Rootless (26 page)

Whatever kind of metal they’d made that fancy box out of, I was still scared a bullet could get through and smash the whole tank to hell.

That would end Pop’s trip back to the mainland real quick.

So we had to catch a break in the shooting before we took the tank out of there and made for the last hill, before we followed the trail that led up and over, before we could drop down and board the boat on the water below.

But the shooting was still raging. Back and forth. Neither side making much of a difference.

I sank back inside the Orchard but left the door open, the tank cloaked in the black metal and wheeled up against the wall behind me, out of the line of any shooter out there blowing up the dark.

Zee had pulled a jacket over my mother’s body, and the purple GenTech logo practically sparkled in the gloom.

“They’re cornered,” Zee said, glancing outside with me. “Trapped in the bunker.”

“Yeah. And they’re gonna run out of bullets before the agents do.”

“We need to do something.”

“I’m working on it.”

“We need to get Crow.”

“No, we don’t,” I said.

Because there he was.

The watcher was hobbling along on one leg and dragging the other behind him. He’d busted out of the other building and was cutting right toward the bunker, a sub gun in each hand and his head held high in the air.

He towered ten feet tall and his two guns drew the enemy’s fire, forcing the agents to scatter, and allowing the prisoners a moment to advance.

In that moment, the doors to the bunker burst open and a hundred naked bodies flooded into the night. Those who’d been sleeping now charged forward, fearless, surging like a wave of bones and skin.

The agents didn’t know which way to shoot — the giant tree man with wooden legs, or the shaved bodies with arms full of holes. And pretty soon, the agents were backed up against the far slope in their puffy suits. And we were winning.

For now.

I turned to Zee. “This is our chance,” I said. “We gotta get to the boat before they get reinforcements. There’s a lot more agents still at the burn.”

“What about all them?” Zee pointed at the uprising.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’re coming with us.” I grabbed the rifle out of Frost’s dead hands and I charged out into the battle.

I called for Alpha and I called for Crow, but all I could see was bodies and bullets in the night.

“Fall back,” I yelled. “Make for the boat. The boat.”

Some of the prisoners heard me and I pointed back at the trail that led to the water. “Get to the boat,” I told them. “Run.”

“Leaving so soon, little man?”

I twisted around and stared up at Crow. His damn legs were as tall as I was. “How you feeling?” I said.

“Oh, I been better. But I sure as hell been worse. Where’s Zee?”

“She’s over there. In the dome.” We took cover behind a crate of cargo as bullets drilled the ice around us.

“And Frost?” Crow said.

“He’s dead. Zee killed him.”

“Did she, now? Good for her.”

“We gotta get everyone back, though, to the lake. There’ll be more agents coming.”

“Then you better tell boss lady, if you wanting folk to move.”

Crow pointed and I spotted her immediately, and I wondered if planting trees and settling down was something that girl was ever meant to do. Because she was sure in her element, out here among the blood and fury.

Alpha had ripped up one of the GenTech cloaks and wound the purple fuzz around her. She had blood on her arm, a gash on the side of her leg, and she was kneeling down in the snow, hands reloading her weapon while her eyes scanned the hill.

“We gotta fall back,” I yelled at her through the sound of the gunshots. “Alpha. Fall back. Now.”

She stood and hollered and I pointed behind me at the hillside, toward where the bio vat rumbled and steamed. And then we were running that way. All of us. Fast as we could move.

At the Orchard, I told Crow to keep moving — he was pretty slow and all, slipping along on his new pair of legs.

“We’ll be right behind you,” I told him. “Meet you at the boat.”

“Aye,” Crow said. “Be quick about it.” I watched him head up the hill with the others. Then me and Alpha ducked inside the dome.

“Who’s this?” Zee said, staring at Alpha.

“I’m his girl.” Alpha grabbed the control pad. “Who the hell are you?”

“She’s my sister,” I said, and then I had Alpha help me pry open a panel on the metal box, and I pointed inside the tank where the saplings were springing out of the green remains of my father. “And this is my dad.”

“Got yourself one weird family, don’t you, bud?” said Alpha, swinging the panel shut. And I guess she was right. But you got to take what you can get, I reckon.

You take what you can get.

We busted out of the Orchard with the tank cloaked black and wired up, and Alpha sat above it with her hands working the controller and the wheels spinning in the snow.

“Come on,” Alpha called, and she dragged Zee on top of the tank with her. But I paused a moment, then told them to go on.

I ran back into the Orchard. My mother’s body was still lying there, and I pulled the coat off her face. I watched her for a second with no part of me thinking.

It was like I’d seen her die two times over. Because she’d caught that bullet the same way Hina had stopped the locusts in the cornfields. They’d both given themselves up. Made their own ending. For me.

I thought of taking her body but decided against it. This was where she should lie, I reckoned. On this island she’d chosen. In this steel tomb. She deserved more of a burial, though. And I figured I should say something. But as I pulled the jacket back over her face, I could find no words that would do. All that came to mind was the song me and Pop used to sing, the song forever stuck inside the dash of our old wagon. The song about dead flowers and the guy leaving roses on a dead girl’s grave.

I didn’t feel like singing, though. So I just got up and bolted out of the Orchard, dodging bullets as I raced up the hill.

The tank was rolling ahead of me and I could see Zee was driving now, her hands on the control pad. And Alpha was standing tall, working her gun and keeping the trail clear behind me. I caught up to them and jumped for the top of the tank, and I knew beneath the black metal those green saplings were swimming in the golden light.

Alpha helped me up and we squeezed together, and it wasn’t long before we’d crested the hill and were about to sink down the other side. We waited until we’d almost lost sight of that big old bio vat. And then Alpha shot the thing clear full of holes.

I could feel white light heat as the explosion soared and cut the agents off on the other side of the ridge. And I could see Crow on the deck of the boat below, waving and calling our names as everything became lit in fiery colors and the lake showed the flames back to the sky.

“So what kind of trees are they?” Alpha shouted, after a third boom had echoed and flared.

“Apple trees,” Zee said. “A whole new kind.”

“Well,” said Alpha, wrapping her free arm around me but still clutching her gun. “Where to now, bud?”

“I don’t care,” I said as the tank bounced onto the beach. “Just so long as we all go together.”

And so we left Promise Island to the sound of gunshots fading. The agents could only watch from their smoking ridgeline as our boat disappeared from their shore.

Alpha said all we needed were stars, and the sky was chock-full of
them. A map of cold white light overhead, guiding us south until sunrise. And deep black water beneath us, carrying us back toward home.

Home?

Is that what it was? That big old chunk of dirt?

I reckoned it was. Or I reckoned it could be.

We got the survivors dressed and fed in the cargo hold, and we got Pop’s tank stowed deep in the hull. And then I left the others in the cockpit with the charts and gadgets, Crow trying to figure our position on a GPS.

I sat by myself on the deck of the boat and stared south, the freezing wind sticking to my skin and turning me numb as I thought about my father.

We weren’t ever going to build that house in the treetops. And I reckoned I’d miss him every day of my life. But I wondered if we might build one more forest together. If I might plant up those saplings and watch them grow tall.

And I dared to think about a world where there were trees again growing. And if the trees had made it, then what other things might be out there, somewhere, still hanging on? The wild things that make the world worth believing in. That’s why folk had started tree building, after all. To have something to believe in. To prove you can take one thing and make one thing into another.

I imagined what I’d do in a world where trees spread their roots through the soil and made all the air worth breathing. But as I stretched out on that cold steel and felt my head sore and heavy and I ached all over, I realized everything that could still go wrong ahead of us. I wondered who’d come looking for this boat across the water. Or who might be waiting when the boat docked dry. And then I tried
to picture what sort of hell was hidden amid the lava and steam. The wastelands of the Rift.

Had to be a route through, though. GenTech had found a way. And you got to think positive. That’s what Pop always said.

So I quit thinking about what might come and I stared up at the constellations, picturing the faces I reckoned I would always keep close. The ones who had passed and the ones still breathing.

And I thought about the statue down in Old Orleans, the woman my father had built and the face I had finished with the thousand shiny pieces, reflecting the world back at you, no matter how many times you looked.

Writing
Rootless
was an adventure, and I’m grateful to the family, friends and teachers who helped me out along the way. I’d also like to acknowledge all the artists who inspired me; people I’ve never met but who lifted me up whenever I sat down to write. I’d like to thank all the wonderful people at Scholastic, the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, CA. I’d like to thank each and every reader. And I’d like to extend special thanks to the three people who helped me turn this story into a book: My agent, Laura Rennert. My editor, Mallory Kass. And my inspiration, Allison Benner.