Authors: E.E. Giorgi
Akaela
I barely had time to saddle the
horses and pack some water bottles and blankets before taking off with the
horses. It’s not going to be an easy journey. It doesn’t matter, really. Going
back will be even harder.
If
we ever go back
.
We gallop
past the awakening scavenger droids, still too slow to bother chasing us, and the
first few miles into the gorge are riddled with euphoria. Even Lukas, who’s
been clinging to Athel like a freaked out-chick, gives in to the excitement.
“We made
it!” we scream and burst out in giggles. The bulky silhouettes of the droids
fade in the distance behind a cloud of dust. The horses trot across the narrow
trail inside the gorge, and we tell Athel all about the horrid night spent
inside the Kiva Hall. Lukas claims he never was hallucinating because he was
perfectly aware that the air had been poisoned. Wes instead wants to convince
us that he never left and his chickening out was part of the hallucinations
from the poisonous air. Now that the sun is high and Tahari has turned into a
bad nightmare to forget, we all laugh at our bravado.
The excitement fades too soon. After the
first couple of miles inside the gorge, the horses slow down to a walk. The
terrain is too uneven and rocky for them to even attempt a canter. We pass the
point where just a few days ago I climbed all the way up to the top of the mesa
and then threw myself into the rising winds. I follow the steep incline of
rocks with my eyes and remember the excitement I felt the moment I jumped.
I thought
I’d get to the other side of the mesa, thought I’d see Dad again.
Now, I’m
no longer sure. I squeeze the scrap of metal with Dad’s serial number in my
pocket, my heart aching at the thought of where he could be, what he could be
enduring at this moment.
We’ll bring you back home, Dad. I promise we
will
.
Fast-moving
clouds roll across the stretch of sky framed by the jagged edge of the gorge
and soon cover the sun. Even on a cloudless day, in the harsh and relentless
heat, the bottom of the gorge is always cool. Down here, in the deep recesses
of the rocky mesa, the air is nippy and humid.
The
farther in we get, the greener the steep walls of rock become, covered in moss
and different kinds of crawling weeds. Water trickles down from the top and quietly
drums on rocks and leaves. Kael tracks us from above, his black wingspan silhouetted
against the strip of washed out sky. Strong winds blow up along the edge of the
mesa, and from time to time a gust swirls down across the gorge, howling and
throwing dust in our eyes.
“The
spirits they used to scare us with, when we were little,” Lukas says. “Turns
out, it’s just the wind.”
I rub my
eyes, tears rolling down my cheeks from the last fistful of dry sand blown into
my face. “It sure feels like it has a mind of its own.”
“It’s
getting muddy,” Athel notes, a hint of worry in his voice. He places the reins
in Lukas’s wary hands and dismounts. Kael decides it’s his turn to rest and
settles on the back of Maha’s saddle.
Moisture
soaks the sandy ground of our trail. Tired, the horses slow down as their
hooves sink deep into the mud. I follow Athel’s example and dismount too,
hoping to alleviate the Taeh’s burden. Wes stares at me quizzically but I tell
him to stay, as his titanium blades wouldn’t help him on this kind of terrain.
The kid
nods and sighs. “Funny how a cutting edge tool like mine can become a handicap
in the wrong setting.”
“We’re all
built this way,” Lukas says. Even distressed as he is from the riding, he
doesn’t miss a chance to lecture us. “Our implants are both a gift and a curse,
just like our genes. They crippled us and yet they saved us from the Plague. It
all depends on which way you look at it.”
“I could
never see our implants as a curse,” I retort. “None of us would be here today
if it weren’t for them.” My leather boots sink in mud up to my ankle. I hold
Taeh’s reins and gently guide her along the trail.
“Who
knows,” Lukas says. “Maybe, given enough time, we would’ve evolved into a new
species.”
Athel
snorts. “Hard to evolve into anything when you’ve got dumbasses as leaders.”
A huge
rumble makes us freeze in our steps, including the horses. It rocks the sky and
makes the ground shake, sending handfuls of pebbles tumbling down the walls of
the gorge. Kael freaks out. He spreads his wings, takes off, and perches
himself on one of the high branches a few hundred feet ahead of us.
Athel
looks up at the sky, now completely blanketed in fat, gray clouds. “The hell
was that?”
“Thunder,”
Lukas replies, sliding his satchel off his shoulder and fishing out his data
feeder. “In fact—”
“You’ve
got to be kidding me,” Wes interjects. “I think I’ve gone my entire life
without ever seeing a drop of rain.”
Athel
pulls Maha’s reins. “It’s ok. It hasn’t rained in years and it’s not going to
happen now. Dry thunderstorms are all we get around here.”
“The
lightning is always spectacular to watch,” I say, trying to sound cheerful.
“We do get
dry thunderstorms pretty frequently,” Lukas chimes in. He looks comical with
his data feeder propped against Maha’s neck, one hand clasped around her mane,
and the other desperately trying to type and hold the device at the same time. I
don’t know how, but even as scared as he claims he is of heights, he still
manages to crunch numbers out of his feeder.
“The
weather patterns of the past five years have been pretty stable, with hot dry
summers all year long, cooling off at night and then warming up again in the
middle of the day. This creates the ideal—”
“Lukas,”
Athel snarls. “Your point being?”
Lukas
swallows. “We’ve had an average of one hundred and three-point-five dry
thunderstorms per year over the past decade. And zero rain.”
“Great. So
there you go. All you babies shitting yourselves over some thunder can go back
to sleep.”
I scowl at
my brother’s language. “Athel!”
“What?
We’re not Mayake people anymore. We can do and say whatever we want now.” He
stoops down, picks up a muddy rock and tosses it at the high walls looming over
us.
“I wasn’t
finished,” Lukas objects.
Wes smirks.
“Goodness, let him finish!”
“The fact
that it never rains where we are doesn’t mean it never rains at all. In fact,
eighty-eight percent of dry thunderstorms end up shelling out inches of water
up in the mountains.”
“We’re not
in the mountains,” Athel retorts.
“No. We’re
in a gorge at the foot of the mountains.”
We all
fall silent, our thoughts interrupted by the sloshing of our feet and hooves in
the mud. The trail gets narrower and clogged with shrubs and dead branches.
Maha stops suddenly and bobs her head in distress.
“What is
it, Athel?” I ask.
“Rocks,”
he grunts. “Hidden in the mud. We’ve got to watch the horses, or else they’ll
stumble.”
Lukas closes
his data feeder and drops it back inside his satchel. “At this pace we won’t
get there before nightfall.”
“That’s
perfect,” Athel replies. “You weren’t thinking of breaking into Gaijins’ land
in broad daylight, were you?”
Wes
shudders, as though the realization hasn’t dawned on him yet. “Speaking of
which, you guys have a plan, right?”
“No plan,”
Athel replies. “We wing it.”
The sky
roars again, fast-moving clouds roll over the gorge. Nobody says anything this
time. We plow forward in the mud, Lukas and Wes bobbing their shoulders at the lazy
rhythm of the horses’ pace. Taeh gets stuck and I bend down to ease her hoof
out of the mud.
Water starts
filling the bottom of the gorge. My stomach rumbles with hunger, yet I keep my
mouth shut and say nothing. Soon the horses will be hungry too. What are we
going to eat when night falls?
I know why
Athel snaps so easily at us. He
had
a
plan. Lukas and he had it all worked out. Then I jumped in and ruined it when I
decided to wake him from Wela. Once that was done, there was no more time for
planning, no more time to get organized. We should’ve brought food with us.
Food, and those portable batteries Lukas wanted to build.
I’m so
focused on my thoughts that I miss the fact that Athel and Maha have come to a
complete stop.
“What—”
I protest, and as I look up, I suddenly feel dizzy.
“Sacred
Kawa,” Wes mumbles. “What are we going to do now?”
A huge boulder
is wedged between the gorge walls, completely blocking the way forward. It sits
on top of a huge pile of rocks, probably the result of a recent landslide, as
the rocky incline on the right looks scarred and free of vegetation.
Kael comes
back, his squawks echoing across the gorge’s narrow walls. He flies above the
fallen boulder and lands on a dead tree branch leaning out from the rocks a few
feet above our heads.
We all
stare dumbfounded at the boulder looming over us. Athel squints and, reading
from the inclinometer built into his camera eye, informs us that it’s about ten
feet high. It blocks the opening of the gorge completely and then juts forwards
like a roof, creating a small niche underneath. The four of us could probably
climb over it from the less steep side, but then we’d have to leave the horses
behind. And even though Maha and Taeh would know their way back home, I fear
they’d stay behind waiting for us instead. As I meet Athel’s gaze, I know his
thoughts mirror mine.
He stares
at the boulder and scratches his head. “Maybe we can craft a lever to move it?”
Lukas once again retrieves his data
feeder and thumbs the screen. “That’s going to be tough,” he says.
I can’t
help but wonder what the heck he’s going to squeeze out of his little device.
Maybe an estimate on how long ago the landslide happened?
Like that’s going to help. My leather boots are soaked, my feet cold. Luckily,
neither Athel or I have implants or electronic parts below our knees, but soon
the chilliness of the water will bite into our flesh and wear out the horses,
too.
Athel
drops Maha’s reins and climbs up the pile of rocks obstructing our way. Pebbles
skid under his feet, the terrain brittle and unstable.
“Be careful,”
I shout. The large boulder juts forward in an awfully precarious way. I walk
closer and bend down to check the niche underneath. It’s about four to six feet
deep and doesn’t seem to give way to any open passages underneath.
Just dirt and solid rock.
“I’m
estimating its weight at about half a ton,” Lukas
says,
now back in his own element.
“And that
helps us how?” I snarl.
He looks
down at me from Maha’s back and scowls. “Convincing Athel that getting squashed
by that thing wouldn’t be a great idea. I’m also estimating that we traveled
about ten to twelve miles, so we’re barely over the halfway mark.”
Barely halfway
!
I press a
button on my forearm and check the timestamp on my retina. We’ve been wading
through the gorge all day and, according to Lukas’s calculations, we’re not
even close to the Gaijins’ factory. Soon the sun will be setting. At this pace,
we have another day’s journey ahead of us, unless we keep wading all night through
the slosh.
Or
worse, unless we get stuck in the slosh underneath a half-a-ton boulder.
Athel tries
to wedge his foot in a nook but the brittle terrain crumbles down under his
weight, making him slide all the way back to the bottom. He jumps back on his
feet, his pants torn at the knees.
I heave a
sigh. “That’s not going to help. Besides, the horses can’t climb to the other
side.” I grasp Maha’s reins and move her and Taeh against the rocks, where the
trail slants up and the terrain is drier. Athel and I help Lukas and Wes down
from the horses, the operation both pathetic and hilarious at the same time. We
all pile up on the ground on top of one another. The ridiculousness of the
scene gives us a moment of relief as we all burst in laughter.
It doesn’t
last long. Perched on the brittle rocks, our bums wet, we stare at the boulder blocking
our way and sigh. The temperature inside the gorge has fallen again, and the
humidity raises a wave of goose bumps on my skin. The horses get impatient.
They start bickering, prodding at one another with their noses and teeth. I
move them farther away from the boys and let them graze at the brush growing
along the narrow trail.
“We’re not
going back,” Athel says in his usual Athel-determined voice. He gets back to
his feet and makes a second attempt to climb the boulder. He tries from the
left side this time, where a few shrubs have grown over the landslide and
provide a better foothold.
Lukas
seems to gain some color back now that his feet are well planted on the ground.
He ducks under the boulder and explores the niche underneath it, prodding both
the ground and the ceiling with a stick. When he comes out again, he fishes his
data feeder out of his satchel and taps the screen.