by Holly Hook
“Have you heard anything else from the outside world?” Matt asked.
Calvin tapped the side of his head to activate his contact display. I missed being able to plug into everyone else. It was a strange feeling, this isolation. “No,” he said.
"I wonder what they told the people who witnessed this not being a mine explosion," I said. I shuddered. The Grounders didn't like their secrets getting out. It was why Earthers couldn't get the word out about them. We got deported if we tried. At least some people who had gathered around would have seen what Calvin had.
Matt tugged on my sleeve. “The bots. They just finished.”
I faced the legs of the walker. The nanobots crept away, a dark swarm on black. Calvin made a disgusted cry and leaped back. The bots were creepy. I wouldn’t deny that.
The walker lay there, on its side, with fresh, new, shiny legs. I couldn't believe that this metal had come from the crater.
“I’ve never seen a repair before,” Matt said. “We might want to back up in case this thing—“
The walker blasted its horn as if it were a monster come to life.
The three of us backpedaled into the park. The walker retracted its long, giant legs and the huge feet missed us by a few meters. A squealing noise followed, and panic rose in my chest. I imagined Marv inside, green-faced and ready to crush us.
He almost had. I suspected the only reason he hadn’t done so was the Grounder on my arm. He had more sympathy for them than he did for fellow humans.
But we watched as our walker stood up on its own as if it knew how to face battle. Its horn blasted a second time, and the bottom hatch opened, allowing our ladder to extend and descend. It landed on the ground with a soft thud, burying itself in the black dust.
“Whoa,” Calvin said.
“Get out of here. Go warn people,” I said. I took a breath, careful not to breathe too deeply in case some of the dust remained in the air. Behind me, the nanobots retreated towards the crater, to where they would divert their energy to spreading seeds and plants around the surrounding area. I almost wanted to stay behind and witness that.
But Mom and Dad came first.
Calvin backed away. He had a task ahead of him, and I hoped that he didn’t have a family or any children who would miss him if the Grounders caught on to the fact that this Enforcer knew the truth. I hoped he would take his contacts out if they caught on. Maybe he would just get away with being deported. It was our eventual fate if we didn’t stop all of this.
“Ladies first,” Matt said, stepping aside to allow me to get up the ladder.
Without looking back at Calvin, I scrambled up.
He was another person I had abandoned, but it was for his good and the good of everyone else. Right?
"Wait," Calvin said.
I looked down at him and Matt. "What?"
"I need a ride to downtown. To the Enforcer headquarters."
I had a job to do as an Earther, but it wouldn't hurt to get Calvin to his part of the deal quicker. "Sure," I said, realizing that I should have asked Matt first.
Matt shook his head as Calvin scrambled up the ladder right behind me. He was eager to see the inside of the walker.
I finished my climb. I had a mission. Dropping Calvin off wouldn't slow us much. It might help more people. I'd do anything within reason to continue my grandfather's mission to take back Earth.
I wondered if the Grounders had killed him and the hospital had lied to my parents about it being a virus. The thought pumped hatred into me. Mom and Dad hadn’t spoken about Grandpa Luis much. It must be another layer to the story that I hadn’t uncovered yet.
The walker was the same inside as it always had been, with its simple controls and the ominous black button that would drop a smoke bomb on any Grounders (and everyone else) who tried to stop us. I took my place in the heat gun seat, leaving the middle one empty, while Matt took his place in the drivers’ seat. Calvin seated himself between us and leaned forward, looking at the panel.
"Don't touch anything," Matt warned.
"Got it," Calvin said, which shocked me. We faced the hole in the park’s dome. The other walker had blasted it somehow. I knew the pulse cannon hadn’t done that damage, because there were shards of glass all over the place, some of them sticking out of the black dust. Pulse cannons left nothing but remnants of molecules.
“Well,” Matt said. “That went well. We got up and running a little quicker than I thought. I hope I don’t break any more bones.”
“Does the walker have a medical kit?” I asked, adjusting my mini backpack. I had placed my mother's security tablet inside. It held the footage of her shooting at the Grounders with an illegal pistol. It was the final scene I had of her.
“Fiona didn’t have the resources to include one. Bare bones.”
Matt was back to serious. He sounded like someone twenty years older. I couldn’t believe I had kissed him hours ago, but that had been an emergency involving another pulse cannon. Matt seemed to hide during these tense scenes. He’d shown me that he had a sense of humor and a sense of adventure during the less dangerous times, but right now, survival was all that mattered. That kiss had evaporated.
And I had to admit to myself that I suffered some disappointment from that.
Matt cranked the lever to bring the walker forward. We took a step, and then another, striding over the ruins of Marv’s walker. Inside, the radical lay suffocated to death. I shuddered when I thought about it. Sure, he had dropped the smoke bomb, but I had shot his walker’s legs off with the cannon and dropped him into the suffocating cloud.
It was a very non-Earther thing to do.
I cast the thought out of my mind as we stepped out into the rest of the world.
Chapter Three
A faint greenish-yellow glow on the horizon betrayed the fact that morning had arrived.
It was creepy against the foreground of the dark houses, all in rows, and the equally shadowy trees. I had never seen the world like this before. Calvin was right that the whole area sat empty for kilometers. The Grounders wanted to cover up the truth about what was going on. They didn’t want us telling people the truth.
What had happened to those who had seen? The question got bigger and scarier with each passing minute. I hoped that the Grounders had only deported them, but that was a slower death.
The Great Council hadn’t counted on Calvin staying behind. The guy would have to serve a purpose. People might listen to him more than us. Otherwise, I would have left him in Woking Park. He sat between Matt and me, eyeing the buttons. The walker made squealing sounds as Matt steered. The fear that another pulse cannon would take out our legs, or worse, stayed in the back of my mind.
But right then, as we marched down the street and over the rooftops, I felt invincible. A sense of power came over me. We had a chance at survival in this thing. The black vapor hugged the ground if we had to use it. Grounders didn’t climb. If any attacked us, we could feel okay about dropping one of those containers. No humans had stayed.
“Did the Great Council ever have bombs?” I mused out loud. “If they did, we’re screwed.”
“I don’t know,” Matt said. “The history archives left out a lot of details about the Unifying War.”
"I agree," Calvin said. "They did. None of the other Enforcers want to talk about it."
"So you're the conspiracy theory guy," I said.
Calvin glared at me as one of the legs squeaked. "I had a point."
"I didn't mean it that way," I said. I had practically called this guy a nut without realizing. Well, he did have that type of personality. If Calvin had lived back in the time where people kept making prophecies about the end of the world, he would have drunk that stuff up.
What was I thinking? The end of the world had arrived. Aliens were here. People like Calvin were right.
"About any bombs," Matt continued, diverting the conversation.
“We’ll just have to take our chances,” I said. “Um, Matt?”
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Almost straight ahead, kilometers away, a green light streaked towards the ground, illuminating the smog. It vanished into the polluted horizon.
Many seconds later, a faint boom sounded. My seat trembled.
Another cylinder had landed.
Another round of radicals would emerge, get their nanobots ready, and come to help the Grounders kill us.
“Great,” Matt said. “That’s the last thing we need. Tess, you need to tell me how to get to the Great Council from here. “
“It’s north,” I said. “It looks like that cylinder landed in our way.”
"I think that's the direction of the lake," Calvin said, putting his contacts back in. "There's one on the western side of Landin."
Landin was the city that the Great Council had constructed around its main building.
Mom and Dad were there.
“Well, that sucks,” Matt said. “I wish Fiona would say something. She might be dead for all I know. The radicals don’t care if they kill people.” He faced the radio on the side of the walker. It stayed silent. Back on Mars, the Mars Identity radicals had taken over her base, hijacking our mission to stop the Grounders.
“Obviously,” I said, thinking of the black vapor.
Matt upped the speed, and we strode forward. Lights from distant buildings shone up ahead. It seemed that the Grounders had isolated us in a bubble of semi-darkness. Life still existed outside of here. The early morning light got a tiny bit stronger. I could make out struggling grass and mailboxes below.
It was scary, not knowing what would happen at the border.
“Did Fiona install any guide in this thing?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“We can’t be using the satellites to navigate,” Matt explained. “We don’t want Grounders tracking our every move.”
"That's a good point," Calvin said. I felt like the guy was trying to put himself in the middle of this. He had even sat between us.
It was up to me to get us to the Great Council. I hadn’t lived in this area for very long, even though Grandpa supposedly used to live close to this neighborhood. A year, maybe. Matt expected me to know every shortcut. I had never been to the Great Council headquarters. It wasn’t open to the public. The only glimpses I’d ever gotten were the footage of people in black cloaks and hoods meeting in a vast, dull room full of old paintings. They showed us nothing else.
“I’ll try my best,” I said. “Are you sure I shouldn’t be the one moving this thing?” I wanted to be in control. I wanted to march straight north until we found the way to the Great Council, and we had to do it before more radicals like Marv got up and running. At least two cylinders of them had landed, though Marv appeared to be alone.
“You probably should,” Matt admitted after some thought. He cranked the lever and stopped us. “I get to do the shooting. Something's looking up.” He managed a smile. Matt was shining through again. He might have brought me into this, but at least I considered him a friend now.
A friend who had brought me the truth.
A friend I had kissed.
I climbed into the pilot's seat and took a breath. Ahead, the houses remained dark. A distant chopper flew around the perimeter of the lifeless, evacuated area--but not into it. I had never seen my neighborhood without life before. I felt as if everyone had died. It seemed that the Grounders had ordered even the airborne Enforcers to stay away from the area, but they were still circling. How had they gotten away with the mine explosion story? City plans should reveal that there were no mines anywhere near Woking Park.
“We'll have to go through downtown to go north,” I said. “I don't know if there are any people there.”
“That's going to be an adventure,” Matt said. “We've got to drop Calvin off there, anyway."
Calvin had gone quiet. He seemed a bit unstable to me, but I couldn't say that out loud. There was something about how Calvin sat with his hand above the black button. It was there in the glimmer of his eyes. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something felt off about the guy.
Was I any better? I might be an Earther, but I wanted revenge. I had already fried over a dozen Grounders and watched them grasp their necks as they fell. I had an urge to fight more Grounders, even as the thought sickened me. I was turning into someone new.
Maybe this was meant to be. I would take it if it got my parents back and saved the Earth.
“Calvin,” I said. “Have you heard anything about blockades?” The light hadn't grown enough for us to see too far ahead. The fog didn't help.
He shook his head and looked as if he were studying his news feed. “These Grounders aren't saying anything. They're telling citizens to stay calm. The same notice has been playing on my contacts for the past five hours.”
“You need to take out your contacts,” Matt told him.
“I can't do that,” Calvin said.
“The Grounders can see where everyone's at,” I told him. “It sucks, and I had to take mine out, but it was worth it. You might give away our position.” What was I saying? We were piloting a huge tripod, for crap's sake. It wasn't like no one was going to notice that. “We don't want you to get in trouble,” I added.
Calvin fixed me with those intense eyes. I didn't like them. There was too much going on behind those pupils for my comfort. Not that I hated smart people, of course. That wasn't it. Calvin was calculating and sharp. Were all people like this during a war?
“My contacts,” he said, “are the only thing keeping us connected to the outside world. How are we going to know what's going on?”
“The Great Council is great at giving us information,” I said.
“She has a point,” Matt told him. “Take. Them. Out.”
Calvin said nothing. In complete silence, he removed his contacts and stuffed them into his black pockets. The electric baton on his belt hummed, the only sound for several seconds. Calvin could take us both down and steal this walker, but I wasn't going to say that out loud, either.
“Now you have to smash them,” Matt said.
“That saved me from the Grounders once,” I added.
Calvin glared at Matt.
I decided to change the subject. We had waited too long. I cranked the lever forward, and we lurched down the street, the legs making loud thumps on the concrete. I had to dodge around a communal bicycle rack where several bikes in bright paint waited for commuters who would never show up. “Calvin,” I said. “I've only lived here for about a year. What's the easiest way to get to the Great Council from here?”
He was on board for that conversation. “Well, we need to go through downtown,” he said. “There will probably be Grounders stationed there if their training is anything like it is at the Enforcer Academy. They must have some mini headquarters nearby if they're planning on fighting back.”
“I do know that part,” I said, trying not to sound offended at the fact that he was talking down to me. I didn't do an excellent job. “After that, what do we do?” I knew the route to school and which transport belts to take, but I hadn't used any other form of transport since moving to the city of Woking. My world had been the park, school, and the market, and if I was lucky, Lin's house for study sessions. My existence had expanded to more than one planet, and it was scary.
It made me feel much smaller.
“Well, we have to walk down the transport belt from downtown,” Calvin said. “The one that heads in the direction of the spaceport, that is. That'll take us over the Woking River. I think this thing should be able to walk across it with those long legs. Then we have to turn right once we reach the spaceport, and march towards the Great Council headquarters.”
“That doesn't sound too bad,” I said. I was lying. It did sound pretty bad. Space Port Nine was a Grounder hive.
I cranked the lever forward, making us gain speed. The houses got closer together, a sign that we were getting closer to downtown. I almost didn't recognize my neighborhood from up here. Eve
rything had shrunk.
“There's one more thing,” Calvin said. “I don't think we can walk right over the skyscrapers in Landin to get to the HQ.”
I hadn't been to Landin, but I had seen images of it. The news reported from there. The streets were very narrow, with congested transport belts and underground magnet rails everywhere. It made downtown Woking look like the countryside. Even with these skinny legs, the walker wouldn't get through the mess without crushing innocent people and transport belts. The HQ was supposed to be deep in Landin, wedged against the Rocky Mountains, as if the city itself were serving as a wall between the Grounders and us. I wondered if the Grounders had built Landin to keep out invaders or rebels. It was a new city, less than a hundred years old, but developed in record time for the mining industry.
“Is there a way around?” I asked. I realized we were going very fast, and freaked out. A single transport belt worked below. No one rode it.
“There might be,” he said. “I'm not sure. I've only been to Landin a few times. I can't stand the fumes there. I think there's a lake on the way there that we'll have to cross, but this thing might stand high enough to do it. It would be the easiest way."
I was beginning to understand why Fiona had designed these things to stand this far off the ground. We had a lake to traverse. Maybe that was her plan. She couldn't tell us the details now. We were on our own.
Calvin was as calculating as I thought. He wasn't speaking like he was going to go in peace when we got to downtown, either. I guessed that would happen in a few minutes. Matt and I would have to ready ourselves for another confrontation.
“My point is,” Calvin said, speaking as if he were in charge, “we could have a way to get to the HQ without hurting too many people, but we have to hurry. If what you said is right, the radicals will try to crush us as soon as they can.”
Matt shook his head. “My father wouldn't like them, that's for sure. They make the whole movement look bad.”
“Your father's a Mars Identity dude?” Calvin asked.
“Hey. The guy's not a bad one,” I said. Matt hadn't lied to me yet, as far as I knew. “Leave Matt alone.”