by Brindi Quinn
“I should be going!” said Tide too loudly.
“Oh! Right! Yeah! Me too!”
“Bye, then!” Tide shot from her seat.
“Bye!” So did Rye.
Hot-faced, they threw down a few bills – Tide’s flat and fresh, Rye’s crumpled and sweaty – and hurried to the café’s exit.
In lieu of the awkward tension, the two confused diners nearly forgot to exchange contact information. Indeed, that would’ve been their final encounter, had Rye not scribbled a messy fax number onto a napkin and thrown it at Tide as she walked out the door.
That single hasty action would turn out to be more important than either of them could have predicted.
~
“WHAT?!”
Tide and Y were in Tide’s bedroom. The shades were open, but the only light from outside, was the moon, which was low and large.
“I SO thought that you were with your new partner all of that time! That’s why I left you guys alone! If I would’ve known what you were really up to, I never would’ve gone home!” It was just the sort of reaction Tide had expected. “What if your dad finds out?!”
But Nero wouldn’t find out. Another one of his notes had welcomed Tide upon her arrival, informing her that he’d be staying at the office for the night. That was good. Tide didn’t know what she’d have said if he’d been home.
“Y, what do you think would be worse? My dad finding out that I met a Second? Or my dad finding out that I just got my huntress’ license? If you think about it, on top of everything else, meeting Rye would only have been a small-”
“Rye? You’re actually calling it that? CREEPY.”
But Tide wasn’t in the mood for a debate. She wasn’t in the mood to be a hero of reconciliation. She wasn’t in the mood to make talks of racism and equality her priority. So she changed the subject.
“Sushi?”
“What? Honestly?”
“Yup! My treat! Let’s order some in! You know, from that place on the sixtieth floor.”
Y’s fondness for dinner was almost as great as her fondness for lunch. That, mixed with her nature of dismissing nosey topics, made Tide’s attempt at distraction a shoo-in for success.
“All right. I get it. A bribe, right? Fine. Sushi sounds great.”
While Y went to alert the bellhop, Tide stared at the moon and tried to be calm, but her adrenaline from the day’s activities had finally caught up with her. Images of Sports Top, Jobe, the waitress, the judge, and Rye all swirled around her mind’s eye. Beneath her skin, her blood was pumping; her veins were jumping; and for a moment she wished that she could have just a little bit of the fog’s numbing despair. But Tide would never again experience the fog’s presence. Something about that Sunday had changed her. She wasn’t a captive in her tower. She wasn’t just an unwilling heiress. Jobe was right. She was alive. She was a huntress. And with everything inside of her, she longed to see that color again.
“Red.”
She would see it again. Very soon, she’d see it again.
Chapter 4: The Easy Mark
There was something strange about the order. Jobe knew a secret. But the judge knew a secret too.
The first fax came with the dawn.
The mouth that was Tide’s let out a groan. From her bedroom, she could hear the paper pulling through the screechy machine. It, too, appeared to be cranky at having been woken up so early. Tide was groggy, but despite her sleepy limbs, she rushed to the kitchen, realizing for the first time that the fax machine’s central location would pose serious problems should Nero happen to see an incriminating message from Jobe first.
But Tide’s fears were put to rest when she reached the machine. Nero had yet to make it home, and Jobe’s knowledge of Tide’s ‘privileged’ upbringing had kept him from writing anything suspicious. Tide read the fax and laughed.
One day only! HUGE sale on timepieces!
The corner of 50th and Lake! 13:00!
Although, if this piques your interest, chances are you’re in need of a timepiece and have no way to tell when 13:00 rolls around . . .
Therefore, you should probably just come to the corner of 50th and Lake NOW and wait for the sale to start! You don’t want to miss out!
Hurry! Before these deals tick-tock away!
“Cheesy much?” said Tide.
Despite the cheesy nature of the message, a quick shower later and Tide was on her way. Her backpack held the climbing essentials. Mitts, goggles, belt. She ran through the checklist in her mind all the way to the corner of 50th and Lake, but when she got there, she considered turning back for home regardless of how prepared she was.
“What the heck?! THERE’S REALLY A SALE?!”
It was true. The corner of 50th and Lake was buzzing with eager street-dwellers.
“Omigod.” Tide felt like a moron. In her eagerness to be a huntress, she’d read into the fax and turned it into a secret message. “I’m so dumb.”
But she wasn’t.
As she turned away with the intention of returning to her part of the city, a voice called from the second floor of the timepiece shop.
“Oy, Ink! What a minute! I’ll be right down!”
Tide spun in time to see a lock of long, shiny hair disappear into the window.
“Jobe?” muttered the surprised princess.
Jobe was at street-level in less than a minute. He’d been eagerly awaiting her arrival. “Hey, girl! Glad you understood my message. I wasn’t sure that someone a spacy as you would get it.”
“Of course I got it!” Tide scowled at him. “But . . . why’s there a real sale? And why were you above the shop?”
“OBVIOUSLY because I live here, dummy. My folks own the place. I used the sale to mask our meeting. Pretty sneaky, am I right?”
“Well, yeah, but it seems a little extreme to hold an entire sale just for one meeting.”
“NO. Jeez! Do I have to spell it out for you? There was already a sale; I thought it would be a good idea to meet during it, yada yada yada.”
“Oh . . . Of course.” Tide felt as spacey as he assumed her to be.
“Anywho, should we get going? We’ve got that oh-so-difficult task of collecting eggs ahead of us.” Jobe was still bitter.
“Sure. Are we going to the ruins? I guess I’ve ever seen any ground-fowl at Gustway. And there wouldn’t be any that live in the mines . . .”
“Naw. I was thinking we should go out to the plain. Ever been there?”
Tide hadn’t. And it was for one simple reason:
“The plain? But there’s nothing to climb there!”
“Yeah, why do you think I was so mad about this cake task? I mean, collecting eggs? How is that even a job for hunters?”
“Dumb!” Tide said.
“Tell me about it,” said Jobe.
Together, the sour partners set course for the plain.
Their destination turned out to be as desiccated as the rest of the ruins surrounding St. Laran. What had once served as landing strips, were now miles of asphalt-sprinkled field spread around a lone decaying facility. Even from a distance, it was obvious that the place hadn’t been used by anyone but scrap hunters and wanderers for at least a century. Airports were another of those things that had become obsolete in the days since the mechanical boom. Because of inventors like Nero, fueled sky travel was no longer necessary.
Tide stood at the entrance to the plain and took it in. Cacti scattered the short, brown grass, offering the only touch of green to the landscape. The only other ‘trees’ were short, dead-looking sprigs that harbored too few leaves to offer shade or serenity, and nearly everything else was patchy shrub set around old-metaled and asphalt debris. However, despite the barren nature of the vegetation, it was still vegetation. And it was still the most natural ‘nature’ Tide had ever seen.
“Wow!” said Tide. “It’s like a jungle or something.”
“Eh- okaaay. Not at all, but whatever.”
“Well, the only outside plants I’v
e ever seen are the ones in rooftop gardens. My neighbor’s building has one, but it’s pretty small. Besides that, all I’ve seen is the stuff in the conservatories, but that doesn’t really count, does it?”
Jobe stepped around her and started toward the airport at the center of the field.
“Geesh. You’ve lived in St. Laran your whole life, huh?” he said.
Tide tromped along behind him. “Yeah. Because of my dad’s work. What about you?”
“I grew up down south in a normal, non-mech city. We moved here so that my parents could start their business. It was my mom’s dream since she was a kid, I guess.”
“Really? I see. So you grew up in the south . . . Is that why you’re so tan?”
“Uh,” – Jobe glanced down at his forearm – “I guess.”
Fantastic images of the wonders of the fabled ‘south’ began to swirl about in Tide’s head. When those images were too much to handle, she enthusiastically ran forward and tugged on the back of Jobe’s jacket.
“Wait! So then, you’ve seen actual jungles!? Like, in the flesh!?”
“In the-? Ha. No. Get your geography right. Jungles are in . . . Asia and stuff . . . I think. But I HAVE seen forests. And swamps.”
“Whoa.” Tide was jealous. “Well, you’ve got to tell me about them now! Come on, spill it! I want to know-”
Jobe bonked her on the top of the head with a soft fist.
“This stuff makes you that excited? Guess that’s good. But why not concentrate on using some of that energy to find those eggs quickly? Come on, girl. Speed ‘er up a bit. If I’d known you were such a slowpoke, I never would have stabbed that other girl. I took a chance on you, you know, but that other girl was pretty hot, so don’t make me regret it.”
Shooting her one of those corrupt smiles of his, the hunter trotted off before Tide could let the insult fully sink in. Any observer would’ve known that Jobe was actually half-joking, but Tide hadn’t yet built up that degree of experience, so she just stood, awestruck, until irritation started to fill her small body. The young princess wasn’t the sort of person who was good at confrontationally displaying anger, however, so she just kind of stuttered after him, unsure of how to react to the rude comment.
“Eh- uh- argh! Stupid weirdo. And what’s with that creepy smile? He’s like some kind of pervert! Gah!”
Once the grumbling ceased some minutes later, Tide resorted to silently fuming behind her smirking partner. It didn’t do anything to better the situation because even though Jobe refrained from looking back at her, he could feel the anger in the heaviness of her steps, each of which was accompanied by a puff of plain’s dust.
Jobe found it amusing. He was having fun. Ever making his way to the airport facility, he kicked at the rocks of the ground and waited for Tide’s stomps to let up a bit.
“It’s not that you’re unattractive or anything,” he called over his shoulder when that time came. “It’s more like, compared to the other female contestants, you were a bit . . . small.”
Tide blinked. “Small?”
“You know, in the boob department.”
“WHAT?!” Tide’s fuming, though it had lapsed a bit, returned in full force.
Jobe chuckled. “That’s what happens when you work out too much. Maybe you should refrain from, you know, climbing mountains in the future, if you want to maintain of any sort of womanly figure.” Lip curled, he winked, and it was then that Tide understood. He was being . . . playful? Because of her freakish climbing skills, he was toying with her.
“Ooooh,” Tide said to herself. And the realization ushered in the boldness that had been hiding all through the plain. “Oh, CHAR-LES!” sang the princess obnoxiously.
Jobe halted in his tracks and turned to face her with clenched teeth. He really hated that name.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She smiled brightly and trotted ahead of him.
“Cute,” he called, kicking a small rock in her direction. “Anyway, I’m glad that a space case like you understands the concept of flirting. I wasn’t sure just HOW sheltered you were. It’ll be more fun now that I know you actually understand how to interact with people.”
“What?!” Tide glared over her shoulder at him. So he hadn’t been toying. He’d been testing. “I seriously come off that bad?”
“You do. You’ve got this weird stuck-up aura. Kinda abnormal.”
Tide was again left speechless. “Stupid,” she said, trying not to let it bother her. “I’m not stuck-up.”
Jobe surveyed their surroundings. Neither of them had spotted a single ground-fowl since entering the plane. Focused and keen-eyed, Jobe now spied a few ferrets a short ways off, but each one hung closely to the prickled bottom of one of the needle-armored cacti. Jobe felt his pocket at the place where his switchblade resided. It wasn’t worth it. Unless he had a longer weapon, he’d get pricked, and bleeding on such an easy hunt would be a disgrace.
Several paces ahead, Tide also had her eyes on something, but it wasn’t any sort of living thing. It was something else entirely, and it was in the distance before her like a beacon. Tide took in a breath of excitement. The air was dry. The rest of the horizon was bleak. If it hadn’t been for the thing, it would’ve been just a wild goose chase.
“Jobe,” said Tide, not taking her eyes from the thing.
“Well, at least you got the name right that time. What is it, flat-chest?”
“Uh! Hrm.” Tide pushed the insult aside. “Why did you think there’d be ground-fowl here?”
“I asked around. Of course, there are better places, but this was the closest, supposedly, that had free range ground-fowl, so I’d HOPED it be a bit more . . . fruitful.”
“Uh-huh. And it was ground-fowl specifically?”
“Er- no, I just kind of assumed-”
“Good! You were so wrong! There are no ground-fowl here. But that’s actually really great!”
“Geesh, you don’t have to be so excited about it. So I was wrong. Like hunting for eggs is a real mark anyway . . . Sorry that I’m not perfect like-”
“Take out your binoculars and look over there!” Tide pointed at the main facility.
Jobe did as she instructed, and what he saw through the lenses made his chest surge in the way it always did when he was about to do the thing he loved most – when he was about to climb. In the center of the facility, there was a tree – a large, brown tree, whose top could barely be seen sprouting out of the old building’s collapsing roof. But the tree wasn’t the part that made the hunters so antsy. The key to the tree was that there were small somethings swarming around its twisting, nearly-bare branches. Small somethings that were invisible to the naked eye from their distance, but with the binoculars’ help, those small somethings were identified as exactly what the pair had been searching for.
Birds. Dozens and dozens of blackbirds.
“A nest, right?” said Tide, feeling another rush of adrenaline.
“More like a freaking commune!”
Jobe’s spirits were high. With new vigor, he took off for the blackbird ‘commune’. Tide hurried beside him, and while she sprinted, she pulled on and tightened her mitts. Jobe’s mitts were already tight, but he proceeded to double-check the strings anyway. Neither of them wanted to lose any climbing time. The afternoon sun was high in the sky. With any luck, they’d make it back before nightfall. Tide hadn’t left anything in the way of an excuse, but she didn’t expect Nero to come home before then anyway. Mondays were usually busiest for him, and if he’d spent the night at the office, chances were he’d remain there until dinnertime or later.
The partners continued on until they reached the front of the facility. For something from forgotten times, it was in decent shape. At least the overall structure of it was intact. Anything like a front door had long since fallen into debris. That was fine. That meant they’d have to climb their way in. Enthusiastic, the two threw down their packs and stretched in preparation for the climb.
�
�Hey, Jobe?” Tide said as she secured her belt. “Can I ask you something?”
The ash-haired hunter’s spirits were still high. She hoped it would count for something.
“Uh, yeeees?” said Jobe. “Why so serious all of a sudden?”
“I was just wondering . . . Why’d you REALLY stab that girl? And don’t say it was because you wanted to ‘take a chance’ on me. I want the real reason. I mean, you were already top three, so why waste time with something that could potentially disqualify you? If she’d landed a good blow, you’d have bled for sure, so why risk it? I know I already asked you, but it’s sort of distracting me, and I’d like to climb with a clear head . . . or something.”
Jobe thought a moment. “Hmm. I wonder. Maybe I just wanted to reach the top first?” He drew his mouth into a curl. “Or maybe I really do know your secret.”
So much for clearing her head. Jobe wouldn’t say anything else.
There wasn’t a secret. Not as far as Tide knew. But somewhere across the plain, a growling thing was watching her. It had seen her at the dome. It had been there, creeping, during her climb, and it had set it sights on her. She was its prey. The demon laughed to itself. One way or another, it would sink its teeth into her.
“Alrighty,” said Jobe. “I’m going up right there. What about y-”
But he didn’t need to finish. That latent climbing ability that was carved into Tide’s being was already taking over. It had chosen a spot a few yards over, and it was pressing her body against the wall.
“There?” muttered Jobe. “But it’s flat.” Still, he watched and waited.
Tide took in a breath, closed her eyes, and let herself be taken over. While her mind descended into blankness, her body climbed. Agilely. Swiftly. Though the spot she’d chosen had little to grab, her fingers and toes managed to find footing with each step upward. She was aware of little. She noticed when a cement piece came out from under her hand, only because Jobe gave a shout. Aside from that, she concentrated on the still, dusty air, which moved past her in a breeze only during heaving bursts of speed. Then, before she knew it, it was through. Her body had done all of the work again. Yet, at the top, she felt good. Out of breath, and good.