Adam can sniff out the loners and the rejected ones. Those affiliated to nothing and no one. They radiate a palpable brand of self-awareness. Visible in every movement, every action. Stealth and wariness, more akin to solitary animals than humans. Adam knows them well. He is one.
Now he rides through a pool of black shadow and looks up. The sky is dark with resting airships.
The Watchers have arrived.
The vast ships are gray and oval-shaped, each powered by four giant, circular turbines. Eight of them drift above the town. Despite their size—at least three hundred yards in length and one hundred in width—they move with the finesse of dragonflies, floating and jostling for space. Surrounding the body of each ship are huge extending decks, sealed in behind invisible force fields.
The ships are low enough for Adam to see figures on board, standing at the edge, trading telescopes, lounging in observation chairs. Watchers, in their flowing robes, groomed and calm.
The elite of the elite. So close. So out of reach.
A shuttle—small, light in tone and sleek—banks away from one of the airships and swoops down to street level, sending up a flurry of dust. It hums about ten yards up in the air. The noise it makes is soothing and rhythmic, like a purr. Adam can see several occupants through convex viewing panels, darkened against the sun. Most of them are trussed up in protective gear—high-tech, expensive-looking filter masks and Voddenite bodysuits—even inside the shuttle. They take every precaution. No skin exposed, no threat of infection from Earth’s atmosphere.
But one of them isn’t covered head to foot.
She’s a girl, Adam sees. Beautiful. Serene. She looks directly at him as they pass. Large eyes. Blue or green, it’s difficult to say. High cheekbones. Young-looking, but not a child. Anywhere from fourteen to twenty. Light-skinned and luminous. She radiates health.
Beautiful, long blond hair. Like spun silk. This being the chief physical difference between the Watchers and the Left-Behind. Long hair.
Adam runs a hand over his own spiky-short dark hair. It won’t grow. Not more than an inch. No one knows why hair growth is stunted on the planet, but, like most of the widespread degenerations and diseases, people point to one thing. Toxic skies. The reason they all left in the first place.
Frank says Watchers are descendants of the first Leavers. They are human, definitely. But there is—both in their manner and their appearance—a suggestion of evolution to something…else.
The girl’s face shows no emotion. She stares at Adam with curious indifference. No expression, malevolent or otherwise. Perhaps forming an opinion, deciding whether he’s worth his salt. Or whether he’s destined for the dirt.
He will never know her decision.
The shuttle blasts a warp of heat from its wide exhaust and shunts up the road, leaving him with no more than a lingering impression of her, like a handprint on cold glass.
—
Adam passes an O2 saloon he knows well. He remembers the feeling: the tension leaching from his bones and easing from his muscles. Two dollars for an hour stretch, jacked to the wall. He’s heard they exist in most towns, as an antidote to all the toxins.
He has no reckoning of the truth to this rumor. Never in his life has he ventured to a single town outside of Blackwater. Too dangerous, Frank always said. Tribal fights kick-start when Outsiders come to town. Adam has seen it happen in Blackwater. There’s only one time when Outsiders are tolerated.
Race time.
He passes a heaving bar spilling drunken Riders, tanked up on Jhet Fuel. He used to wonder what compelled them to do this to themselves, to rip apart their lives.
He doesn’t wonder anymore.
He keeps riding. Veers down an alley and takes the backstreets. It’s all about survival now.
Stay out of trouble. Get Plugged. Make it to the starting line.
Adam snakes his way to the Bykemonger Station, staying alert, nerves on edge. There’s no sign of Kane. And no Scorpions either. But why would there be? Kane wouldn’t show his face, and the Scorpions only turn up when you least expect them. When you least want them.
Adam is glad he doesn’t see them. He’s not sure how he’d react. He’s not sure he could trust himself. Not anymore.
Keep your head down. Stay low. Say nothin. That’s how you survive.
Frank’s old mantra is starting to wear thin.
—
“You again,” Sadie says, looking at him behind a dark pair of shades. She stands at the entrance of the Bykemonger Station, leaning on the door frame. The light from within outlines her sinuous body and she looks ethereal. A spirit being. Less real somehow.
Adam stands on the porch before the sign, the way he did the day before. Only this time it’s different.
“You’ve come to pay,” she says. It’s not a question.
He has come to pay. But he’s come to pay for more than just the Race. He’s come to pay respect for the dead. For justice. For revenge.
Adam holds out the money.
Sadie looks at the cash. She takes it without saying anything. Doesn’t count it. Removes a billfold from her pocket and slips the notes inside.
Close up, Adam sees the reason for her shades. A dark coloration under her right eye, the skin puffed up and swollen. A bruise. She must notice, because she moves from the door and brushes her hand over her cheek, concealing the mark.
“Your byke needs fixing,” she says. Then she turns and heads back into the station, lithe and sleek. “Follow me.”
Adam wheels the Longthorn after her, watching the way she moves.
That Scorpion kid was dead right—she is a panther.
He’s seen one before. It was back when a traveling circus came through Blackwater. They set up a makeshift tent and Frank held Adam up in the crowd to see. He remembers the painted clowns with their twisted smiles—he didn’t like them—and the high-wire trapeze artists who performed daredevil byke feats high above the ground, and a cat-tamer with his whip and his skin-and-bone panther. The panther’s amber eyes blazed with quiet fury. She prowled the tent as though she alone were the authority in the land, despite her ragged appearance.
Adam follows Sadie and thinks about the panther. She had dignity, that cat.
He shakes his head. He knows he has to let Sadie go. Leave her behind. It’s like she said, after all. He made a choice. He chose to pay. Besides, Sadie isn’t his to leave behind anyway.
He thinks of the way she looked at Kane and darkness falls on his heart.
—
The Bykemonger Station is built like a warehouse. An open space, the equivalent of two stories in height and almost a hundred yards in length. It is one of only a handful of buildings in Blackwater supplied with electrical current from the turbine field. Long, flickering tubes run the length of the ceiling and flood the place with an almost blue artificial light.
At the far end is a small, semi-enclosed office. This is where Sadie leads Adam.
The station is full of activity. Customers—most of them kids about Adam’s age, some a few years younger and not many older—traipse across the cement. The rigors of the Race are suited to the young, not the old. Adam can’t remember anyone over nineteen ever winning.
He watches the young byke owners wheel their prized heirlooms across the cement floor. Sidewinders, Blackthorns, Rockhoppers, Snakecharmers, Scorchers, Duneblazers, Sunblazers, Backtrails, Diamondbacks, Sandtrackers, Desertcrawlers…and more.
Adam avoids looking at their owners. He keeps his eyes down and follows Sadie.
The space fills with an echo of hammering and clanging. Three Greasers sit on low wooden stools and ply their trade to spinning spokes and dismantled gears. There are byke parts strewn everywhere and the whole place smells of rubber and oil. Adam lets the sounds and the smells wash over him.
Sadie takes the byke from him. Her hand brushes his thumb, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She turns the Longthorn handlebars and lifts the byke. Spins the wheels. Squats to inspect the gears.
Frowns and sucks her teeth. She straightens, wipes her brow with the back of her hand and looks at him. A smear of grease remains on her forehead.
“Your byke’s a relic,” she says. “Shot suspension. Cracked gear mechanism. Loose brake pad. I could go on and on.”
Adam blinks. He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say. “Can you fix her?”
“Course I can fix her. She’s a byke.”
A clanging and hammering rings out against the walls. The warehouse throbs and bangs.
“You’ll need gear,” Sadie says, over the noise. “This way.”
Against the far wall is a padlocked cage. It runs the length of the wall, about ten paces deep, and is filled with all manner of byke gear. Seats and wheel spokes and gears chains. Inner tubes and treaded tires. Chrome spikes, long and hard and pointed sharp. Drawers spilling an assortment of bolts, washers, Allen keys, cable ties. There isn’t anything a Rider needs that Sadie doesn’t have. Goggles by the dozen, hanging on mean-looking hooks. Supply packs. Gaffer tape. Helmets. Air-filter masks. Heatkeepers.
Further along, an open metal cupboard with an assortment of wind-and-waterproof flak jackets, then rows and rows of riding suits. None of them new, Adam can see that. All secondhand. Most of them torn and frayed, some of them with dark smears that can only be one thing. Old blood.
“Take your pick,” she says. “It’s all we have left.”
He looks at the gear. He knows that according to the rules of the Race, Riders are free to kit themselves up the way they please. And because the Colonel runs the Race, and owns Sadie’s workshop, she gets a cut to cover her losses.
Adam glances at the Longthorn and, out of nowhere, he thinks about Frank and is paralyzed by a sudden wave of grief. He stares up at a ceiling fan chugging the air and he clenches his jaw.
Sadie watches him. When she speaks again, her tone has softened. “Anything else you need? Rider’s Code? I’ve still got a few, I think.”
The Rider’s Code. A manual for Riders of the Vodden Circuit. Some say the experts wrote it. Slingmasters, Race winners and Bykemongers. But others say Lord Kolben Vodden himself is the author. The man who conceived the Circuit Races. Adam thinks about the old, heavily thumbed Rider’s Code back at the farmhouse. He remembers Frank reading to him. Technical tips—how to patch a wheel or slide a gear sprocket, the best type of suspension fork. A breakdown of byke families, their worth and history. Circuit guides. An entire chapter on slingshots.
“Hello? Earth to Adam. Need anything else?” Sadie repeats.
“Yeah,” he answers. “I’ll take a weapon.”
Sadie looks at him. “Thought weapons weren’t your thing.”
Adam says nothing. Sadie shrugs and moves to a wall, lined floor to ceiling with shelves. Each one is stacked with small leather pouches. She selects one, then replaces it and retrieves another. Sadie turns and unfurls something from the pouch. A braided sling.
She holds it out to him. “It’s made of hemp, woven through with Voddenite. Allows you to generate incredible force. Use it in the right way and it’ll bring you what you need.”
Adam takes it from her. He follows two fine strands, threaded together—one dark, the other light. He runs his fingers over the tightly braided knots. They feel cool to the touch.
Sadie watches him. “I’d look out for that friend of yours. I know his type.”
He turns the sling angrily in his hands. Even when he’s alone with her, Kane’s there at the fringes, with all his danger and mystery.
Adam hooks the sling into his belt, trying—and failing—to look like a pro.
“He’s not my friend.”
“But you’re riding with someone, right?” Sadie asks. “You’ve got backup?”
“I ride alone.”
She looks at him with her shades reflecting the light. He’s sure he can see a trace of hurt in the angle of her shoulders. Just for a moment, and then it vanishes and she straightens.
“Suit yourself.” She jerks her head at the gear room. “Tell them what you want and they’ll mark it for collection in two hours. Your byke will be ready same time.”
Then she wheels it away, without another word. The Longthorn’s tires make a woeful squeal on the cement.
Adam’s stomach lurches and his cheeks burn as he walks to the gear. He feels stupid, ashamed for blurting out he rides alone. But it’s too late. He said it. He has to live with it.
It takes every ounce of willpower not to spin round and beg her to forgive him. To thank her for yesterday. To see if she’s okay. To ask her about the bruise. Instead he keeps walking and says nothing. Besides, Adam knows, with her kin, bruises come a dime a dozen.
Life would be easier if Sadie weren’t the most beautiful girl in Blackwater. But the trouble with Sadie Blood isn’t her beauty. It’s her bloodline.
She’s Levi Blood’s sister.
And, worse, Colonel Blood’s daughter.
“Will it hurt?” Adam asks the man.
The man looks at him. “Why ask if you know the answer?”
Adam sits strapped to a metal chair inside the Plugging clinic, a bare room in the town hall. The man before him has a face like carved rock. Caved-in cheeks and a long jawbone. His eyes are dark blue, almost black. He wears a surgical mask and gloves. In his right fist is an electric scalpel, attached to a bleeping machine. His white coat is freckled with dried blood.
“Every Rider asks the same question,” he says. “And every Rider knows the answer.”
Adam feels an involuntary shiver. The room is cold. His hair has been shaved right down to the scalp. Another condition of the Race. Every Rider must have their hair sheared. Even the girls.
“Your Tribe?” the man asks, holding his head at an angle, studying Adam with manic interest. His eyes are intense. “Not a Dead. Not pale enough. Dog Soldier? Crow?”
Adam shakes his head and looks away. He sees a glass jar filled with a yellow liquid and recognizes the curled thing inside it. A snake. Red-colored and fat in the formaldehyde. He jerks his head back round.
The man glances at the jar. “Snake?”
“No.”
“A loner, then. Never had a loner win the Blackwater.”
“First time for everything,” Adam says.
The man points to Adam’s neck with the metal scalpel in his fist. “I’ll make an incision quick. You won’t feel it, not at first. The pain comes after.”
It’s a line Adam remembers from Pa. One phrase. He’d bang his toe or fall and Pa would smile at him. The pain comes after, he’d say. Adam has no idea why most memories elude him but this one remains.
He controls his breathing and tries not to care about the metal bonds on his wrists and ankles. The man sees this and puts his left hand on Adam’s thigh to settle him. A gesture that has the opposite effect. A cold thrill of terror runs up Adam’s leg and he feels his hands begin to shake.
“It’s the Plug that hurts,” the man says. “Not the knife.”
“Please. Just make it fast.”
The man’s eyes darken. “Relax, boy. I know what I’m doin. Done it a million times.”
He removes his hand from Adam’s leg and places it on his head. He turns his skull so Adam is forced to look at the snake in the jar. Adam knows he does this on purpose, puts the snake there to strike fear into the Rider. It’s a rite of passage, the Plugging. It’s not meant to be enjoyed or even tolerated. It’s meant to be feared. Meant to be felt.
A whining noise starts up. The man has flicked the motor switch.
“Don’t remember a kid who didn’t cry,” he says over the drone. “Hard as they try.”
He pushes Adam’s head down hard and Adam squeezes his eyes shut.
It’s nothin. Just pain. I can deal with pain.
The man wipes Adam’s skin, under the bone behind his left ear. Adam can smell ether and some other anesthetic, probably. He feels a sudden scratch and burn. The scalpel. He grits his teeth, clenches his fists, and he breathes in shallow gasps.
/> In his left fist is the blood-covered slingstone. He feels the smoothness of it, the comfortable weight of it in his hand.
Pain is nothin.
Pain is nothin.
Pain is nothin.
But he’s wrong. Pain is something. Pain is scaled and writhing. Pain slides in hungry loops. The tongue flicks, licks the air. The head rears. The eyes are blood orbs. It snatches. A blur and smack of speed. A madness of razor teeth. A white-hot, mindless shock. Pain coils and spirals round him, clamps down, snaps his bones. He screams inside. He begs for the end, but it goes on and it goes on until he feels the Blackness rise and he releases, slides with relief into the abyss.
—
He staggers across the street to the Bykemonger shop in a daze. He raises an unsteady hand to the back of his skull, under his left ear, and touches the metal tube there, the spiky stitches in his skin. He feels dizzy and disorientated. The worm twists in his gut.
He is deep in thought, trying to steady his emotions as he steps up the stairs, when a dust-stricken figure comes lurching out of the door. The figure falls towards him, cursing as he goes. He barrels right past Adam, barging him with a shoulder.
Adam wheels out of the way and the figure half staggers, half falls down the stairs, all the way to the bottom, where he trips and sprawls in a tangled heap.
Adam looks down at him. That’s when he sees the silver byke at the foot of the stairs and a red anger stirs in him.
Kane!
Kane licks his lips and blinks. A smear of blood comes from his nose and mouth. He raises his head. He looks up at Adam with bleary eyes. His shirt is soaked in sweat and Adam can smell his breath from the top of the stairs. He’s high, or drunk, or both.
Adam shakes his head. “Where were you?” he demands.
Kane doesn’t answer. He rolls onto his knees and forearms, sways and dry-retches. Adam watches him. Does nothing to help.
A group of kids rides past. One of them yells out something incoherent and the others laugh. Then they ride on, spitting as they go.
Kane wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and smears the blood onto his chin. Still on his hands and knees, he looks up at Adam. His yellow eyes are glazed. He opens his mouth, as though he wants to say something, but no sound comes. Then he lifts a hand and waves and this small gesture brings his entire body tumbling down. He rolls on his shoulder and flops onto his back and he belches.
Stone Rider Page 7