Athel

by E. E. Giorgi

  Goal for today: Find out the purpose of the cylinder.

  We all hide inside the stables and shut the doors. The building is hot and laden with the smell of hay and manure. Blades of light push through the wooden slats and draw jagged lines on the dusty floor. Taeh pokes her head out of her stall, waiting to be taken out, but all she gets is a quick pat on the nose before we settle in a corner by the bales of hay. Akaela takes the object she found in the forest out of her pocket and wipes dirt and debris off its surface with a rag.

  It looks like a tube, about three inches long and half an inch wide. It’s made of some kind of blackened metal, maybe steel, but I’m not sure, and it has a number of tick marks etched on the side, as if for measuring. The Astraca symbol is carved on one of the two flat ends, the grooves black with grime. It’s tiny, but you can still see the five keys carved inside the five triangles, their vertices joined to form a pentagon.

  Lukas picks it up and weighs it in his hand. “Feels light, hollow inside.”

  “Open it,” Akaela says.

  There are little copper bolts screwed along the side and what looks like an iris shutter on one of the flat ends. But some quick handling reveals no obvious way to pry it open, not by pushing or tapping, not by pulling or by prodding.

  Wes shrugs. “Maybe that’s what it is. A hollow tube of some sort.”

  I put on a skeptical face. “With no purpose?”

  Lukas documents everything on his data feeder then turns to Akaela and frowns. “How did you find it?”

  Dottie squints, as though annoyed by the question. “It was hidden in the hollow root of a tree.”

  “Then it can’t be from 2065,” Wes interjects, “the year of the fire. There wasn’t a forest back then, and all the trees within the city burned down.”

  Dottie is unusually quiet, so I turn to her and ask, “What do you think, Sis? Maybe the new tree grew around it?”

  She wrings her hands and frowns. “It’s weird. It’s as though I knew it was there and I had to find it.”

  “You went looking for it even though you didn’t know what it was?” Wes asks.

  Akaela rubs her forehead. “No. It was more like—I remembered it.”

  Lukas stares at her with renewed interest. “You remembered what?”

  “The path. The egg-shaped rock.”

  “You’ve been there before?” I ask.

  She shakes her head and cups her face in her hands. “No. I’ve never been to that part of the forest, and I’ve never seen this object before. I can’t explain it. I just knew it was there. Look. It was as though I recognized the path and the trees. Somehow I remembered. I don’t know how that’s possible, ok?”

  We all fall silent. Taeh snorts from her stall. Dottie shakes her head and gets to her feet. “I don’t care what you guys think. I’m taking Taeh out to the paddock.”

  “No, wait,” Lukas says, putting away his data feeder. He picks up the cylinder again and hands it back to my sister. “I want you to look at it very carefully. Does it look familiar to you?”

  Akaela gives the hollow tube another good look and then returns it. “No,” she says, shaking her head.

  “Why would it?” I ask. “She just said she’s never seen it before.”

  Taeh stomps her hooves and pushes at the stall gate. Akaela strides over and opens it. “I’m tired of this. I’m going for a ride. You guys have fun with that thing, whatever it is.” She walks Taeh over to the dressing corner and starts brushing her.

  “Really?” I say. “You have to leave now just because we asked a few questions?” I look at the guys, hoping they’ll say something, but Wes just stares vacantly ahead while Lukas can’t keep his eyes away from the metal cylinder, a deep frown etched in the middle of his forehead. He retrieves his data feeder and takes pictures.

  “Come on, Dottie, why do you have to go for a ride right now?” I ask. “We’re just trying to figure out what the cylinder thingy is.”

  Akaela doesn’t reply. It’s as though she’s fallen into one of her “moods.” I shrug it off and barely take notice when, once she’s done bridling and saddling Taeh, the two of them walk out of the stable.

  “What’s up with her?” Wes asks. “It’s not like we didn’t believe her.”

  I shrug. “Forget it. She’s just moody. What did you find out, Lukas?”

  Lukas sets down his data feeder, his thin brows knitted in deep thought. “It could’ve been an engram.”

  “Is that what the cylinder is?” Wes asks.

  “No, not the cylinder. What Akaela saw. The engram could explain the fake memory, the fact that she remembered without having been there.”

  “What’s an engram?” I ask.

  “An implanted memory,” Lukas replies. “Not an actual memory, but one encoded in our nanobots. To the person who has it, it feels like a true memory even though they never actually experienced it.”

  “Wicked,” Wes says.

  Lukas retrieves his data feeder. “There are many of those, randomly distributed among the nanobots each Mayake gets at birth, but nobody knows who gets them.”

  “Why do we even have them?” I wonder. “What’s the point of having a fake memory?”

  “Preserving information,” Lukas replies. “It’s been used since Astraca burned to the ground in 2065. Our great-grandparents’ memories are all we have left of its original splendor.”

  “Akaela’s memory can’t be as old as Astraca,” Wes objects. “Like I said, the forest didn’t exist when the city burned down.”

  “No,” Lukas replies. “But the object she found is. The outside isn’t shiny, like metal usually is, but blackened instead. And while this could be caused by oxidation”—he taps his data feeder—”that grime Akaela just wiped off?”

  “Dirt from the hollow root,” I say.

  “It could be soot from the fire, too,” Lukas replies.

  Wes scratches his head. “Even if the tree wasn’t there during the fire?”

  A sparkle flashes in Lukas’s eyes. “Suppose somebody saved it from the fire and kept it for many years. When he died, his children had it and then his children’s children.” He grins, completely enthralled by his theory.

  “Then what?” I say.

  “Then one day something terrible happens, something that threatens the lives of many people. So they grab the most valuable things they own and run.”

  “The 2189 attack,” Wes says.

  Lukas nods. “That’s what I’m thinking, too. If you know your life is in danger, you want to make sure you not only hide your valuables really well, but you also find a way to preserve the information about all the hiding spots.”

  I pick up the cylinder and brush a finger along the iris shutter. The blades are sealed together and don’t yield. “Whoever hid this,” I say, reworking Lukas’s hypothesis in my head, “recorded the memory and then sent it back through our wireless network. The collective nanobots recorded the memory and then redistributed it as our common knowledge.”

  “Exactly,” Lukas confirms.

  “Somebody hid it,” I say, “and then transferred the memory? When?”

  Lukas shrugs. “I don’t know. Sometime before Akaela was born. The engram was placed in the first available set of nanobots, ready to be shipped. Or maybe it was in a chip. Did Akaela get any new implants recently?”

  I shake my head, squeezing the cylinder in my fist. Implanted memories. Of course. The nanobots that keep us alive, that enhance our breathing, our movements, the speed of our thoughts… they also carry our legacy. Just like DNA carries traits from one generation to the next, the Mayakes use chips and nanowiring to pass on relevant information that would otherwise get lost.

  But if this is true…

  I flip the cylinder over and stare at the side, etched with thin, concentric grooves. “What is this, then? It must be something important if it was worth going through all this trouble. Important and—”

  “Dangerous,” Wes interjects.

  I nod. “E
xactly. So dangerous that whoever possessed it had to hide it and make sure it wouldn’t be found for many years. What do you think, Lukas?”

  “That we’re missing one piece of the puzzle.”

  “Huh? What piece?”

  “The piece that Tahari and the other man took.” He points to the cylinder in my hand. “Maybe this is what they were looking for but didn’t have the engram like Akaela did. Whatever they were looking for, they found something and left a hole in the clearing we were exploring.”

  “You think the two objects are related?” I ask.

  Lukas drums his fingers. “I don’t know, but it would kind of make sense. It’s—”

  I raise a hand and hush him.

  Wes jumps. “What?”

  “That sound,” I say. “You hear it?”

  The rushed galloping of a horse. I sprint to the door and push it open. Taeh’s running back toward the stables, followed by our falcon Kael. Akaela lets go of the reins and frantically waves her arms at me.

  What happened? I message.

  The trap, I read along the bottom corner of my retina. You’ve got to come see.

  * * *

  Wes runs, the rest of us ride on Taeh’s back. The sky is overcast and the wind blows in a light tapering of ashes from the Gaijins’ factory on the other side of the mesa. Our falcon Kael swoops ahead of us, riding the currents.

  The first thing I notice as we approach the mouth of the gorge is that the sapling I tied the snare to has snapped. The splintered trunk lies across the big boulder, pieces of torn wire coiled around it. The bare soil slanting off the crevasse is ridged and blackened, with fresh tracks that dig into the ground all the way to the first row of trees on the opposite side. Two of the smaller aspens have been upturned, their exposed roots clawing at the sky.

  To the left, sprawled against the rocks coming off the wall of the gorge, lies a long piece of black metal, about five to six feet long, a web of torn wires still sizzling with smoke.

  “We got it!” I shout, recognizing the claw leg from one of the scavenger droids.

  “Not quite,” Dottie mutters, putting a short end to my spur of excitement. I scan the place, quickly realizing that there’s nothing else to see besides the claw leg straddled against the rock. The droid escaped my trap.

  I lead Taeh to the small birch grove, where we all dismount. Wes sprints ahead and screeches to a halt by the crushed trunk of the sapling.

  “Wow, Athel,” he shouts. “You did it. You built the trap without telling us.”

  “And you ruined it, too,” Lukas adds, as I help him off the horse.

  I drop him to the ground and snarl, “Shut up, both of you.”

  The scene before our eyes looks apocalyptic: torn trees, blackened soil as though something exploded, and deep tracks that go all the way back to the mouth of the gorge. Pieces of wire—the one I used to set my trap—hang loose here and there, tracing back to the leg the droid lost at the foot of the cliff.

  Kael flies in circles above our heads, then settles on a high ledge.

  “I was riding by the waterfalls,” Akaela explains, as we all scatter around the crime scene, “when I heard this huge rumbling sound. By the time I got here it was all over.”

  “The droid was already gone?” I ask.

  She nods.

  I look at the visual clues before me and try to reconstruct what happened. Droid comes, probably hooked on the metal spoon I left in the middle of the noose. Droid sets off the trap and the noose snatches around its legs. Droid runs, pulling the wire all the way to the trees until the sapling snaps. Droid recoils and slams forward, losing one leg.

  Droid escapes on its remaining five limbs.

  Darn Gaijins, they had to make droids with so many legs.

  Lukas raises his data feeder and takes a panoramic shot. “I told you to wait, Athel. You didn’t listen.”

  “He never does,” Dottie chimes in.

  “Will you all shut up?” I snap. “It was the first experiment. The trap will be better next time.”

  Wes scuffs one of the tracks with the tip of his blade. “The droids will get better too, though. Once the Gaijins realize their scavenger bots are under attack, they’ll send the sniper droids.”

  I exhale in frustration. Wes is right, but I refuse to acknowledge it. I walk over to the snapped sapling, step over it, and climb up to check the claw leg the droid left behind. The metal frame has crinkled at the edge as though it were made of fabric. It’s still warm to the touch and reeks of burnt plastic wires. A torn piece of the cable I used to make the trap hangs stuck between the plates of one of the joints. I pull it off and stare at the loose threads.

  I need to find stronger material.

  Lukas joins me and points the lens of his data feeder at the long droid leg. “You know, we can use this thing.”

  “Of course we can. You think I’d leave it here to waste? It’s better than nothing.”

  He takes more pictures, then crouches and prods one of the joints, smiling. “Yeah. A lot of cool stuff in here. Look at this ball-and-socket mechanism.”

  I grab one end and try to move it. “Stop drooling and help me carry it down. We’ll have to figure out a way to tie it over Taeh’s saddle.”

  We lift the long piece of metal and haul it down to the bottom of the ravine. Kael watches from his perch up on the wall of rock.

  “Athel!” Dottie calls me. “Come see!” She’s standing by the big boulder where I hinged the trap yesterday and points a finger to the ground.

  We settle the droid leg on the ground and run over. A crimson stain sprawls at the base of the boulder, forming a small, dried pool.

  “What do you think it is?” Akaela asks.

  “Well,” I start, not sure what to say. “It could be some kind of—”

  “No,” Lukas interjects. “It’s blood.”

  Wes nods. “Yeah. I’ve seen enough of mine flowing to the ground to know.”

  “Interesting,” Akaela says. “Because, you know, droids don’t bleed.”

  She squints and looks all snappish at me.

  “Really?” I retort. “Well, animals do. Could’ve been an animal caught in the fight with the droid.”

  Wes taps on my shoulder. “Er. Maybe not,” he says, quietly pointing to Kael.

  The bird hops off his perch and dives down to the bottom of the gorge, something flapping from his beak.

  I whistle and stretch out my arm. Kael perches on my shoulder and drops his find on my hand. Everyone rings around me to see.

  It’s a piece of blue fabric soaked in red.

  The same red that’s at the foot of the boulder.

  “Animals don’t wear clothes,” Lukas observes with his usual lucidity.

  Akaela scoffs. “Great job, big bro. You got us in trouble again.”

  Chapter Six

  Akaela

  I sit on the ledge of the sixtieth floor and look away to the forest sprawling beyond the river. Kael sweeps in and out of view as he circles the sky hunting for pigeons. Hot air blows in and makes the long vines draping the walls sway. I grip the mysterious Astraca cylinder in my hands and squeeze it.

  The boys are all in Lukas’s quarters, taking apart the droid’s leg. They’re so enthused with their find they refuse to ponder the consequences of what we’ve done. Somebody got hurt. There was so much blood by the boulder that I wouldn’t be surprised if they lost a limb or even died.

  Riding back to the Tower the only happy thought I could entertain was the hope that the blood belonged to Metal Jaw or his brother. But as we left the solar fields, I spotted the two jerks sneaking out to the forest again, both of them in one piece, not even a scratch or a bruise on their ugly faces.

  Once we entered our network, Lukas scanned our internal feed for news of any Mayake missing or injured and found nothing. Nothing looked amiss here at the Tower when we returned. No frantic mother screaming, no child looking for her parent. A stillbirth was the only sad news in our bulletin today.


  The boys celebrated. No longer bothered by the pool of blood, they all scuttled to Lukas’s place to work on the droid’s leg.

  I refused to join them. Come nightfall, one family will realize that one of their loved ones hasn’t returned home. We collected all the pieces of wire, but I’m pretty sure that if the adults open an investigation, they’ll find out what we did. And this time Niwang—deactivation for good—will be unavoidable.

  I wonder about that. My deactivation button has been reset. It no longer works thanks to a special chip my father implanted in my head when I was six. How would they put me out, then? Shoot me in the face?

  I squeeze the cylinder and examine it one more time. Lukas claims I did remember its location and that’s how I found it. He also believes that somewhere in my head is another memory, the one that will reveal how to open it. That’s why he agreed that I should keep it for now. I’ve racked my brains all day but come back blank.

  I inhale and squint at the white sky, swirls of blanched clouds careening over the mountains. Something catches my eye. The forest sprawls immense before me, and toward the left a plume of gray smoke rises vertically from the treetops.

  The brothers are back at it, my first thought. Yuri and Cal must have caused some big damage with their laser beam weapon to raise a column of smoke like that.

  I stand up, my gaze straying across the vastness of the horizon. The breeze blows in my face, calling me. I have to jump and check out what happened. I secure the cylinder in one of my pockets, zip it, and then whistle for Kael. The falcon appears moments later, his wings elegantly flapping in the air. I follow his movements with my eyes, sensing the currents through his trajectory. Then I take a few steps back, run, and jump.

  I’ve been gliding since I was six. My dad taught me. My sail, tucked away between my shoulder blades, has become my second skin. Flying to me is like running for Wes or crunching numbers for Lukas. Yet every time I jump, a shock of adrenaline travels down my spine. I feel the pull of gravity and my heart beats faster. I spread my arms and fall, wind whipping against my face until I ball my fists and press the heels of my hands, making the glider frame pop out. The sail swells and the thermals lift me.