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Athel

Page 18

by E. E. Giorgi


  Wes’s limp body.

  I recognize Wes’s titanium blades, the tips raised behind him as he lies face down on his stomach.

  “Noooo!” I scream, launching myself toward him.

  I’ll stop you from hurting my friends, you coward. I’ll stop you if it’s the last thing I—

  A bright flash zaps before my eyes. I duck, still screaming, and throw myself between Yuri and Wes. Yuri slams his fist into my face, knocking me off my feet. Golow’s jaws follow, snapping inches away from me. I hear my own voice, my bones cracking as I hit the ground, then the acrid smell of burnt flesh fills the air, more screams, not my voice.

  I fall, roll, try to get up, and fall again. Pain seeps through my skull, making me scream. Spots blink in my vision. I keep rolling in the grass, warped noises echoing in my head, screams, clangs. Then steps, running.

  A voice whispers in my ear. “Get up, Akaela. Quick!”

  “Wes?” I whisper. I clamber up, my head spinning. The sky is pink, the sun about to peek out from behind the mountains. The reek of blood and scorched skin fills my nostrils.

  “What’s happening? Where’s Lukas?”

  Wes squeezes my arm. “There’s no—”

  Golow’s jaws come growling at us. Wes grabs my arm and drags me away as the angry droid claws the ground below us.

  “You can’t run away from me, child,” Golow snarls in its deep, metallic voice.

  Its fangs come down again and one slashes through my calf. I scream. Wes lets go of my arm and falls on his knees.

  Golow pulls away and raises its head, the cavernous blackness between its jaws gaping above me. I try to run, but there’s nowhere to escape from the glistening fangs coming down on me. I close my eyes.

  I’m sorry, Dad.

  I’m so sorry.

  Something whistles past me. The grating sound of metal clanging and bending makes me spring my eyes open, and when I do, it’s not just fangs that are coming down on me. It’s the whole beast.

  “Akaela!”

  Wes scoops me away seconds before Golow falls on its head with a thunderous blow. Bolts of electricity zap throughout its frame, and smoke escapes from the grooves between its plates.

  “How—? What?” I blabber, trying to make sense of the scene unfolding before me. A cable is wrapped around all four of Golow’s legs, crushing them into a knot of squashed metal. The robot tries to move one more time, but the cable seems to have a mind of its own and it sinks even deeper until all four limbs come apart from the frame. Sizzling wires dangle from the hollow cavities.

  I spin my head, looking around. Wes is standing right by me, apparently unharmed, save for his shallow breathing and a few scrapes on his face. I can’t find Lukas, but spot both Yuri and Hennessy lying in the grass, a gray plume of smoke rising from Hennessy’s chest.

  The air is still. Still and silent. Until a voice booms.

  “It’s not over yet!”

  Tahari drags Lukas by the collar of his shirt and climbs onto the stump of a broken pillar, holding a knife to the boy’s throat.

  Lukas has regained consciousness and stares at us wide-eyed, his face as white as flour.

  Wes sighs. “I knew he’d screw up.”

  “Screw up what?” I ask. “He was unconscious!”

  Wes doesn’t reply. “Watch out,” he shouts instead, wraps an arm around my neck, and pushes me down.

  The cables around Golow’s legs screech, furiously unwrap, and zap away.

  My brother appears from behind the heaping wreck of metal. “I hope you have a good explanation for what just happened, Tahari.”

  I almost want to cry so happy I am to see him alive. Wes must be reading my mind, because he keeps me down with one hand and cups my mouth with the other.

  “Athel,” I mumble through pursed lips.

  My brother. My beautiful, brave brother is here!

  Athel flashes a spiteful glare at Tahari, his expression a mix of sadness and disgust. “And I thought Uli was the traitor.”

  “Uli betrayed us,” Tahari replies. “He prioritized his own agenda.”

  “Over yours?” Athel insists.

  “He should’ve listened. Like you. Like all of you.” His eyes scan Athel’s raised hand. “Whatever you’re holding, drop it,” he shouts, pressing the flat side of the knife deeper into Lukas’s skin.

  Lukas shudders. He looks like a frazzled kitten held by its scruff. I look away, the sight too painful to bear. I watch my brother’s emotional struggle, as he squeezes what I imagine to be the weapon that just destroyed Golow and yet he can’t fire it.

  A calloused and wrinkled hand comes to rest on my brother’s shoulder. Aghad, the rice farmer, limps forward, shoots his arms up in surrender, and sets his sad eyes on Tahari.

  “What have you done?” he asks, his voice broken. “My leader, my guide, my… friend.”

  Unscathed by Aghad’s plea, Tahari tightens his grip on Lukas. “You can’t possibly understand, Aghad. What does a rice farmer know about leadership and survival?”

  Aghad raises his chin and squints at the man he once considered his leader. “I know about rice,” he says. “A humble, resilient plant that has fed our people for thousands of years. But you… What kind of leader are you, Tahari? You were ready to sacrifice the life of a child instead of your own? You’ve turned the meek into traitors, the peaceful into fighters. The Mayakes have always taken great pride in their leaders, selfless men ready to sacrifice their own lives for the safety of their people. Had you asked me, I wouldn’t have hesitated to give myself up. I’m old. My life is expendable. But giving up the lives of our children instead? That is… despicable. I’m ashamed of you.”

  Tahari flashes a look of disdain. He points his chin to us—Athel, Wes, me. Lukas, still cringing next to him. “These are not our children. They’re rebels, not worthy to be called Mayakes. Stray cats who refuse to abide by our simple rules. They’ll bring destruction to our race. For centuries we’ve relied on traditions. We have strict rules that keep us safe. Bad branches need to be pruned early before they outgrow the tree and take it down.”

  “That’s right,” Athel says, stepping around Aghad. “If you’ll let me do the honors.” He raises his fist and then opens it, revealing a small, white square on his palm.

  “What is that?” Tahari says, his gaze jumping from Athel’s face to the white square.

  “Your death,” my brother replies, and with a flick of his thumb, the cable zaps out again. It’s all a blur, and the next instant Lukas is down on his knees, covered in blood, and Tahari on the ground, his chest sliced open by the lightning-fast cable.

  “Lukas!” Athel shouts, running up to him.

  Lukas scrambles back to his feet, his hands raised above his head. “Not my blood,” he screams. “I’m ok, not my blood!”

  Aghad runs over, pats my brother on the shoulder and then hugs Lukas.

  I smile and wriggle away from Wes, but pain catches up with me. As I take a step with my injured leg, a jolt shoots up my thigh, making me yelp.

  Athel hears my scream and runs. “Dottie!”

  “What happened to everyone else?” I ask as the first sunrays of a new day shine down on us. What happened to Yuri and his father?

  It’s a trap, he warned us. But then he tried to kill Wes …

  “They’re all dead,” Lukas says, wiping Tahari’s blood off his face with the back of his hand.

  I wrap one arm around Wes’s neck and the other around my brother’s, and together we hop over to the clearing of tall grass where Hennessy and Yuri are lying. Hennessy’s clothes are charred, his torso black and smoking as if a ball of fire has pierced him through and through.

  I hear a groan and turn.

  Yuri’s lying a few feet away, blood pooling next to him. His lips are blue, his hands twitching. I grind my teeth at the sight as a surge of loathing fills my chest. I wrap my arms around my brother’s neck and hop closer.

  Mixed feelings mingle in my head. This is the guy who va
ndalized my glider out of spite, the guy who’s bullied my brother and me since we were little, the guy who… followed us in the dead of the night to warn us about a trap.

  “He was about to kill—” I start.

  Wes cups my mouth again. “Shh,” he hisses. “It’s not what you think.”

  “What?”

  Lukas crouches next to Yuri and whispers something in his ear, his eyes soft in a way I never would’ve expected. Aghad leans over and tears open the kid’s shirt, revealing a hole as large as a fist right below his ribcage. Blood bubbles out like a running well.

  Yuri blinks, his eyes fixed on the sky.

  The sun is out now, and long morning shadows fan between golden hues.

  “After I left you guys,” Wes whispers as Aghad examines the wound, “I bumped into Hennessy and told him about the doors. He pretended to listen, then snuck up behind me and deactivated me.”

  “What about you, Lukas?” I ask. “Did Hennessy deactivate you too?”

  Lukas shakes his head. “Tahari did. As soon as he heard the rumble he knew you’d opened the door. I tried to run over but he stopped me and everything went black.”

  “Yuri brought us back,” Wes continues, “Lukas and me, while Hennessy and Tahari were watching you duel with Golow. He awakened us, told us not to move, to pretend we were still out.”

  Even Athel has a hard time believing it. “Is that true?” he says.

  Wes nods.

  “But I saw him,” I protest. “He had his laser beam muzzles out. He was about to kill you, Wes.”

  Wes shakes his head. “No. He had to pretend he was pointing them at me, but he was trying to destroy Golow. His father stopped him. And then you got in the way. Yuri jerked his fist and the beams ended up piercing Hennessy instead.” Wes swallows and looks down. “He and Tahari got what they deserved. They’d been following us. Hennessy put me out before I could come warn you guys… warn everyone else.”

  “What happened after Yuri shot his father?” Athel asks.

  “Golow’s fangs were about to snatch Akaela. Yuri threw himself between her and the bot and got skewered in her place.” Wes lowers his head and looks down.

  I frown, thinking back to those moments. I remember a flash, probably Yuri’s laser beam going off. He then struck me in the face to get me out of Golow’s way. That’s when the robot’s fangs pierced him.

  My whole body goes numb. My head, my leg, my heart. I swallow dust, my throat completely dry.

  I disentangle from Athel’s grasp, hop over to Yuri, and drop to my knees, averting my eyes from his gruesome wound. Lukas shakes his head.

  No nanobot can fix this.

  Words fail me. This kid I once thought a monster, once loathed with all my heart, saved my life. Tears roll down my cheeks.

  “Yuri,” I say, between sobs.

  He blinks. His faltering gaze rests on my face. “My parents,” he whispers. “They always said… you guys were the traitors.” His voice is barely audible, so I lean forward and press my ear to his cold, metal face. “Turns out… it was them.”

  He lifts the tip of his fingers. “Take these,” he whispers.

  I know he’s talking about the laser beams. Lukas understands too and nods.

  “Give… them … Cal,” he says, his voice fading. “He doesn’t… know.”

  “Cal?” I say.

  He nods.

  I put a hand on his forehead. It feels hot under my skin. “We’ll take care of him. Don’t worry.”

  He nods again. “I’m sorry. I wish—”

  “Shh,” I whisper. “I’m sorry too.”

  Yuri closes his eyes. A few shallow breaths escape his mouth and then a long final sigh.

  I’m sorry too.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Athel

  Day Number: 1,590

  Event: We’ve unlocked the Underground City

  Number of Mayakes left: Unknown

  Goal for today: Prepare for more deaths.

  I barely made it in time. Without Lilun’s gift, Dottie would be dead, squashed between the fangs of a huge, wolf-like AI. It all happened thanks to Aghad. When he saw I wasn’t returning, he walked all the way to the back of the line to get Tahari. Except Tahari wasn’t there. That’s when he got suspicious. He looked in his bag and found that the box with the three chavis was missing. When I finally joined our group again, he and I went on a frantic search.

  Good thing Golow made a lot of noise and wasn’t hard to track down.

  We stand lost in the middle of the ruins with three bodies and the wreck of a huge robot lying around us. The morning breeze reeks of burnt flesh and blood.

  Everything is silent.

  Aghad is in shock, this small man with old, knotty hands at a loss with his life. I stare into his tired eyes and recognize the deepest of all wounds, the betrayal of someone trusted.

  The slash in Dottie’s leg is bleeding profusely. We need to shake off the stupor death has bestowed on us and get going. We need to get help, to gather the people—

  A whistle interrupts my thoughts. Loud, ear-splitting. We hold our breaths and look up. A blade of light mars the blue sky. It lasts only a fraction of a second, then the ground shakes and a rattle of explosions follow. We fall to our hands and knees.

  “The Tower!” Dottie screams.

  “It’s happening,” Aghad says. “The Gaijins are attacking the Tower.”

  A new missile whistles high in the air and then crashes in the forest closer to us. Flames burst in the air.

  “And the forest, too!” Wes yells.

  We need to take action. Now.

  I help Dottie back to her feet. “Lukas,” I say. “You and Akaela should go down the Foresight door. Take care of her leg—it’s bleeding too much.”

  “But I want to go with you!” Dottie protests.

  “You’d be slowing us down,” I scold her. “Look at the bright side: you two get to be the first ones to step into the Underground City in over a hundred years.”

  A shiver runs down my spine. Let’s hope there are no more bloodthirsty AIs guarding the Underground City. I swallow and keep that one thought to myself.

  We’ve run out of options.

  A new explosion bursts in the distance.

  Aghad, Wes, and I split, each one of us with a different destination but one common goal: find all of our people scattered in the forest and bring them to safety. Wes is the fastest and will reach the group that headed out with the carriages and horses. Aghad and I will look for the rest.

  Aghad squints his old eyes at us. “Kids. It’s been a long night. A night of discovery and realizations.” He swallows. “A night of pain. What you fought here shouldn’t discourage you. It should make you stronger.”

  Dottie’s got tears in her eyes. Leaning on Lukas, she hops forward and throws her arms around Aghad’s neck. We all pile up in a group hug. A few tears roll, some real, some virtual—mine. I’m crying too, although inside, because my cyborg eyes don’t shed.

  At last Aghad pats his rough hands on our backs and we all break apart. “I want to see you back here. Safe,” he adds. “All of you.”

  Wes nods and then he’s gone in a blur. I watch his silhouette grow smaller as plumes of smoke rise above the forest.

  “You too stay safe, Aghad,” I say, and then run off.

  * * *

  Lilun is still at the bottom of the ravine, struggling to get her rocket going. I point to the blasts bursting across the sky and beg her to fly the darn thing, until I realize what the problem is. There never was a capsule. The straps Lukas found inside the rocket are supposed to buckle around her waist and chest, except she can’t buckle them anymore with one hand and a rudimentary clamp. She swings them over her shoulder and shows me how they should wrap around her belt.

  The rocket is stuck, its muzzle entangled in a mass of ivy and dead branches. She wouldn’t let me touch it earlier, but now that the sky is exploding above us, she seems to have acquired a new sense of urgency. I’m mad at h
er for not letting me help her earlier, but then realize if she had, I would’ve never made it in time to save my sister.

  You win some, you lose some.

  I plow the rocket out of the tangle of vegetation and push it up the ravine. More rockets whistle around us, and every time the ground shakes beneath our feet, I think of the Tower. I imagine the cracked walls as they come crumbling down, the long hallways collapsing, the secret places up on the sixtieth floor where Dottie and I would go looking for ghosts…

  “By the end of the day, it’ll all be gone,” I say, helping Lilun into her harness.

  I say it like that, like an afterthought.

  I lick my dry lips and sigh. “It’s ok. I guess—I guess it was necessary.”

  I look at her, strapped in the awkward harness. The forest around us explodes, the ground shakes, and Lilun smiles.

  She raises her good hand and opens her palm.

  “Grodan,” she says, and from the look in her eyes I know it means goodbye.

  “Grodan,” I repeat, nodding. “Goodbye.”

  She doesn’t move, her hand still open, waiting. So I raise my hand too, unsure what to do with it, and then press my fingers against hers, her skin soft and warm.

  The rocket gives a roar. I step back and she runs, black fumes swirling behind her, covering my last glimpse of her before she takes off and vanishes into the sky, the very same sky that now is lit up with fire from her own people.

  Don’t kill her, you bastards.

  Be safe.

  I bend over and cough, my eyes burning with hot tears from the smoke.

  Smoke and something else. Something that tugs at my heart even though I’m not willing to admit it.

  Arpah Lilun, I think. Arpah like the words you left me to ponder over.

  And then I run. Because the rocket is gone, but the blasts are far from over.

  * * *

  The groups Tahari had carefully assembled have now dispersed. Maybe that was part of the plan, too. I find people scattered all through the forest. Adults panic, children cry, elderly wander aimlessly. To each one of them I give directions to the Foresight door. I know they can’t miss the place, now that there’s a gigantic robot heaped in front of it. The graver problem is how to get them all there safely.

 

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