Girl of Stone (The Expulsion Project Book 2)

by Norma Hinkens

  I frown. “How?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Phin acknowledges. “I’m just thinking out loud. Those boys can’t be more than twelve or thirteen. Maybe they’ll fall asleep, and we can sneak out before the older man gets back.”

  “If we climb out and startle them, they’re more likely to shoot us,” Velkan points out.

  “You really think so?” Ayma asks in a hushed tone. “They’re just kids.”

  “We can’t assume they won’t,” I say. “We don’t know what they had to do or who they had to kill to survive up until now.”

  A scuffle above distracts us. We look up to see a curly-haired boy peering over the edge of the pit at us.

  I quickly stretch a smile across my face. Maybe I can strike up a conversation with him and learn something useful. The older man wasn’t eager to divulge anything, but the boy’s curiosity about us could work in our favor.

  “Hi! I’m Trattora! What’s your name?”

  He doesn’t hesitate to answer. “Dubrochek. They call me Dubber.”

  “These are my friends, Velkan, Ayma, and Phin,” I say.

  The boy looks around at us one-by-one like we’re a strange species he’s viewing. Maybe he hasn’t seen too many other people. For all I know, he might have grown up out here in the mountains.

  “Is that your father we were talking to earlier?” I press.

  Dubber shakes his tousled head. “He was his friend.”

  Was. Does he mean his father is dead?

  Casually, I get to my feet. “How long have you been living out here?”

  The boy looks puzzled. “All my life. We—”

  “Dubber!” a girl’s voice yells. “You’re not supposed to be talking to them.”

  Dubber pulls his lips into a mischievous grimace. “That’s my sister. Gotta go.”

  He disappears from sight. I listen for the sound of his retreating footsteps, but a moment later he coughs again, indicating he has merely retreated a few feet from the opening.

  “So much for learning something useful,” I mutter, sinking back down on the dirt. “Not with big sister breathing down his neck.”

  As the sun dips beyond the horizon, the temperature in the pit drops drastically. Without our suits we would most certainly freeze to death. Apparently our captors don’t care, or they assume we’re tougher than we look because they don’t bring us any blankets or bedding. At some point our guard switches out and the second boy peers briefly over the edge, counting us with a flashlight before retreating.

  Velkan hands around what’s left of the loaf and I tear off a small piece and chew on it halfheartedly. My eyes grow heavy as the darkness deepens. Ayma and Phin are already sleeping, the rhythmic sound of their gentle snoring filling the pit. I lean my head back against the cold, dirt wall. Velkan sidles over beside me and slips an arm around my shoulder. “Are you doing all right?” he asks.

  “Yeah, apart from my throbbing hip. I landed on a rock. I’m sure I’ll have a huge bruise to mark the occasion.”

  Velkan chuckles softly. “That’s a small price to pay considering all the danger we’ve been through.” He leans closer. “Maybe this will make you feel better.” He presses his lips gently against mine. Shooting stars flood my brain, and I forget all about the dire situation we are in. I even forget that Phin and Ayma are sleeping a few feet away. I wrap my arms around Velkan’s warm neck, and for a long moment we are one, lost in a kiss so full of passion and sweetness that I can barely breathe when we pull apart.

  “Trattora,” he whispers into my hair.

  “Mmmm,” I say, eyes closed, still reeling from the taste of his soft lips on mine.

  “Whatever happens, I’m glad we got to see Mhakerta together for the first time.”

  I take Velkan’s hand and squeeze it. “We’re going to finish what we came here to do. We’re going to find out what happened to our parents. Hopefully, we’ll meet them.”

  His eyes search mine. “If Preeminence catches us, everything our parents sacrificed will have been for nothing.”

  I put a finger to his lips. “Ssh! Don’t say that. Seeing Mhakerta with you was worth it.” I lay my head on his shoulder and snuggle closer. “I’m tired. Let’s get some rest.”

  He wraps his strong arms around me and I drift off in them, warm and contented.

  I wake to the sound of angry yells cutting through the morning chill. “Hey! Wake up!”

  I blink and stretch out my aching limbs as our ugly reality comes rushing back to me. I frown up at the unshaven man leaning over the edge of the pit, teeth bared.

  Phin scrambles to his feet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What’s going on?”

  The man swings his gun toward him. “You lied! You didn’t come alone.”

  14

  “What are you talking about?” Phin asks, suddenly alert.

  “A ship landed in the valley last night.” The man keeps his gun trained on Phin. “Who are they?”

  “What does this ship look like?” I interject.

  The man scowls at me. “Sleek, silver body, no markings.”

  “That’s our ship,” Phin says. “We told you about it yesterday.”

  The man shakes his head vehemently. “No, it wasn’t there yesterday. I went down to the river and checked after we talked.”

  I throw a quick glance at Phin and shrug. We have no choice now but to tell the man the truth. Anything else will just make him more suspicious. “We deployed cloaking technology to render our ship invisible,” I explain. “We’ve been having problems with it deactivating, which is why you can see it now.”

  Instead of responding, he peers over his shoulder and yells. “Go back to your chores! I told you to stay away from the pit!” He turns his attention back to me, a frenzied look in his eyes. “Are you runaways or something? Did any drones follow you?”

  I stare back at him, befuddled by the question. In a way, we could be considered runaways. But drones? Something tells me he’s asking a very specific question. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He tightens his lips, his chest heaving up and down. “Did you escape from the collective?”

  “We don’t know anything about a collective,” Velkan says. “Like we told you, we just landed here yesterday.”

  The man narrows his eyes, surveying each of us in turn with a cold, hard look. “I swear if you’re lying to me, I’ll bury you in this pit.”

  “We’re not lying!” I yell at him. I scramble to my feet. “Let me out and I’ll take you to our ship and prove it to you.”

  Something shifts in his face. The sincerity in my words seems to have struck a chord.

  “All right,” he says. “But just you. The rest of your friends stay put until we get back.”

  I exhale a relieved breath. Finally, a breakthrough.

  I nod up at the man, afraid to say anything more that might make him change his mind. He takes off and returns a few minutes later, barking instructions to the teenagers. I hear them hammering something into the ground, and then a rope ladder tumbles down toward me.

  “Be careful,” Velkan whispers to me. “Don’t let him access the weapons vault on the ship.” He reaches for the ladder and holds it steady as I begin to climb. Strong arms reach for me and pull me out at the top.

  “Thanks,” I say, brushing dirt and leaves from my jumpsuit. “I’m Trattora, by the way.”

  The man surveys my attire with a wary look on his face. “Caldan. Sorry it has to be this way, but I can’t take chances with the kids’ lives.” His eyes cloud over. “I’m all they have left.”

  I bite back my curiosity about his relationship to the children, not wanting him to clam up entirely, and wait for his instructions.

  He whistles, two short bursts, and a moment later Dubber comes walking up. He throws me a wide grin and then quickly wipes it from his face when Caldan frowns at him.

  “Watch the other three in the pit. Don’t move from your post until I come back,” Caldan orders him. “We won’t be l
ong.”

  He nods to me and gestures down the hill with his rifle. “Lead the way.”

  His eyes are hard and cold and assessing, and I realize it’s a test. If I take the wrong trail, he’ll think it’s not our ship parked in the valley and he might just put a bullet in the back of my head. But years of hunting have trained my senses and I know exactly which direction we came from, and this isn’t it. I turn around and point over his shoulder. “It’s that way.” My voice is strong and unwavering. A flicker of approval lights up Caldan’s eyes, and I know I’ve passed muster.

  The morning air is crisp as we descend the mountain, but the snow is already releasing its icy grip and sliding from the branches around us in frosted dollops. “Beautiful up here,” I chirp, peering over my shoulder. Caldan ignores me, keeping his rifle pointed at my back. I twist my lips and turn back around. So much for trying to strike up a conversation. The old man doesn’t like to waste time on small talk any more than the girl. I wish Dubber were here. I might be able to learn something.

  “What’s the collective?” I call back to Caldan after another few minutes of silence have gone by.

  To my surprise he answers me this time. “The collective supplies the CentroZone with organic and free range food.”

  He places a hand on my shoulder, startling me.

  “What is it?” I spin around, instinctively adopting a fighting stance.

  “It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you.” He reaches out and rubs my left ear between calloused fingers. “You’ve never been tagged.” His voice is filled with genuine wonder. He lets his hand drop to his side and moves his jaw side to side, scrutinizing my face as if seeing me for the first time.

  I furrow my brow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Caldan frowns. “The workers on the collective are all tagged. Makes it easier for sentinel drones to track them.” He purses his lips before adding. “And hunt down any who try to escape.”

  My breathing is shallow, rasping in my throat as my lips form my next question. “Escape from who?”

  Daggers of hatred flash from Caldan’s eyes. “Preeminence, of course.”

  The name sends a chill down my spine despite the warmth of my suit. I’m sure now that Caldan isn’t bluffing about where his allegiance lies. No one could fake the level of revulsion in his eyes. He has nothing but loathing for the despotic artificial intelligence that has taken over Mhakerta.

  “How did you escape?” I ask.

  He studies me for a minute, sizing up how much he can trust me.

  “I didn’t.” He rubs a hand across his brow. “I owned a farm not far from these mountains. Once Preeminence barricaded the CentroZone in with lasers, and the rumors of farmland being annexed by the collective began, I fled to the mountains with my neighbor.” He looks out over the valley for a moment. “He died last year. Those are his children you saw with me.”

  The pain in his seamed face tells me he cares deeply for the family he inherited. I give him a sympathetic look while seizing the opportunity to tug on his heartstrings. “Our birth parents are here on Mhakerta. They’re scientists, so they’re probably somewhere in the CentroZone. We came here to find them.”

  Caldan’s shoulders slump. I notice with a measure of cautious relief that the rifle is no longer pointing at me. “You took a huge risk for nothing,” he says, in a flat tone. “You’ll never find them. It’s impossible to pass through the laser perimeter into the CentroZone.” He frowns. “A lot of scientists disappeared when Preeminence gained power. Your parents could be dead already.”

  I ignore his dire prediction and dig for more information. “There has to be some way into the CentroZone.”

  Caldan shakes his head. “Only the food transports from the collective, and they’re highly regulated.”

  “I’m not going to give up on them,” I say firmly. “If anyone can find a way to stay alive, it’s them.” I unzip my BodPak and pull out my bracelet. “This is the only thing I have left that connects me to them. They designed The Expulsion Project to save us from Preeminence.”

  Caldan’s eyes widen a fraction. “What did you say?”

  “TEP—it was a top secret project devised to send us in customized pods to a planet inside the Syndicate—”

  “—far from renegade AI systems that were running amok on unregulated planets in the Netherscape and beyond,” Caldan finishes, before snapping his mouth shut.

  His eyes travel up and down my jumpsuit and then come to rest on my bracelet. “You are one of the four,” he whispers. “No, it’s not possible.” He rocks back and forth on his heels and then suddenly grabs me by the arm. “What’s your father’s name?”

  I shake my head, frightened by the intensity of his grip. “I don’t know anything about him.” My heart pounds in my chest. “Do you … know his name?”

  Caldan releases me, resignation settling into his features. “No, but if you’re really who you say you are, I know someone who can answer your questions.” His voice has taken on a new tone of urgency. He gestures down the hill. “First, I want to see inside that ship of yours before I decide whether or not to help you.”

  My thoughts tumble over themselves as we make our way down the rest of the trail. What did Caldan mean, one of the four? Has he heard of The Expulsion Project before? Maybe he knows someone who worked with our parents.

  The sleek silver hull of the stealth fighter comes into view as we round the final bend in the trail. A tingle of anticipation goes through me at the welcome sight. The ship will be enough to convince Caldan once and for all that we are who we say we are. And then he’ll take us to someone who can help us, someone who knows about The Expulsion Project.

  Caldan says little while I’m showing him around the stealth fighter, but he examines everything carefully. When I reactivate the cloaking technology to demonstrate how we concealed our arrival, he is finally convinced. “This wasn’t built on Mhakerta,” he mutters. He rubs a hand over the gleaming console, then turns to me with a new level of respect in his eyes. “This changes everything. If you came through our air space undetected, then Preeminence is not invincible as we were led to believe.” He snatches up his rifle and makes for the door. “Let’s get your friends out of that pit. I need you to meet someone.”

  Caldan remains tight-lipped on the way back up the mountain, ignoring my repeated attempts to get him to elaborate on who it is he thinks might be able to help us. Despite my initial doubts, I think I can trust him. If he had meant me any ill-will, he would have killed me by now.

  When we arrive back at the pit a short time later, the three teenagers are sitting cross-legged in the grass a few feet from the opening, guns upright in their hands. Caldan sends the girl to fetch some jerky and water, and instructs Dubber to toss down the rope ladder and help the others out. He jumps up eagerly—the poor kid probably welcomes the change in company after all these years. Within minutes Velkan, Ayma, and Phin surface and join us. I hug them briefly and introduce them to Caldan. “He’s seen our ship and heard our story. He’s agreed to help us.”

  Caldan casts a wary look my way. “I said I can take you to someone who might be able help you. That’s the best I can offer. My place is here.”

  “Thank you,” Phin says. “We appreciate the help. It’s more than we could have hoped for.”

  Caldan gives a tight nod, looking up as the teenage girl comes toward us with the supplies. “We’ll need to leave right away if we want to make it there before nightfall,” he says.

  “We could take our ship,” Ayma offers.

  Caldan looks across at her, an amused grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “Not where we’re going, we can’t.” He turns and rattles off a series of directions to the teenagers who disappear into the woods after one last lingering look at us.

  “I sent them home to wait for me,” Caldan says. “They’ll be fine on their own for a day or so.”

  Ayma looks around curiously. “Where’s home?”

 
Caldan narrows his eyes at her. “That’s not information I give to anyone.”

  Ayma arches an offended brow. “I thought we trusted each other now.”

  “It’s not about trust,” Caldan scoffs. “There are ways of getting information out of people, Preeminence taught us that.”

  A shiver goes down my back. “What are you talking about?”

  Caldan merely shakes his head. “I’ll leave that for someone more equipped than I to explain.”

  I turn to Ayma. “Do you think you can make it on your ankle?”

  “It’s a lot better this morning,” she says. “I’ll be fine.”

  I nod. “Let me know if it becomes too much for you.”

  Caldan leads us farther up the mountain into a narrow pass. I’m anticipating a pleasant hike in these beautiful mountains, but a couple of hours in we reach a series of treacherous switchbacks only a few inches wide in places. We walk on tiptoes at times, clinging to crevices in the rock face with raw fingers as we shuffle sideways, trying not to look down into the deep clefts beneath us.

  By the time we begin descending down the perilous trail into a rocky gorge, my pulse is racing so erratically I think I might pass out. I gulp back some water and take a few deep breaths. Once the trail levels out, Caldan passes back some jerky and we munch on it underway, never slowing our pace. It’s late afternoon by the time we reach the floor of the next valley. Caldan waits for us to catch up, his face an unreadable mask. “We’re here,” he announces.

  I raise my brows and take in our surroundings in a slow sweep. I see nothing notable, other than a clump of gorse bushes and a few granite boulders scattered around with the odd patch of snow still nestled beneath them.

  “Are we supposed to meet someone here?” I ask, in a tone laced with sarcasm.

  Unperturbed, Caldan walks over to the gorse bushes and pulls one aside, revealing what appears to be a large burrow. “Follow me,” he says, slipping down inside the opening.

  Ayma turns ashen. “Please tell me we don’t have to crawl through a tunnel in the dirt next.”