Broken Worlds Super Boxset (7 page)

***

Despite the sun lowering behind her, it was still brutally hot. Brooke's skin felt like it was melting under her clothes. But even with the heat, she was making good time. The long days working on solar cells had allowed her body to adjust to the high temperatures. Even though it was unpleasant, it was still bearable. She was mindful to not use more than half her water on the way there.

Brooke walked through the fields of solar panels, most of which were peeling and corroded from neglect. The engineering feat that surrounded her had once powered cities, towns, and suburbs when the water from the Colorado Basin flowed freely down from the Rockies before the shortages. Everything seemed to have snowballed over the past six years.

When Congress started restricting the water supply, it impacted businesses, which hurt the economy, which drove people out of the area, which meant fewer buildings to power, which meant fewer solar cells to maintain and install.

Brooke's engineering firm had been laying people off every year for the past three years. She had managed to stay on board only because she was the best engineer in her division. She could do the work of four individuals in half the time.

She loved her job. The idea of being able to harness the power of the sun above them for their own personal uses gave her purpose. The solar cells she helped design and make came from the power of her mind and were put into use by the efficiency of her hands. She could feel her heart ache as she walked through the graveyard around her.

The main building was just up ahead. She crouched low, hiding behind one of the cells, and scanned the perimeter. She looked for any signs that someone was already there, but it looked vacant.

The door was locked, which she expected, but she knew there was a tool shed around back with a very flimsy door.

Brooke's heel pounded into the door, sending vibration into both her body and the rest of the shed. On the third try, it finally cracked open. Shovels, rakes, wrenches, and hammers all rattled at the abruptness of her entrance. She found a crowbar in the belly of an old wheelbarrow and made her way back to the main building.

Brooke jammed the thin, wedge-shaped end of the crowbar between the door and the frame. Her muscles strained, pulling the stiff piece of iron backward. The wood splintered and cracked from the pressure Brooke applied. Finally, the door burst open, sending broken pieces of wood hurtling through the air.

A burst of heat greeted her upon entrance. Months of inactivity had turned the building into a hotbox. Brooke's boot prints cut a trail through the sand and dust covering the concrete floor.

The first room she walked through was the main office. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she recognized the familiar shapes of desks lining the walls. All of the computers had been taken, but the furniture remained.

Brooke continued to the back of the station, her hands outstretched, feeling her way through the darkness. The storage room was in the very back and housed the circuit box. While the solar cells outside were in bad shape, they should still be able to produce enough power to get the station back up and running.

Her fingers fumbled over the hot metal of the circuit box until they found the handle. She pulled it open and flicked the breakers on.

The lights came on, and the vents puffed dust as air burst through them for the first time in months. She snatched the fuel key, which still hung next to the supervisor's station, and made her way out to the fuel tank, grabbing an empty gas can along the way.

The fuel tank rested on the side of the station. She pulled the nozzle from the hatch and stuck the key into the lock, which granted her access to the diesel inside the long, rusted cylinder that would provide her with the fuel to get out of this hell hole.

Brooke closed her eyes, took a breath, and squeezed the trigger on the pump. The fuel tank gurgled, and after a few seconds, she could hear the splash of diesel fuel filling the can. She let out a sigh, relieved the tank still had some left.

Just before the diesel reached the rim, Brooke removed her finger from the pump's trigger. She screwed the cap on and headed back inside, leaving the filled can outside.

Brooke searched for the satellite phone, pulling open the drawers of filing cabinets, rifling through what had been left behind. She turned the place upside down, but she couldn't find it. The company must have collected it along with the computers when it shut the station down.

The gas can was right where Brooke had left it as she rewrapped her shemagh, struggling to tie it in the gusty desert wind. She picked up the filled gas can and started the long walk back to the cruiser, smiling underneath the scarf at the fact that things were starting to go their way.

***

All of the doors to the cruiser were open. It was Emily and John's attempt to let the heat escape and give any breeze that might come their way a chance to cool them. The breezes did come, but they were blasts of oven heat instead of the cool, refreshing gusts the siblings were hoping for.

Emily lay completely flat on her back across the rear seats. Her hands were neatly folded over her stomach as she stared at the roof of the cruiser.

John sat with the front passenger seat reclined while his feet rested on the dash. He had to remove them after a few minutes, though, as the windshield acted like a magnifying glass for the sun, heating his feet to the point of melting.  

John's watched beeped, signaling for them to drink. It went off every fifteen minutes to ensure they didn't become dehydrated. He brought the bottle to his lips and counted to ten, then extended it to Emily in the back seat, where it lingered in the air.

“Em, you have to drink,” John said.

“I'm not thirsty,” Emily said.

“That's because you're staying hydrated. When you start to feel thirsty, it means that your body is already dehydrated. Mom wants us to drink, so take it.”

Emily propped herself up on her elbows and grabbed the bottle. She slurped for ten seconds and handed the container back to John. She flopped her head down, and it bounced against the cushioned seats, her hair falling over her face in the process.

“Let's play a game,” Emily said, brushing the hair out of her eyes.

John kept his eyes closed, barely moving his mouth when he spoke, hoping to exemplify his false excitement about not wanting to play.

“What do you want to play?” John asked.

“How about 'I spy'?”

“Okay.”

“You go first.”

“I spy something brown.”

“No, you have to start with 'I spy with my little eye.'”

“Fine. I spy with my little eye something brown.”

Emily got up, scanning around, then frowning once she realized what it was.

“Sand?” she asked.

“Yup. Your turn,” John said, still keeping his eyes closed.

Emily looked around, attempting to locate something more colorful. What she couldn't see was the bark scorpion that had crawled its way into the back seat through the open doors.

The scorpion's pincers clicked together, and the stinger curled up and around its back. The eight legs scurried across the cloth seats.

“I spyyyyyy with myyy little eyyyyyye,” Emily said.

The cuffs of Emily's jeans were pulled up, exposing the flesh between where the jeans’ protection ended and her sock began. The scorpion crawled up the sole of her shoe and onto her ankle.

Emily felt the tickle of the scorpion's legs, and when she brought her hand down to scratch it, the scorpion jammed its venomous stinger into the puffy flesh between her thumb and index finger.

The gas can in Brooke's right hand hovered inches from the ground, pulling her down. She moved the can to her left hand, giving her right arm some rest. The thirty-five-pound, five-gallon drum felt like it weighed one hundred pounds the closer she moved to the cruiser.

After another fifteen minutes of walking, she felt the handle slip from her fingers. The can hit the sand and Brooke soon followed, collapsing to her knees. She pulled her backpack off and dug through the main compartment. She pulled out her water bottle.

The remaining liquid sloshed around at the bottom of the container. She pulled the cap off and tilted the bottle back, draining the rest of her supply.

Brooke gasped after drinking the liquid and her hand holding the bottle dropped to the sand. She looked behind her. The relay station was firmly in the distance. She had followed her own tracks back, and she knew the cruiser had to be close. She put the cap back on the container and shoved it into her pack.

Brooke pushed herself off the sand, picked up the gas can, and continued her march to the cruiser. A hot blast of wind caused her to wobble, almost knocking her over. She steadied herself, bracing for another gust that was sure to come.

But instead of another hot gust of wind, something else made its way through the desert air. Brooke could hear something in the distance. She stopped walking, trying to listen for it again. The sound was faint, but she could hear the distinct sound of a child screaming. Her child.

The rush of adrenaline gave her a burst of energy, driving her forward. She could see the reflection of the sun hitting the cruiser's window.

“John!” Brooke said.

“Hurry!” John replied.

Five yards from the car, Brooke dropped the gas can and ran to the rear passenger-side door, where John was standing, mopping Emily's forehead with a damp rag.

“What happened?” Brooke asked.

“She said something stung her,” John replied.

“An ant, scorpion, spider? What was it?”

“She didn't say. After she was bit, she started to feel light-headed, and her speech became slurred. She collapsed on the back seat, and that's when I started yelling.”

Brooke cupped Emily's face in her hands. Her daughter wheezed, struggling for breath.

“Em, can you hear me? Em?” Brooke asked.

Emily didn't respond. Her eyes rolled aimlessly, never focusing on one thing.

Brooke sprinted back for the gas can. She carried it back over her head in both hands so she could run faster. She ripped the gas cap off and dumped the diesel into the cruiser's tank.

“What are we going to do?” John asked.

“There's a first aid kit at the relay station. Inside, there should be a scorpion antidote that we can give her,” Brooke said.

“But what if it wasn't a scorpion that stung her?”

“We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The last few drops of gas emptied into the cruiser, and Brooke tossed the empty can into the back with the rest of her gear.

John climbed into the back seat with his sister, holding her steady while the cruiser bounced along the desert dunes and brush, kicking up sand behind them.

It took them only ten minutes to get to the station by car. Brooke wove in and out of the solar cells, narrowly missing a few that could have wiped them out. She slammed on the brakes, and the cruiser slid forward a few feet through the sand, stopping them right in front of the station's entrance. Brooke ran around to the back and picked Emily up in her arms.

The lights were still on, which was a good sign that the solar cells were retaining energy. Brooke pointed to one of the desks in the main room.

“John, clear off that table,” Brooke said.

In one sweeping motion, John knocked all of the random items off the desk, and they clanged to the floor. Brooke gently set Emily down and ran for the first aid kit she had seen in the back.

“Keep an eye on her,” Brooke said.

Brooke flipped the latches open on the first aid kit and sifted through the contents. She pushed aside bandages, creams, and pills until she pulled out the tube of liquid holding the scorpion antivenom. She poured it into a syringe, sprinting back to Emily.

“Roll up her sleeve,” Brooke said.

John slid Emily’s sleeve all the way up to her shoulder, and Brooke pierced her daughter's skin with the end of the needle. She pressed down on the syringe, and the medicine entered her daughter's bloodstream.

“Is it working?” John asked.

“It'll take some time,” Brooke answered.

Emily's breathing continued to be labored. Brooke placed the back of her hand on her daughter's forehead.

“She's burning up,” Brooke said. “John, go grab some water out of the cruiser.”

John disappeared in a flash, and Brooke bent down and kissed her daughter's head, stroking her hair. She hoped and prayed that it was a scorpion that had stung Emily. If it was something else, she wasn't sure the antidote would work.

Brooke picked up her daughter's hand, holding it gently between both of her own. John returned, holding a one-gallon water jug in each hand.

“There's a compress in the first aid kit in the back. Fill it with water and bring it over to me,” Brooke said.

John nodded. She knew that her son felt guilty about what had happened. As much as he argued with his sister, he still loved her. Brooke knew that keeping him busy was the best way to keep his mind from wandering down paths of distress and blame.

“Here you go,” John said, extending the compress to her.

Brooke felt it; it wasn't nearly cold enough to do any good. The water was already hot from the sun beating down on it all afternoon.

“We need to cool it down. There was a break room somewhere in here with a fridge. I don't know if they took it with them when they left. See if you can find it,” Brooke said.

“Okay,” John replied.

The temperature in the building felt like it was going down. The AC was definitely kicking in, which was helpful for her daughter's current condition.

Emily's muscles spasmed. Her head rocked back and forth on the table. The venom was wreaking havoc on her daughter’s nervous system. It was doing its best to shut her major vital systems down until Emily's heart was too weak to keep beating.

“Stay with me,” Brooke said.