Athel

by E. E. Giorgi

  “Probably,” Lukas replies. “And we needed another engram to unlock it.”

  I slap my knees in frustration. “Memories. Those are memories, Lukas. How are we supposed to find memories that aren’t our own?”

  Wes raises a hand. “I, uh—I may have an idea.”

  Lukas and I stare at him, but before he can explain, my sister sits up, flings her legs off the bed and snaps, “You guys don’t get it. Yuri and Cal have a rocket out there in the forest. They can kill us all if they want to.”

  Wes winces. “They’re building a rocket? Is that why some of the trunks looked burnt?”

  Akaela nods. “And they have an accomplice, too.” She rubs her forehead and closes her eyes. “Somebody else was there. It all happened so fast, I can’t remember clearly now.”

  “Must’ve been Hennessy,” I say.

  “I think—no, this person was shorter than Hennessy, with longer hair, but so fast I couldn’t get a grasp of their face. And the rocket… It went off at the wrong time and that’s how I got away from them. But I’ve seen the thing. It was out of control today, bouncing off trees and splintering wood. If they perfect it—”

  “Between the rocket and the laser beams, they’re going to win the weapon challenge,” I interject.

  A small bug crawls out of Lukas’s satchel and flicks its tiny antennae. Lukas doesn’t seem to notice. “That’s what you think,” he says, flashing a devious smile. He turns off his data feeder, sets it down, and dips a hand inside his satchel.

  “Where did it—”

  The bug creeps down to the floor. Wes raises a hand, ready to swat it, but Lukas pushes him away and scoops up the insect in his cupped hand.

  “Stop!”

  He lets the bug climb to the tip of his index finger and shows it to us. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says solemnly, “meet Scrub. Scrub is the future winner of the Kiva challenge.”

  Chapter Eight

  Athel

  Day Number: 1,585

  Event: Lukas can make microbots out of droid legs

  Number of Mayakes left: 429

  Goal for today: Get more droid legs so Lukas can make more bugs.

  Akaela rolls in her bed and snorts. “A bug,” she says. “I can’t believe it. Lukas is convinced he’ll win the Kiva challenge with a bug.”

  “He calls it a microbot,” I reply. “Not a real bug.”

  It’s midnight and neither of us can sleep. Wes and Lukas left shortly after ten, but not before Lukas lectured us on all the cool things his microbot bug could do. Including winning a war, according to him, with the little caveat that he would need an army of those tiny bots, not just one.

  Dottie can’t get over it. “You guys are crazy.”

  “Genius is the word,” I correct her. I stare at the ceiling and listen to the crickets chirping through the open window. Windows never close at the Tower. The glass panes shattered during the 2189 attack and were never replaced.

  “Athel,” Dottie calls, her voice squashed to a whisper.

  “What?”

  “Somebody was in the forest.”

  “You told me.”

  “No. Somebody… different.”

  “How different?”

  “They were injured.”

  I flinch. “Nobody reported injuries. Not today, not yesterday.”

  “I know. I tell you, it was all very weird.”

  “Maybe you imagined it. I mean, they did beat you up pretty badly and—”

  “I did not.”

  The springs of her bed whine in protest, closing the argument.

  I sigh, toss and turn, and can’t sleep. So I hop out of bed, walk to the window and stare into the night. The river gargles its song as it snakes around the Tower and down by the mesa. Kael’s out hunting, his black silhouette framed by puffs of silvery clouds. A sliver of moon peeks through the clouds and casts dim rays across the landscape. A light bobs across the solar fields. Fireflies, I think, but then realize they’d have to be gigantic for me to spot them from up here.

  Ash stirs from Akaela’s bed and comes to rub his side against my legs.

  “I’m going back,” I say.

  “Back where?”

  “Back to the forest.”

  Akaela raises her head. “Now? You have to go now?”

  I pick up my backpack and check that I still have my penknife and all my other gear in there. Ash thinks it’s all a fun game and starts chasing the strings of my backpack as I drag it around the room looking for stuff. All the lights are off, yet he and I can move around with the ease of nocturnal animals.

  “Mom’s sleeping, and you won’t tell her a thing.”

  “Why now, Athel? Are you nuts? Oh, wait. That second question was rhetorical.”

  I grin. “It runs in the family, you know? I need to go now because the droids aren’t active during the night.”

  She sits up and gets out of bed. “Well, then, I’ll go with you.”

  “No.” I know she can’t see me as well as I can see her, since our room is lit only by the glow of moonlit clouds, but I frown at her just the same. “I’m the only one who can see at night. That’s why I need to go alone.”

  Her face is bruised and scraped, her upper lip split open and puffy. The sight makes me seethe with anger. “You’d better stay home, Dottie,” I add, lowering my voice. “Mom’s already very upset with you, and those two brothers—” I swallow. “Wait until I get my hands on them.”

  She slumps back on her pillow. Ash climbs onto the bed and curls up on her stomach. “Please make sure I’m there when you do that. I want to enjoy every minute of it.”

  “You’d better stay away from them, Dottie. What were you thinking going after them in the first place? Those two aren’t going to stop until—” I bite my lip, close my backpack and sling it over my shoulder. “I don’t know what they’re capable of. Just stay away from them.”

  Akaela scoffs. “You sound just like Mom.”

  “Well maybe it’s bec—”

  Something flies out of my backpack and drops to the floor. It’s the piece of fabric encrusted with blood we found back at the gorge. I never took a close look at it, just shoved it into my pack as we busied ourselves carrying back the droid leg. And now, as I stare at it under the mellow light fanning in from the window, I realize the fabric isn’t really fabric. All our clothes are made of hemp and cotton we grow ourselves, but this—this one’s different. The part untouched by blood is smooth and elastic, the color a steel gray that shines under the light from the window.

  “What is it?” Akaela asks.

  I sit at the edge of her mattress and show it to her. She turns on the small lamp clipped to the bedpost and takes it from my hands. I close my eyes, the sudden light too bright for my sensors.

  “It’s nylon,” Dottie says.

  “Nylon?”

  She nods. “Same stuff my sail is made of.”

  I hold the piece of bloodied nylon between my fingers, my thoughts reeling. “Right. Not clothing, then.” I jerk to my feet and leap to the door. “Bye, Dottie. I gotta go.”

  Akaela juts her chin at me and pouts. “I wanna go with you,” she whispers.

  “You better not,” I say and step out.

  * * *

  By the time I get out, the light I spotted earlier bobbing across the solar field is gone. But I’ve got Kael on my side, my faithful falcon with the nose of a bear. He can help me track anything.

  Or anyone.

  Summer nights smell of dry weeds and sunbaked earth. Swarms of insects buzz low in the grass; crickets chirp, moths banquet on wild flowers, and owls hoot in the distance.

  The world looks black and white to me at night, the colors drained. Maybe that’s why I suddenly notice all the smells and sounds. Taeh’s hooves flatten the grass as we leave the barn and head toward the forest. High above, Kael caws, dark sentinel of our night skies. I raise my gloved arm and whistle. On cue, the falcon comes down and perches himself on my shoulder.

  “I’ve
got a plan, my friend,” I tell him.

  As we enter the forest, Taeh relies on her nose and ears to orient herself along the labyrinthine trails snaking amongst the trees. We hike around slanted walls draped in vines and moss, and over roots knotted around ancient foundations.

  So many walls and never a door or a window. It makes me wonder what the keys in the Astraca symbol are for, the chavis Lukas talks so fondly of. What kind of doors do they open? Why are they so important?

  I stop at Beacon Rock, where Wes and I found Akaela just a few hours ago, take the bloodied piece of nylon out of my pocket, and present it to Kael. Our falcon is a cyborg too, and his olfactory sensors are better than a hound’s. He opens his beak, bobs his head, and a moment later he’s off, following the lead I gave him.

  The pale clouds I spotted earlier from the Tower are now veiling the sky, their glow blinking through the treetops. Compared to daytime, at night the forest seems alive, the vegetation breathing, the animals scuttling, hooting, creaking, and even bickering.

  Taeh proceeds quietly, her steps cautious. Kael flies from branch to branch, waiting for us at each stop. I wonder how much he can track from a two-day-old bloody piece of garment in an environment like this, drenched in scents from both animals and plants.

  He seems to glide aimlessly for a while, until he stops on the low branch of an old oak and refuses to depart again. I dismount and check the tree. The trunk is chipped on one side, the bark dented and burnt at the edges.

  Could’ve been the rocket Akaela talked about.

  I stand by the tree and stomp my feet. The turf feels soft, muffling my steps through a layer of moss and dead leaves. I follow the massive roots of the oak as they jut out and then dig back into the ground, grappling off the edge of a ravine. I crouch then hop down the slanting terrain covered in rocks and more vegetation, my legs knee-deep in ferns. One false step and I trip, my left foot sucked into a hole. I grunt and pull it out. Taeh snorts, while Kael flaps his wings and moves to a different tree.

  “Great help you guys are,” I mumble.

  I reach for a small branch above me, snap it off, and test the ground ahead of me for more holes. I move to the right, close to a large root that arches from the oak tree down into the ravine, and cautiously slide to the bottom. And once there, I finally see it. The roots of the oak tree form a roof and underneath, the land caves into a small opening, sustained on one side by a cracked wall.

  I pull aside the blanket of vines and ferns draping the opening, crouch, and lean inside. Cold, humid air brushes my face. My eyes take a few seconds to adjust to the complete darkness, and when they finally do, it’s almost as if they’re lying to me, my brain unable to comprehend the image scanned by my sensors.

  Curled against the underground roots of the oak tree, lies the strangest and yet most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.

  I step back and reemerge from the vegetation, pondering what to do, when Taeh lets out a distressed whinny. I climb back up, but before I can reach my horse, a sudden light shines in my face, blinding me.

  I raise a hand to my eyes and yell, “Who are you?”

  As my voice resonates in the darkness, a rapid rustle behind me tells me that whatever was hiding in the niche below the oak roots is now gone.

  * * *

  I try to move toward Taeh but the light keeps shining in my eyes, preventing me from seeing. I hear footfalls approaching.

  “Who are you?” I shout again.

  “Athel?”

  The call comes from farther away—a second man, one whose voice is surprisingly familiar. He steps forward and pushes down the light in his companion’s hand.

  “It’s ok,” Tahari explains. “I know him.”

  My eyes take a few moments to readjust. As I squint at the two men standing in front of me, their grainy silhouettes gradually shift into familiar faces.

  One is Tahari, our Kiva leader. He holds a long walking stick and leans against it while peering at me with small, inquiring eyes. Next to him is a short man whose wiry hair spill into a shapeless, rust-colored beard. He’s the one who was with Tahari the night Dottie and I spied the two of them digging in the forest. And now that I see his face I recognize him as one of the rice farmers. I’ve seen him leave at dawn with the other farmers to tend the crops upstream of the river.

  “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night, Athel?” Tahari asks.

  “I could ask you the same question,” I reply. Snotty, I realize, but politeness is not exactly my forte at three in the morning. I keep a hand cupped around my eyes and ask, “Can you please turn that off? It’s burning my sensors.”

  The man holding the flashlight sends an interrogative look to our Kiva leader. At Tahari’s nod, he turns the flashlight off.

  Tahari stares at me, his pupils dilated now that darkness has returned. He tilts his head, his sagging cheeks tired from lack of sleep, and beats the ground with the walking stick. “You’re looking for something, Athel?”

  He puts a strange emphasis on the way he pronounces my name—Aeethel—as though he wants to make a point that he hasn’t forgotten me. Or what I’ve done.

  “As a matter of fact,” I say, “I am. What about you?”

  The rice farmer’s eyes widen at my tone—it’s certainly inappropriate for a seventeen-year-old to address his Kiva leader this way. I wonder if they’ve been looking for the niche behind me. I feel the urge to go and check it, but I don’t want to give it away.

  Taeh whinnies. Tahari’s gaze strays over to her, then back to me. “We are looking for something,” he says at last. “And I’m pretty sure we could use your help. Want to join us in our quest?”

  That catches me off guard, my bravado suddenly deflated. “Help? Me? Why?”

  Tahari beats the ground with his walking stick again and, without steering his eyes away from me, says to the rice farmer, “Show him, Aghad.”

  Aghad scratches his rusty beard, his wheezing a notch louder. “Show… the boy? Are you sure we can trust him?”

  Tahari tilts his head, pondering. “I know this boy, Aghad. This boy right here is a brave young man, one who isn’t afraid of breaking the rules for the greater good. He’s made mistakes before, and he knows the value of sacrifice. An important lesson in life.”

  Aghad reaches for the thick leather bag he’s been carrying on his back and takes out a flat wooden box, which he sets on the grass between us. Judging by the care with which he handles it, the contents must be very precious.

  “I’ll need the flashlight again,” he says.

  “It’s ok,” I reply, sitting on the ground. “Keep it away from my eyes and I’ll be fine.”

  Tahari sets down the walking stick and, as Aghad clicks the flashlight on, carefully opens the box. Inside, three cylinders lie on velvet lining, all identical to the one Akaela found. Tahari points to each one of them and says, “Wisdom, Knowledge, and Ingenuity.”

  Three of the five powers of Astraca, I think, remembering what Lukas told us.

  “Are they—” I start, and swallow. “Is there something inside them?”

  Tahari shines the beam on the sleek surfaces of the cylinders, picks up the first one on the left, and hands it over to me. “This is the Wisdom Chavi.”

  Aghad flinches at the gesture but says nothing.

  The metal cylinder feels icy cold as I toss it from one hand to the other. It looks just like the one Dottie found, except this one’s shinier. The symbol of Astraca embossed on one side looks identical, and so does the iris opening on one end. I prod it, but it doesn’t yield, just like Akaela’s didn’t yield.

  “Here,” Tahari says, taking it back from me. “Show him, Aghad.”

  Aghad takes the cylinder and rests it on the flat of his left hand with the Astraca symbol facing up. He then presses it with his index finger. To my surprise the whole embossing clicks down as if it were a button. Aghad turns his finger to the right, making the symbol underneath rotate a quarter of a circle. As he lets go, I hear a s
oft whir coming from a mechanism inside.

  “There,” Aghad says, his voice as rugged as his breathing. “It’s unlocked now.”

  I flip the cylinder over, and sure enough, a thin golden key slides onto my open palm, the head shaped like a sun.

  The Wisdom Chavi. Lukas would kill to be in my shoes right now.

  “How did you know it opens like that?” I ask.

  “I remembered,” Aghad cryptically replies.

  “You need to remember how to open it,” Tahari explains.

  I nod. “I know about the engrams.”

  Tahari tilts his head, his surprise quickly turning into a smile. “You’re a smart kid, Athel,” he says. “There’s a total of five chavis. We desperately need to find the remaining two.”

  I squint through the glare of the flashlight. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  Tahari retrieves his walking stick and stands up again. On cue, Aghad takes the key and cylinder from my hands and returns them to the wooden box.

  “Will you help us find the other two, Athel?” Tahari asks, thumping the walking stick on the ground.

  I rise too and stare him in the eyes. “You haven’t answered my question. Why me?”

  He squeezes the walking stick with both his fists and clicks his tongue. “Because you have something that no other Mayake has. You can see in the dark.”

  Part II

  Chapter Nine

  Akaela

  I awake suddenly. Distant screams spill through the window, making me jump out of bed and run over to see. The first light of dawn rims the mountains looming over the forest. Below, billows of smoke rise above the river and into the sky.

  The rocket, my first thought.

  A new blast from the riverbank rocks the ground. The smoke thickens, followed by sparks arching in all directions. The Tower awakens, the elevator starts clanging. The alarms sound and an electronic voice announces a mandatory evacuation.

  Still confused, I turn to awake Athel, only to remember that my brother left hours ago.

  The time on the bottom corner of my retina reads 5:30 a.m.