We sit down on the octagonal wooden platform near the buckets, cross-legged. I glance around. I don’t see any travelers in this area right now. The ones that are up here are keeping to themselves. I’m guessing that a lot of them are out in the forest, scavenging and keeping lookout.
“So what do we do?” Cass asks, wiping her mouth. “What’s going on?”
“We’re trying to figure out how to complete our mission,” I explain. “How to take back the island.”
“That looks doubtful,” Cass says. She pauses, “But I’m in, if you have a good enough plan.”
“So am I,” Emma adds.
“We have no amazing plan yet,” I admit. “We just have goals. We still want to get to the archive. We want to rescue our friends and defeat the new Monk. But we don’t know how to do it.”
“Would the travelers let us clear a path and keep going forward on that tram?” Liam asks Gadya.
She shakes her head. “They would, but the line doesn’t go much farther. The road is collapsed about ten miles from here. Scouts explored it already. The tram would just stop again.”
“Then we need to find some of those other tunnels into the gray zone. If the travelers used them to find you, we can use them to get back inside there.”
“And what would we do inside, Liam?” Gadya asks, sounding annoyed. “You were in a pod most of the time you were there. Alenna and I did all the work. We’d freeze before we could unthaw more than a handful of kids.”
“There has to be some way to release everyone at once. Like an emergency protocol.” I look around at everyone. “I’m sure there is. The UNA wouldn’t want their carefully collected specimens dying if a missile were aimed at the place, would they? There’s probably some kind of quick release for the whole archive.”
“Maybe,” Gadya says. “We have to decide if that’s worth risking our lives for right now. We owe it to Rika and Markus to get back there, but we have to be smart about it.”
“Can we even do it?” Emma points out. “Without the travelers’ help, how will we find the tunnels into the zone?”
“We’ll do it ourselves, if they won’t help,” Liam says, standing up. “We either find some fireworks and blast our way through the barrier, or we find the tunnels on our own.” He pauses. “Maybe we can find my dad out here somehow. He would help us.”
“Or we could convince the travelers to help,” Cass says.
I stand up. I’m about to respond, when I hear a distant noise. It sounds a lot like thunder. But it’s actually something I haven’t heard in a long while:
The sound of feelers.
I freeze. So do the others.
All except Gadya. She just sits there, taking another bite of langsat. “They’re just passing nearby,” she says blithely. “They never attack us. They’ll be gone in a few minutes.”
I glance at Liam. A look of warning passes across his eyes. We keep listening closely. The noise of the feelers is getting louder. Despite what Gadya said, nothing can be predicted on the wheel.
To me, it doesn’t sound like the feelers are moving away from us. It sounds like they’re getting closer.
And then travelers start yelling and jumping up, making the wooden platforms shake. I realize these feelers aren’t going to pass us by after all. They’re coming right after us—and they’re going to snatch us up if we don’t fight back.
18DOWN FROM THE SKY
LIAM IS CLEARLY THINKING the same thing that I am. He rushes to his feet, moving over to me. “Gadya, you sure about these feelers?” he calls out. The noise is loud enough now that we have to yell over it.
Gadya looks less certain than she was just seconds earlier. “They’ll pass. They always do!” She cocks her head to one side. “There are three of them. You learn to count them by the sounds they make!”
The noise continues to get louder. We’re all standing now.
Then I start to hear raw screaming. More travelers rush around us on the platforms.
“The feelers are here on the road!” a voice calls out. “And it sounds like they’ve got someone!”
I see movement far below us in the brush. Travelers are bursting out and dashing through the foliage. They’re heading for the ropes leading up to the highway near where the barricade is.
I stare at Gadya. She looks surprised. “The feelers have always gone overhead until now!”
“And I thought the travelers didn’t fight,” I say.
“I told you that they pick their battles!” Gadya snaps.
I grip the wooden edge of our platform. I feel a slight vibration in it.
“But what about us? Do we stay up here?” Emma asks. “Hide?”
Although that’s tempting, I know we can’t do that. “The feeler’s tentacles could reach us under here,” I say.
Gadya is standing there, looking around for weapons. But there are none up here. “We go up,” she says. “Onto the highway. The travelers have taken down feelers before, just like we did that time on the ice.”
“Then let’s go!” Liam says.
“This way,” Gadya replies. “There are some emergency ropes we can climb up. They go directly to the road.”
We start racing down the platforms, headed toward the ropes. The travelers have thrown them up and hooked them on to the edge of the highway to provide direct access to it. There’s no time to be scared of heights anymore.
When we reach the ropes, I grab one, loop my foot around it, and leap out into the air. I start pulling myself up, using the knots to help. Liam is right next to me on another rope. I try not to think about the drop beneath us.
Liam and I are soon clambering up and over the side of the highway, nearly falling into the gulley near the tram railing. The others aren’t far behind us, even Emma.
I crouch near the metal tram rail, stunned by what I see. I expected to witness the beginnings of a battle—with travelers trying to rescue one of their own from a feeler. Instead, I see four feelers just hanging there in the cloudy sky.
They look like they’re in some kind of formation. Three of the feelers form a triangle, with the fourth one in the center. Their tentacles are hanging loosely down, and their black helicopter-like bodies aren’t hidden in the clouds. They’re out in the open—completely exposed. I can see the spinning rotors that keep them aloft. These feelers hover in the desolate sky above the middle of the highway.
The downdraft of their rotors blows my hair back. The noise is deafening and terrifying. Travelers watch from the edges of the road. They’re prepared to fight, but they’re not taking any action yet.
“So much for your counting!” Cass yells at Gadya. “There are four of them!”
Gadya glares at her. “You’re only alive because of me, drone! Besides, these feelers aren’t acting like normal ones!”
“Shhh!” I hiss at both of them.
I turn my gaze back to the feelers. My eyes focus on the fourth feeler. The one in the center of the triangle. Its tentacles are curled around an object, obscuring it from view.
“What are the feelers doing?” I ask Liam.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“Have the feelers taken a traveler? Is that a body inside the tentacles?” I call out to Gadya.
She shakes her head. “If they’d taken someone, the travelers would be fighting to get them back.” She squints at the fourth feeler. “Maybe it’s carrying a bag of chemicals to release. Or a bomb.”
My blood goes cold for a second. I look at her, startled. I hadn’t thought how easy it would be for the feelers to bring a weapon like that here. If it’s a bomb, they could detonate it and kill us all.
I feel Liam’s arm around me. I glance over at him.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers in my ear. “There are five hundred travelers around us. I’ve been watching—a lot of them are hidden in the trees. If the feelers attack, they’ll pull them onto the road and smash them.” He pauses. “And if it’s a bomb, then we can duck
in the tram gulley. It’ll give us some protection.”
I nod and gaze at the feelers hanging there, lifeless.
Then the one in the center starts to move.
Everyone shifts slightly, getting ready to fight. But the three feelers on the edges just hang there in the sky, as the fourth one slowly descends. It gets lower to the ground, hovering twenty feet above it.
I watch, mesmerized, as it begins to uncoil its black, metallic tentacles. It’s about to reveal the object held within.
I lean forward, trying to get a closer look. Even before the tentacles have unwound all the way, I see that it is indeed holding a body. Everyone around me is yelling to one another.
The tentacles separate more, like they’re about to drop this corpse onto the desolate concrete road.
“Stay down,” Liam says. “Just in case.”
But I keep my head up. Watching.
And then I see a pale hand move.
The person inside the metal tentacles is still alive. In fact, it looks like he’s holding on to the tentacles. Or maybe the tentacles are looped around his arms and legs, supporting them. But I can’t see the person’s face.
“He’s alive!” a voice screams.
I sense that the travelers are about to begin moving forward, to try to rescue this person. Liam’s muscles tense too as he prepares to help them. I’m ready to battle these feelers as well.
If the person is alive, there’s a chance we can save him. I have no idea why the feelers have carried him here instead of to the specimen archive, but maybe there’s been some kind of malfunction. Or maybe these feelers have stopped to attack us on their way to the archive, and they’re planning on snatching three more kids to go along with him.
But then, the tentacles pull away from the person’s face, revealing his identity.
I feel like I’ve been slapped.
For an instant, I think I’m going to pass out.
Then the blood rushes back into my head, pounding like a wave. My mind is throbbing with anger and the desire for revenge. And the desire to get some answers.
“That bastard!” Gadya’s voice cries out in shock.
The person hanging in the tentacles turns his head in our direction and stares directly at us.
It’s David.
“I’m going to kill him,” Liam says, standing up and drawing his blade from its sheath.
“Me too!” Cass screams.
For a moment, I want nothing more than to join them. To race forward with Liam and make David pay for his outrageous act of betrayal. I know exactly how Liam is feeling. His dad’s life and everyone else’s are in jeopardy because of David.
But then I force myself to stop and pause. “Wait!” I call out. I don’t want the desire for revenge to blind us. “Stop!” I grab at Liam. He turns to look at me.
“Are you protecting him?” he asks.
“No!” I yell. “I just don’t want you to get hurt! I don’t trust David. He could have a gun on him! He betrayed us before!”
“He sure did!” Gadya yells.
“Let the travelers get him,” I say. “We don’t need to risk our lives again for him, just to get vengeance. He’s not worth it!”
Suddenly, the noise of the three feelers surrounding David cuts off. I’m startled. Their rotors have completely stopped spinning. For a moment, the three feelers forming the triangle hang there in the gray sky. But then they drop straight down to the road. They plummet onto the concrete, where they hit and disintegrate with an explosion of noise.
Everyone ducks, as metal pieces of the feelers fly in all directions. I barely have time to shield my face from debris.
“What’s going on?” one traveler screams to another.
It’s almost like the three feelers have just committed suicide. But of course they’re only machines. They can’t think. They probably just ran out of power or something. I blink grit out of my eyes.
When I look up again, only one feeler remains in the sky. The one that David is hanging from. It moves even lower to the highway, hovering only five feet above the concrete.
The tentacles release his arms. David raises his hands above his head. He holds them there in a gesture that looks oddly like surrender. He stares at us with a blank expression, from behind his glasses.
I sense nothing but seething hatred and hostility coming from Liam and the others. Everyone who knows what David did completely hates him now. If it weren’t for David, we might have already overtaken the archive, and gained control of the wheel.
The travelers rush forward to rescue him from the feelers, now that the odds are in their favor.
But Liam, Gadya, and Cass rush forward too—with less kind motives. If the feelers aren’t going to have him, then they will. I race after them.
I gave David the benefit of the doubt so many times. I was always his champion before—sometimes his only one. But after stranding us on the field, and leaving us to be enslaved by the drones and their new Monk, I can’t imagine finding such forgiveness in my heart again. David has lost my trust. I don’t believe in him anymore.
I wonder why he’s even come here right now. Maybe the new Monk banished him, as some kind of sick punishment.
As we head forward, the tentacles abruptly release him. David drops onto the concrete, landing in a crouch on the balls of his feet. The helicopter portion of the feeler drops a few feet lower, hovering above his head. The tentacles fan out around him, creating a whirling, whipping frenzy.
The first few travelers who were about to reach him are now forced backward. They leap away to avoid being struck by tentacles.
Over the violent frenzy, David yells out to them, “Stay back!”
The tentacles keep lashing around. It’s almost like they’re protecting him. But how is that possible? Liam, Gadya, Cass, and I keep running closer. We’re only about twenty paces away.
“Listen!” David calls out again to us. “I’m here to help you!”
“Shut up!” Gadya screams. She bursts free of our pack and races straight at the tentacles. Travelers try to stop her, grabbing at her hoofer-skin jacket, but she barges past them roughly. She has murder in her eyes.
“We need him alive,” I yell. “To get answers!”
Liam and I are both one step behind her. Travelers are mobbing the tentacles now. David is about to be overrun. He keeps yelling at us to listen to him, but no one does. Travelers knock against the tentacles, trying to grip them.
Gadya is almost upon him. I see her slide a short knife out of an ankle sheath and raise it up, ready to slice David’s throat. But then a tentacle crashes into her, knocking her sideways. She staggers across the road, the knife skittering out of her hand.
At the same time, enough travelers grab on to the other tentacles. Their weight drags the feeler sideways across the road. David is left standing there, exposed.
“Hey, David!” Liam calls out, racing straight at him.
David looks up. For a moment, his eyes find mine and they widen. “Alenna! There you are! I don’t—”
And then Liam’s fist strikes David right in the face.
David stumbles backward, his glasses flying off. He falls back onto the road, slamming onto the concrete, instantly unconscious. Liam stands over his body, looking down at him.
I run forward to Liam’s side, as do the others. The travelers continue dragging the feeler down, farther along the highway.
“What are you doing?” a traveler yells at Liam angrily.
“His name’s David Aberley,” Liam says. “He’s the one who betrayed us. The one who led everyone into an ambush. My dad might be dead because of what he did.”
“Is this true?” the traveler asks me.
I nod. “A lot of people lost their lives because of David. He helped the Monk instead of us.”
More travelers surround us. Everyone is talking at once.
I crouch down by David’s body. His eyes are shut, like he’s asleep.
Another traveler leans down. “H
e’s out cold,” the traveler says.
“Tie him up,” Liam instructs. “He can’t be trusted.”
“Who can be, in this place?” the traveler replies, glancing at Liam.
I hear a crash in the distance, as the mob of travelers struggling with the final feeler succeeds in smashing it to the ground.
I stand up next to Liam and stare down at David’s strangely peaceful face. His cheek is already red and starting to swell from Liam’s blow. Cass steps to my side.
I remember my first day on the wheel with David. I never thought it would come to this—him against all of us. Questions burn in my brain: How did he even end up here? Why did he do what he did? Perhaps I will never understand.
Gadya finally reaches us. Her knife is back in her hand. She has a bloody abrasion on the side of her face from where the tentacle hit her. “He dead yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?” She lunges forward. Travelers stop her, holding her back.
“We need to question him,” one of them says. He glances back at the distant remains of the feelers. “It looked like he was controlling these things somehow. He might have brought himself here on purpose.”
“Why would he do that?” I ask.
“We don’t know. That’s why we can’t kill him, even if he turns out to be who you say he is.”
“He’s a spy for the drones!” Cass says. “There’s no debate!”
The traveler looks at her. “Your kind of politics doesn’t interest us. Right now, he’s just a person who’s arrived in our territory. He’s in a situation that we need to deal with, and try to understand.”
Cass stares the traveler down. Finally, she sighs and looks away. “Fine. Just don’t trust him, or you’ll get burned like we did.” Then she stalks away, as if the sight of David is too much for her to bear.
“Controlling the feelers?” Liam asks the traveler. “Is that even possible?”
“We’ve heard rumors,” the traveler says.
“But David only got to the wheel when I did, less than two months ago,” I say.
The traveler shrugs. “Maybe there’s an easy way to do it, and David learned it from someone.”
The Uprising: The Forsaken Trilogy Page 22