tell any of them about Alec yet. I hadn’t figured out how to play that card.
“How’d it go?” I asked James, trying to sound casual.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Got her all fixed up.” Kale’s pride in the ship was evident. “She’s good to go, as soon as we load her with the ammo and visit our friends over yonder.” He motioned his head in the direction of the crash.
James continued to stare at some imaginary spot on the wall. Something was wrong.
Britta stared back and forth between them, then jerked her thumb at me. “This one’s been busy too—shooting books.” Britta fake coughed into her arm as she muttered “crazy bitch.” Yet her tone was different, not as evil as usual.
I pulled my shoulders back and stood upright. “Yes, I shot them. They sure won’t be bothering us again anytime soon. You got any questions?”
Kale studied me, his expression unreadable. “That explains the pile of ash out there.” He turned to address the group. “All right, people. Listen up. We’ll do what we did before and fly between the night storms.” Kale’s voice projected confidence and control. “Unless we find survivors, it’s purely a salvage mission. Then, on to Caelia.”
“Don’t forget where you promised to take me when we get there,” James said.
Good thing he wasn’t being cryptic or anything.
Kale waved his hand in the air. “Yeah, yeah, of course. A soldier never breaks a promise.”
The way Kale strode around the small space, his leg pain must have significantly receded, because his gait was almost normal. He hadn’t asked for any more pain meds either.
James’ eyes were glued to my sister’s wildflower painting like it was the most astounding masterpiece he’d ever come across. Definitely avoiding eye contact. What had changed? If only I could get him alone, but he wasn’t veering far from Kale’s side. I patted my satchel, the weight of The Obliterator providing strange comfort. James was the only one who knew T.O. existed, and whatever was going on with him, I didn’t think he would have told Kale.
I stood and crossed the room to remove my sister’s picture from the wall, then carefully placed it in my satchel. I gave up trying to catch James’ eyes and situated myself in a chair. Fine. I just had to hope that even if it didn’t seem like it, that moment in my room was real.
Kale cleared his throat. “Helmets on everyone. Let’s move some guns.”
Any ideas I had about finding alone time with James were shattered when he refused to come within ten feet of me. Instead, he and Britta grabbed a box of guns and followed Kale up the ladder. Frustrated, I leaned down and hauled up one of the remaining boxes. Being alone wasn’t new, so James’ behavior shouldn’t have stung so much.
Markus came up behind me and grabbed the bottom edge of the box. “Here, let me help you.”
Tears sprang to my eyes and I blinked them away. Maybe he couldn’t tell through the helmet. “I’m fine, Markus. I don’t need help.” I tried to lift the box higher so it would cover my face.
He pulled the box out of my arms with ease and set it on the floor, then yanked off his helmet. He made a show of turning off the com device on his arm.
I pulled my helmet off and shook my head. “You’re going to get in trouble for that—”
“Look, I’ve wanted to talk to you alone but haven’t had the chance. I’m sorry for how this all went down. I don’t regret much, but I regret this. Not that it matters now I guess, but I wanted you to know.”
I wanted to hate Markus for everything he’d done but it would have been a waste of energy that I didn’t have. I’d known him longer than any person still living in this world. “Good to know. Now do you want to tell me what the hell is going on with Britta?”
Markus laughed. “She’s not that bad. Reminds me of you actually. I like my girls with a little spunk.”
“The fact that you just compared me to her makes me feel ill.” I studied him. “You really like her?”
He shrugged. “I kinda do. There’s a side to her you haven’t seen.”
I raised my hand to stop him. “I don’t even want to know.”
Markus grinned.
The others might be wondering what was taking so long. I grabbed my helmet. “We should get over there. And turn your com device back on before Kale notices.” If he hadn’t already.
Markus picked up his helmet. “I just want you to know that you’re not as alone as you think. I have your back.” He clicked his com device back on, winked at me, and lugged the box upward.
I watched him disappear out of the opening and sighed. If only I could believe him. I bent over and ran my hands through my hair, then twisted it up to fit under the helmet.
Several boxes of guns remained, so I grabbed the lightest one and headed up. James could haul his ass back in the scorching heat to get the rest for all I cared.
Sweat dripped down me as soon as I stepped outside. Markus had already reached Kale’s ship, and I cursed my slow pace but had to keep the box from hitting against my ribs. I couldn’t wait to get away from this forsaken place. I still needed to figure out how to take Alec with us because I couldn’t leave someone here alone to die—I knew exactly how desperate he felt. Just as I reached Kale’s ship, James and Kale were exiting to head back to the bunker.
“How many left?” Kale asked me through the helmet com as they passed.
I glanced at James, who looked away. I resisted the urge to scream through the com just to get a reaction from him. “Two, and they’re really heavy. Don’t sweat too much.” I stormed onto Kale’s ship and dropped the box on the floor in the loading area. After taking off my helmet, I kicked it across the floor.
I looked up to find Britta staring at me wide-eyed from across the room. Markus watched me with concern and motioned me over. He turned his com device off again, and Britta followed suit.
I stomped over to them. “Markus, I’m fine. You need to stop doing that or—”
“You’re not fine, Tora.” Markus spoke quickly. “I just went to take a piss, and James and Kale walked by in the hallway. They were talking and must not have known I was in there.”
I frowned. “And?”
Markus’ voice cracked. “This makes no sense at all, but Kale asked James to kill you.”
My stomach dropped to th
e floor and my knees buckled. Britta looked whiter than I’d seen her. I looked back and forth between her and Markus. “And?”
Britta’s voice came out in a whisper. “James said yes.”
Chapter SIXTEEN
MY BLOOD TURNED TO ICE. I BACKED AWAY FROM THEM. IF they were telling the truth, then the first boy I’d started to fall for had turned out to be a psychopath.
Markus glanced out the window of Kale’s ship. There was no sign of them yet, so they were still down in the bunker. “Whatever you think we should do, we should do it quick,” he noted.
What was I supposed to do? I thought about how my family would deal with this. My sister would try and hug her way out of it, my mom would dope herself up with meds to avoid dealing with it, and my dad would try to have a rational, calm conversation with them and explain his position. None of those options gave me a chance in hell of getting out alive.
“Do you know how to fly this bird?” I asked Markus.
Markus looked sheepish. “Yeah, I’m the copilot.”
“So let’s fly it then.”
Britta shrieked and pointed out the window. “They’re coming back.”
Kale and James each carried a box of Dad’s guns. It made me glad I left the heaviest ones for them so it would slow them down. The sight of James caused a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Run!” yelled Markus, and we raced full speed toward the cockpit.
We reached the front of the ship faster than I thought possible given my ribs. Britta and I strapped ourselves in, while Markus jumped into the pilot’s chair and flipped several buttons. The engine roared to life. Britta’s fingers were white from gripping the arm of her seat. At least I wasn’t the only terrified person in the room.
Markus flicked on his com device. “Might as well let them give me an earful.”
An idea formed in my head. “Okay, but don’t tell them you overheard their plan.”
A second later, Kale’s voice boomed through his com system. “What the hell? I didn’t give orders to start her up. Report, soldier.”
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