The Forsaken (35 page)

We pause when we reach the pipes, standing a few paces away. I hear whooshing noises, like there’s air or water passing through them. I gaze up. The pipes rise about twenty feet into the air at their highest peak.

To get past these pipes, we’re going to have to slide our stiff, wounded bodies through small gaps between some of them, and then climb up others—all the while evading occasional jets of cold air from the pipes’ valves.

I’d take Sisyphus’s task over this,
I think desperately.

I imagine if I could get a bird’s-eye view, the layout of the pipes might make more sense, but from my perspective it almost looks like they’ve grown organically across the landscape. They spread out at different angles, forming a surreal obstacle course.

“What if we get trapped here?” Rika asks. “Stuck between the pipes?”

“Then we’re going to die,” I hear James murmur, sounding resigned.

“Shut your face!” Gadya snaps. “If it wasn’t for Minister Harka and the rest of you loonies, we wouldn’t even be in this place.”

“Quit fighting,” I break in, swallowing my fear. “I’ve been studying the pipes. If we get stuck, we can follow one back to the silver building and then keep looking for another way through the maze.”

“Exactly,” David says. “We just gotta be careful. Don’t touch the pipes with your bare flesh.”

Gadya and I nod, although Rika still looks terrified. James just stands there until he finally nods wanly too. He’s just blindly following our orders now instead of the Monk’s.

I look up, nervously checking the sky for feelers.

“Let’s go,” Markus says.

As a group, we step over the first small duct and cautiously enter the maze of pipes.

There are pipes behind, in front of us, and running over our heads. We duck and crouch to get under them in places. Most are freezing, but I can feel intense heat coming off a few of them.

We make good progress at first, despite our injuries and the temperature. I’m in the lead, narrowly ahead of Gadya and David. I’m starting to think we’ll be through this maze in another minute or so.

Of course, right then I reach a pipe that I can’t circumvent.

It’s huge, about eight feet in diameter, and crusted in places with frost and jagged icicles. Gadya and David crawl out from under the pipe behind me, and we all gaze up at the pipe blocking our way.

There’s no way to pass underneath it because it’s resting right on the ground. And we can’t walk sideways along it because other pipes descend from above and block the path.

Rika, Markus, and James emerge behind us.

I’m still staring at the pipe. “I guess we have to climb over it? Even if we don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“Agreed,” Gadya says.

“I can help everyone up,” Markus declares. “But who’s gonna help me?”

“Once the last person’s on top of the pipe, they can lean down and pull you up,” David points out. “It’s not gonna be easy, though.”

Markus nods. He moves closer to the pipe and kneels, making a cradle for someone’s foot. I step forward first. It was my idea to climb over the pipe. I’m willing to be the one to face whatever’s on the other side.

“Put your foot in my hands and I’ll hoist you up,” Markus instructs. I do what he says. One frozen boot goes into his hand. The other lodges on the side of the pipe, as do my hands. The pipe is freezing, but my gloves and clothes protect my skin.

For a second, I sway there awkwardly. Then I lean forward, clawing my way onto the top of the pipe as Markus pushes my boot up with his hands. I feel the icy thrumming pipe beneath me, the cold instantly penetrating my jacket.

Once I get on top, I try to peer around from my new vantage point, but all I see are more pipes and buildings stretching ahead of us. My stomach sinks. It looks impassable.

I glance back at the curved silver building and see that there might be a way back around to it, if we can get over this pipe and then squeeze under a couple of thinner pipes to our left. We could huddle and regroup there.

I hear Gadya yell, “Hurry up, Alenna!” I look down at the patch of ground I’ll be landing on, and I get into a squat. It’s just icy concrete at the bottom, and I’m going to be coming down hard.

Here goes nothing.
I take a breath and then I jump, pushing off from the pipe with the soles of my feet.

I hit the ground, stagger, and almost fall. But somehow I manage to keep my balance. “I made it!” I call back.

“I’m next!” Gadya yells.

I hustle off to one side, so I’m out of the way when she jumps. Ahead of me, I catch a glimpse of the silver building, stretching onward beyond the pipes. As I keep staring, squinting between the pipes, I think I see some variations in its surface, way in the distance.

It almost looks like there could be a doorway up ahead.

Of course, even if it is a doorway, I know we have a huge struggle ahead of us. How are we going to get the door open? And how are we going to find whatever vehicles brought us to the wheel, let alone hijack one of them? I wonder if Rika knows more than she’s saying.

I almost wish we could turn back around now and get home to the village. With our knowledge, we could assemble a new party for a second expedition—one that might have a better chance of succeeding.

But there’s no way to turn back, even if we wanted to. The frozen lake, now turned into hundreds of icy slabs, would make that impossible. And the undulating barrier would trap us on the wrong side of the gray zone, with no fireworks to help us get through.

So I give up on that idea and keep staring at the silver building, trying to figure out if what I see in the distance really is a door. Or if it’s just wishful thinking. I hear David and Markus start helping Gadya onto the pipe behind me.

“Gadya—” I begin loudly, about to yell back to her about the possible doorway.

But then I hear a distant buzzing sound.

One that strikes dread in my heart.

“No!” I scream at my companions, who are still stuck on the other side of the pipe. “Feeler attack!”

I suppose I knew the feelers would find us again. I hoped they wouldn’t, but the whole time I’ve been afraid of this. Maybe they were just waiting until we got trapped in the pipes, so they could pick us off one by one.

The others hear the sound too, and their desperate screams mingle with the noise of the rotors. Gadya’s head suddenly appears over the pipe, unleashing a litany of curses.

I stare up at the sky, paralyzed. I spot the feeler within half a second. It’s like a distant black helicopter zooming toward us, not even trying to stay hidden in the clouds anymore.

“Gadya, hurry!” I scream. On top of the pipe, she’s the most exposed. If this feeler gets any of us, it’s going to get her. I lunge at the pipe, trying to help pull her down, as I hear another sound. I look up.

A second feeler is behind the first one.

And behind that one is a third.

They’ve lifted off from someplace nearby, and all three are making a beeline toward us.

They must have known we were here all along, I realize. The feelers are probably as vast in numbers as the drones. It doesn’t matter that we tore one of them out of the sky. Our lives must be nothing more than a game to whoever controls the wheel.

I stretch up and grab Gadya’s hands. The whine of the feelers becomes overwhelming as they hover overhead. I pull with all my strength, leaning back, and she slithers over the top of the pipe.

She topples forward onto me, and we tumble back onto the icy ground. My head slams down, making my vision sparkle. I taste copper—I’ve bitten my tongue. The noise of the feelers roars in.

Gadya gets to her feet unsteadily. “I think I sprained my ankle when I landed!” she yells.

I scrabble upward too, reeling with dizziness. Beneath the sounds of the rotors, I still hear screaming on the other side of the pipe.

“Run!” Gadya yells in my face.

“Wait—the others! David!”

She grabs my arm. “No time! They’d want us to keep going.” I pull back, because I’ve seen something she hasn’t—another pair of hands appearing over the top of the pipe. I realize that Markus and David, in the last moments before they’re taken, are trying to heave someone else over. I see that the hands are small. Female. And I know that it’s Rika.

Gadya is still trying to drag me along, even with her sprained ankle, but I yank her shoulder as hard as I can. She doesn’t understand, and she spins around, looking furious.

“It’s Rika!” I yell, pointing at the pipe.

Gadya finally sees her. A look drifts into Gadya’s eyes. It’s the look of a divided soul. She wants to help save her friend. But she also knows that if we all get taken, our entire journey will have been for nothing.

I understand where she’s coming from, but there’s no way I can leave Rika. Not the girl who’s been so kind to me. Who counseled me after Liam’s death. Who probably has the biggest heart of anyone in the village. And, as one of Veidman’s fail-safes, also probably knows more about this city than me and Gadya combined.

“We don’t have a choice!” I yell at Gadya. “We’ve gotta help her!”

For a second, I think Gadya’s going to bail on me and stagger off, squeezing under the pipes to get away. But then her eyes narrow and she yells, “Let’s go for it!”

We both race forward and leap up at the pipe again. By now, the feelers are overhead. I expect their mechanical limbs to wrap around my torso at any second. I won’t have the energy to fight this time. But for some reason that doesn’t happen—maybe because it’s too hard for the tentacles to get a good angle between the pipes.

Rika is sobbing hysterically. Gadya gets a foothold on some ice and manages to climb all the way back onto the pipe, despite her ankle. She grabs one of Rika’s hands. I reach up, trying to grab the other one, but it’s too high.

Gadya starts pulling Rika forward onto our side. We’re being battered by the noise and wind of the rotors. Tentacles finally start slamming down and slapping against the pipes.

I get hold of the arm of Rika’s jacket, and Gadya and I start pulling her over the edge of the pipe. The world contracts to my immediate surroundings as I tune out the noise of the feelers.

But then they start descending all at once.

I manage to grab Rika and pull her down to the ground at the last second, falling next to her with a thump. Two tentacles lash out at the pipe, inches away from us. Rika panics and tries to get up, but I press her head down. “Don’t move!” I yell. “Not yet!” I feel wind whip above my hair as another tentacle whisks past, probing for flesh.

I look up at the pipe and realize that Gadya is still stuck up there from trying to rescue Rika. She’s sprawled across the pipe as a feeler hovers directly above her, the wind from its blades ruffling her hair. I see that the second feeler is just a hundred yards away, moving with horrifying speed and accuracy.

The feeler above the pipe spirals upward for a moment, like it’s trying to see the big picture. I know we can’t stay here. It’ll figure out how to get all of us within seconds, despite the pipes.

“Ready?” I whisper at Rika. “We’re gonna have to run!” She doesn’t answer. But I know she heard me. Time has run out. I glance back at Gadya, catching her eyes. She knows what she has to do.

I burst up, lunging forward, and Rika follows, leaping up from the icy concrete alongside me. I hear Gadya fling herself off the pipe and down onto the ground. I spin around. She’s a few paces behind us, gasping and limping.

“Go!” she yells. “Under the pipes!”

We race for the nearest ones and slide beneath them, slithering through the narrow space under the cold tubes. The tentacles are just a few feet above us, slamming against the pipes and making them rattle.

“We gotta get to the building and find shelter,” I gasp. “I think there’s a door ahead. I’m not sure.” Another tentacle whips past above us. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the boys.

Then we’re on our feet again, running.

I scramble under another pipe, and when I reemerge, I finally see the doorway unobstructed. It’s a large white hatch about a hundred feet ahead in the side of the curved silver building. Tentacles start descending again, their whirring noises loud as they slice through the air like swords. One glances off my shoulder, almost knocking me off balance. I shriek and zigzag.

I can hear Markus and David screaming in the distance, doing battle against the other feelers, trying to buy us time.

I run and slip on patches of ice, attempting to avoid the feeler hovering above us. It seems like its tentacles are everywhere. We leap and stagger over pipes, trying to reach the hatch in the wall. It resembles a door for some kind of airlock.

Of course it won’t be unlocked, I realize. Why would it be? I doubt the people who control this island would be so careless.
And if it’s not unlocked, we’re all going to die.
The only thing that gives me hope is that this entire city is in total disrepair and seems abandoned. Maybe the hatch will just open right up, like the door to some empty tenement back in the UNA. And if it isn’t too cold in this part of the building, we can run inside and hide.

We’re almost there, having successfully navigated the pipes, when I hear a rattling noise behind me, followed by the ear-piercing shriek of a descending feeler. At the same time, I hear Gadya yell.

But when I turn, I see that it’s Rika who’s in trouble.

The feeler has got her, and it’s already pulling her upward, its metal limbs intertwined with hers. The feeler’s spotlight has turned on. Harsh light reflects off the icy pipes and ground, blinding us as its noise deafens us.

“Help!”
Rika cries, pulling against the tentacles encircling her waist and chest.

I turn back and flail at her, beating on the tentacles, trying to keep the monstrous things from taking her. But truthfully, I don’t have any more strength left than Rika does. Everything is happening faster and faster. The tentacles tighten around Rika’s arms and legs, preparing to take her away for good.

“No!” I rail at the feeler. “It’s not fair! Let her go!”