by J. M. Page
At the base of the great sandstone wall, she propped the man’s limp form and looked up toward the sky with her hands on her hips.
How was she possibly supposed to tell anyone he was there? She didn’t know the way in — if there even was a way in — and her time ran short as it was.
Rufus didn’t like the lack of dust as much as Celine did. He seemed to find it suspicious and had no problem voicing his concerns.
“Let’s go now before your father finds out what you’ve been up to!” He rocked back and forth on her shoulder, unable to keep still.
The man groaned, trying to sit up and failing. Celine crouched at his side, taking care to keep her arm hidden from view.
His eyes fluttered open and Celine felt that same strange weightless sensation as their gazes met, his full of confusion.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be safe soon,” she said while Rufus whined into her neck.
Rufus… That was it!
Celine turned to the little bot with a broad grin and he recognized the mischief in an instant.
“What is that look for?”
“Nothing,” she lied, plucking him from his perch.
She flipped Rufus over in her hand and opened his access panel.
“Celine! What are you doEEEEE—”
Celine winced, covering her ear with one free hand and lifting Rufus up with the other, the high-pitched siren wailing. Her ears rang, but Celine still held Rufus above her head, his modified siren echoing off the solid wall.
She thought she’d go deaf before anyone in the city heard, but then, there were deep voices rumbling under the shrill wail.
Celine squinted into the distance and spotted the shadows growing near.
“Do you see anything?” A voice asked.
“No, but something’s making an awful racket,” another said.
Celine pulled Rufus close again, tinkering with his insides until the siren stopped.
Rufus said nothing, not trusting his voice, but his expression spelled betrayal.
Celine gave him a little shrug. “I had to,” she whispered, scuttling away from the stranger.
The siren had roused him somewhat and he tried to get to his feet, coughing as he did.
“Your Highness!” One of the voices said as it grew nearer. Celine’s back rested right against the barrier to the dust storms. She told herself she just wanted to know he was safe.
“Ben, what are you doing out here?” said another.
“Celine,” Rufus finally said.
The two men helped her stranger to his feet. He said something she couldn’t hear and then the trio looked around, searching.
Celine held her breath and took a step backwards into the punishing dust.
“That was too close,” Rufus whined as she re-wrapped the folds of fabric around her. Celine’s face already stung from the few seconds she’d been exposed, but it didn’t matter.
The only thing that mattered now was that Celine knew the truth.
The walled city was real. They had the technology to stop the dust.
...And the man — Ben, she reminded herself — had flinched at her arm.
That was only a small hiccup in Celine’s opinion. Just a minor obstacle in the way of her new goal.
Because regardless of the consequences or the ire of her father, Celine knew she belonged to their world. A world where venturing into space wasn’t a little girl’s daydream, but a reality. A world where she didn’t have to be secreted away in deep underground tunnels. A world where she could breathe freely without choking.
A world with that impossibly handsome man and his bewitching golden eyes.
No doubt about it, she wanted to be a part of their world and nothing would stand in her way.
She trudged through the sand that swallowed her ankles with every step, feeling lighter somehow. A smile stretched her face and refused to disappear.
“Celine! Do you hear me? That was reckless, dangerous, and—”
“I’m going back,” she said.
“What? You can’t! Are you crazy? They’ll skin you alive.”
Celine rolled her eyes. “You’ve been listening to Dad too much. Has he been messing with your inhibition program?”
Rufus’s eyes flashed red for heartbeat. “No.”
Celine sighed, seeing how she’d offended Rufus. “Hey, I was just teasing,” she said. “But since when aren’t you up for adventure?”
“Since it could hurt you,” he answered, his lenses drooping. If ever a robot was able to pout, Rufus managed it then.
“I’m not going to be crazy about it. I have to have a plan. Clearly they’re not going to let me in with this,” she waved her mechanical arm at him. “But I’ll think of something.”
“You don’t belong with them,” he said, still trembling.
Celine didn’t argue with him. Maybe Rufus was right, but she wouldn’t let a little thing like logic stop her.
“We’ll just see about that,” was the last thing she said on the matter.
Her robotic companion had the good sense to let the subject drop too, and buried himself under the protective fabric she wore.
Celine scanned the horizon, or what she could see of it, and studied the nearby rock formations for directions.
Finding what she looked for, she turned, veering off course from the way home.
“Where are you going?”
“Shh, just a quick detour,” she said, patting Rufus absently.
When she arrived at the wreckage, Celine found the hovercraft all but buried in dust. Of course, dust was a way of life out in the Wastelands and she wasn’t going to let that stop her either. She dropped to her knees, the ground soft as talc, and worked herself into a frenzy digging the machine out.
She didn’t think she’d ever be able to get it operational again, but maybe there were useful parts. At least then she could have something to show for her day out instead of just a head full of fanciful ideas and dreams. And maybe whatever she found would be useful on her quest to get into the city.
That was a big maybe.
“Are you going to stay on my shoulder and be a scaredy bot, or help me with this?”
One of Rufus’s eyes popped up, followed by the other. “Help you?”
“What? You’ve already forgotten your love of cool stuff?”
Rufus vibrated for a moment, conflicted between his residual anger at her and his innate sense of wonder at anything deemed cool.
She plucked him from her shoulder, already knowing what his decision would be, and shooed him toward the opening.
“You know what to look for,” she said.
Rufus looked back at her before he made up his mind and wriggled his way into the narrow opening, the interior of the craft now nearly submerged with dust. There was no way she’d be able to get in there and find her way back out again. Rufus was small enough to explore places like that and usually he loved it.
Today, he was still a little bitter about everything that’d happened.
Despite that, he reappeared a few minutes later, pulling with him what looked to be some kind of control panel and maybe part of a reactor?
“Everything else is already ruined or useless,” he said. Celine thought he sounded tired even though he couldn’t be. Maybe she was mis-reading his impatience with her. She’d have to make it up to him somehow — a thorough cleaning and some fresh gaskets, perhaps.
She took his offered treasures and tucked them away for safekeeping.
“Oh, and this too,” Rufus said as an afterthought. His front panel sprang open and he removed a shiny silver coin that fit neatly into Celine’s palm. She turned it in her hand. One side depicted the walled city with three words in a language Celine couldn’t read. On the other side, there was an emblem with a constellation of stars and the words “Terran Space Force - Instinct, Pride, Valor.”
She examined the coin for another long moment, wondering if it belonged to Ben. If he was in the Space Force. Was he a flyer? It made
sense.
She felt that now-familiar buzzing in her chest at the thought of him. Was it really him or was it just the idea of him?
That was a question for another day, she decided. Celine clutched the coin tight in her hand and helped Rufus back up to her shoulder. There were too many questions at that moment and not enough answers for her liking. It was frustrating, yes, but also somehow… exhilarating?
The rest of the trip home passed quickly, her feet finding the way without any input from her conscious mind. That was a good thing, because Celine’s conscious mind was far, far away in a city surrounded by sky-high walls.
A giddy excitement still had her heart beating wildly as she unwrapped her covering and hung it by the back door, slipping into her father’s shop hopefully unnoticed.
The moment the door closed, Celine realized the shop was too quiet. Quiet enough to hear the tiniest screw skitter across the floor. Quiet enough to make the hairs on her neck stand to attention, her chest suddenly tight.
With no small amount of trepidation, she tip-toed through the workshop to the next door, the one that led to the storefront where her father helped other modders with malfunctioning parts and upgrades. She eased the door open, one eye peering through the crack as she held her breath.
“Where have you been?” His deep booming voice cut through her from behind.
Celine winced, taking longer than necessary to back away from the door and turn to face him.
He stood directly behind her — how a man of his size could move so silently, she’d never quite figured out — towering over her, a mountain of bulky muscle and gleaming machinery. Twin points of red light shone through his modified eyes and Celine wondered if this would be the day he actually incinerated her.
“Where have you been, Celine?” Her father’s voice shifted from hot and angry to cold and calm. She preferred angry.
She shuffled from one foot to the other while Rufus, the traitor, trembled on her shoulder.
“I was out scouting,” she said, deciding on a half-truth. Hopefully that would be enough to get her out of this. Hopefully.
Abatu’s mechanical eyes flashed red again and focused on her, scrutinizing her closely enough that she held her breath and fought against the urge to squirm.
“I’m going to ask you again. Where have you been?”
Celine knew better than to try and hide anything from her father. He always denied it, but she was positive those eyes of his had X-ray capabilities.
“We were… I was… Just out looking for new parts,” she said, her voice falling. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth. Not with those angry lines in his forehead and the prickling sensations creeping up her spine.
She didn’t have to account for her whereabouts, after all. Celine was a grown woman. Her father may be her boss and even the leader of the folks in the Wastelands, but he couldn’t control her, no matter how hard he tried.
“Did you find anything?” His voice was still stern, disbelieving and suspicious. Guilt gnawed at Celine – she may not have to account for her whereabouts, but keeping secrets from her dad made her feel all kinds of awful.
She sighed, looking at the floor as if it had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world. She couldn’t meet his gaze, but she couldn’t lie to him, either.
“We saw a crash,” she said, sucking in a breath, waiting for his roar of anger.
The air shifted in their little workshop and Abatu collapsed onto Celine’s usual chair. Springs groaned under his massive bulk and her father did something she’d never seen before: he dropped his head to his hands.
In that moment, Celine felt like an intruder. Like she was witnessing some vulnerable moment that she should never be privy to. Her father was a strong man. A leader. Fair, just, and full of fire. But now he looked… Scared.
“Dad?” Celine took two steps forward on the tips of her toes, afraid a change in the wind or one wrong word could send him into the frothing rage she’d expected.
“Humans?” was all he asked.
She nodded. “Just one… He was alone.”
Her father’s head jerked up and their eyes locked. “He?”
A cold slithery feeling of dread wormed its way down Celine’s esophagus and she nodded, her mouth as dry as the world outside.
“He was hurt…”
Abatu’s eyes flashed red again and a muscle in his jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together. “Good. One less human out there hunting us.”
Celine swallowed past the sand in her throat, trying to find the strength to nod. Her human hand slipped into her pocket and clutched the coin Rufus recovered in the crash.
She said nothing. Abatu narrowed his eyes at her, and when he met her stony expression, he turned to Rufus, the quivering heap of bolts that would be sure to betray her.
“Did you find anything while scouting?”
Rufus cast a glance to Celine, then back to Abatu, before he buried himself into her shoulder again.
“Well?” Her father prodded again, clearly directing the question to the loose-lipped bot.
Unable to resist the compulsion to answer him, Rufus’s eyes popped up for just a moment, shaking his head from side to side. “There wasn’t anything cool in the wreck.”
Celine winced. Wrong answer, Ru.
Abatu narrowed his eyes at her again and Celine could feel the anger rolling off of him in waves. “You went to the wreckage? Are you out of your mind? That close to a human?”
Rufus jumped to Celine’s defense. “No, the human wasn’t there anymore. He was already back in the walled city.”
He seemed very proud of himself, but Celine had never been more tempted to unplug him herself. She glared at him and it took Rufus a long minute to realize he’d done something wrong, even if he wasn’t sure what it was.
“Back in the walled city? How do you know that?”
Rufus shuddered and took the question as his cue to dip back into his body, ever the mechanical turtle hiding in its shell.
Celine sighed, knowing Rufus had backed her into a corner. There was no escaping her father’s wrath now.
“Because I helped him get there,” she said, already flinching.
“You did WHAT?” He jumped to his robotic feet, towering over Celine. His booming voice echoed around their cavernous workshop, rattling shelves setting off a frenzy of activity as parts, pieces, and half-completed bots tumbled to the floor and sprang to life.
Celine and her father both ignored the clamoring around them, locked in a battle of wills.
“He was injured and lost. I couldn’t leave him to die,” she said, hands flying to her hips.
“You could have and you should have,” her father said, his voice edged with steel.
“Just because you’re afraid of them, doesn’t mean I have to be. Did you know they have the technology to stop the dust? Did you? While we’re stuck living in these tunnels and caves, they get to breathe real air and go outside.”
“Celine,” he said in a warning tone, grinding his teeth together again.
Celine didn’t want to hear it. She was on a roll now.
“How could you relegate us to this life in prison when there are other options? We could go to the city. We could leave this dusty planet if we wanted to!”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. I made a mistake giving you the freedom to roam on your own. That ends now.”
Celine opened her mouth to argue, but her father already turned on his heel and stormed out the same door she’d come through only a few minutes earlier.
She stared after him in open-mouthed shock, wondering what she was supposed to do now. They’d had arguments like this before, but never quite like this. Never so explosive. And Abatu was never so calm at the end. He was a man with a fiery temper, prone to destruction and…
Celine’s blood chilled, her heart seizing in her chest.
No. He couldn’t.
Without another moment of hesitation, she flew t
hrough the very same door and followed him through the labyrinth of underground tunnels.
“Where are you going?” She called after him, too scared to know the truth. Fact of the matter was, she already knew the answer. She knew exactly where her father was going and why. And it made her heart break just thinking about it. She had to stop him.
“I’m putting an end to this silly obsession of yours once and for all, Celine. For your own good. This is where you belong. Not out there. Not in the city. And not in the stars. Here.”
She jogged to keep up with him, needing three or four steps to keep up with each of his long strides.
He took a right turn and another sharp turn and Celine’s heart hammered wildly, her stomach twisted itself into knots and she was sure she was going to be sick.
“Daddy, please,” she begged, tugging on his massive forearm, nearly the size of her thigh. There was no way she could ever stop him physically.
Abatu looked at her, his expression softening, his eyes back to steady blue. She never called him Daddy anymore. It was a last ditch effort to appeal to his emotional side and he seemed to know it. He reached down and ran his hand over her hair, tucking a wayward piece behind her ear.
“One day you’ll thank me.”
He ripped his arm from her grip and stepped into the cave that was Celine’s private treasure trove. Her father dwarfed the room, his shoulders barely avoiding brushing against both walls, the top of his head only a hair’s width from the ceiling.
Celine watched in horror as he reached for something on a nearby shelf and smashed it on the ground. A scream of protest reverberated off the walls and she realized it had ripped from her own raw throat.
He smashed treasure after treasure.
“I’ll teach you where you belong, even if it’s a tough lesson to learn,” he said as tears streamed from her eyes.
His eyes fell on something else, something she hoped he wouldn’t recognize – her meager attempts at scrabbling together a craft of some kind. She didn’t yet have all the parts to make it work, but she’d poured countless hours into it, praying that one day it could take her to the stars.
“I’m not a little girl anymore,” she said, wiping her face, ashamed of her own disheartened display. “You can’t keep me locked up. If I want to go to the walled city I will.”