Light Shaper (42 page)

Or it could be somebody else staking out the place. Tanner was the richest man in Aurora, but he was not the only one with the money or power to hire people to catch Rigel. The government could have sent a military detachment to the compound, or maybe a bounty hunter somewhere had decided to undertake the task and keep the reward money all to himself. Rigel was the most wanted man in the city, after all. The media had made him look like the nemesis of modern civilization, a terrorist with nothing to lose who simply wanted to watch the world burn. Barrow would not have been surprised to see a random do-gooder waiting for them at the end of the path holding a rifle, hoping to rid the world of evil.

He stopped the car. He listened intently as the whine of the motor died away, but the silence around them was nearly absolute. They would go directly on foot. It would be easier to hide if needed, and they were almost at the top anyway. It wasn’t worth it to do it otherwise, and if they were ambushed, Barrow preferred to be standing on his own two feet and holding a gun in either hand to defend himself.

He looked over at Rigel, who was still asleep in his seat. Barrow had not wanted to wake him up since it would have served no purpose, and Rigel needed to rest.

Barrow reached over to touch his face, then stopped himself. He looked at the peaceful expression of Rigel sleeping and fixed it in his mind along with the warm feeling he got simply from being next to him. Last night something had happened. It was a mess in Barrow’s mind, a jumble of conflicting emotions and blurry memories. There was the fire, the fear of losing Rigel, the gunfight, and then Rigel incredibly, impossibly, saving them all like he had done. The one thing that stood out in Barrow’s mind over it all, however, was the way Rigel had reciprocated his kiss. Barrow had acted impulsively, and he was glad he had. Later it had been harder, driving together with him in the dark, trying to muster up the courage to hold his hand and yet fearing the rejection.

It was weird to Barrow, feeling the way he did at the moment. It was not how he usually felt when he was awkwardly cruising, finding an attractive guy he liked, and then both of them leaving together for sex and nothing more. He liked Rigel physically, of course, but in the brief time he had known him Barrow had learned to like much more about the young man. He was smart, he was fun to be around when he was relaxed and not fearing for his life, and most of all he was emotionally strong. Barrow still couldn’t understand how Rigel kept holding on in this impossible situation, going from pampered city boy to warrior in less than a week and not once whining about how unfair life was to have put him in this position. The fact that he had a disability only made it all the more amazing, and Barrow admired him for it. He wished he could be a little more like Rigel, in a way. Strong enough to take an awful thing and not let it break you, like Barrow had almost broken down after his family had died.

Sharing the full story of the fire had been awful, but it had also felt good. Barrow had managed not to cry in front of Rigel, but now in the light of the morning he felt that it would not have diminished him in the other man’s eyes if he had done so. It was strange. He didn’t know Rigel that well, but at the same time he felt that he knew him at a deeper level than he had known anyone else in his life. Maybe… maybe he was in love.

Barrow smiled at the thought, at the rightness of it, and leaned over the seat to kiss Rigel on the lips. Rigel woke up and gave a little start of surprise, but when he saw who it was, he kissed Barrow right back and wrapped his arms around him. The jolt of happiness Barrow felt at that gesture was electric.

“Sorry to wake you up,” Barrow told him. “We’re almost there.”

Rigel smiled. “I’m not sorry you woke me up like that.”

Barrow kissed him again, which took longer than expected, then reluctantly went back to business. “I stopped the car because we’re almost at the top, and I’m not sure if there’s going to be anyone out there waiting for us.”

Rigel’s expression grew troubled, and Barrow felt a little pang of regret at having erased the smile from his face.

“You think there’s going to be something like an ambush?” Rigel asked. “But we took care of all of the assassins back in the slums, didn’t we?”

Barrow nodded. “I don’t know what to expect, Rigel, but I think it will be safer if we go the rest of the way up on foot with guns ready. Makes it easier to hide and also to fight back…. Or to retreat back into the city if we see that it’s impossible to get through.”

“Going back is not an option, Steve,” Rigel said sadly. “At least not for me. If I show my face anywhere back there, someone’s bound to report me to the authorities or shoot me on the street. The slums would be the same thing, only there they would want to sell me out for money like Streaker tried to do. The only thing left for me is to go forward.”

“Fine. Then forward it is.”

“About that, Steve…. I was thinking. You don’t have to go up there with me. It’s not your mission, and after last night I just don’t want to see you get hurt because of me. You can take the car, go back to Zoe, and—”

Barrow held up a hand to silence him. “Let me set one thing straight, Rigel. I’m going with you because I want to. Not because you’re making me, not because I feel I owe you anything, although I do, but because that’s what I want to do. You stand a better chance of succeeding if I go with you, and to be honest you’re not going to get rid of me that easily. You got that? Stop telling me to leave.”

Rigel smiled, and to Barrow the world seemed a little brighter. “I got that.”

“Fine. Then let’s get out of the car and grab our gear. The sooner we get up there, the sooner we’ll know what we’re up against.”

They left after eating some of the food Zoe had packed for them. They kept to the shade as they walked, partly to avoid the searing sun that was almost directly overhead but mostly to stay as far out of sight as possible in case somebody was indeed watching. Barrow was particularly glad to have water. He had never been out in the desert like this, and he had underestimated how hot it would get.

“I wish I had a hat,” Rigel said about ten minutes later. “Is it always this hot?”

“First time out here.”

“But I thought you had traveled all over. Didn’t you, aboard that airship?”

“Sure,” Barrow said, keeping his voice low. “But traveling aboard an air-conditioned ship is nothing like this. I’m used to seeing the desert from above, not walking through it in the middle of the day.”

Rigel was silent after that, apparently concentrating on walking quietly. Barrow followed right behind him with one gun out. The path they were following was getting progressively narrower, the rocky walls on either side decreasing in height the more they advanced up the side of the mesa. It was a steep walk, almost a climb, and before long Barrow was drenched in sweat.

“What is it like out there?” Rigel asked eventually.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean out. Beyond Aurora, out in the world. Is everything just wastelands like they tell you at school?”

“Not everything, but most of it, yeah,” Barrow answered, remembering. “You travel days and days, and the only thing you see below is desert, all the way to the ocean. There are craters big enough for a city to fit in, and for the most part, it’s really lonely. Peaceful, too, I suppose. I’ve heard of people who like the idea of living out in the wilderness so much they set off for a few of the isolated patches of forest to rough it out a few days. They are very rich people for the most part. They book the services of an entire airship to drop them off wherever they want, their gear and everything. I think some have even tried to start real settlements, but they never last. As far as I know, it’s impossible to survive outside the Havens.”

“That’s sad. Maybe that’s why so many people like Otherlife so much. Don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it, Steve. Most of us spend our entire lives in this one place, never seeing any of the world because there isn’t anything to see. I think that’s why it’s so appealing, and I think that if none of this had happened and I would’ve accepted to work for CradleCorp, I would have been able to do something worthwhile. Atlas was helping me build real environments. Can you imagine? To actually be able to go anywhere in the old world that you wanted to go and for it to feel like the real thing?”

“I would’ve liked to try it.”

Rigel stopped and looked back at him with a little smile. “Really?”

“Sure.”

“Where would you have gone? If you could go anywhere in the world. Where would you go?”

“Scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef,” Steve answered immediately.

Rigel blinked. “Wow, that’s pretty specific.”

Barrow shrugged. “I’ve flown over the ocean, but I’ve never been in the ocean. I’ve seen plenty of documentaries on scuba diving, and I think I would like to try that.”

Rigel nodded thoughtfully. “An underwater environment. I had never even thought about painting that, but it shouldn’t be too hard….” Then he laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing. It’s just that here I am, planning an entire set of paintings, but I know perfectly well that I’ll never go back to my old career as an artist. It’s weird, sometimes. Like I forget the situation for a little bit, you know? And it’s like nothing has changed in my life, but then I remember, and of course everything is different.”

“I know exactly how you feel,” Barrow told him. “It will happen less and less over time. Eventually you’ll only feel like that when you wake up in the morning, sometimes. Later, not even then.”

“Was it the way it was for you?” Rigel asked. “After the… after the fire?”

“Pretty much.”

They fell silent then because they were reaching the end of the covered path. Barrow signaled to Rigel to crouch down low for the last few meters, hugging the tiny rock wall that was their only cover. They crawled forward a little at a time, careful not to make any noise. Their cover eventually ran out, though, and they were forced to walk out onto the top of the mesa, out in the open and completely exposed.

There was nobody there.

“Great,” Rigel grumbled. “We could’ve driven all the way up here, and we wouldn’t be on the verge of suffering from heatstroke.”

Barrow put his hand on Rigel’s shoulder and with the other one brought his index finger to his lips. Rigel stopped talking at once.

At first glance the place looked desolate and empty. It was a wind-blasted surface of bare rock that rose nearly a hundred meters over the desert terrain below, offering a spectacular view of the empty desolation that surrounded the city of Aurora. The entire place was a sandy mixture of beige and terra-cotta tones, with nothing green in sight and the immense light blue sky above them, merciless and unblemished by the smallest cloud. The sun was beating down straight on them now, and it felt as hot as an engine room working at full blast, only worse because the heat was everywhere. It was coming down from the sky, reflecting off the rocks and sand, seemingly hanging in the still, dry air. Belatedly, Barrow noticed his shirt was dry again, even though he was still sweating. He touched the top of his head, and his hair felt like it were on fire. Without water and shade, people would be unable to survive in this hostile environment for more than a few hours. At most.

And yet they appeared to be the only ones there. There were vehicle tracks all over the place, some apparently quite recent, but there were no vehicles outside the perimeter of the military compound. There was nowhere to hide, either. The entire surface of the mesa was flat, and only the squat grouping of crumbling buildings at the far end offered a place for concealment.

It made Barrow uneasy, but they were already up here, and there was no going back, so he started forward cautiously, walking in the direction of the security perimeter ringing the site. He had expected at least a small group of people waiting for them looking for a fight, perhaps even a small encampment that would be easy to make out among the ruins. There was none of that, and Barrow had the sinking feeling they were walking straight into a trap. After all, if whoever had been sent here was smart enough to hide all traces of their arrival, then it would be almost certain that they would be hiding inside one of the buildings, waiting for the right moment to come out and rain bullets down on the two of them. If that happened, they were essentially defenseless.

They walked all the way up to the dilapidated metal fence that had perhaps been an imposing barrier at one point but now hung in tatters, crushed and riddled with holes everywhere. Off to the side of the main entrance to the compound, a barely recognizable sign still stood, bent and dented and reading
Haven III
. Next to it, on the outer side of the fence, a surprisingly intact little station still stood. It looked like a security station, the kind where a single guard would fit to wave passing vehicles through. Three of its walls were thick and opaque, and the fourth one had a large window facing out into the road leading into the compound. Barrow checked it out quickly, but there was nobody inside.

“Let me go in first,” Barrow told Rigel, pointing at the buildings beyond. “I’ll scout out the area and come back as quickly as I can.”

“No way. I’m not staying out here alone.”

“Rigel, it could be a trap. If they are hiding inside one of the buildings, then they will open fire as soon as they see me. If that happens and we are together, then they have gotten the two of us. If you’re out here, however, then you can run for it, go back to the car, and try and get away. It makes the most sense. You can hide inside this station so they don’t see you.”

“If we go in together it will be two of us scouting out for trouble,” Rigel countered. “And two guns at the ready.”

“Rigel, I’m not going to argue with you. I’m expendable in this. You are not. I think you’re special. You said Atlas chose you for this mission for an important reason, and besides it’s you they want, not me. They might not even kill me immediately if they see me. They might try to capture me and get me to tell them where you are.”