Enter the Rebirth (Enter the... Book 3)

by Thomas Gondolfi

  Fourteen . . .

  The boy turned the bundled plates in his hand and then pushed them up and over the claw wire. He had them curved downward so they created a smooth metal hump atop the fence. He pulled himself up and over the flat metal instead of the grasping wires.

  Seventeen . . .

  The plates were too smooth and he slipped. He had just enough presence to roll forward so his legs would not get caught. As he tumbled into the space between the top of the fence and the smoothstone below him, he pulled at the plates.

  Nineteen . . .

  The boy turned over, managed to land on his feet and rolled forward to absorb the shock. As he came back to his feet he looked around quickly like a caged beast. Then he saw it. The cord that he had bundled the plates with to carry them had gotten caught by the claw wire. One plate was hanging on the far side of the fence. Another was hanging on this side. Two of the plates had come loose and were sitting on the ground. He sprinted back, snatched those up, then turned back toward the Goal Building.

  Twenty-five . . .

  He covered the distance from the fence to the second hedge made of claw wire in several quick strides. As he ran he slipped his fingers into the gap between the two plates. When he reached the wire, he flung the first plate at the barrier. The plate landed atop the spiral with its curve downwards.

  Twenty-seven . . .

  The boy gauged the way the plate settled on the wire and then stepped on it, pushing it down, and leapt across. The ’kopter was now just in front of him and after that he had a straight run to the Goal Building. He had one plate left.

  * * *

  “Da, what is in the Goal Building?”

  “We only know what the Top Scav said was there.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Top Scav said that there were wonders in there. Tek from Before like he had never seen.”

  “Is that what he brought back?”

  “Yes, they say he had something incredible. Whatever it was he kept it to himself and his tribe.”

  “That’s the right of scav though, he scavved it, so it was his.”

  “Yes, that is our rule. But you know what?” Da’s voice got low and scary, like when he told stories at the fire before bed. The kind that Momma would yell at him about before she had gotten the sickies.

  “They say that whatever it was, it was cursed!”

  “Cursed?”

  “That’s what they say. Cursed.” Da said with a knowing nod.

  “Why? Why do they say that?”

  “Well, because Top Scav’s tribe disappeared. They did not show up at the next Carnival. No one ever saw them again.”

  “But that could be raiders or sickies, or I don’t know.”

  “True, but no other tribe ever totally disappeared. You know what else they say?”

  “What?”

  “Some say that what he found . . . was a map.”

  “A map?”

  “Yes, a map that he used to lead his tribe to an impenetrable shelter with lots of food and clean water. They say they all live there even today, happy and safe!”

  * * *

  Thirty-four . . .

  The boy zigzagged around the smashed smoothstone that surrounded the ’kopter. He cleared a large chunk of the fallen sky machine and the open doors of the Goal Building beckoned to him. A few craters broke up the smoothstone, but he could run in an almost straight line.

  Thirty-five . . .

  His legs felt light and he ran fast. Without the shifting sands beneath his feet he felt like the wind. He came to the path that the mech had worn into the smoothstone. From beyond the fence line it didn’t look like more than two ruts. Up close, the ruts were deep. The boy thought that it must have been running this path since the beginning of time to wear down into the hard smoothstone. He leapt across them and ran hard toward the Goal Building.

  Forty-one . . .

  He risked a look at the Tower Building and he thought he saw the mech’s head pass just beyond the roofline. He had one last chance . . .

  Forty-two . . .

  The mech started to clear the side of the Tower Building but he was still too far.

  Forty-three . . .

  He heard the cries of his tribe, and recognized the sound of his grandmother’s voice.

  Forty-four . . .

  He threw out the last metal plate. It skidded out across the smoothstone a few paces in front of him and several paces from the open doors.

  Forty-five . . .

  The boy dove forward. As his seconds ticked away, he felt as if everything slowed down. For a long moment he found himself in midair, watching the blue lights sparkle into existence along the mech’s needle arm and at the same time tracking the plate as it skidded over the stone.

  Forty-six . . .

  He hit the plate with all his weight and it lurched forward even faster. As he slid over the ground he heard a loud SKREEEE that competed with the burning air stitching sound of the mech’s beam weapon.

  Forty-seven . . .

  * * *

  “Da?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you ever try for the Goal Building?”

  Da stopped and looked at him.

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I don’t want you to become a stain, Da.”

  “I’m glad for that, but why do you ask?”

  “Well, if Top Scav made it, maybe you could.”

  “Maybe, but no one knows how he did it, and no one has done it since.”

  “But . . .”

  “But?”

  “If his tribe is really safe and happy now, is it worth trying?”

  “Well, that would be something, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes. So will you?”

  “Son, what do I always tell you about After?”

  “We are never safe.”

  * * *

  The plate skidded across the hard stone and clipped the edge of a small crater. It bounced over the broken stone and through the open doorway and into the Goal Building. The hair on the boy’s arms and legs stood on end as the blue light charred the smoothstone behind him. It burned the very air as it melted the ground. Still moving fast, he and the plate smashed into something large that did not move. The wind was knocked out of the boy as something tipped over and rained heavy metal tools down on him. He covered up as best he could, but something heavy hit him in the head. He started to see everything in threes.

  The loud scrape of metal on stone reverberated through his skull. Behind that was the receding sound of sizzling stone and air. Whatever he had slammed into had not only dropped the tools on him, but it kicked up a cloud of dust like a small sandstorm. He coughed and shook his head. Pain erupted from his side when he moved. A heavy piece of metal fell off of him and clattered to the hard floor. As his eyes matched two of the three images and merged them, he started to look around. The floor around him was full of large crates and boxes.

  That was when he realized where he was.

  The sun shone in through the large open doors, but it wasn’t enough to dispel the shadows that lurked deeper within the building. The boy had not realized how large the Goal Building was. He had always looked at it from back well beyond the fence line. Inside, the room seemed to be a large pen for various machines from Before. There were a few stalls set in front of the doors within the large open space. The vehicles were long gone and tools, crates, and all kinds of things from Before now littered the area. The whole building was what Da would call a “wreck.” The boy knew that if he ever made such a clutter of Da’s work tent he would get a beating he would not forget. Now he looked around and wondered who had made such a mess of the place and why. When he thought of how many people had died trying to get in this building, he was amazed that he was here. Everything was just lying around. He picked up a long metal tool and turned it over in his hands. It was solid and cold. He had no idea what it did, but it seemed much better than any of the tools Da had. The whole place was a treasure trove
for a Scav.

  “Boy!?”

  First’s voice brought the boy back to the world outside.

  “Did you make it?”

  They could not see inside. They did not know if he made it or not. Maybe he could hide here until he figured out a way to use this stuff to save his people?

  Then he realized that they would just kill his grandmother and send another runner. More death while he hid away. He could not allow that.

  “Yes! I am here. I made it!”

  There was silence for a second and then he heard a cheer from his tribe. They called out to him until the Scribes silenced them.

  “Boy?” First called out again.

  “Yes?”

  “Inside there, do you see a terminal?”

  “Ummm. There's lots of stuff in here. What's a terminal look like?”

  There was a pause and he looked and saw the two Scribes talking.

  “It's a machine. It will be on a table, maybe inside a smaller room. It will have a screen, a flat part that sits on the table. If it's on, it'll have glowing letters on it.”

  * * *

  Da gave him that look that said “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Why do I have to do this? No one else does this.”

  “Do I care what everyone else does?”

  “No, Da.”

  “And why are you asking me a question that you already know the answer to?”

  The boy listened wistfully to the sounds of his friends outside the tent. They were collecting a team for Slamball against another tribe that just had arrived for the Carnival.

  “Look, I know you want to go play with your friends, but this is important. If you can tell me why it’s important, I’ll let you go play.”

  “You will!?”

  “I will, but you’ll have to do two tonight.”

  That was a hard barter, but he knew he would take the deal.

  “Yes, two tonight, if I can go now!” The boy held out his hand earnestly.

  Da held out his hand, but when the boy reached for the handshake that would seal the barter, he pulled it back.

  “Are you forgetting something?”

  “Oh, that . . .”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Letters are important because you can’t scav good if you don’t know what to scav!”

  They said the last few words in unison, and then there was a fast handshake and the boy was out of the tent leaving only a flurry of movement behind him.

  * * *

  Glowing letters? The boy had to see that to believe it. He looked around the large room he was in. Without moving further in there was not much he could see. His sight lines were cut off by all the junk. He carefully picked his way deeper inside. He threaded through several large, half-opened crates. One lay on its side and its contents were spilled out over the floor. Just then he heard a rumbling sound and ducked down.

  He looked through the large open doors and saw the source of the noise. The mech rolled by on its age-worn path. He had never thought about if the mech would blast him once he was inside the building. Runners had tried to hide in the broken-down trucks, or in the ’kopter, but the mech had always seen them. What the mech saw, it blasted. He watched the mech roll by and thought how he was the first one to see the mech from this side since the Top Scav. He wondered if he would be the last. The mech rolled on by, taking no notice of him. It must ignore people inside the building the same as it does people beyond the start line.

  Moving through the large bays that housed the trucks and various crates, the boy was careful not to touch anything. That was a big rule for Scavs. Don’t touch anything that you don’t need to. It was harder than he thought because there was so much here to look at, to check out. His whole tribe could spend weeks in here going through it all. His thoughts of the tribe pulled him back to his job. Deciding that the place was too big and too crowded to search quickly, he decided to take a risk. He climbed up on top of a crate. From here he could see the back of the room. There was a large door that seemed to be made out of smoothstone, or even metal. It could fit the mech through it. Just outside that was a smaller room. It had a half-open door facing him.

  The boy carefully climbed down from the crate and made his way to that part of the building. He crept up and peered into it. Like the larger room that housed it, it was overly full. Two tables or workbenches set along the back wall. Several smaller boxes and their contents littered about the small space. The boy was quickly cataloging the room as he had been taught when he saw someone sitting in a chair with his back to him.

  He jumped back in fright and bumped into a one of the crates. It tipped over and metal cylinders clanged and clattered along the smoothstone floor, kicking up another cloud of ancient dust. He cringed at the sound and looked frantically for a place to hide. He started toward a shadowy corner, but kicked one of the pipes and yelped in pain. He watched in horror as the pipe rolled lazily across the floor with a metallic racket that might have wakened the dead. The boy froze in place and stared at the open doorway of the room.

  He waited for whoever was in there to come out. Or to call out. Or call the mech in here to blast him. But none of that happened.

  As the seconds passed he gained confidence and moved back to the doorway. He peered inside. Nothing had changed. The figure was still seated in the chair with its back to him. Carefully he moved into the room and closed the distance with the unmoving person. Stepping over a small box he got a closer look at the seated person and his brief horror turned to relief.

  The person was long dead. The skeleton wore a set of clothes that made it look more substantial. The clothes looked like blue work coveralls of some sort. A small, round label on the left side of the chest said “Joe.”

  “Hello, Joe,” the boy said looking over the remains. Scavs were no stranger to dead bodies. In fact, it was common for Scavs to deal with the bodies of the dead. Another Scav’s rule: Treat the dead with respect, and be thankful for what they left behind. Even still, the boy had never seen a skeleton so old. Looking over the body in more detail he saw a large hole in the skull itself. It looked like Joe had been shot at very close range. The boy scanned around Joe’s chair and he saw it. A gun lay on the floor. Dropped from Joe’s own hand after his fatal decision. Suicide was also something that Scavs were no stranger to. The boy picked up the gun and felt its competent weight.

  He looked over the table in front of Joe and wondered what may have caused the man to shoot himself. Yet another box sat on the table, so the boy moved it. Just behind was a piece of tek that might be the terminal that the Scribes sought. It was a wide panel that was made of some kind of shiny material. A small board in front of it was lined with rows of buttons. Once he brushed away some of the dust he saw that the buttons were marked with letters. Despite the rules his Da had always recited, he reached out and pressed one of the letters.

  Nothing happened.

  “Boy!?” First called to him from beyond the fence.

  “What?" he called back.

  “Did you find the terminal?”

  The boy looked at the table. He was sure he had found something, but he was not sure what it was.

  “No . . . still looking.”

  “Well, hurry up. I don’t have much patience left and we have a lot of people here and a lot of bullets.”

  “I’m looking! It’s a mess in here!”

  The boy turned back in frustration and his foot kicked something. He looked down to find a small book, a kind he’d seen before.

  * * *

  “You have to be able to write and draw, son.”

  “But why?” he whined.

  “When you are on a scav you have to keep a journal.”

  “You said that already.” He was frustrated and challenged his Da more than he should have. The sharp smack to the back of his head was a quick reminder of his place.

  “You never know what you will see on a scav, so we keep journals. You write down the signs you see, and you draw maps
and pieces of tek. Your journal is your lifeline. When you come back, if you come back, your journal shows where you were, and what you found.”

  “So you share it with the tribe?”

  “Yes.”

  “But isn’t that a barter?”

  “Not really. It is just information. If someone else in the tribe sees something in your journal that they can help you scav, then they are bound to do it.”

  “But then there is a barter?”

  “Yes, then we barter and there will be a handshake on how the cargo is to be divided. We work together. That is why a journal is so important.”

  * * *

  The boy picked up the journal. It was old and smelled of mold. It had to be the journal of the Top Scav. But why would he have left that here? He carefully flipped through it until he came to the latest entry. Laid out in faded detail was a map of the inside of the Goal Building. There were notes all over the map. On the part of the map where the small room was, where the boy now stood, there was a note that read “Joe.” Next to that, it said “Access Controls.” On the next page was a quickly scrawled picture of the table in front of Joe. An arrow pointed to the side of the larger piece of tek that stood upon the table, and a note said “Press Here.” He looked closely at the edge of the tek and saw a small button. He pressed it. There was a crackling pop. Words slowly glowed into being on the panel.

  “Thank you!” he said to the journal and then read on, because it held a lot more about the terminal. The terminal was a world unto itself. The boy followed the path laid out in the journal to do something called “logging in” using words from a small paper that was stuck down on the table. Once inside there were several options. The boy used arrow buttons to move a blinking dot over the different selections and another button to go inside each one. The journal directed him to a place called “Security.” When he arrowed past an option called “Messages” his curiosity grabbed him and he hit the other button to go in.

  Inside there was a list of messages. He selected one but it made no sense to him. He tried a few more until he found one that he understood.