The Uprising: The Forsaken Trilogy

by Lisa M. Stasse

  I try to see the feeler out the windows, but it’s hovering above us. Deliberately hiding itself from view.

  Something suddenly cracks down above our heads. It sounds like a gunshot, but I know that it’s the tip of a tentacle. The tram sways on the tracks a little. It wasn’t built to withstand this kind of assault.

  I grab on to the seats. Liam keeps an arm around me. I know it’s possible that the feeler could push the tram right off the highway, and send us plummeting to our deaths below.

  Another whip crack detonates above our heads. The entire vehicle shakes, sliding from side to side. I look up and see that a large dent has appeared in the roof of the tram. We’re moving too fast to get off the vehicle now. We’re trapped.

  The feeler strikes us a third time. There’s an angry screech of metal shearing away as we nearly get dislodged from the rail. A hole opens up in the roof, letting in sunlight.

  Then David yells, “I’ve got it! I’ve locked on to its signal!”

  The rotors are still hammering overhead. But David is right. The attack has ceased. I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief. But then I look out the front windshield.

  “Oh no,” I whisper.

  We’ve been so distracted by the feeler above us that we haven’t been watching the road.

  Several hundred yards ahead, the highway disappears.

  It just drops out of view, like it falls into a chasm. This is where the road is broken, but it’s much closer than ten miles. The concrete is demolished. Jagged pillars are all that remain until the highway appears again, about thirty yards beyond the gap. Nothing separates us from a forty foot fall here straight down to the ground. The tram is not slowing down.

  But that’s not all. Writhing and churning inside the chasm is one of the most terrifying sights I’ve ever seen.

  It’s a mass of feelers. Hundreds of them. Floating there so close together that their blades almost hit one another. I don’t understand how this is even possible.

  I hear voices screaming around me. But I’m too numb to scream. We must be moving at about fifty miles per hour. And we’re headed straight into the pit full of feelers.

  David is still wrestling with the box. But it’s too late.

  I wonder for an instant if there’s a way to get the feeler to pick up our tram and hoist us into the air. But we’d be way too heavy for it. We’d just drag it down into the abyss with us.

  I doubt that the tram is going to stop automatically like it did at the barrier. This time there is no object blocking its path. Just empty space. I see Gadya banging on the tram’s buttons. They do nothing to slow us down.

  Suddenly, wind is whooshing through my hair. Liam has thrown open the vehicle’s door.

  “Out!” he yells at me. “Now!”

  I’m about to protest, but then I realize that he’s right. Jumping is our only chance.

  “Go!” Liam yells at me.

  “You first!”

  But before either of us can do anything, David flings himself right out the open door. He curls himself around the black box as he jumps, so it doesn’t get shattered. I glance back and see him rolling away from us down the highway.

  “Together!” I yell at Liam.

  Gadya is right there with us now. Cass is forcing Emma toward the door too. I know we only have a few seconds left.

  “Ready?” Liam asks.

  “Yes!” I scream.

  Liam and I jump.

  For a moment, I feel like I’m flying. Air rushes all around me. My hair blows across my face, and dust and grit whip at my eyes. I lose sight of Liam.

  And then I hit the road hard with my shoulder, in a flare of agony that steals my breath. I roll sideways to absorb the blow, but the impact is hard enough that it rattles my whole body. I get thrown across the road, away from Liam.

  The world spins as I keep moving, slamming against the unforgiving concrete. I feel it scrape my arms and legs. I try to keep my hands around my head, with my elbows up to protect my face.

  For a moment, I think the force of the impact is going to kill me. That it’s going to tear me apart. But eventually, I stop rolling.

  I lie there for a second on my side, stunned. I listen to the sound of the feeler in the sky—and the roar of the feelers ahead of us in the chasm where the highway is broken.

  I struggle to sit up. My elbows and knees are skinned, completely raw, and my clothes are torn. My forehead aches. When I touch it, I feel a lump. My shoulder and ribs are throbbing. Every breath hurts when I gasp for air.

  The others are scattered across the road. Some are lying there prone, and some are already standing up. Liam rushes over to me, limping. He has a gash across his cheek.

  He reaches me and kneels down. I cling to him, struggling for air. I feel his strong hands supporting me, holding me up.

  He’s about to speak, when there’s a huge crashing sound nearby.

  I glance over to see the tram sailing off the road and slamming into the feelers below. It smashes down into some of their blades, demolishing them instantly. But within half a second, other feelers are rising up and tearing at it with their tentacles, as the tram continues falling. Then it disappears from view.

  I look up, afraid. The feeler that David has locked on to with the box is hovering in the sky above us. Just floating there, looking oddly peaceful. Its tentacles hang straight down, limp, as though it’s sleeping.

  But the same is not true of the other feelers in the chasm. They keep rising up from the broken road, buzzing and humming.

  “David!” Liam yells across the road. “Get up and help us!”

  I look over and see that David is just lying there. He’s not moving. Probably unconscious. I don’t see the box anywhere. Both of his hands are empty.

  Liam and I start scrambling toward him. The others aren’t far behind. All of them are awake, although I see blood dripping from Emma’s nose and from one of her ears.

  Liam and I reach David first.

  “David, c’mon! Wake up!” I yell.

  Liam grabs David’s wrist and checks his pulse. “He’s alive. But he’s hurt.”

  We both start searching the road around him for the black box.

  The noise of the feelers is deafening now. A cacophonous roar. I’m guessing that soon they will come straight for us. We have no way to fight back. Not against so many of them. They will take us and freeze us in the archive. I’d rather die than let that happen.

  I spot the black box off to the side of the highway. I race toward it with a yell.

  “Alenna!” Liam calls out, startled. But then he realizes what I’m doing, and he follows after me.

  I reach the box and snatch it up with one hand. I glance down at it. Its casing is slightly cracked, but it appears to be working. Its switches are intact.

  I start flicking them up and down, but nothing happens. We never asked David how to operate the box, or what the codes were in case something happened to him. Then again, I’m not certain he would have told us.

  Gadya is at our side, too. “Make it work!”

  “I can’t!” I point it at the feelers heading toward us, and desperately flick random switches. But the feelers keep coming.

  The only feeler that responds to my efforts is the one above us that David locked on to. Its tentacles open up and spread outward. I play with more switches and its tentacles twitch violently. I have no clue what I’m doing.

  I press another switch on the side of the box and the feeler moves forward. I press it again, and it moves forward a second time, like it’s following us. I realize I’ve figured out what one of the switches does, at least. If I can do that, then maybe I can figure out the others. I just need more time, and that’s one thing we don’t have.

  “I’ll be right back,” Liam suddenly says. He races across the highway to David’s body. I watch him hoist David over his shoulder. David remains unconscious. Cass and Emma are heading our way too.

  “We have to get off this road!” I say to Gadya.
r />   “I know!”

  For some reason, the feelers from the broken road aren’t attacking us. At least not yet. It’s like the strange chasm in the highway is where they come to rest, or perhaps to recharge. Maybe David’s box agitated them, and drew them to that part of the road. Or maybe they’ll only get activated if we cross one of the invisible sector boundaries—and the broken road is preventing us from doing that. Anything is possible.

  Liam is carrying David. Liam signals at us to start moving back down the highway in the direction that we came from. Back to the travelers’ camp. Gadya and I nod.

  We start running across the road to join him. Cass is helping support Emma.

  I watch the feeler above us as I run. I keep pressing the switch that seems to move it in our direction. The switch must make it follow the box. Although the odds are slim, I hope that if we can get off this road without the other feelers attacking, there’s a chance we can continue with our plan.

  But as we keep running, I hear a sound directly in front of us. Coming up from the curve of the highway ahead. The source isn’t visible. For a moment, I think it’s the clattering of more feelers.

  But it’s the sound of footsteps. Thousands of them. I freeze and stagger, turning sideways.

  The feeler above us almost collapses to the ground as I accidentally hit the box, but then it stabilizes again. It floats in the air far above our heads.

  Gadya and I reach Liam. We help him put David down gently on the concrete. He’s still unconscious. The footsteps keep advancing.

  “Drones,” Liam says grimly. “A whole army.”

  The others reach us, breathless. Emma’s head is lolling back a bit. Without Cass, she wouldn’t be standing. I’m not sure that she’s going to be okay.

  I stare at the highway, which shimmers in the heat and sunlight. There’s nowhere to run. The road is just a sheer forty-foot drop on either side. And behind us is the swarming mass of feelers from the chasm. Soon the army of drones will come into view.

  I stand there with Liam, knowing that this could be the end. Maybe this was a trap. Set by David, or by the travelers.

  Our feeler hangs above us, and a bit behind. I hope the drones just assume it’s one of the feelers from the chasm, and don’t know that we can control it.

  I feel like we’re pawns. Stuck in a game that we don’t know the rules to. Maybe the travelers were working with the drones the whole time, in some kind of secret alliance. Or maybe the drones knew that the feelers were here, and were waiting to corner us.

  As I watch, the first battalion of the drone army emerges. It stretches the entire width of the highway, in a line at least fifty kids across. Behind each of them is a seemingly endless column of other kids. All of them have spears, or bows and arrows. They wear their homemade black robes. Their uniformity is frightening.

  Liam leans in close. “We might have to jump after all,” he whispers. “Off the edge of the road. Hope that the underbrush cushions our fall. I noticed earlier that there are some trees and thick bushes directly below the highway here, to our left.”

  Jumping terrifies me. “What about David?”

  “I can try to wake him up and take him with me. It’s risky, but better than staying up here if the army attacks.”

  I nod. Anything is better than having the drones get us. But I don’t know if we’ll survive a jump—especially David. “We still have the feeler,” I whisper back to Liam. “If David wakes up, maybe he can use it to do some damage first.”

  The five of us stand there with David at our feet, as the army stops perfectly in place, a hundred paces away. From here, I can see their faces. Their eyes look blank and brainwashed. More mechanical than human.

  I can hear the buzzing of the rising feelers behind us. Including the one that we control. I hide the black box deeper inside my pocket.

  “What do you want with us?” Liam calls out, his voice bellowing across the landscape.

  The drones don’t reply. They act like they haven’t even heard him. I look down at David. He isn’t moving.

  “We’ll fight you!” Gadya screams at the drones. “Every last one of us, until we’re dead!”

  Again, the drones completely ignore her words.

  I gaze at the army, sensing sudden movement.

  Then I see a drifting figure, being carried by six drones on a large covered platform draped with golden fabrics. The figure’s wooden mask is unmistakable.

  The Monk.

  “He’s here!” I gasp.

  My hand instantly slips back down to the black box. I have to get David to wake up somehow. Only he knows how to control the feeler, and what switches to flip to activate the right codes.

  The army of drones parts down the center as the raised figure drifts closer toward us.

  We stand our ground.

  I kick David hard with my boot. “Wake up!” I hiss at him. Cass crouches down by his side, trying to rouse him by yelling in his ears and pinching him. Emma sways under the sun, but manages to stay standing.

  The Monk comes even closer, protected by his ocean of drones.

  “Coward!” I yell at him, trying to draw him out farther. “You let other people do your fighting for you! Come here and face us.”

  I hear a slow chuckle begin to build. It’s electronically amplified and distorted, so that it drowns out my words. There must be some kind of amplification system hidden in the platform that carries him. Just as there was back at the cathedral.

  The Monk casts his gaze across us. Taking me by surprise, he begins to name us, one by one: “Liam, Alenna, Gadya, Cass, Emma, and David.”

  I’m startled. All of us are.

  The Monk chuckles again.

  Who is behind that awful mask?

  “You didn’t think I knew who you were?” the Monk asks, his voice an electric squeal. “I know everything.” He turns to each of us in turn. “Liam, I know that your father is dead! I killed Octavio myself, with great pleasure back at the confinement house. I want you to know that he suffered a thousand agonies before he died.”

  I grab Liam’s arm. I don’t know if the Monk is telling the truth, or trying to demoralize us.

  “Alenna,” the Monk continues. “I know that your mother is stuck in Southern Arc—a dying station, about to freeze to death alone. Soon, she will join Octavio and the other heathens in hell!”

  I can barely breathe now.

  “Gadya, the travelers betrayed you,” the Monk continues, turning his gaze yet again. “Just like Liam betrayed you when he chose Alenna instead of you. How does that make you feel? And Emma, so weak and frail. Do you deserve to be alive?” The Monk looks at Cass. “And Cass, I knew your brother Vincent. He was a pathetic coward, loathed by everyone who met him on the wheel. A slave and a nobody.”

  The words hit harder than blows. It’s like listening to the devil speak. The voice is mocking and sadistic. Hypnotic in its cadence. How can the Monk know any details about us?

  “Don’t listen to him,” I say. “It’s all lies.”

  The Monk peers down at David’s prone body. “Looks like David got what he deserved, doesn’t it? I doubt he’ll ever wake up.”

  But the Monk doesn’t know that I’ve just felt the first stirrings of David’s body at my feet. I crouch down instantly. Hopefully, the Monk will just think I’m overwhelmed by his words. But I have a plan.

  “David!” I whisper. “Wake up! You have to!”

  He mumbles something incoherent in response.

  “Come on! You can do it!”

  I slip the box out of my pocket, secretly in my palm, and press it into his hand, desperately hoping for a miracle.

  Then David’s fingers close around the box.

  That’s when I realize we actually have a chance.

  The Monk is so distracted by his desire to hurt us that he doesn’t seem to notice what’s going on.

  “I did spare one life!” the Monk cries out. “Behold!”

  As he speaks, a group of four drones drags
a wicker cage forward. An old man wearing a tight leather leash is inside. I instantly recognize him as Dr. Barrett. His hands and feet are bound, and circular red wounds dot his grizzled, bearded face. His eyes burn with complete rage. I feel sick. Death would be a better fate than this.

  “I keep Dr. Barrett alive as a reminder of the failure of science over faith,” the Monk sneers.

  “You’re a demon!” Cass yells at him, revolted.

  “Fraud!” Gadya seconds. “You’re not the real Monk anyway! He’s dead.” She looks at the army of drones and addresses them. “The real monk was Minister Harka from the UNA! We killed him. You’re following an impostor!”

  The drones stare back, completely unconcerned. They must be drugged. Nothing else would explain the hold that this man has over them. The group of drones with the cage hauls Dr. Barrett away again, out of sight. But I can’t get the image of his agonized face from my mind.

  “One of you has something that I need,” the Monk says after a pause. “Something that David stole from me. I propose a trade. You give me what I want, and I will kill you quickly. Not like what I did to Octavio.” I can hear the smile behind the mask. “You can avoid that fate if you wish.” The Monk turns his masked face to survey the drones. “Or perhaps, if you work hard, you might even convince me to spare your lives. You could join my devotees in a life of selfless devotion.”

  “Never!” I scream back at him.

  I see David’s hands move slightly on the box, as his fingers probe the switches. I know he’s awake now, but pretending to be knocked out.

  “You’re a liar!” I yell at the Monk to distract him. “You’ll lock us up like Dr. Barrett!”

  The Monk just starts chuckling again.

  “It’s time,” Liam whispers. He’s realized what’s going on.

  “What if David can’t make it work? Or doesn’t want to?” I whisper back.

  “Then we run and jump. Take our chances.”

  I nod. Gadya has heard what we’re saying. She’s telling Cass and Emma.

  “Resistance is a waste of your time,” the Monk intones. “Submit to my glory . . . or face my wrath!”

  Drones start aiming their arrows at us, preparing their onslaught.