by R H Nolan
The alien made some of his hissing noises that passed for laughter and pointed at the impact site. “And I was correct.”
Everyone glanced back to see the wall slowly reforming, its surface expanding back to its previous shape like someone was inflating a balloon.
“Whoa,” Herk muttered, obviously impressed.
“We do not have much time, friends of Max. Lyra, would you please attempt your powers next.”
Lyra frowned as she looked into midair. “I’m guessing you can see what’s in my stats too, right?”
“I can.”
Lyra raised both of her sleek silver hands, the prosthetics flashing up to her elbows in the chamber’s light. “Does it work even with these?”
“Your enhanced limbs respond to your thoughts, do they not?”
“Yes.”
“Then there is no logical reason why your abilities would not extend to them, as well.”
Max frowned, even more curious now to see what Lyra could do. He didn’t have any prosthetics, and he’d never stopped to consider what that might do to his own powers. Most likely, it would be the same as the way his himirini armor worked with his abilities.
“Okay, then,” Lyra said.
She retrieved another apple from Zryk’s small pile. When she turned around, she glanced at the others. “Just to warn you… this is gonna be weird.”
Then she looked down at the apple and stared at it.
At first, Max didn’t know what to think, because nothing seemed to happen. He briefly thought that maybe powers just didn’t happen to everybody.
Then he saw a black glow, almost imperceptible, shining around Lyra’s hand.
Then the skin on the bright red fruit darkened and shriveled as the apple caved in on itself. The withered skin burst open to reveal slimy, brown, jelly-like insides.
“Whoa,” Herk murmured.
“Please tell me that doesn’t work just on apples,” Trox joked.
Lyra glanced up at him, annoyed. “Just watch.”
A yellow light glowed around her hand. Seconds later, something else moved within the decomposing remains of the apple.
Suddenly a small green sprout shot up from the slime. A few leaves unfolded from the rapidly expanding stalk, and Lyra set the plant she’d just grown on the ground in front of her.
“Death and life,” she said with a small smile.
“What, so you can grow food and make it rot?” Trox asked.
Lyra made a face at Trox as Zryk explained. “Lyra has power over both the death force and the life force. She can inflict damage by draining life, and also heal by imparting it to another target. So she should be able to help heal the rest of you in battle.”
That was definitely a useful power, Max thought. Of course, he always healed completely whenever he reached a new level, which had saved him more than once. But if he went longer and longer before reaching the next level, especially when the required Soul Points kept doubling in number, having a healer around would make him feel a lot safer.
“Okay, Trox,” Herk said as he turned to his friend, “what about—”
Before he could finish, Trox disappeared in a shimmer of light.
Before anyone could say anything else, Trox reappeared right next to Lyra in another shimmer of light.
Lyra let out a surprised shriek, and everyone took a step back.
Trox grinned, picked up another apple from the pile of food, and tossed it underhanded across the room.
A shimmer of light, the boy disappeared—
—and then he reappeared at the far end of the room and caught the apple easily. “Teleporting is awesome.”
“What the…” Herk muttered in amazement.
Trox grinned. “Guess I am still faster than you.”
When Lyra and Ayla started laughing, Max found it contagious and chuckled along, too.
“So how does this whole Level 1 thing work?” Herk said with a grin. “I’ve got to get faster than Trox again.”
“Good luck with that,” Trox snorted.
Zryk started to answer Herk’s question. “As for the various Levels, there is a system of—”
“Hold on,” Max interrupted. Everyone turned to look at him. “Do you have any idea of how close Saris is to attacking us?”
Zryk looked down at his monitors. “There is no indication of activity from the city, nor are there any more drones on my sensors. For the moment, Saris appears to be biding his time.”
Max looked around the room.
His friends now had powers, bringing their number to five—but unlike Max, the others were only as powerful as he’d been when he first stepped out of the Qirinian energy chamber.
He’d been able to stop the Chaotix and Bloodletter massacre of his people just starting out, but that had been nearly as much luck as it had been skill.
And Saris knew about Max’s powers. He’d seen them in action. He would be ready, where the Chaotix and Bloodletters had not.
Not to mention that Saris’s army would be a lot better equipped than a bunch of Scavengers with machetes. Hover skiffs, blasters… maybe even super-powered Sandwalkers…
Max shuddered at the memory of what they’d encountered on Sub-Level Five.
What if there had been more laboratories filled with those nightmares?
What if Saris brought an entire army of them?
Even if he didn’t, a teleporter, a kid with shields, a healer, and a telekinetic weren’t going to be able to stand up to hundreds of soldiers from the city. Not at Level One.
They were going to need help.
“I have to go do something. Zryk can explain how everything works while I‘m gone.” Max turned towards the Qirinian. “If Saris and his army show up before I’m back, you can hold them off for a little bit, right?”
Zryk cocked his head. “For a time, yes. What is this thing you must do?”
“It’s gonna take more than five kids and an alien with a half-dead ship to defeat an entire army. So I’m going to go get us some allies.”
“What allies?”
“Other Scavengers.”
“How are you going to convince them to fight Saris?”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Max, this is not wise. Saris may be monitoring any movements into or out of this ship—”
“I thought you destroyed all his drones.”
“That does not mean there will not be others.”
“Either I take a chance and go out there and get help, or we have to face down God knows how many soldiers and super-powered Sandwalkers—just five kids, and four of them with Level One powers. What’s the smartest choice, Zryk?”
The alien didn’t answer.
Ayla stepped forward. “I’ll go with you.”
“Me too,” Herk added.
“We’ll all go,” Trox said, and Lyra nodded.
“No.” Max shook his head. “Thanks, but I have to go alone. Otherwise it’ll look like I’m trying to intimidate them.”
Trox raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what we want?”
“Not yet,” Max said.
“I recommend you take this with you,” Zryk said, and handed Max his fully repaired himirini chest plate. “And this.”
The Bug pulled a black dome from behind the main computer. Max only realized it was a helmet when he accepted it and turned it over in his hand.
He attached the chest plate to the black body suit over his clothes, then flipped over the helmet and put it on. “Thanks.”
“Seriously, when do we get armor like that?” Trox asked.
“I will craft himirini for each you. You have my word.” Zryk paused, then gave a long, mournful string of clicks. “…if you survive.”
“I guess we better survive, then, ‘cause I want that armor.” Trox turned to Max. “So whatever you’re gonna do, come back so we can survive together.”
Max grinned. “That’s the plan.”
He walked over to the dwindling pile of apples, put a few i
n his jacket pocket, and headed for the stasis chamber’s entrance.
He stopped briefly in front of Ayla, who met his gaze with wide eyes full of concern.
“You better come back,” she said quietly.
The way she held his gaze made it even harder for Max to pull away.
The thought occurred to him that he should kiss her right now. She was close enough, and he had a feeling Ayla wouldn’t try to stop him. She might even kiss him back.
But he didn’t want to do it in front of the others. If it ever happened, he wanted it to be a special moment, just him and her.
Besides, he had to go.
“I promise I’ll be back,” he told her, then gave her a smile as he walked out of the chamber.
He thought he saw something like disappointment in her eyes as he left.
As he made his way back towards the pod and tunnel, he turned his plan over and over in his mind, trying to figure out if it would work.
If he succeeded, they would have a huge number of already seasoned fighters standing with them. If nothing else, they would be a good distraction for Saris’s army.
Max had already gotten the Bloodletter chief’s attention once before, after the failed massacre. Maybe Oryk would listen to him this time, too.
25
Max skated across the Wastelands faster than he ever had before.
There was a lot more at stake than food for his family or tech pieces required for the Qirinian starship. He was fighting against time now.
He knew that Zryk’s ship could hold off Saris for a while… but as the Bug had said about the Governor, “His resources are unknown, and it is never good to underestimate the unknown.”
If Saris’s army was able to get past the ship’s defenses and reach Zryk, Ayla, Herk, Trox, and Lyra before he could get back—hopefully with a couple hundred allies—Max knew none of his friends would survive. And he was fairly sure that Qirinian technology in the hands of the Governor would be the worst thing Earth had experienced since the Interstellar War.
Max would do anything to avoid those two scenarios—including asking for help from an unlikely source.
He slowed down when he reached the eastern border of the Heap, where the Bloodletters had their enslaved women and children sift through Neo Angeles’ trash.
Part of Max wondered how he could make a deal with men who could be so barbaric and vicious. Hell, they had even tried to kill the Peacewinds just a couple of days ago.
But he didn’t have to approve of them, or even like them. He only had to fight with them against a greater enemy.
A few of the Bloodletter men spotted his approach, but no one raised the alarm or tried to approach him.
Max squatted in the sand and disintegrated for as long as he could, to build up as much of a reserve as he could handle. When he stood up from the ground and clenched his fists, a yellow, pulsing glow engulfed his arms all the way up to his elbows.
It was a lot of power to be packing all at once, and it was definitely more than Oryk had seen him use during the raid on the Peacewind settlement. Hopefully, it would be enough to convince the Bloodletter chief that Max meant business now, too.
As he moved towards the Heap, he deactivated his skates and spread his arms. The tribe had to see that he was armed and fully prepared to use his powers if he had to. He also wanted them to know he wasn’t planning on running.
They didn’t understand how easy it was to turn his skates back on with just a thought, but at least he wouldn’t put them even more on guard by moving faster than anyone else in the Wastelands could.
Well, before Herk and Trox got their powers, that is…
Two Bloodletters walked towards him warily, and Max met them past the Heap, at the first rows of greasy, blackened, reeking huts.
“What do you want?” one of the Bloodletters snarled as he eyed Max’s glowing arms.
“I need to talk to Oryk.”
“You ain’t walkin’ through here with that on your arms.” The man nodded at Max’s glowing hands and forearms.
“Then go get him,” Max said, keeping his voice even and low. “I’ll wait.”
The Bloodletter sneered, then smacked the back of his hand against his companion’s chest and nodded toward their encampment. With narrowed eyes, they both looked at Max one more time before turning and heading off through the rows of stinking huts.
Max watched them until they disappeared, then felt every other pair of eyes from every other Bloodletter settling on him.
They could stare all they wanted. He was banking on the fact that Oryk’s retreat from the Peacewind settlement had dissuaded the rest of his tribe from confronting Max ever again. He could easily take any man who attacked him right now, but he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Fighting with Bloodletters wouldn’t help him to get Oryk’s cooperation.
Finally a group of a dozen Bloodletters returned, their chief striding confidently behind them. When they stopped, the men stepped aside until Max faced Oryk head-on.
The Bloodletter Chief scowled at him. He was obviously irritated by being summoned like this, but he definitely knew Max was no longer a weak little Peacewind who could be ignored.
“I stayed away, just like you said,” Oryk told him, glancing only once at Max’s glowing arms.
“I know,” Max said. “I’m not here about that.”
“What, then?”
Max eyed the dozen Bloodletters standing a few feet away. None of them looked ready to draw arms against Max, but he couldn’t just ignore them.
“The Dwellers are coming,” he said, looking back at Oryk again. “They’re the ones stealing Peacewinds from the Wastelands. And when they get here, they’ll wipe out every single Scavenger in the Wastelands. Here first, then who knows where else.”
Oryk was quiet for a second, then asked, “Tell me why I should care about any other Scavengers but my own tribe.”
“Because you can’t stop them by yourselves.” Max lifted one of his glowing fists between them. “The man running that city, Saris, has been using Bug technology to give powers like this to his own army. An army of Sandwalkers.”
A round of muttered surprise and grunts of frustration rose from the dozen men around them.
Max had no idea if his claim was actually true, but it was close enough. And if it worked to get Oryk’s help, he didn’t care how accurate the claim actually was.
Oryk’s eyes widened, but then he regained his composure and scoffed. “No man can control Sandwalkers.”
“He’s found a way,” Max lied, then followed up with the truth. “Even if he can’t control them, all he has to do is drop them in the middle of your village and let them wipe you out. Wipe out all of us.”
Oryk narrowed his eyes. “How do you know this?”
“I’ve seen it.”
That wasn’t exactly true. Max had seen Saris’s attempts to genetically enhance Sandwalkers and abducted Peacewinds, but the results had obviously not been ideal.
If the Governor got his hands on the technology straight from Zryk’s ship, though, everything would change. Everything.
Max clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. “So I’m asking for your help. I can’t stop him on my own, but we can fight together. We can stop the Dwellers before they kill us all. If you don’t help me, I can promise you, standing against his army on your own will be completely impossible.”
For a minute, all Max could hear was the wind moaning across the desert. The gathered Bloodletters said nothing. Oryk said nothing, just stared at Max and squinted at him through the black greasepaint staining his cheeks.
“I want food,” Oryk finally said.
Max frowned. “…food?”
Was that really all it was going to take to buy the Bloodletter chief’s cooperation?
“I heard you know a way into the city.”
“…yeah,” Max agreed warily.
Oryk licked his lips and swallowed thickly. “I heard they got oranges in there.”
Max nodded slowly, perplexed. “Uh, yeah… they do…”
“You’ve seen them?” the chief asked hoarsely.
“I’ve tasted them.”
Oryk stared at him in disbelief. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not, I swear.”
The man looked out into the distance. “When I was growing up, my father made a deal with a Dweller… got him something he wanted. Don’t know what. All I know is he came home one night with a sack of oranges, handed them out to me and my brothers. I remembered the way that first one tasted…”
Oryk closed his eyes as though he was reliving the moment.
“…the best thing I ever tasted in my life, then or since. I only got to eat two of them. Never had another my entire life. But I’ll remember that taste till the day I die. I dream of that taste, boy.”
Oryk opened his eyes again and glared at Max. “Fifty years of eating trash in this hellhole, and two oranges in all that time. You get me oranges, boy, and I’ll kill whoever you want me to.”
Max grinned, then reached one glowing hand into his jacket pocket.
The entire group of Bloodletters tensed—
“Relax,” Max said as he pulled out an apple. “It’s a gift.”
He tossed it through the air towards Oryk, who caught it and eyed it suspiciously. “This isn’t an orange.”
“No, but it’s good. Try it.”
The chief hesitated another couple of seconds, then bit into the fruit with a crunch.
Suddenly his scowling expression changed, and his eyes closed again. His whole face smoothed over in bliss.
“That’s called an apple,” Max said. “You help me stop Saris, I’ll get you more apples and oranges than you know what to do with.”
Oryk looked down at the fruit in his giant, filthy hand. “I would have taken you up on that offer, sand mouse… if only you’d shown up a little sooner.”
Max’s heart pounded in his chest. This didn’t sound like two people making a deal.
“What?” he asked, his mouth dry.
When Oryk looked at him again, his brows furrowed in what looked like genuine concern. Coming from a Bloodletter, it made the whole thing even worse.
“They got here before you did, boy.”
Max stepped away from Oryk and scanned the other dozen Bloodletters around him. None of them moved—but something else did, back amongst the shambles of their grime-smeared settlement.