Wasteland (Flight) (5 page)

“You haven’t seen the worst of it,” she replies. Her eyes stare past me, to an unknown place filled with terror I’ve yet to imagine. Then she suddenly snaps out of it.

“Let’s get you to your room. You look like you could use a nice, long shower.”

Dust slides past my feet on the wind as we trudge through the wasteland. Both Essa and I are completely suited in anti-rad gear, and every step seems like we’re travelling on an alien planet.

Surrounding the main entrance to Central and the guard tower is nothing but dead earth; pale and wispy, patterned with the petrified remains of what were once majestic trees.

Off in the distance there is a hint of green; the Fresh-Air Compounds Elder Corp is building for the rich; areas enclosed with filtering glass so that only pure air can exist within. They look like massive snow globes, though I doubt I’ll ever see the inside of one.

Beside me, Essa huffs impatiently.

“Why didn’t we ask for a buggy or something? This wind is unreal,” she complains.

“And how are we supposed to remain hidden while driving a cart around?” I counter. Sweat is already building inside my suit. The hot sun glares at us, defying us for coming above ground.

Our plans are haphazard at best. We couldn’t let anyone know where we were going or why, and our search is going to be worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack; we have an entire world to explore.

But we trudge along, and soon enough Central Tower is no longer in sight; we are alone in the wild.

“Have you been up here before?” I ask. I motion for Essa to stop, to take a break beneath the shade of a massive rock. She shakes her head.

“No, I’ve only done VR Mods. I’m sure you’ve been up here like a hundred times,” she remarks. I burst out laughing despite myself.

“You think they let just anybody up here? It costs the Corp a fortune.” Seeing her hurt expression, I add, “I’ve only been up here once or twice, and never as far as we are now. The tower has too many defense features. Even the most feral of Harpies know they don’t stand a chance.”

The shade is glorious after the scorching walk, and the sun is finally starting to set. I’d forgotten how blistering the real sun is; underground the temperature is always perfect.

“Look at that,” Essa murmurs. I follow her gaze to the horizon. The sky is illuminated in pinks and reds and dusky purples. The colors explode and melt together; a tapestry of the death of the sun. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“I guess we really can’t replicate everything,” I reply in a whisper.

We move onward, silent from nature’s embrace. My mind tumbles through thoughts and images: Tor, David, the Harpy I’d let live. Shards of guilt shoot through my stomach, but there is no such thing as going back to the past; I know that, at least.

Night is just starting to darken the sky when I hear it; the slightest of noises. I raise a hand to halt Essa in her place, and motion for her to keep quiet. I close my eyes to let the sounds travel to my ear.

There is the crackle of fire; something I’ve only heard once or twice in real life; the crunch of sand as feet dance through them; the whoosh of twirling fabric; the giggling of a small child, then the hushing back to near-silence.

I gesture in the direction of the sounds with my eyes, and Essa follows my lead. Ahead of us there is a rocky crag, and my senses tell me that the beings are beneath, half-hidden in the shelter of the rock.

Our suits make only the slightest of noise as we creep forward to the apex of the rocks. Just as the crackling of the fire becomes loud enough, we drop to the ground, crawling across sharp rocks and slimy algae.

My heart beats like crazy as we reach the tip of the rock. The scene is probably fifty feet below us, but my mind races as if it’s mere inches away.

A Harpy family.

They surround the fire, their wings hanging gracefully above them. The children are both girls, who wear twirling skirts as they dance about the fire. The father is garbed in a shaggy shirt and slacks, while the mother remains seated on the ground, skirt spread around her as she skins some meat that I hope to hell isn’t Human.

What the hell are they doing living so close to Central? And why is there just one family? All of our studies have shown Harpies to travel in large groups, with a hierarchy of alpha and beta males and females. This family is entirely different. They don’t look vicious; they look… happy.

For a moment it’s like I’m watching a vid-screen; a documentary about the idyllic life of nomad aliens on another planet.

But then Essa’s foot slips—only an inch—but I know the sound is enough to break the silence.

Immediately the mother Harpy snarls, and her face contorts to a wicked, ugly glower as her gaze searches for us.

“Let’s move,” I whisper.

My body takes over; no room for thought or speculation. We leap from the crag, gravel and rock spilling beneath us. Essa pulls out her pistols and as soon as she lands, aims for the father Harpy’s head.

Her first shot misses, but her second is dead on, burrowing into the forehead of the Harpy. His angry scowl remains as his body withers and crumbles into dust. The bullet cap
clinks
as it lands on a slab of granite.

On my end, I face the mother. Immediately it’s clear that she’s the leader of the family. She lunges for me, her gray wings shaking and her sharp teeth bared.

I dodge her attack, grabbing a dagger from my boot and lashing out at her, but I miss. She cackles as she glides just shy of my blade, and her wings lift her into the air.

A quick glance sideways confirms that one of the children is dead, and Essa is combating the other, chasing her across the dusty ground.

I sheath my dagger and pull out my crossbow from my back holster. I’ve only got one chance at this before she leaves her child behind and flies off into the night.

I steady my footing and nock a bolt. She darts back and forth, almost in a figure-eight fashion.

How am I going to do this?

But then her child cries out in fear, and for just a moment, the mother Harpy lets her guard down, eyes searching for her baby.

I take my chance and release the bolt. It sinks in just to the left of her heart. She wails once she realizes what has happened, and tries to pull the bolt out from her chest.

She’s too late, though. The poison from the bolt has already activated in her blood stream. Her cry is cut off as her body disintegrates, showering ash over us from the sky. I exhale in relief, then Essa’s voice sounds.

“Piper,” she says. I look over to her. The remaining Harpy child is in front of her, eyes wide with fear at the sight of her family’s deaths. She does not run or growl or attempt an attack. She cries. Tears run down her cheeks. Essa eyes me, showing me she’s completely unsure of what to do.

We both just stare at the child. I’ve never seen any Harpy—child or otherwise—cry before. Something like pity moves in my chest, but I know I’m not allowed to feel that.

But there is something I can do.

I walk toward her slowly, ready to strike even though all she does is stare at me with tear-filled eyes.

“Where are the others?” I ask simply. She whimpers, but Essa holds up a readied pistol. She’s old enough to know what that means.

“We left,” she replies. Her voice is light and soft, like cotton candy at a carnival.

“Why?” I continue.

“Mama and Papa don’t—didn’t—like them. We’re different from them.”

“Where are the others?” I repeat forcefully. She sobs, sniffles, then points east.

“That way. That’s where the others live. There are lots of them. Please let me go,” she says. She’s given us all of the information we need.

An encampment is set of east of the Harpy capital. I look at Essa, who returns my gaze pleadingly. She can’t do it. I can tell that much.

I sigh deeply, then rush up to the girl, snapping her neck. I know she’ll only be unconscious for seconds, so I whip out my dagger and slit her throat. She fades away in my arms, her dust carried away by the wind.

After that, there is only silence beyond the crackling fire. I answer before Essa has a chance to ask.

“She didn’t feel anything. She was unconscious.” Still, Essa shivers, holding herself.

“I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry, it was just the look in her eyes,” she murmurs. I stand up and place a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“It’s never easy to kill a child. Even a Harpling,” I confide. She nods as we gather ourselves for the night, but her gaze remains far off into the night sky.

“We’ll sleep here tonight. You take first watch. You never know if there were others,” I say.

I leave Essa to her thoughts as I lie down beside the fire. Secretly, those young eyes are still staring at me, still pleading for me to let her live.

I fall asleep with her delicate voice just bouncing around through my mind.

I stand in the shower until the hot water burns my skin. It’s been so long, and I scrub and scrub and scrub, tears running down my face, blending in with the shower water. I need to cleanse myself of the cell and the experiments. Fat bruises cover my arms from needle-pricks.

Finally alone, the reality of what I’ve been through courses through my mind. I curl up into a ball at the bottom of the shower, letting myself sob. Letting myself get it all out; Asher, imprisonment, the trips, the stings, the dirt… the hopelessness I’ve been feeling this entire time.

Asher’s face springs to my mind, and I remember the warmth of his touch after he found me once, sitting in cold water. How he’d saved me, and continues to save me, even if it’s just the memory of him; the hope of seeing him again.

Finally I turn off the shower and use a bright white towel to dry myself off. The soft texture gently cleans the dead skin away, cleans everything away. I find myself in the bathroom mirror and stare into my own eyes. I am clean. I am strong. I am new.

The room they’ve given me feels like a mansion compared to my cell, and I pull on fresh new clothes: khaki cargos and a plain midnight blue t-shirt. They’ve even left me a pair of flat sneakers. Essa must have done the shopping—everything is to my taste.

Despite my swirling mind, all I want to do is sleep, but as I trudge toward the bed, I notice a thick packet on the bedside table. I flick on the table lamp and grab the packet, laying the files inside out on the bed like a deck of cards.

There are reports, photos, cases—everything I’ve missed while I’d been locked away. A small group of Harpies made it past the dead cities and killed a group of homeless nomads before they were taken down. The news of this, the latest infiltration, went viral, despite the Corp’s every effort to keep it quiet. Shelley’s mischievous grin sprouts in my mind. The Val Halla resistance probably had something to do with that.

After the infiltration, there were riots in Central and some of the other large cities. The Human citizens were frightened and angry. Where were their tax dollars going if not to build the Hunter Division?

That’s when they started the public executions. Hunters were sent out to the Deadlands and the Wasteland to capture rogue Harpies alive, just to bring back to the execution square where the citizens would mill around to watch how the Corp was in control. The thought of it makes me sick.

I flip through cases and cases of rogue Harpies and Gabriel’s rise to take over the throne. More and more the Harpy population is dividing. Many want Gabriel to take over the throne, even if it means the disintegration of years of procedure. His mission is to solidify Harpies as the top of the food chain, as masters of the world. There is a file of its own stuffed with photos of him.

I study these, curious at how similar and yet different he looks compared to Asher. Where Ash is dark, Gabe is fair. He has the same angular face, the same pale skin, and yet he emits so much evil. His bright green eyes bore into me as I stare into them. So many Harpies have rallied behind him; it is actually a possibility that he might overthrow his mother and the rest of the monarchy.

Darcy was nowhere to be seen in any of these files, I notice. Some notes speculate she has returned to the wild, but I can’t be so sure. She was behind Gabe one hundred percent, as far as I knew. Why wouldn’t she be with him, supporting him?

The next file is small and has barely any information in it, and for a moment I think it might have been mistakenly given to me. It’s a copy of a file about the Harpies who opposed Gabe. A short document, it outlines that certain factions have risen, with Harpies who wanted a new way of life, who didn’t want to fight with Humans.

Small tears sprout from my eyes as I read the short document. A group of Harpies have even set up camp miles away from Ehvelar, feasting on wild game instead of Humans, or the occasional volunteer Human, usually old or sick. Deer and bear are more common in the mountains to the north, where the radiation hasn’t spread as much, but are impossible to set up colonies on due to their jagged peaks.

Then a tiny note falls out of the folder, landing on the plush duvet I’m sitting on. My breath catches in my throat. I reach my fingers for it tentatively, somehow knowing that this paper is secret; just for me.

I recognize his handwriting immediately, and my heart pounds in my chest. I read the note again and again, until I have it memorized.

Red. There isn’t time for all I want to say. I am alive. I will wait for you. Every night I fall asleep with you in my mind. There is no goodbye for us. Come back to me.

So short, so simple, and yet the words reach down into my gut and twist them. I hold the paper to my chest, knowing that he touched this, that right now I am closer to him than I have been in so long.

But I can’t stay here forever. A rapping on my door confirms this. I struggle with the files, trying to hide the one I know I’m not meant to look at. I’m about to call out for my visitor to wait for just a moment, but the door swings open, revealing Rupert.

I stare at him from the bed, the note tucked away in the files. His lips part in a smile when he sees me.

“Already to work, I see,” he says. My heart is pounding. I struggle to breathe properly, to not give away my emotions.

“A lot has happened,” I reply. Just this statement strikes me as how much I’ve changed. Normally I would have screamed at him, telling him to get out until I was ready for him to enter. But I don’t have that right anymore. Or maybe I just don’t have that strength.

He looks out the window, where the Holo-sun is setting, fading from bright oranges to deep indigo.

“We have a big event scheduled for tomorrow,” he mentions. I turn my eyes away from the window, keeping my gaze on him.

“Another public execution?” I quip back. He shakes his head, his smile turning from proud to sad.

“You don’t understand, Piper. There are too many Human lives at risk. We can’t let them gain any ground. If they do… then we may all be in serious trouble,” he says. I raise an eyebrow.

“You don’t think this team you’ve amassed can handle it?”

For the first time in a long time he looks at me, really looks at me, and his eyes gleam only truth.

“I don’t know. That all depends on you.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” I retort. He chuckles sardonically.

“It’s true, Piper, whether you want to believe it or not. You’re a valuable asset,” he replies.

“Why? Because you’ve loaded my blood with so many Nano-machines I’m probably not even a Hunter anymore?” I stare at him, keeping my eyes even with his.

“That’s part of it, but there’s so much that you don’t know, that you can’t know. You just have to trust me.”

Trust him? Right, because that’s the most obvious path to travel. All I am is an object to him, an
asset
.

“I’m really tired,” I murmur instead of arguing back. What’s the point anyway? It’s not like I have a choice at this point. Even the resistance isn’t ready for me. I just hope I don’t have to commit any terrible acts before all is said and done. I’m tired of being a killer.

“I get the hint, don’t worry,” Rupert replies, his hands held up as if in surrender. “But I thought I would give you a treat for your good behavior,” he adds.

Despite my disdain for being treated like a dog, I can’t help but me intrigued. I nod at him, urging him to continue.

“Your Harpy is out there somewhere. That much we know. He’s alive, even if no one knows where he is,” Rupert states. My heart flips.

“What do you mean no one knows where he is?” I repeat. Rupert just smiles, knowing he’s caught me in his trap.

“Perhaps with some more good behavior I’ll be able to offer you more little… treats. Does that sound like a good trade?”

I don’t have the energy to reply. He lets himself out of the room and locks me inside. My breathing is heavy as I lie on the bed, trying to process this. Where could he be? How does the Corp even know if he’s alive?

I sit up and rummage through my folders and notes, leaving most of the pages littered along the bed until I find the tiny note. I hold it close to my chest once again. He’s out there. That’s all that’s important.

If he’s out there, I can find him.

I fall asleep with the lights on, holding the paper like my only child.

I am woken by the smallest of sounds. For a moment I forget where I am—why is there so much dust everywhere? Then last night comes into focus, and I remember the Harpy family and the child who I murdered.

I open my eyes slightly, trying to keep my body as still as possible. Essa sleeps soundly beside me. Damn, she didn’t wake me up for my watch. The feeling that someone is watching us pervades me.

Slowly, I reach into my boot for my knife, but before I can even whirl around, the being is upon me, holding me down with a thick wooden pole. My eyes widen. It’s a young girl, her head shaved, her body covered in tattoos.

She’s from the temple; that much I can tell. Based on her tattoos, it seems she’s quite the warrior. And she looks like she wants me dead.

“Who are you?” she demands before I can say or do anything. Essa mumbles beside me, but doesn’t wake up. She must have fallen asleep during her watch. I try to speak, but the girl’s pole is jammed too tight against my throat. Seeing this, she releases it, ever so slightly.

“I’m a Hunter with Elder Corp,” I reply, voice harsh and croaking. She glares. Looks like that was the wrong answer.

“And you are loyal to Rupert Elder?” she says with a sneer. My face feels like it’s going blue from lack of oxygen. I tell myself I don’t really have a choice right now; I have to shake my head, no.

Slowly she backs off, making sure that I don’t run away before she sets me completely free. I lean over and pound Essa on the back. She struggles awake, her first sight the end of the temple girl’s pole.

“If you are Hunters, then how can you work for such a man as Rupert Elder?” the girl asks. Essa looks over at me hopefully, but I have nothing to give back to her.

“We have no choice,” I reply. This much is true, at least. It’s not like we have the ability to choose who our boss is.

“Both of you need to go home to your tunnels. That’s the only place for people like you,” she spits. Essa looks like she’s about to say something back but I wave her off.

“We’ll leave you in peace,” I say.

We gather up our things ensuring all of our weapons are in place before we retreat back to Central. Before we’re over the hill and out of sight, though, a strange feeling runs through me. I stop dead when I reach the apex of the hill.

Temple warriors; at least thirty of them, stand in our path, their weapons—either poles or javelins—ready to strike. I look to Essa, whose eyes are lined with fear.

“We don’t just let Elder Corp Hunters waltz onto our land and leave without questioning. You should know that,” the warrior girl pipes up from behind us.

There’s nothing we can do. They round us up and shackle our hands together with thick leather straps. Thankfully, Essa remains silent. Opening our mouths at this point would only make things much worse… if that were even possible.