Above World

by Jenn Reese

  They quickly fell into a rhythm. Slower than the one she’d set earlier, but quicker than what Hoku seemed to want. The creature on his shoulder squeaked whenever he tripped or stumbled.

  For the most part, she watched Dash. The horse folk intrigued her, and she burned to know Dash’s story. An Equian who wasn’t a horse from the waist down. How did something like that happen? Was that why he’d been exiled? His long hair swished across his back when he walked. She imagined it looked a lot like a horse’s tail.

  The sun sank lower. After an hour or so of hiking, Dash stopped and pointed. “There,” he said.

  The building stood several stories tall, a silvery monolith with a space at the bottom where an opening hatch used to be. Its walls shimmered and reflected the debris all around, making it almost invisible.

  “What is it?” Hoku asked.

  “It stands at the exact center of the dome,” Dash said solemnly. “It must be important.”

  “I don’t understand,” Aluna said. “Why is it still here? Why haven’t the Aviars or the Upgraders scavenged it for parts? It must be a trap.”

  “Trap or no, it might hold the answers you seek,” Dash said. “If we can save your people, is any price too high to pay?”

  She was here, wasn’t she? She’d given up everything for the crazy idea that she could make a difference.

  “What are you waiting for? Let’s go,” Aluna said.

  HOKU HATED to admit it, but he felt safer now that Dash was with them. Without him, Hoku would either have to go first into the strange building or go last when there were possibly murderous thugs coming up behind them. The middle was a vast improvement.

  As they walked through the narrow entrance corridor, he saw evenly spaced holes in the walls. They used to hold security cameras, he guessed, like the kind he read about at Skyfeather’s Landing. The cameras must have been easy pickings for the early tech scavengers. Too bad. He would have loved to take one apart.

  The corridor opened into a huge room the size of the whole first floor. The room seemed hollowed out except for a clear tube in the center. He expected to see stairs, but there were none. Maybe it once held an “elevator,” like the one the Aviars had. Dead video displays lined the walls from the ceiling down to the smooth, molded work spaces that ringed the whole room.

  Everything had once been shiny and silvery-slick. Despite the intrusion of garbage and the attempts to break everything breakable, very little damage had been done. He ran his fingers over the nearest workstation. Scratches and dings marred the surface . . . the result of hundreds of people trying to get inside the computer or destroy it for everyone else.

  “Do you have torches?” Dash said. “It is too dark to see much.”

  Hoku hadn’t even noticed the darkness. His eyes had adjusted. Dash’s people were probably more used to the sun.

  “We can see just fine,” Aluna said absently.

  Hoku heard Dash mumble something about mermaids, but Aluna, staring up the plastic tube in the center of the room, was too far away to hear.

  “Can we get to the other levels?” she asked.

  “I believe so,” Dash said. “That shaft goes all the way up, though whatever mechanism it used to house is long gone. I have scouted up five more levels. They all look like this. The top floor contains only tables and chairs and is overrun by squatters.” He wrinkled his nose. “Judging from the smell, they are not concerned with infiltrating the computer so much as drinking themselves into sickness.”

  Zorro wiggled down Hoku’s arm and clambered onto the work surface. Hoku started to walk a circuit around the room, trailing his hand along the massive desk. It stayed dark and cold and silent, oblivious to his touch. Zorro hopped after him, pausing to sniff the wall or the desk at random spots.

  “If this is the brain of SkyTek, then I’d say this dome is dead,” Aluna said.

  Hoku paused in his exploration to look at her. She picked up a piece of trash from the floor, turned it over in her hands, then threw it back down. She looked as out of place here as she did in the ritual dome back home. Dash was no better. The horse-boy couldn’t even see. He was cradling his broken arm and sticking his face a few centimeters away from the wall, squinting. Hoku would have to figure this out on his own.

  If all the floors looked the same, where was the access point? He’d been half expecting to see a big machine with glowing knobs emitting, “Get your answers here!” in some mechanical voice. Instead, everything looked the same. All the workstations were the same size. If this SkyTek had an Elder, she’d have to sit at a regular old desk like everyone else.

  He kept walking, kept scanning the walls and the desk surfaces for clues. Zorro kept pace, his little claws clattering on the smooth surface as he trotted along. Hoku stopped when they reached a small pile of rags on one of the workstations.

  Zorro squeaked and jumped onto the pile. He turned around three times, then plopped down in the center.

  “Zorro, is that your bed?” he asked.

  The raccoon’s eyes pulsed green.

  Hoku jumped back, surprised. He glanced back at Aluna. Dash was showing her how to shimmy up the elevator shaft. Neither one of them was paying him any attention.

  “Did . . . did you just answer me?” he asked quietly.

  Zorro tilted his head to the side, but his eyes stayed unremarkably black.

  “Can you talk?”

  Zorro started to lick his paw.

  “Zorro, can you understand me?” he tried again.

  The raccoon snapped to attention. His eyes glowed green once, then fell dark again.

  “By the tides,” Hoku hissed.

  Zorro tilted his head again — in exactly the same way as before. Did that mean he was listening but didn’t understand? And why hadn’t he acted like this before?

  Hoku stared at the raccoon. The raccoon stared back at him.

  “Zorro, can you speak?”

  The raccoon’s eyes pulsed red.

  “Well, it was worth a try,” he said. He gave Zorro a little scratch on the head. The animal’s fur was warm — much warmer than it had been before.

  “Hey!” Hoku said. “What are you hiding?” He started to pull away the rags that made up Zorro’s bed. The creature didn’t complain; he sat there staring. Hoku petted the raccoon a few times to keep him mollified, and he nuzzled his arm in response. When all the rags were gone, Hoku ran his hands slowly over Zorro’s body, feeling for . . . well, for anything weird.

  Nothing on his head except the collar. Nothing on his ribs. Nothing on his four dainty black paws. He ran his hand over the raccoon’s fluffy ringed tail, and . . . the tip was stuck to the desk! Hoku pulled at it gently, but nothing happened. He pulled a little harder, and Zorro’s tail popped off the surface. But what had it been stuck to? The desk was as smooth as ever, no sign of glue or a clip or a plug. No little tail-devouring mouth had been built by the ancients to nibble unsuspecting animals. At least, he couldn’t see any such mouth.

  He lowered Zorro’s tail toward the desk. At a few centimeters away, it suddenly snapped out of his hand and back into place exactly as it had been before.

  “Magnets!” Hoku said. They used magnets back at the colony to keep things from floating away — in fact, his own sticky plate was actually a magnet. He pulled Zorro’s tail off the desk and put it back three more times. “Magnets,” he repeated.

  Somehow, Zorro had plugged himself into the building.

  “What’s going on?” Aluna asked. She was halfway up the elevator shaft, her back pressed against one side and her feet braced against the other.

  “Nothing,” Hoku said quickly. He didn’t have anything to share with them. Not yet. For now, the secret belonged to him and Zorro.

  “Okay, boy, let’s see how this works,” he whispered, and plugged Zorro’s tail back into the desk. “Zorro, can you talk to the brain?”

  The animal tilted his head. This time, its eyes flashed yellow.

  “Zorro, can you talk to the ancients
?”

  His head tilted to the other side with another flash of yellow. Cute, but not helpful.

  Hoku unzipped his backpack and pulled out his books, looking for words that might trigger some response from the SkyTek brain. He tried “Internet,” “CPU,” “computer,” “network,” and even “SkyTek,” which he’d thought was particularly ingenious. More head tilts, more red or yellow eyes, more scratches behind the ears, but no luck.

  “Maybe ‘talk’ is the wrong word.” He tapped his cheek with one of his fingers, a habit he developed at Skyfeather’s Landing. “Zorro,” he said finally, “can you turn it on?”

  Zorro’s eyes glowed green. Hoku felt warmth emanating from his tiny body, along with a low-pitched whirring.

  Suddenly, the huge video screen in front of Hoku came to life, and a strange voice said, “Welcome to SkyTek, our dream for the future!”

  HOKU GASPED. Images appeared on the screen — bright, beautiful images in full color. It was as if he were flying toward the SkyTek dome again, only this time the landscape was full of Humans. And the dome wasn’t cracked, but glittering in the sun!

  He barely noticed when Dash and Aluna joined him. He reached out to touch one of the tiny trees on the screen, expecting to feel leaves, but the surface was as flat and smooth as it had been before.

  “With the world’s population growing past the point of sustainability . . .” the voice said, and images fluttered on the screen. Masses of people crammed in landscapes of metal and glass. Grime-covered children, too skinny, begging for food. Huge machines covering the side of a hill like a swarm of glittering beetles.

  “. . . SkyTek and its sister LegendaryTek corporations are prepared to bring you the future . . . in the form of the past!”

  The picture changed, and suddenly they were soaring over the ocean to the sound of flapping wings. It reminded him of flying with Senator Niobe, and his heart lifted.

  “Fly with the birds!” the voice exclaimed. “Our sustainable high-altitude communities of winged Aviars offer freedom from crowded cities, pollution, rationing, and even freedom from the earth itself! The ancient Greeks gave us the idea of winged women, and now we give you the skies!”

  The image pulled back to reveal a beautiful winged woman hovering in midair, a huge smile on her face. Her wings were pristine and perfect white, and her long hair fluttered in the wind, like shifting golden kelp. She didn’t much look like a real Aviar — she didn’t have muscles and scars and painted symbols all over her wings — but they got the general idea right.

  “Please see your local sales office for more details, or apply online at LegendaryTek dot com, where you can preview some of our other exciting new communities.”

  Another flash of images: A half horse, half Human racing across a sandy plain on four hooves; a beautiful Kampii woman with long, silly hair swimming through the ocean wearing shells on her chest instead of a shirt; a man with the long, sinuous body of a snake slithering in an underground chamber full of gemstones; and a Deepfell swimming between two sharks in the dark ocean.

  “Many more communities are in development,” said the voice. “It’s time to take evolution into your own hands!”

  The final image — a lone figure silhouetted on top of a mountain and breathing fire from his mouth — was covered up in a stream of tiny text that Hoku had no hope of reading. After that, the screen went dark.

  “Play it again,” Dash said. “Please.”

  “Yes,” Aluna said, similarly dazed. She reached out and touched the screen, just as he had done earlier.

  “Zorro, play it again,” Hoku said. The little raccoon’s eyes glowed green, and the screen lit up. They watched the images again, and a third time, and then a fourth.

  “Did you see that?” Hoku said. “In the picture with the Kampii — there was a dome in the background!”

  “Really?” Aluna said. “I missed it. I kept waiting for those ridiculous shells to fall off that Kampii’s chest. How could she possibly swim like that?”

  Hoku laughed. “I know!”

  “Can we regain focus, please?” Dash said. “Can you make the animal stop the image in that spot?”

  “Um . . . I don’t know. Let me try.”

  They replayed the images again. This time Hoku said, “Zorro, stop!” when the Kampii appeared. Zorro’s eyes glowed green, and the screen fell dark.

  “Well, that didn’t work,” Aluna said.

  “Apparently not,” Hoku grumbled.

  They heard glass shattering from outside the building, and distant laughter.

  “We need to leave before they get here,” Dash said.

  “Why don’t you two find us a place to hide while I figure this out?” Hoku said.

  Aluna nodded. “Or maybe we can find some weapons.”

  “I would prefer to find an escape route,” Dash said.

  Hoku focused his attention back on Zorro. He could hear Aluna and Dash enter a heated discussion behind him, but he didn’t care. It was easy to tune out their words, even though Aluna’s echoed from inside his ears. He had work to do.

  He was starting to figure out how Zorro worked, or at least how he was supposed to interact with him. If he didn’t say Zorro’s name first, the animal didn’t acknowledge being spoken to. And the exact words he picked were important. “Stopping” the image hadn’t worked, but what other word could he use?

  “Zorro, play it again,” he said.

  The screen exploded back to life. He tried telling Zorro to “wait,” but nothing happened. When he said, “Zorro, freeze!” the flow of images halted on the picture of the crowded metal city. “Zorro, play it slow,” he said. The picture resumed its progress, but at half the speed. The voice slowed down, too, sounding much more like someone talking underwater. He found it strangely comforting.

  When the images returned to the silly Kampii with the shells, Hoku told Zorro to “freeze” again. The image stood still on the screen, perfectly clear. He could almost feel the ocean current, could almost taste the salt.

  The smiling Kampii was there, tail gleaming, one arm waving. This time he pulled his eyes away from her to study the background. And there it was, plain as Big Blue. Behind her, in the distance, a huge dome sat on the water like a giant jellyfish filled with glittering spires.

  “I’ve got it!” he yelled.

  Dash came over, holding a long, sleek metal sword in his good hand.

  “Where did you find that?” Hoku asked, amazed that the scavengers had missed something so shiny.

  “I did not find it. I had it with me. In my bag,” Dash said. He pressed a button on the sword’s hilt and its blade retracted with a series of snikts. Another button press, and the blade extended, looking as sharp and deadly as ever. Hoku thought about their first encounter with Dash in the dome and how differently it could have ended.

  “Aluna went outside to scout,” Dash said. He looked up at the picture. “That shoreline looks a bit familiar.” The horse-boy squinted. “I may have walked along that beach a few weeks ago. I did not see the dome, but I believe I remember that cliff.”

  “Can you take us there?” Hoku asked, his breathing necklace pulsing fast to keep up with the jittering of his heart.

  “I am not certain,” Dash said, “but I think so. It was a long journey, and I traveled mostly by night.”

  “Good enough for me,” Aluna said from the doorway of the building. She was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed. Both of her talons were unsheathed and waiting in her hands. “If we don’t leave now, the Upgraders will be adding fresh Kampii and Equian to their list of parts.”

  “THEY’RE RIGHT BEHIND ME,” Aluna said, glancing over her shoulder. “I don’t think they saw me, but they’re heading for the building.”

  “How many?” asked Dash.

  She shook her head. “Not sure. Maybe four. And another one in the sky.”

  Dash cursed. She didn’t understand the words, but she understood his meaning.

  “We’re trapped in here,” she
said. “Going up another level or two will only make us more trapped.”

  “I will distract them,” Dash said. “You and Hoku try to escape.”

  She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. She’d broken his arm, and now he was volunteering to sacrifice himself for them? The Equians, wherever they were, must be an honorable people.

  “No,” Hoku said. “You’re the only one who knows how to get to the dome, Dash.”

  “Then I’ll stay,” Aluna said. Besides, if anyone was going to sacrifice herself for the greater good, it was going to be her.

  “How about none of us stay,” said Hoku. He turned back to that weird pet of his and said, “Zorro, can you access the other workstations?”

  The animal’s eyes glowed green.

  “Hide under the desks by the entrance,” Hoku said to Aluna. He hugged the raccoon and whispered something to it. Inside her ear, Aluna heard him say, “I’ll miss you, boy. We would have been good friends.”

  She blinked and swallowed. Dash retracted his sword and was trying to crawl under the desk without using his bad arm, so she focused on helping him. A moment later, Hoku squeezed in next to her and Dash with his backpack.

  They were all still as starfish. She could hear her own heart beating, could feel the sweat on Dash’s arm where he was pressed up against her. Hoku seemed impossibly small crouched in front of her.

  The Upgraders’ voices got louder.

  “Better find us some true wired sparklies or we’ll be missing more than a few parts when we’s get back,” one of them said.

  “I say we go for the harpy witches after this. Heard the tech they got is true wired! We’d eat like Fathom himself if we bring those generators back in flash and glory,” another said. “Imagine! New bits of shiny to play and sell. Been needing a new nose since my last one got blasted to bolts.”

  A third uttered some words about the Aviars that made Aluna blush, and the other Upgraders chuckled and grunted with appreciation.

  Hoku shifted his weight. Aluna could feel anxiety rolling off him in waves.