Terra, p.12
Terra, page 12
Adam clears his throat, and I turn my attention to the now-open room. Inside, there are two neatly made beds, a chair, and several pieces of dark wooden furniture. Lengths of threadbare fabric hang above the open windows. It’s all barely worth noting, however, compared to the gaping hole in the middle of the floor. It’s mirrored by a similar opening in the ceiling that looks into the room above, as if some huge object crashed into the building from above and tore straight through each level.
“Yep, creepy,” I confirm.
Adam saunters over to the window, giving a wide berth to the hole in the floor, and looks down at the street below. “You go ahead and get your bearings. There’s something I want to look into.” He sounds excited as he heads back to the open doorway.
“Where are you going? We only have one flashlight,” I say. “Just wait a sec, I won’t be long. You won’t be able to feel your way back down in the dark.”
“I’ll manage. Meet you out front.” Adam looks at the opening in the floor before adding, “And please, please try not to fall.”
“What are you—” I start, but he’s out of sight before I can finish my sentence. “Okay, bye then.”
I walk over to the edge of the room, treading lightly over the unsound floor, and peer out the window. I’m just above the skyline, and over the surrounding buildings I can see the Dead Woods in the distance. From up here, it doesn’t look that far, but I know better. Leaning out the window to get a better look, a gust of wind blows what remains of the curtains into my face. I wobble, grabbing the windowsill to steady myself.
Glad that Adam wasn’t there to witness that, I quickly scan the sky and reel myself back into the room. The cool light of early morning is already changing as the sun has risen in the cloudless sky, and my anxiety spikes as I think about just how long Mica has been alone now, though I couldn’t say the exact number of hours.
If I make it to next Collection Day with this second machine, I think as I head back down the stairs, I am definitely buying a watch. My legs ache as I reach the bottom of the stairwell and make my way through the lobby, but when I step back out onto the street, Adam is nowhere to be found.
“Adam?” I call out. A minute passes. Then another. I pull my hair over one shoulder and twist it nervously around my finger.
I call Adam’s name again, louder this time, moving away from the building and toward the nearest cross-street.
Did he ditch me? My eyes flit nervously down the expanse of road. I suppose it might be for the best if he did, but then why would he have been so insistent about coming with me?
“Terra.” Adam’s voice echoes over to me, faint at first but growing louder as the seconds tick by, accompanied by a mechanical rumbling that drowns out his words. Beyond my name, I can’t make out most of what he’s saying, and I don’t understand where the sputtering sound is coming from until Adam finally turns a corner and barrels into my line of sight.
He sits astride a motorized bike-style transport vehicle, with one wheel in front and two in the back. How the hell he got its centuries-old motor to run is beyond me. What remains of the paint tells me that the bike was originally black, though the shell that would customarily cover the engine is missing. At least that explains why it’s so loud. Adam’s yells are frantic over the buzz of the bike, but I still can’t tell what he’s trying to tell me.
He races toward me with no signs of slowing down and I finally hear a frenzied “Move!” just in time to lunge out of the way as he rushes past.
My shoulder hits the side of an abandoned vehicle that’s been pushed up onto the sidewalk, and I scrape my elbow as I careen onto the broken pavement. Outraged, I wrap my fingers around a large chunk of rubble that has landed next to my arm, seconds from hurling it in Adam’s direction when I hear the second transport round the corner.
Before I can react, the transport slows down, only yards away from me. The truck’s wagon is empty but I spy two raiders sitting inside the cab. A small, curious part of me wonders if they’re part of Ryk’s gang, or some other, fresh threat.
Convinced that they’ve spotted me, I crawl around the vehicle I fell against, my heart pounding even while dejection spreads across my insides. I don’t think I have it in me to go through another chase. A few moments pass though, and the truck is still moving. I risk a glance back through the vehicle’s broken windows and realize I’m not the reason the raiders have slowed down.
At the end of the street, trapped between the raiders’ truck and a barricade of abandoned vehicles, is Adam. He faces away from his pursuers, who angle their truck to block the street. Only a sliver of sidewalk remains open, and I doubt it’s wide enough for the motorbike to fit through.
I inhale sharply. Why isn’t he turning around? Does he not realize how close they are? With his back to them, he’s a sitting duck.
I curse under my breath, turning my head toward the open road behind me. It would be so easy to run. The raiders haven’t seen me, and they’re obviously preoccupied. I have the machine. Now that I know which way to go, I could outrun them.
I could go home.
I hear the raiders’ boots crunch on the gravelly road as they exit their truck and step onto the street. They’re maybe thirty feet from Adam, and they’re laughing. I can’t help wondering if the raiders who killed Lee laughed beforehand too.
“Damn it,” I say quietly. Crouching low, I creep down the sidewalk toward the still-running truck. The raiders have left the doors open and the engine churns noisily. My palm begins to pulse around the heavy chunk of rubble still clutched in my hand.
“Tsk, tsk, pretty boy,” one of the raiders taunts. “You didn’t really think you were gonna get away on that thing?”
Adam continues to face the blockade of broken-down vehicles, his head cocked to the side, like he’s pondering how to get past them. The raiders grow visibly irritated by his lack of reaction and start rushing at him just as I reach the driver’s side door. I peer in cautiously, taking a split second to assess the interior of the truck. In the foot bed sits a pair of matching pedals, just inches beneath the sloped underside of the dashboard that houses the steering wheel.
I bite my lip as I try to remember which pedal is the accelerator, and which is the brake. I only have one shot.
I take a deep breath and jam the chunk of rubble onto the pedal on the right, wedging it between the pedal and the dashboard’s undercarriage. I yank my arm back as the truck jolts forward, hitting the side of the door with my hand as I withdraw it, but the pain barely registers as the raiders’ black truck careens into the side of a building. Both the raiders and Adam turn just in time to see the transport smash into the wall with an ear splitting crash.
I casually dust my pants off as I stand. “Sorry, did you need that?”
Adam gapes at me. One of the raiders growls and immediately breaks into a sprint. I pivot on the spot and take off running, confident that if I can just get back there fast enough, I can lose him amongst the maze of rooms in the grand building I just left.
But the raider is much faster than I anticipated. He closes the gap between us before I have a chance to get away. As quickly as I feel his hands grab hold of my upper arms, though, I am released. I whip around to see the raider flying backward. Half a second later, he slams into the side of the truck and slinks to the ground. Adam stands on the other side of the vehicle, arm outstretched, panting, the other raider collapsed at his feet.
“What were you thinking?” Adam roars, stomping over to me.
“You’re welcome?”
“I told you to run.”
“Is that what you were saying? I had a little bit of trouble hearing you as you were trying to flatten me.”
“This isn’t a joke, Terra.” Adam places his hand over his forehead, his middle finger on one temple and his thumb on the other, shielding his eyes.
“I was helping,” I insist.
“Well, you shouldn’t have. You’d think after all the trouble I’ve gone through saving your life, you’d maybe want to stop risking it so often.”
“I—you—I—As if you weren’t risking your own life? You could’ve been hurt too,” I seethe.
“I had everything well under control.”
“It sure as hell didn’t look like it from where I was.”
“That was the point. You think I couldn’t take them out?” He gestures to the unconscious raiders. “I was keeping them distracted so you had time to get away.”
I open and close my mouth, searching for another retort. Despite my best efforts, I’m still the one who needed saving.
I stare at the ground. “I couldn’t just leave you,” I finally say, my face flushing.
Something in my voice seems to soften Adam’s ire. Still breathing heavily, he retrieves the motorbike. “Need a ride?” He beeps a comical-sounding horn as he mounts the vehicle. “We probably don’t want to stick around here too much longer. I doubt their comrades are far.”
I eye the bike and have half a mind to ask how he found a working transport in this dead city, but humiliation stays my tongue.
“Hop on.” He scoots forward and pats the bench behind him with his palm.
I throw one leg over the bike and before I’ve even fully settled into the seat, Adam floors it. The sudden burst of speed blasts me backward, and I immediately wrap my arms around his waist. He winces and, remembering his bruise, I move my hands to rest somewhat awkwardly on his shoulders instead.
It is not a smooth ride. The ancient transport, paired with the destroyed city streets, makes for wild dips and bumps that have my stomach rising into my throat. My hair flies up around my head in all directions, whipping around me, and I press my cheek into the slim pack on Adam’s back to shield my face.
I clench my thighs tightly around the seat as Adam weaves in and out of alleys, using my arms to direct him toward the Dead Woods. Unlike the raiders’ truck, which had been forced to go around the more crowded streets, Adam maneuvers the bike nimbly between obstacles and we clear the District in no time.
The bike deals with the unpaved stretches outside the ruins surprisingly well. With fewer bumps comes a much smoother ride, so I unhook one of my arms from Adam’s shoulder and use it to hold my hair to one side.
“Go left,” I yell into Adam’s ear as we near the woods. Despite its dexterous steering, there is no way the transport will fit through the trees. He yells something back, but the wind eats his words.
I guide us on a broad arc around the Dead Woods and am surprised when I see the glint of black dystridium in the distance. Having never actually driven a transport, and not having ridden in one since I was a child, I never had a chance to appreciate how fast they are. We’ve made it back to Sixteen in a fraction of the time it would normally take me.
I can’t help the smile that flits across my wind-whipped face as we approach the settlement. I know I’ll have some serious explaining to do, but, for now, I’m just relieved to be so close to home. Already exhausted again, but so, so relieved.
As we approach the southern wall, I realize that Adam isn’t slowing down. “Stop just up ahead,” I shout. He shakes his head. I’m not sure if he is disagreeing with me or if he simply can’t hear me. He follows the curve of the wall around the settlement, circling it fully before we finally come to a stop less than a foot from where I’d originally indicated.
“Sorry,” he says, cutting the engine, “I just wanted to get a full view. Why are we stopping here? There’s a gate on the other side.”
“It’ll be hard enough to come up with an explanation that accounts for you, let alone this thing,” I say, gesturing to the bike. “We can climb over here.”
“You worry too much, Sunburst,” Adam responds. He flicks his hand and the bike pops back to life.
“What are you doing?” I scramble to get off, but I’m not fast enough, and the bike lurches forward while I’m still half-seated. I grab at Adam for balance, wrapping my arms tightly around his torso. His back tenses, adjusting to the pressure on his bruise, but I don’t move my hands this time. Serves him right.
We zoom back around to the North Gate, slowing as we enter. I try my best not to meet the curious gazes of the guardsmen stationed there. As we ride through town, I notice more than a few disapproving looks from North Quadrant residents on the street, though I suspect it has more to do with the noise of the bike than anything else. Up in this part of town, owning transports isn’t so rare. I think of Councilman Loxley’s matching roadsters—one red, one black. Even as dinged up as they are, the lower quadrants couldn’t stop talking about them for weeks.
I pat Adam’s shoulder twice, urging him to speed up. After a few minutes of me directing him through the settlement, we putter to a stop outside my apartment complex.
I groan, rubbing the inside of my thighs lightly as I stand. I guess I was holding on tighter than I thought.
Adam parks the bike at the side of the building. “So, this is home?”
“The one and only,” I say. “The good thing about having all the adults in your life either die or abandon you is that everyone feels too bad to kick you out of your apartment.” I run my fingers through my hair, and they get caught in its tangles immediately. As I work on retrieving my digits from my hair, my gaze shifts and a movement catches my eyes. I turn my head and see the unmistakable glint of a transport window being rolled up. The sight of the black vehicle on our street fills me with unease.
“Come on skyboy, let’s go inside,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice level, even as I rush the words. I’m eager to get off the street. “I’ll draw you a map or something so you don’t get lost again. And maybe you can distract Mica from wanting to kill me the second I step inside.”
I open the door to the apartment building, and with slow steps, Adam and I climb the three sets of stairs to my floor, my thigh muscles pulsing painfully with each step. When we finally reach my front door, I take a long, steadying breath before turning the doorknob.
“Mica?” I say tentatively, swinging the door open.
I duck as a couch cushion comes flying toward me, moving out of the way just in time for it to hit Adam squarely in the chest.
I stand back up and find myself eye-to-eye with Mica, his arms crossed over his chest. His mouth is set in a hard line but his eyes are wide and alert.
“Where the hell have you been?”
THIRTEEN
“What was that for?” I ask Mica as Adam shuts the door behind him.
“Where have you been?” Mica repeats, his voice cracking. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere! No idea where you were, no idea if you were okay, no—”
“I’m so sorry, Mic. I’m fine, really. I just . . .” I bite the inside of my lip, uncertainty making my stomach feel queasy. “I got caught up in something,” I finish lamely.
“Caught up in something?” Mica scoffs. “You disappeared for more than a day! You didn’t even tell me you were going scavenging. And when the guardsmen showed up—”
“Guardsmen came to talk to you? What did they say?” I flick my eyes toward Adam as he steps forward to stand beside me, his proximity dulling the blade of the panic rising in my chest.
Mica follows my gaze and shoots a curious look at him before returning his attention to me. “They came yesterday evening, asking about you. Where you were, when the last time I saw you was, stuff like that. I told them I didn’t know, that I hadn’t seen you all day and had looked for you, but you were probably out scavenging. I asked them why they were asking, and they said they just wanted to check up on the two of us, to make sure we were doing all right.”
“How courteous of them,” I say wryly.
“But after they left, I kind of freaked. I thought you might’ve been nabbed by raiders, or gotten hurt, or the Black Traders got a hold of you, and I . . .” His eyes glisten as he trails off, and I feel a pang in my chest.
“Oh.” The sound exits my mouth more like a breath than a word. “God, I’m so sorry you were worried, Mic.”
“I can’t—You can’t do that, Terra,” he says.
“I know.”
“I didn’t know—I thought . . .”
“I know. I’ll explain everything, I—”
“And you stole my backpack!” His voice jumps an octave on the last word and I have to swallow a laugh because of course that’s the biggest offense.
“Another thing that I promise I’ll—”
“And you were this close to missing the assembly.”
I pause. “What assembly?”
“You didn’t hear? I figured that’s why you’re finally back. It’s a Full Council,” Mica says.
I gawk at him. Sixteen has its fair share of periodic meetings. There are monthly public forums and quarterly status addresses that deal with citizen-specific and settlement-wide issues respectively. Then, there’s the Full Council Assembly. It occurs once a year and is the only one that’s mandatory, since the Tribunal sends down a high-ranking official to run it. We’re not due one for another six months, though.
“Is there a problem?” Adam asks.
“Who’s he?” Mica says, finally acknowledging Adam’s presence.
“There’s no problem, not exactly,” I say, my mind whirring with new anxieties as I rush through introductions. “Mica, Adam. Adam, Mica.” Suddenly, explaining the telekinetic skydweller who saved my life to my brother is not my top concern.
Mica cocks his head at me but doesn’t say anything.
“When does the meeting start?” I ask him.
“Noon. We’ve got a little less than an hour so we should get ready to leave soon.”
“We can go in a minute, I just need to . . .” I gesture to my general state and Mica nods a little too enthusiastically.
“Yeah, you do. You certainly look like you’ve been dragged through the muck, Terra. Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“Yes, absolutely,” I say, already halfway to my bedroom. “It’s just that it’s kind of a long story.” I strip off Mica’s backpack and kick it under the bed—I’ll deal with the machine later—before casting a longing look at my pillow. I snatch a set of clean clothes from my dresser, not even bothering to see what they are.
