by Harper North
“Stop,” he says, rising on his tiptoes and looking down at something.
When I take a step forward, I see what he means. Sky’s taller than me, so he noticed the drop-off first. The ground dips, plunging into a valley large enough to fit three or four cities within it. If an asteroid or, heck, a small moon plowed into the world, it would have made this crater. Plumes of vapor rise from cracks below and mix with the air, creating a heavy haze that hangs in the bowl. Squinting, I make out the far end of the crater, calculating it at least fifteen miles away.
When I sniff, a faint stench like a burnt match fills my nose. Below us, barracks, all with new metal roofs and fresh metal sides, huddle in tight rows about a half mile away. Hovers sit behind the barracks. Anyone down there must have no escape from the acrid air. Yellow work vehicles dot the landscape, probably left over from when the EHC occupied this place. Tiny dots that might be either ops or workers come into view when a breeze catches a plume of vapor and pushes it away. The barracks look flimsy, as if they were put up in a hurry when the SNA invaded a month ago.
“I need a sniper scope,” I say.
“Careful with this,” an EHC op tells me, handing their rifle over. They’re the kindest words I’ve gotten from a Leech.
Lifting the rifle, I look through the scope. I take time to find the people again, first finding a snapped tree trunk and tracing it up to the plume, which belches out whitish steam. Waiting for the wind to blow it out of my view takes another two minutes.
Two men and a woman, all in plain clothes similar to those I’ve seen in Ethos, haul a supply crate down a dusty road while four SNA ops watch, guns at their sides. The woman trips, sending the crate toppling over. The top comes off and metal machine parts spill everywhere. One op raises the butt of his weapon and lifts it over the woman’s back. She rolls away, but not before the blunt end rams into her thigh. She jerks and seizes her leg in agony as the men scoop machine parts up by the handful and dump them back into the crate.
“Let me see,” Sky says.
“You don’t want to,” I whisper, pulse pounding with rage.
CHAPTER 9
“I’ll take you down,” Cho says.
“Naturals first or Starsen?” I ask. My mind runs numbers as I swing the scope to the barracks. More SNA ops guard prisoners who line up outside the structures. I can’t tell the difference between the EHC prisoners and the drafted SNA people. All wear gray jumpsuits, and there are equal numbers of men and women.
“It depends on who’s there,” Cho says.
But the guards’ numbers match the prisoners. Cho was right. About three hundred of them, standing in formation around the captives, wait. I hand the sniper rifle back to the EHC op, glance at Sky, and look away.
“How many?” Elias asks.
“A few hundred.”
“I don’t know all the workings of the camp, but they go to the drilling site at daybreak,” Cho explains. “The guards bring the surviving workers back at sunset. A few guards stay behind. Barracks first.” He points to the buildings.
“And Starsen?” Sky asks.
“There’s a chance she’s here.” Cho waves us along the crater’s rim.
The EHC op looks through his sniper rifle’s scope. “They’re moving out.”
Still with me and Sky in the lead, we walk around the crater’s rim, trying to avoid the fumes by pulling the collars of our shirts over our mouths and noses. The wind changes direction by the second, so the fog below stays in the crater, blocking our view of the drilling site.
Another earthquake shakes the world. I stumble and the ground of the crater tilts. A hand grabs my arm, keeping me upright. I look up and see it’s Elias.
“Thanks,” I say, keeping my back to Sky, but I yank myself from his grasp and continue as the quake stops.
Sky and I continue walking in silence as the others follow. Soon the barracks come into better view. No road leads down to them. It’s all sheer drops and steep hills. The SNA’s using it as the perfect labor camp.
“How can anyone get in and out?” I ask.
“Hovers. Most are drop-offs,” Cho says.
“Getting out won’t be easy.” Elias levels a suspicious glare at Cho.
Cho shifts his weight. “Starsen often flies in for a few hours but leaves before the plume releases. The Savior has been here twice in the past, though I haven’t been here when he has. And new prisoners are brought in daily.”
“This would’ve been good to know a little sooner,” Elias says. “If the hotspot gets ready to blow and we can’t escape—”
“We’ll be fine,” I tell him. “Once we get down there, you, me, and Cho will head to the office. Everyone else can check the barracks and take out the guards.”
“I’m—” Sky starts.
Elias clears his throat and calls everyone over. “We need everyone where their talents will work best. Talen, with us. Lacy and Sky, you’re with the ops.”
“I can’t guarantee how well my nanos will work in this environment,” Talen replies.
Sky glances my way, and when I don’t respond, shakes his head. Without a word, he heads to the back of the group.
After a few moments, we find a narrow path choked with dying shrubs and yellow grass that will hide us. But they’re low to the ground, and the angle is steep, so we have to scoot our way down. Along the way, dust collects on my pants as I descend behind Elias.
Already, the morning sunlight burns my exposed skin. More radiation than normal’s hitting the ground, and the burning match smell worsens the lower we go, stinging my sinuses. At last, the ground levels off and the cliff sides tower over us. Ducking into a cluster of brown shrubs and out of the sun, Elias and I wait for the others. As we do, I look back at where we came from.
The path back up is extreme. With Noble and Century class mods, we’ll be able to climb back up just fine. But the prisoners? The non-EHC and Tenant class people won’t stand a chance after the conditions they’re already in.
“Move. Nobody can survive out here for long,” Elias says, waving us out of the shelter of the shrubs.
I join him on a narrow path of compacted dust forming a ring around the crater’s insides. Heat rises from the ground, warping the air and turning the vapor plumes into twisted ghosts.
My head is pounding and my stomach’s roiling by the time we near the back of the empty barracks. The SNA doesn’t need a fence, since the prisoners have nowhere to go. We stop behind another cluster of dead shrubs and duck low. I part the dry branches to peek out. Five guards patrol around the two dozen long buildings. Now that I’m up closer, I can see that even the guards look exhausted… hollow. They’re suffering, too.
“Just five,” Lacy says.
“Can you feel any more?”
She frowns, and for the first time she’s hesitating. “Maybe if I get closer, but the fields mess me up. We need to shoot.”
From beside me, a pistol fires.
A guard jerks, grabs his chest, and collapses.
I flinch as the other four raise weapons and turn in circles, trying to find the source of their companion’s death. I glance to my right and see Sky with his weapon raised.
He glares at me before firing another shot—a miss. Dust flies from the ground near the guards. I join and fire. The EHC ops do the same. The other four SNA guards backpedal from the body. I can’t hear the electric whining from here, but I know what will happen.
The explosion sends a geyser of dirt high into the air and another tremor through the ground. I duck and aim at the outer guard with my pistol. Blood erupts from his leg.
Another bullet punches the guard I’ve shot and he goes down, twitching on the ground, grasping his gut. Another explosion follows, and then another, catching the final two men as they try to run to the barracks. Both fly through the air, land, and explode.
Silence falls and dust clears, leaving the area marked with shallow craters.
“Maybe we could have taken them hostage and disabled the chip
s,” I say to Sky.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Too dangerous. You’re getting soft, and that wasn’t the plan anyway.”
Turning away, I join Elias, who nods and eyes the low buildings. “Someone will come back here and see the craters soon. The rest of you, secure the barracks.” He motions for me, Talen, and Cho to follow. Without looking back, I leave Sky behind. If he dies, at least I won’t have to see it.
The barracks stand empty except for two guards, who run out of the middle one. I raise my pistol before they can react to us. I fire, drawing blood from a thigh, and Elias shoots the other in the shoulder. The second op drops his weapon while the first fires a shot, zinging past my cheek by inches.
The first guard grasps his leg, keeping his gaze down, while the other turns away and grabs his shoulder. Blood stains their green uniforms. The first fishes for a pocket radio.
“Finish them!” Elias shouts.
Chips, Cho mouths. His eyes beg us not to kill them. These are his people. Fellow victims, too.
But we have no choice. They’ve seen us. We can’t let them bring back the other three hundred ops.
I fire on the first man. Headshot. He drops the radio to the dust and falls limp as a doll. The other goes still as his blood mixes with dirt. He’s bleeding out.
“Back up!” Elias shouts as the hum fills the air.
Cho looks away, holding his hand over his eyes. The humming intensifies and I whirl, turning away just before the explosion. Dirt flies and pebbles sting as they pelt me.
Silence falls as I cough on dust.
Somewhere between all the barracks, EHC ops shout.
“All clear!”
“Fin?” Sky calls.
I breathe a sigh of relief and cough again. He’s survived the first phase.
But the second phase will be when the guards return.
“We need to find the office,” Elias says. “There’s not much time to plan our next move. The ops saw us. That means the Savior might have, too.”
“Right,” Cho says. “The only saving grace is that the Savior’s monitoring staff is human. They might not see the recording right away, but they will soon. Military feeds get priority when ops die.”
We follow Cho, who leads us past all the barracks and up a gentle hill to a green tent, complete with SNA flags on either end of the entrance flap. It’s a huge tent, big enough to hide three or four large hovers.
He holds up his hand, motioning for us to wait, then goes inside. Something beeps, and Cho leans back out. “It’s safe.”
I go inside first, ducking into sweet, sweet shade. A portable fan sits in the corner, blowing out cool air that soothes my burning skin. After a few breaths, my nausea dissipates and my headache clears.
Tables with laptops, paper maps, and satchels rest everywhere. A generator hums outside the tent. “This is where Starsen works?” I ask.
“It’s where she plans ways to harvest energy,” Cho replies. “She’s chipped.”
“How much can she help if we fix her?” Talen asks.
“I don’t know how loyal to the Savior she is,” Cho says. “Not everyone objects to the regime. It often takes losing a loved one to make some realize the SNA isn’t a boon to mankind.” He speaks with shame. “But she must know the dangers here, and we can get information out of her.” He swipes his finger across the touch screen of a computer.
“Password protected?” I ask.
“Of course,” Elias says. “Emma’s going to need to come.”
Cho moves on to a table covered in papers and picks one up to read. “Starsen arrives tonight after sundown. She won’t get here until after the three hundred SNA ops have returned to the barracks.”
Elias looks at me, asking for my input on what to do next. We’re the Noble class people with the job of figuring it out.
“I’ll be back,” I say.
Bursting back out into the heat, I find Sky peeking into one of the barracks and grimacing. Our gazes meet, and his features soften as I approach.
“We need Emma,” I tell him. “Can you bring her back? Elias and I have to figure out how to deal with three hundred SNA ops at sundown, and then how to deal with Starsen once she gets here.”
“What am I, the errand boy?”
“We need Emma to help deal with Starsen and any soldiers who want their chips deactivated.”
“I’m not useless.”
“Of course not. This is an important job.”
“We need you back here,” Elias calls from inside the tent.
Sky sighs. “Fine.” He doesn’t hide the hurt in his voice as he kicks dirt and stalks away. “But I’m staying and sending ops to get her. There are other things I can do here.”
Once back inside the tent, I turn my focus to the maps of the crater as Elias runs his finger along the paths. The crater only has a few stations. A device nearby scratches lines on a paper, lines that get taller with each quake that rumbles below. It looks like dated equipment, but I bet not all digital tech works down here.
“Here are the guards,” Elias says, tapping the center of the map. “And that’s the drill. Since Starsen’s coming tonight, the place must not be ready to blow yet.”
I calculate as Cho and Talen wait. “The guards will be tired and hot. We have an advantage. Is the site lower than the rest of the crater?”
“Yes,” Cho answers.
“And the guards get the low ground, right?”
“Probably.” Elias rubs his chin. “They’ll surround the prisoners and keep their guns aimed at them.”
“Some oil the drill and others operate it,” Cho says. “Most workers carry rock and debris, so there should be piles, but I’ve never gone out there. I’ve only visited the barracks.”
“Just in case, we’ll need all the ops and their sniper skills.” Marching over to the flap, I look outside to find Sky pacing in front of a group of a dozen kids, all dirty and under twelve, who sit in the shade of a barrack. Cho was right about child prisoners.
“Fin?” Elias breaks into my thoughts. “Time to figure out how we’ll reach the drill site without dying from the heat. Time’s short. The Savior will alert the other ops in no time.”
I snap my gaze to him, saying nothing. “We need shade. Cho, did any rivers run through here? Plants grow along them and could work. Even dead ones should block half the radiation and drop the temperature about ten degrees.”
Cho eyes the map. “Cold Stone Creek,” he reads, finger tracing close to the drill site.
Elias rolls up the map and tucks it under his arm. “Great idea, Fin. Us Nobles need to stick together.”
* * * * *
Sky stays behind with a few EHC ops. I’m sure the children have a lot to do with it. The kids must remind him of Cia.
Or they provide a distraction.
The rest of us walk over barren dust toward Cold Stone Creek under the merciless sun. A row of dead trees, all with brown pine needles, appears when we crest a short hill. The former creek’s nothing but a road of cracked mud and smooth stones with vapor creeping out of tiny fissures, but the trees keep it in shadow.
Me, Elias, Lacy, and Talen march in the lead, the ops behind us. For the first time since Drape, I feel as if I can relax—if going to war counts as relaxation.
The dried creek gives us shade. Sweat still breaks out on my forehead, but the faint breeze sweeps the heat and rolling sickness from my body. We’ll have an advantage over the SNA ops.
After an hour’s walk, Cho stops, holding up his map. “The site’s over this hill.”
Jagged terrain and gravel tower over us. We leave our shelter, letting the sun beat down on us again. Cho lags behind, unable to deal with the hard terrain. I holster my weapon and climb over rocks, gripping crevices and pulling myself onto overhangs. Even back in my mining days, I wouldn’t have had the skill to deal with the climb. But with my Noble strength, I’m a champion mountain climber, as is everyone else coming with us. Another advantage over the SNA ops.
I collapse on my back with my face in the sun once I reach the top of the outcrop.
“Up,” Talen says.
Elias helps me to stand, and my sore muscles thank him.
A faint whine fills the air. We’ve reached the drill site. Workers mill around like ants, carrying buckets of stone away from a pit that could swallow a small settlement. An enormous drill with a metal spiral big enough to walk on turns in the center, held up by four massive support beams. Heat warps the air and Guards stand in a ring around the workers.
Elias clears his throat. “We’re not going to get another chance.”
CHAPTER 10
“Wait,” Cho says.
I face him and he waves us away from the crest of the hill. Elias pulls me back from the edge by my elbow. From here, I can only see the top of the drill.
“If we don’t strike now,” Elias says, “more ops get here and cut us off.”
“Yes,” Cho agrees. “But we need to attack the equipment so we can stop them from cracking the Earth.”
“We have to kill the ops to get to the equipment,” Lacy says.
Our group huddles as the EHC ops wait for Elias to give orders. The tension rises.
“Most of these people got chipped and brainwashed,” Cho says. “We will have to kill some of them.”
I feel almost bad for the SNA ops. Unless they’ve lost family to the Savior, some of the SNA citizens might not know any different. They grew up not daring to question the Savior, the same way many EHC citizens didn’t question their wealth coming off the backs of Dwellers.
Below, the drill screams again as workers slave to death. I guess SNA prisoners are the new Dwellers.
“Too many accept a false Savior,” Cho says, ducking to avoid being seen. “But some of the Naturals might not. I may be able to convince them to come to our side. Of course, I’ll have to make sure they’re safe.”