She’d searched for Daniel in the small crowd across the street, scanning profiles for the slight lift of the chin, the righteous determination of his shoulders. They’d sat her in the back of an ambulance where she’d watched the flames move to each window, stubbornly resisting the firefighters’ jets of water. She had laid the prototype so carefully at the centre of the web. Hours and hours of time invested into its tiny pathways that had likely been the first thing to disintegrate before the flames. She’d kept seeing Daniel at the bench, refusing to look at her, the rift that the Gatherer had formed between them deeper with each argument and their certainty in their own points of view.
“Where is the prototype?”
Callan’s face had suddenly appeared in front of her, flushed, his large hands gripping her arms.
Water had poured into the shattered windows, alone enough to ruin the delicate structure even without the fire.
Callan had moaned, lifting his hands towards the burning building, and dropped to his knees.
TWENTY-SIX
Storm held tight to Megan’s hand as they reached the top of the stairs. The small landing was flooded with a soft, weak light through a wall of windows that faced the rising sun and the faded treetops of Bell Park across a concrete square. As Megan had promised, the safety of the park’s expansive lawns and tended gardens was within sprinting distance, no more than a hundred meters to the road, a few steps beyond that to the green.
“You’re hurting me!”
Megan pulled her hand away and Storm realized how hard she had been gripping the girl’s hand.
Dust floated lazily in the rays of sun, unconcerned by the intense fields that raced past with every car, or the possibility of a WiFi network and a silent attack. It would be like walking into a video game with only one life remaining.
Already her breathing was too fast, shallow.
Storm stood close to the glass. It was too early for the main rush of traffic, and only a single man with a leather case over his shoulder strolled between two flower urns, the brown leaves and stems drooping over the sides.
She lifted her gaze to the corners of the office buildings, searching for the telltale transmitter of a cell phone network, or worse, a tower with transmitters on multiple frequencies.
“We follow those.”
Megan pointed towards the park, through a series of wide, low concrete steps that ended at the road.
“The steps?”
Megan pointed again, the tip of her finger pushed against the glass.
“The red arrows.”
At first Storm didn’t see the faded red chevrons spaced five or six large strides apart in a long curved path to the road.
“Who put those there?”
“They’re all over if you know to look.”
“And you’ve followed these before?”
The park looked a long way away across a sea of concrete filled with invisible sharks. All they had to guide them were a few spray painted arrows that could have been left over by a farmer’s market.
“Ones like them.”
A faded chevron showed on the landing beneath her feet, pointing out towards the square. Below it, ‘Almost There,’ had been printed in block letters and beside it a triangle overtop of a square. The universal symbol for shelter. She tried to picture the person who had drawn this path and had the forethought to add that bit of encouragement.
There had been an army of people stepping up to help the afflicted navigate a suddenly hostile world. It sharpened the loneliness she had felt in the Yukon. She could have been here, among people, getting better and stepping in before it all went too far.
“Okay, let’s go.”
The emergency bar clanged as they pushed out, releasing them into the cool dampness of the morning. A few trace currents crossed her cheeks before they found the path. They walked in single file, following the chevron’s path closely, trying not to think of what swirled around them.
Half-way across a dull ache ran down her right side, her arm growing warm as if she were too close to a fire.
“Keep moving.”
Megan had slowed and Storm pushed her faster. Speed was their friend here. The girl had hunched her shoulders, cowering away from the trace fields, and Storm understood she was sicker than she let on, the protection of the dark area masking her symptoms. Storm held on to Megan’s shoulder, trying to protect the girl with her body though it would do no good. The stairwell was fifty paces back. The park equal distance ahead. It should have been just another early morning, the sun slowly warming the trees, drying off the concrete, the start of a new day.
They stopped well back from the road. Electric cars had their own special kind of power, like a moving lightning bolt that could kill on contact.
The chevrons pointed to a very specific path across a darker patch in the road. A willow tree stood at the top of a small rise on the opposite side. They waited for eight, nine, a dozen cars before a large enough opening arrived.
“Go!”
Megan’s arms pumped madly, her pack bouncing wildly on her back. Storm’s legs were sluggish, a tight pain searing across her chest when she reached the road. She didn’t stop, even as a long sword of pain jammed up her spine so that she was flung forward, stumbling over the opposite curb, hearing her own cry even as she kept moving, putting her feet in front of her to get as far from the road as she could.
Behind the tree she collapsed, sucking air and curled into a ball, her nerves vibrating with the aftershock of whatever that had been. There were flashes like lightning on the inside of her eyelids, a keening scream rattling her ears.
She crawled towards the sound and found Megan by feel, her head arched back in full seizure. She rolled her onto her side and held her, whispering low and calm, telling her it would be okay even though she wouldn’t hear.
After a long minute or two, the girl’s body relaxed, collapsing heavily against Storm. She continued to hold her as the agitation slipped from her nerves and a low ache spread up her legs.
Cars sped past below in increasing numbers and the sun cast shadows of willow leaves across their huddled bodies. No one came, and when Storm eventually could sit, Megan woke, her brown eyes frightened until she saw Storm.
“You’re okay.”
Megan started to cry. Storm held her close, letting her own frustration and fear flow with the girl’s tears.
“Sorry.”
Megan pulled herself away when her crying had reduced to sniffles.
“No need to be.”
“Is that what happens to you?”
Storm gave her a tablet from the pack and a bottle of water for the little good it would do. She had brought her too far, underestimating Megan’s illness. It was the same vulnerability she had seen in Jacob—obvious symptoms present yet an ability to keep going, their bodies more resilient to the imbalance until faced with something like this.
“It used to.”
She didn’t know why she had been spared this time. The shock had been strong enough, her nerves stripped.
“I don’t like it.”
Storm smiled.
“Me neither.”
Megan’s colour returned and they watched the traffic as they ate. There were no spaces between cars big enough for them to cross. The cars bumped over the off-coloured strip in the road. It must have shielded them from the worst of the field, but it wasn’t a crossing that she would do again.
Storm lifted herself from the ground and they walked over the top of the hill. Megan stayed close, eyeing the trees and paved pathways as if they might harbour a painful field. At the crest they stopped. The landscape had been bleached white. Translucent leaves hung from tree branches, pale grasses lined the path, and faded, wilted flowers filled carefully structured gardens. A pond at the base of the hill dully reflected the pale blue sky, but they saw no flutter
of wings and heard no skittering animals.
The park was beautiful in the same way a statue or a building was beautiful, without life though its form and structure were exquisite. She felt the roiling sickness of it and the harsh helplessness at seeing something destroyed.
“Are all the parks like this?”
Megan barely lifted her head.
“There was a big Gatherer here. They moved it to the other side.”
“How can you tell?”
The damage to the area was uniform, starting as soon as they had crested the hill, the entire landscape bleached white.
“We used to live here.”
She lifted her chin towards the street than ran to the north, the tops of condos and brown apartment towers visible through the faded treetops. Megan slowed further and Storm took her hand, needing to touch something alive. The Yukon’s Tundra had pulsed with life compared to this crystal wasteland. A bluebell drooped on its stem, only the faintest trace of blue visible on its petals.
“Did no one notice?”
Megan’s hand had gone limp in Storm’s. Her expression had a kind of blankness that spoke of loss and anger too fierce for a child of her age.
“They said that it hadn’t been set up properly. That they had fixed it. My mom still wanted to move but my dad didn’t.”
Megan had lifted her chin to look at the back of one of the apartment buildings. Three windows showed between branches and Storm didn’t need to ask where Megan had lived.
“Is he still there?”
The shrug came again. There were dark circles under her eyes and her curls lay flat against her skull. Storm had mistaken the girl’s innocence for strength. She wrapped her hand firmly around Megan’s and led her downhill. The grass along the path was cut short, neatly trimmed when it had stopped growing. The reeds in the pond were white stalks above the still water, the grasses that dipped into the surface like pale, flowing hair.
Megan’s weight pulled her backwards. Storm slowed further but Megan lagged, stumbling on the slightest unevenness in the pavement. Her clumsiness seemed out of place in the stillness, each scuff of her foot a break in the lifeless perfection.
At a park bench Megan sat and after a few moments lay down. Storm checked for a fever, alert for tremors but all it seemed to be was fatigue. She didn’t blame her. Storm should have been feeling the same way, yet she was wired, alert to the slightest shift in the air.
She moved her pack onto her front and squatted next to Megan so the girl could climb onto her back. She was light, easy to carry and almost immediately relaxed into the heavy weight of sleep. Storm had expected her to be more of a burden, to struggle more beneath Megan’s weight, yet her steps felt more solid, her back warm from the girl’s heat.
She followed the path into a white wooded area. It was hard to breathe in the thick quiet and Storm’s ears buzzed with her effort to hear warnings of an approach. Her arms were beginning to tire from holding Megan’s legs when she saw the boy lying on an open patch of forest floor as if he had lain down for a sleep. She knew immediately he was dead, his pallor matching the drained lifelessness of the forest, his stillness not of the living. She stopped and leaned forward against Megan’s weight, holding her tighter against her back as her legs shook. His hand lay curled at the end of his oversized sleeve, with either dirt of a bruise discolouring his thin neck.
She forced herself to go closer, the fallen twigs snapping beneath her feet. How could a child have been left to die in this ruined forest? Had the world become so damaged to think that this was permissible, every man—or boy—for himself?
His head had fallen to the side, his face turned from the path. It was dirt that was smeared down his neck, the action that had left it there unknowable. He was slightly smaller than Megan, though she didn’t know if that meant younger. His dark hair had grown to his collar. His scuffed boots were splayed apart.
Could she have really done this? Been so blind as to not see this consequence?
She lifted her head, searching the forest, hoping a different place might exist for him. Two people stood on a rise in the path. A man and woman, thin and haunted like herself. They walked slowly, intentionally, with no urgency at the condition of the boy.
“You’ve met Andy I see.”
The woman’s tone was hostile, leaving no doubt as to her understanding of Storm’s identity and her guilt. The woman didn’t look at the body, and the man was watching Megan. Storm turned her away from them.
“What happened to him?”
They wore copper bands around their wrists and necks—necks that had started out wider, judging by the diameter of the bands. The man’s right eye twitched rhythmically, and when he saw her watching he turned his head so she wouldn’t see. The woman’s only sign of illness was the folds of flesh hanging from her jaw, the remnants of a much larger woman.
A disinterested shrug was the woman’s only response, as if Storm had asked a question for which she should already have known the answer. Storm adjusted Megan’s weight, the girl heavier now.
“Is Megan hurt?”
Storm held her tighter.
“We all know who Megan is. We won’t hurt her.”
Their shoulders nearly touched, and they had their arms folded, right over left. Their dirty and worn shirts were threaded with silver, misaligned rows tracked up their chests. The man repeatedly pushed greasy, overgrown hair out of his eyes.
“How do you know her?”
The woman’s gaze flicked to Megan with the briefest softening of hostility.
“What’s wrong with her?”
Their clothes were dirty, of people living rough, their paleness at one with the ghostly forest. They carried nothing with them.
“We’ve been up all night—”
“In the tunnels.”
The man finished for her. Storm pressed her lips tighter.
“Can you get her back to her mom?”
The woman pondered Megan’s sleeping form. They obviously cared for Megan, though that welcome definitely didn’t extend to her.
“Yeah.”
It was the man who answered, his loathing less complete than hers.
“The kids will be happy to see her.”
He could have been speaking about his own or the ones in the dark area.
Storm lowered Megan to the ground at the base of a tree. Her eyelids fluttered in the new position and Storm briefly smoothed the curls across her forehead.
The woman snickered.
Storm stood slowly, experiencing a sudden clarity inside her.
The woman’s mouth was closed tight, and Storm could see the muscles in her jaw flexing. If hatred were visible it would have been seeping out of her eyes and nose like blood. Storm was almost relieved, finally receiving the recriminations she had believed were her due.
“Is there someone called Daniel in your community?”
“You expect us to help you?”
The woods were quiet, as if they had been plucked out of the city. It was likely why they had ended up in this place, with its illusion of distance.
“We know who he is.”
“You’ve seen him?”
She felt hope, relief, the smallest flash of blue sky.
“Photos online. From the beginning.”
Old news. Nothing that would help her now. The two of them had probably been smiling, maybe even holding hands raised between them. There had been a photo like that, jubilant, very popular for a while.
“If you can tell me anything about where he might be…”
“Get out of here!”
The woman’s eyes were bloodshot and tiny red dots covered her skin.
Storm felt surprisingly calm, as if fate had finally settled on her and this was something she deserved.
“Can you carry her?”
She st
ayed close to Megan and focused on the man.
He nodded, though he refused to meet her gaze.
Turning away from the woman, Storm slid the powered-down cell phone from her pack and slipped it into Megan’s hand. She hated to give it to her, but that, if nothing else, would get her back to her mother. She filled her lungs and stood, letting the soothing calm of inevitability flow through her. It felt so good not to be struggling against it anymore. Someone had finally accused her. She half-smiled as she faced the woman.
“You think this is funny?”
Seething rage coursed through the woman, her body shaking with it.
“No.”
The closeness of the forest suffocated her and she had the welcome desire to move forward. This was a place to hide, not to find solutions. Or Daniel.
The straps of her pack were damp with sweat as she picked it up. It felt lighter, empty of so many things she had started out with. She threaded her arms into the straps under the scrutiny of the man and woman, her every move proving her guilt.
“What about the boy?”
The man had already bent to pick up Megan and held her close in his arms. She was so small and thin, it seemed impossible she had withstood the force of the seizure.
“Someone will come for him.”
It was a body alone in the woods, though it was unlikely any animals existed here to scavenge it. The open area was close to the edge of the woods, located so people could come retrieve the body without having to get too close.
They watched her leave, as if after that reception she would try to sneak back in. The path dipped before sloping back to the park and her legs burned as she began to climb. She hoped Megan would forgive her for leaving. She allowed herself that hope, a small blip in the vast pool of blame she was sinking in.
The tops of the apartment buildings appeared above her and fear gathered in her chest, its low familiar hum preferable to the anger boring into her back. She let the fear settle, ready to use its stability and consistency as her guide.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Maria tried to lift her hand to see where the IV hanging from the post attached to it, but she couldn’t move against the pressure of restraints on her upper arm and wrist. She moved her good leg, more hesitant with the injured one, feeling the same pressure on her thigh and shin. Strapped down like the soldier that had been evacuated, his hold on reality snapped by whatever he had seen. She wasn’t crazy though. The muddle of the fever was gone, her mind clear, her body returned to its normal size without the bloated inflammation of infection and pain.
The Gatherer Series, Book 1 Page 21