Athel

by E. E. Giorgi

  “We’re working on that,” he replies. “Our combined laser beam shooter is still a prototype, as you can see. But it’s mind-blowingly powerful—you can’t deny that. It can take a whole army of droids down in a matter of minutes. If we can fit a hundred men with this weapon and post them in strategic places over the mesa, the whole fleet of sniper droids will be wiped out in one day.”

  “The Gaijins will be back with more,” Akari replies. “Surprise is the biggest factor, and if we can’t—”

  “Like I said,” Hennessy interrupts, “we’re working on it. In the meantime, we need help from every one of you.” His eyes dart to the crowd around him. He inhales, puffs up his chest, and says, “As you all know, we Mayakes are struggling with resources. Ever since the 2189 deadly attack, the Gaijins have kept us under an iron claw. They send scavenger droids to strip our land of its precious resources, leaving us to harvest rice and catch fish for survival. We recycle our prostheses and nanobots and use what we can to get by.”

  Hands hooked on his belt, Hennessy paces and locks eyes with everyone he passes. The light from the fire shines on the transparent sheath of his sleek robotic legs, making them look even cooler.

  “We’re tired of the Gaijins’ exploitation,” he says, his statements echoed by nods and clapping. “We must stop it. This is why I need each one of you to do your part.” He grabs his son’s arm and lifts it in the air to show us once again the powerful weapon. “Are you ready to send the Gaijins back home?”

  “Yes!” the crowd shouts in unison.

  “Are you ready to destroy the sniper droids before they destroy us?”

  “Yes!”

  I roll my eyes and hop down from the wall. “Bah. I’m leaving. It’s the usual propaganda.”

  Lukas grabs my shirt. “Wait. It’s getting interesting.”

  Hennessy raises a hand to his face, cups his fingers around his left ear and pulls. The ear slides out of his skull like a drawer, exposing the wiring and electronics encased within. He plucks out a chip, severs the wires and shows it to the crowd. “This is what we all need to do tonight. I’m donating my non-vital parts for our cause. We have a good weapon; we just need to make it better. With the help of each one of you, it will be better. It will be invincible.”

  The crowd roars. People shout, whistle, clap. One by one, they start unbuckling arms, sliding off hands, and unscrewing feet. A pile of electronics and prosthetics forms in front of Hennessy.

  “No!” I shout.

  I hear my voice, then the silence that follows. All eyes are on me. I know what they’re thinking: How dare he open his mouth after all that happened just a few weeks ago? I can tell from the faces staring at me that nobody has forgotten what I’ve done. Yes, Tahari has lifted the accusation of stealing raised against me under “exceptional” circumstances, but once the doubt has been cast, forgiveness is slow to come.

  I swallow. I’ve already lost everything. I may as well speak my mind.

  “We’re going to war because what we have is failing to keep us alive,” I say, ignoring the slight tremble in my voice. “Depriving us of the little we have left to make weapons will not help us win the war. It’ll help us lose it faster.”

  Hennessy squints at me. Yuri regards me with spite and says, “We don’t have a choice.”

  “Yes, we do,” I retort. “We have plenty of choices.” I pump my thumb over my shoulder. “My friend Lukas here has got some amazing brains. If we all put our heads together, we can come up with clever ideas. Droids can be harvested instead of destroyed—”

  “What?” Yuri interjects. “Are you nuts?”

  “Nobody takes down droids,” Hennessy says, looking sternly at me. “Those machines are programmed to kill. And the moment you touch one of them, you ruin the surprise factor over the Gaijins. They’ll come back for revenge, not just sit back and wait for us to make a weapon.”

  A man steps forward and drops his ears—wires and chips still attached—on top of the pile. Hennessy smiles and thanks him.

  “Why don’t you toss your robotic legs on the pile, Hennessy?” I ask.

  My challenge triggers quite the reaction. People press around me, shouting and gesticulating. Wes grabs my shirt and whisks me away before things can get ugly.

  “You almost gave us away!” Lukas scolds once we’re far away from the masses. “If they find out we’ve been trying to take down a droid, they’re going to put us in Niwang.”

  “I had to say something!”

  “No, you didn’t!” Lukas’s face is flushed, his forehead rippled with concern. “We’re going to prove them wrong, but right now there’s no point in confronting them. They’ll never listen to minors, let alone ones who’ve been sentenced to Wela before.”

  “Let alone ones who are complete idiots to begin with,” somebody behind me says.

  I turn and find myself face to face with Metal Jaw. He leans so close I can smell the metal on his breath. “You saw what my laser beams are able to do,” he says. “They’re way more powerful than anything you’ve ever imagined.”

  I snort. “They’re dumb, too.”

  He grabs the collar of my shirt and presses his scalding knuckles against my chest. “Don’t be a smartass with me, Chicken Face. I’m really pissed at your baby sis right now. Tell that ugly freckle face that if she gets anywhere close to my brother again, I’ll turn her into crumbs, just like that boulder over there.”

  I stare into his dull, black eyes. The guy’s got nerves talking to me like that after what he did to my sister. I’m tempted to mention it, except Dottie—that’s what I call my sister, the only Mayake girl with freckles—hasn’t told anyone what happened that night when Yuri and Cal destroyed her glider.

  “Wow,” I say, after giving it a good long thought. “My baby sis pissed you off, huh? That makes me real proud of her!”

  The blow catches me off guard. My head spins, voices bounce inside my skull. When I open my eyes again, I’m lying on the ground and the world is spinning around me. A sharp bolt of pain crosses the right side of my face, making me wince.

  “The bastard!” Wes says, sliding an arm around my shoulders and lifting me up. “Punched you cold like that!”

  I massage my temple and look around. Yuri’s already gone. “You guys didn’t go after him?”

  “We wanted to make sure you were okay,” Wes says.

  “Get outta here,” I groan, pushing him away. Saying that I’m embarrassed would be an understatement. Luckily, the rest of the crowd is too focused on hailing Hennessy and his wonderful ideas to pay attention to us.

  Lucky for me, and even luckier for that Metal Jaw sleazebag.

  I replay his words in my head to make sure I got them right. “He’s mad at Dottie?”

  Wes shrugs. “That’s what he said.”

  Great. I try to play hero for once, and once again my baby sister takes the spotlight.

  What the heck has she done now?

  * * *

  I tiptoe inside and close the door behind me, careful not to make it squeak. Our small family room is sunk in darkness. The fireplace is cold—Mom has already put it out for the night after cooking dinner.

  I slide off my boots and leave them by the door. Through the open windows waft the dwindling voices of the Janmad party and the acrid reek of smoke from the bonfire.

  I peek into the kitchen to make sure Mom hasn’t fallen asleep at the table again. Up until last week she spent most of the night either on a kitchen chair or in the family room, claiming that if she went to bed, she’d never want to get up again. That’s how badly she misses Dad. She spends entire nights crying—I can hear her sobs through our shared wall. And yet once the sun comes out, she dries her tears and gets on with her daily chores.

  The kitchen is silent and empty. Kael’s out hunting, and his vacant perch stands against the window like a black sentinel. I rinse the tray of the bird’s droppings, careful not to make noise, then quietly shuffle to the bedroom.

  As soon as he hears
me, Ash comes to my feet and purrs. He and I share the ability to see in the dark—Ash thanks to his feline eyesight, and me thanks to my bionic eyes equipped with high ISO sensors.

  I pick him up and rub his neck. He feels warm, probably from snuggling in my sister’s bed. A quick glance at the lower bunk confirms that Akaela’s there, curled under the sheets. I think about Yuri’s threats and wonder what happened today that made her not come to the Janmad festivities.

  “You didn’t wake Dottie up, did you?” I whisper to Ash.

  “No. You did.” Her voice catches me by surprise.

  I exhale. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

  She turns and squints at me in the darkness. “You know I can’t. How was Janmad?”

  Ash mews and leaps back onto her bed. I climb up to the top bunk and slump on my pillow. “It was… interesting. Why didn’t you come?”

  “Didn’t feel like it.”

  I roll my eyes. No use tying to prod stuff out of her. “Hennessy gave an interesting speech. Followed by a demonstration by Metal Jaw.”

  Akaela stirs. “What demonstration?” she asks.

  “A little thing he can now do with his knuckles. Like, shoot laser beams and turn a solid rock boulder into breadcrumbs.”

  I wait for a reaction but none comes.

  “What was Hennessy’s speech about?” she asks after a moment of silence.

  “Well, he first showed us the most powerful weapon the Mayakes ever made—according to him, that is.”

  “Is it really that powerful?”

  I think about that. “It’s pretty cool,” I say, swallowing a pang of jealousy. “Shredded the big boulder that used to sit in the middle of the clearing just outside the Tower.”

  Akaela swallows hard but says nothing.

  “Hennessy installed it on Metal Jaw.” I massage my cheekbone, still sore from the blow he gave me. I can’t help but wonder what Dottie has done to make him angry. He’s cleared away from us for the past few weeks, and wisely so. But the new weapon must’ve jacked up his ego again. I bet people will start looking up to him, consider him a hero, even.

  “What have you been doing today, Dottie?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Metal Jaw sends his regards.”

  Silence.

  “In the form of a punch to my face.”

  Silence, again.

  “Dottie, the guy’s dangerous. Can you please tell me what you’ve been doing?”

  She snorts. “None of your business.”

  That’s how she’s been with me for the past few days, all smug and snotty. I’d normally retort some nasty comment, but I’ve got other plans for tonight. I press the inside of my wrist and check the time. It’s only a few minutes past midnight. Still plenty of time. I set my inner clock to wake me up in two hours, close my eyes, and fall asleep.

  Two hours later, I spring my eyes open and hold my breath, listening for the faintest noises. Akaela’s breathing is slow and shallow. I exhale a sigh of relief—she’s asleep. It’ll make things easier. I clamber down the bunk bed and retrieve the backpack I’ve been hiding between the wall and the headboard. Ash hops down from Akaela’s bed and brushes his side against my legs.

  Old wood planks squeak under my feet. Akaela lets out a long sigh and turns in her sleep. I freeze and hold my breath.

  Keep calm. Calm and quiet.

  I slide my backpack on and, as I tiptoe out of the bedroom, little Ash scampers right behind me. He adores Akaela and follows her everywhere, but I guess tonight he’d rather go out with me. Except I can’t take him with me. I put on my boots, pick up the little rascal, and set him on a chair by the fireplace.

  “Stay,” I whisper.

  He tilts his head and yawns.

  Good boy. I take off, careful to close the door behind me.

  Wind howls up the stairwell. There’s an old cable elevator that connects all sixty floors of the Tower, but it’s solar powered and it clanks and clangs as the car moves up and down. The last thing I want to do is wake the whole place up, so I take the stairs all forty floors down. Pigeons nesting in the cracks of the walls stir at the sound of my footfalls.

  It’s a new moon tonight, and the glow from the Gaijins’ factory drapes the horizon like a shroud. The reek from the bonfire still lingers in the air. The grass around the fire pit is torn and flattened, the Beiji stands empty and covered in white sheets. I look over my shoulder, make sure nobody’s watching, and then split toward the stables.

  The gorge—a tall and narrow opening that splits the mesa like a lightning bolt—looms on the other side of the river. I need Taeh in order to get there quickly and be back before dawn. The mare is half asleep when I open her stall but she perks up as soon she sees me retrieve the saddle. I think of Lukas and Wes, both tucked in bed and deep asleep.

  You should’ve told them, my other self says. You should’ve waited for them.

  And then what? Bring flashlights out to the gorge and risk being caught? Even worse, risk finding a droid and waking it up. Even though droids are solar-powered, and to save energy they close down their exoshells at night, there have been episodes where some have come all the way to the riverbank in the middle of the night. Our cousin Skip lost his life because he was out on the wrong night.

  A shiver travels down my spine, raising goose bumps on my arms.

  No. I’d better do this on my own.

  The Kawa River is shallow enough that Taeh can cross it easily without using the bridge next to the Tower, which also could potentially attract attention. So we sneak out on the far edge of the solar fields, cross the shallow waters, and then gallop through the silvery aspen groves all the way to the foot of the mesa.

  The cliffs loom in the distance, tall and black now that night has drained all daylight colors. I dismount the horse and look up to the high walls of rock, feeling miniscule and insignificant.

  And for a moment I can’t believe my eyes.

  The black silhouette of a glider crosses the deep blue of the night sky, drifting right over me.

  “What the—”

  The silhouette loses altitude. I recognize the usual faltering that happens before touchdown and, guessing its trajectory, run over to meet the glider as it lands. Darn sister of mine. I swear I’m going to yell at her big time.

  Except I can’t yell because if I do, I’ll wake up the scavenger droids.

  Akaela swoops about fifteen feet above me, then flares and touches ground with her feet, immediately collapsing her frame and rolling to the ground to reduce the impact.

  “What the heck were you thinking?” I hiss, trying hard not to yell but not succeeding much. The frame clangs and whirs as it folds and vanishes into the niche between her shoulder blades.

  She jumps to her feet, dusts off her pants, and runs to hug Taeh. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?” she asks.

  I clench my teeth. “What you just did is gloriously stupid. You could’ve killed yourself jumping on a moonless night with barely any wind to sustain your glide.”

  Akaela looks at me defiantly, the one word—dangerous—completely extraneous to her. I’m tired of looking after her because she lacks the ability to steer away from danger.

  “And what if I did kill myself?” she challenges me.

  “Don’t be stupid. Mom doesn’t need this right now.”

  Her eyes soften and for a moment I think my sister’s back—the brave, happy sister I used to know. The defensive shroud comes back almost immediately, tingeing her gaze with defiance. “You haven’t told me what you’re doing out here.”

  I sigh, still scowling. “Fine, I’ll tell you. But I swear, if you ever jump like this again—”

  “Then don’t ever sneak out in the middle of the night without telling me.”

  “You’re the one who refused to come out this morning!”

  My shout echoes in the dead of the night. I bite my lip and take a deep breath. Anger’s not gonna do any good, especially if I end up
rousing the droids.

  “Fine,” I hiss. I grab Taeh’s reins and stride toward the walls of rock, a stab of darkness looming before us.

  “Wait up!” Akaela whispers. “Ouch.”

  She trips and scrapes her knee. I stop and wait for her.

  “Stay close and follow me,” I say. “I’m the one who can see in the dark, not you.”

  She nods and rests a hand on Taeh’s flank, letting the horse guide her through the dark. For the next five minutes she doesn’t utter another word as we climb the incline to the mouth of the gorge. I tie Taeh’s reins to a small juniper and then stare into the depth of the crevasse. The darkness is deeper out here, my vision grainier. Akaela almost trips again. I grab her arm and drag her closer to me.

  “I can see the droids,” I whisper. They look like giant clams attached to the ground, now that their armor is closed and folded for the night.

  “Where?”

  “About two hundred feet down the gorge.”

  Akaela squints at me, at the little of my face she can see. “Why are we here?”

  I ball my fists. “Because I want to make a weapon that’s better than Metal Jaw’s.”

  I slide the backpack off my shoulder and take out a thick coil of old telephone wire. Not as sturdy as the cable Lukas and I found at the landfill a few days ago, but it has an added quality: flexibility.

  “Have you ever built a snare trap?” I ask Dottie as I set to work. It’s a rhetorical question, and it has the effect I was looking for. Even in the dark, her eyes shine with excitement.

  “You’re going to trap a droid with a snare? How do you know it’s going to work?”

  “I don’t. But somebody’s gotta try, right? We came yesterday and almost captured one. I wrapped the cable around its legs and made it trip, but then the darn thing got away. A snare seems like the next best thing to try.”

  I examine the contents of my backpack: two coils of phone wire, sticks I’ve carved into forks, and a metal spoon. Akaela can’t see a thing, so I make her sit down next to the large boulder where the cable got stuck yesterday. I put the wire in her hands and tell her to make a noose. “Trust your hands to do the job even if your eyes can’t help right now. And don’t move from here.”