by Kevin George
With every passing minute, Carli felt more comfortable flying, learning how to ease her way into turns, learning how hard to push the power button to keep her speed steady, learning how to dip and raise her head to affect her altitude. She focused so intently on learning to control herself that she had little time to realize the ground was thousands of feet below her, that a single malfunction with the jetpack could cause her to plunge to a certain death, that she was flying farther and farther away from her life in the HASS among the clouds, the only life she’d ever known. . .
Carli stole a few glances straight down, causing her head to swirl, but not due to fear or concern. Her eyes may have only seen the vast, white emptiness of Earth’s surface, but her mind saw hope, saw possibility, saw answers to the questions she’d had her entire life about what existed below. It may have appeared to be a whole lot of nothingness, but Carli was glad she no longer had to just wonder about it.
If only Ashley or Father could’ve seen this, she thought, guilt starting to creep into her mind, an emotion she fully expected to wrestle with as long as she stayed away from the HASSes.
Ahead, Wyatt appeared to share none of that guilt, never looking back once. Carli forced herself to focus on following him. She thought his mission was crazy, but it was no crazier than anything else they’d done to reach this point. She kept her eyes peeled on the skies ahead and below, searching for Wyatt’s intended target, doubtful they’d find it in such a huge sky after being delayed atop the Main HASS’s upper walkway. She still didn’t completely understand why Wyatt was so desperate to find it, but she wondered at what point he would give up on—
Wyatt suddenly turned down sharply, zipping through the clouds, nearly disappearing from her sight. Thinking he’d found it, Carli mashed her own power button, feeling the force of acceleration, unable to control the lower half of her body from flapping in the winds swirling around them. Carli squinted within her goggles, trying to spot anything but the falling snow and nothingness on the earth’s surface.
Father was wrong about how slow the Comm HASS would drift, she thought, wondering if he’d been lying to her or to himself.
She tried to call out to Wyatt, but her mouth filled with cold, rushing air, which forced its way into her throat, causing her to cough uncontrollably. She still sped up hoping to catch Wyatt, her goggles misting as she lowered through the clouds. She dared not remove her hands from the jetpack’s control for fear of losing control. Instead, she tried to match Wyatt’s pace, the acceleration streaking tiny droplets away from her vision. Carli couldn’t help but turn her head and look back, expecting to spot the other HASSes, if even their faint outlines in the distance. She felt sickened to see only clouds and the Great Blue beyond.
When she turned forward again, a sharp spasm jolted her body and she dipped her shoulder at the last moment, narrowly avoiding a collision with Wyatt. He glanced at her, nodding his head toward the ground, though she still couldn’t see at what. She turned her head just enough to avoid taking another mouthful of rushing air.
“I don’t know if your HASS dropped so much!” she yelled. “I think it drifted farther away, probably higher than this!”
Wyatt gave a quick thumbs-up but didn’t change course, instead slowing down as they neared the ground, shifting his body into more of an upright position while lightly tapping the power button. Carli did the same, though she lowered more quickly than Wyatt, the last few hundred feet rushing up in a matter of seconds, panic setting in as she realized her descent was slightly out of control. She mashed the power button at the last moment, narrowly avoiding a catastrophic impact, hovering a few feet above the surface before finally dropping, hitting the ground much harder than she’d intended.
Her entire body jolted, the lower half of her lodging into the snow, which wasn’t as cushioning as she’d expected. For the first few seconds after landing, she focused on breathing, telling herself that she was still alive, the jarring pain throughout her body a constant reminder of that. Her goggles had gone askew and were partially filled with snow but still somehow covered her eyes, distorting her view. She tested her extremities and found none to be broken. She dug herself out of the snow just in time for Wyatt to land softly beside her. He hurried to her side, offering a hand to help her stand.
Carli lowered the goggles and brushed snow off her face, squinting as cold air stung her eyes and every part of her exposed facial skin. Instead of focusing on pain, she slowly turned her head and looked into the distance, seeing nothing but falling snow and flat, white lands.
“No Comm HASS?” she asked.
Wyatt shook his head. When Carli looked up at him, she saw a wide grin splayed across his face.
“Then what are you so happy about?”
“Seeing this,” he said.
Carli’s brow furrowed. Her face stung so sharply from cold that she was afraid her expression might freeze in place. She studied the snowy horizon for several seconds before finally shaking her head.
“Seeing what?”
“This. . . all of this. . . the ground. . . the earth,” Wyatt said, falling to his knees, jamming his hand into the snow, digging so furiously and deeply that he came up with a handful of packed dirt and dead grass a few seconds later. “I don’t know about you, but this is what I’ve been dreaming about my entire life.”
Carli smiled, momentarily forgetting the cold as she reached out to take a piece of dirt from Wyatt’s hand. She brought it to her nose and inhaled deeply. When she closed her eyes, she could almost remember what her mother’s face once looked like. She remembered being a little girl, curled in her mother’s bed (her father probably off at some meeting of HASS leaders), the two of them watching videos or reading books or talking about a world that once existed. Carli hadn’t thought of those memories in years and suddenly wondered what else she’d forgotten about her past. . .
When she opened her eyes, she saw that the earth looked nothing like old pictures and videos. Everything was so cold, so empty, barren, exactly like her father had told her it would be. She thought about her mother spending her entire life in the clouds, having never gotten a chance to see the ground, even this version of it.
But that’s not exactly true, she realized with a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She saw the ground a split second before smashing into it. . .
Any guilt for leaving the HASS faded, as did her amazement for the surface. Regardless of where these jetpacks took them, Carli would never be forced to make the same decision her mother had made.
“Did you bring food? Shelter?” she asked.
“Didn’t have much time to plan, did I?” Wyatt asked.
“We don’t have time to waste then,” she said.
A gust of wind brought with it a sense of dread. Carli scanned the sky, panicking for a moment at the view, the sky so high above, the sight grander—and more daunting—from her view on the ground. There was no sign of the Comm HASS; more dauntingly, there was no sign of the Main HASS and the other HASSes connected to it. Her home had always seemed so big, but the sky appeared infinite and could very well hide the HASSes forever.
After turning in circles, Carli realized she no longer knew which direction she’d come from, and therefore had no idea in which direction the Comm HASS might be drifting. As if sensing her worry, Wyatt pointed to the sky off to their left.
“That way,” he said.
Carli lowered her goggles back and took the jetpack’s controls in each of her hands. “Then let’s go.”
She pressed her power button and shot into the sky, wanting to lead but waiting for Wyatt to show her the way. She expected him to soar higher for a better view, but Wyatt remained less than fifty feet from the ground. Whenever Carli braved a glance in his direction, she found him looking down nearly as much as he was looking up. The thought suddenly struck her that she barely knew Wyatt, that she’d put her life in the hands of someone she hadn’t actually spoken to in years. As much as she wanted to trust that Wyatt was t
he boy she thought he was, the way he studied the ground made her wonder what he truly wanted to accomplish on this mission.
She found herself wondering about the Main HASS, her thoughts on returning home swirling in her mind faster than the gusting winds swirled the snow around her. She didn’t have time to dwell on that uncertainty before Wyatt shot forward, accelerating quickly while remaining low to the ground. Carli looked ahead, where the flat, empty landscape suddenly changed, large objects seeming to rise on the horizon, becoming taller as Carli and Wyatt flew closer. The large objects were partially buried, but they seemed to stretch toward the sky.
Carli recalled seeing photos of the objects from the past, though probably not these exact ones. She caught up to Wyatt, who glanced over with eyes wide within his goggles. Before Carli could tell him what they were looking at, Wyatt called out a single word.
“Buildings!”
Carli nodded. Together, they soared toward the buildings and approached a snow-covered city. Carli didn’t know what the plan was, but Wyatt answered that question by lowering to an altitude well beneath the tallest of the buildings. Carli flew in his wake, less than fifty feet above the streets, weaving in between the buildings, looking down where streets used to be. Carli saw one potential landing spot after another, but a nagging sense of dread scratched at the back of her mind, overcoming any desire she felt to explore the old world. She was glad Wyatt remained airborne and in no rush to land, clinging to the safety of the skies.
Still, that didn’t mean she felt an utter lack of curiosity. Instinct told her to fly well above the highest tops of buildings—to steer clear of everything in this snowy ghost town—but she found herself soaring closer to everything she passed. She saw endless broken windows, the insides of which appeared to be filled with snowdrifts. A huge crack ran along the side of several buildings, leaving Carli to wonder how they remained standing. When she sped around the corner of another large street, she saw that not everything had remained upright.
One of the buildings had tipped over, as if pushed by the hand of God. It had smashed into another building across the street and now leaned against it, both of them tilting dangerously to the side, looking as though a gentle breeze would cause them both to collapse. But the winds continued to gust and the buildings held strong, a shrill whistling blowing through the metallic carcass of the tipped building. Carli watched Wyatt dip beneath the underside of the building and wondered if he was crazy. At least two dozen stories separated the bottom of the tilted building and the ground below, but Carli didn’t know why he’d take such a risk when there was so much open sky above.
Her heart pounded furiously and she felt a moment of breathlessness, but those feelings filled her with mind-numbing exhilaration. Carli mashed her own power button and sped toward the buildings, dipping her head and lowering until she flew into the shadows beneath the tilted building. Wires dangled from the underside and she turned her body to the left, nearly flying headfirst into the twisted wreckage of metal protruding from the underside of the building. She leaned so sharply to the right that she nearly veered into the upright building. By the time she emerged on the other side and spotted Wyatt, her entire body shook with an overflow of adrenaline.
Wyatt shot skyward again and Carli followed, joining him as he landed atop one of the city’s tallest buildings. Carli hunched over, fighting the urge to be sick, silently cursing herself for taking such a foolish risk. Once composed, she lowered her goggles and saw Wyatt standing at the edge of the building, looking down at the city below. She joined him, her head swirling at the thought of falling.
I was never this afraid standing on the Main HASS’s platform, or when I was flying, she thought with a chuckle, knowing her racing nerves contributed to her irrational fear.
Wyatt either didn’t notice her laugh or didn’t feel the need to question her about it. He stared so intently at what lay beneath that he didn’t turn or acknowledge her presence. When he spoke next, Carli didn’t know if his whispers were meant for her or for himself.
“The world survived,” he said. “Not everything was wiped away, like we were told. It’s not just emptiness and snow.”
“Well, it seems to be mostly emptiness and snow,” Carli said, finally earning a smile from Wyatt. “But I agree this city is. . . promising. I wonder what sort of artifacts might be in the buildings. Just because the cold didn’t swallow this area doesn’t mean anything—or anyone—survived.”
The words no sooner left her mouth than a cold gust threatened to blow her off the building. Carli backtracked several steps, but it wasn’t the weather that sent a chill through her. Though they stood atop the tallest building in the surrounding area, she still felt exposed, a sixth sense creeping in the back of her mind, telling her that plenty of eyes were aimed in their direction. She grabbed Wyatt’s arm and pulled him back from the edge, and hopefully out of sight of anyone below. Carli looked toward the sky.
“We can’t get caught up in this,” she said.
Wyatt’s eyes turned skyward and went wide, his expression of wonder quickly fading.
“You’re right,” he said, lowering his goggles. “Hopefully, there’s more to find once our mission is complete. These buildings—this city—are still a good sign that other arks survived, not just the voice at the other end of the radio.”
“What kind of other arks?”
Wyatt shrugged. “We’ve seen pictures of the world before. Look what humankind was once able to build,” he said, sweeping his hand along the horizon of the snowy city. “Think about where we lived, how long the HASSes have stayed in the clouds when logic says otherwise. Is it so strange to believe others could’ve survived? That there’s a place where the snow and cold aren’t so harsh? Maybe whoever’s on the other end of the radio has answers.”
Carli nodded. “Then we’d better find the Comm HASS and radio them back. We aren’t going to do that standing up here.”
“You’re right,” Wyatt said, frowning. He turned his eyes up again, scanning the sky as if he could see something Carli couldn’t. “That way.”
Without another word, he took off, shooting toward the clouds. For several seconds, Carli watched him streak across the sky, quickly becoming a tiny dot among the clouds, never once looking down or back at her. Carli’s finger found her own control button when a glint suddenly struck her eye, a glint unlike the reflection of the sun hitting the snow. Common sense told her to take off, but she found herself inching toward the edge of the building again, looking atop the next few buildings over. She sighed in relief, finding nothing but empty snowy rooftops—
And then movement. It was quick and momentary, several buildings over. When Carli tried to stare harder, whatever had moved—or whatever she thought had moved—scurried behind a large duct. She watched the duct for a few more seconds, searching for any sign of movement, when the periphery of her vision caught another flash, this one coming from another building, not exactly from the roof but from somewhere she couldn’t tell. She thought she spotted shadows within several windows—some of which were intact, others which were shattered—but they seemed to scurry away before she could focus on them.
This means others survived, she told herself, though that realization didn’t make her feel as excited as she should’ve been. She didn’t know what a human would have to do to survive in these conditions, nor did she want to find out. She was glad Wyatt had taken off when he did or he would’ve certainly been distracted. A scan of the sky showed him farther away and she pushed her power button hard, hoping to get as far from the city as she could as quickly as possible.
The jetpack sputtered, emitting a quick blast of power, enough to lift her a few inches before it died completely, sending her crashing back atop the roof. Panicked, she pressed the button over and over, causing a few more quick jolts, none strong enough to launch her skyward. Wyatt was disappearing into the distance and she wondered how long it would take him to realize she wasn’t behind him.
Will h
e even realize?
Wind gusted around her, hollow and shrill, bringing with it other noises, some that sounded far away, some that sounded close. Whispers. Human, at least that’s what Carli hoped, whispers that she heard clear as day, though she couldn’t make out a single word they were saying. The whispers seemed to grow louder and Carli spun in a circle, searching her roof for the blurs of movement she expected to come her way. When she found the roof still empty, she sighed deeply before filling her lungs with breath.
“Wyatt!” she yelled, instantly feeling foolish for thinking he’d hear.
Instead, the whispers grew louder and greater in number, and she rushed to the edge of the roof. In the building directly across from her, she spotted a line of silhouettes standing on the top floor, mostly hidden behind the frosted windows, everyone pointing at her in unison. Carli shook her head and mashed the power button, jolted skyward as her pack unexpectedly found power.
She lost the grip on her controls momentarily and plunged down but found the power button in time to launch herself toward Wyatt. She tried to focus on the sky in front of her but couldn’t resist looking at the city, the whispers still managing to reach her ears. She didn’t ease off the power until safely within the clouds, at which point she flew in Wyatt’s direction, a few tense minutes passing until she finally spotted him.
Carli didn’t know whether or not she should tell him what—or, more specifically, who—she’d seen, but that was a decision she didn’t have to ponder for long. As soon as Wyatt sensed Carli flying beside him, he turned to her and pointed in the distance to another blur of movement, this one among the clouds.
The Comm HASS really is drifting slowly. . .
CHAPTER SIX
King Edmond Jonas didn’t know whether to smile or scowl. He’d been alternating between the two so often that he no longer knew exactly what he was thinking. Standing in the center of the Lord’s room—surrounded on all sides by hundreds of tiny, floating holographic images—he stared directly at the only one currently enlarged. The image shook violently, the sound sputtering, his son’s face glaring down at the camera, which was apparently in his hands. A moment later, the image appeared to clatter to the floor, followed thereafter by Prince Oliver hovering above it, his foot rushing into view, a loud crunch filling the Lord’s room before the image went black.