So why is Emery back here doing scavenging work?
I think briefly, though my curiosity is soon eclipsed by one glowing thought: Mica. He’s already passed his secondary examinations, an achievement most kids don’t hit until they’re much older. Under the right circumstances, and with the right resources, he might actually have the smarts to make it up top. Our circumstances have never been right, though—not until now.
I can see Mica shutting the apartment door behind him, bags slung over his shoulders, the two of us marching toward the Skyline Transfer together. I see him, sitting at a tiny table in a tiny room with real, sky-grown food on his plate—the kind of stuff we’ve only ever seen on TV: colorful fruits and vegetables that have actual names instead of coded numbers stamped onto their labels.
It would be the chance for a real life for Mica—a life in which his potential wouldn’t be wasted as a scav or recycling plant laborer down here. One where he’d have the education to become more than some self-important skydweller’s personal slave once he got up top. And me, well, I’d find something to do down here while he was gone.
I can only let my imagination run away for so long before I have to shake myself back to reality. How much steel am I honestly talking about here? Skyline Transfer tickets cost hundreds of credits, and who knows how much more he would need once he got up there. I suddenly realize I might have already landed on the reason for Emery’s premature return.
Even if Mica were able to obtain a scholarship, logic tells me that what it takes to live up there is a hell of a lot more than what it takes to survive down here. For the first time, it occurs to me that even if my payout really were some sort of computer-generated glitch, they might not care enough to fix it. Maybe this much steel is chump change to the Tribunal. The thought puts a sour taste in my mouth.
If I want even a chance of making this happen for Mica, I need more. We need more.
I bolt upright. The other scavs will be riotous if they find out that I’ve broken the unwritten rule and tried to collect less than a week after a huge payout. It’s as bad as stealing in these parts. But if I could just sneak out and get back without anyone seeing me, I could simply sit on my findings until Collection Day rolls around.
I contemplate waiting a while, to give the hysteria time to die down a bit. Hardly anyone ever scavenges in the Dead Woods, so there’s a fair chance that anything similar to my little machine will stay untouched. But I can’t count on that. Has Mal already pieced it together that I had not, in fact, come from the Southern Plains that day, like I said? What about one of our eavesdroppers? No; if there’s anything else out there like my machine, I need to go now, before anyone else goes looking.
I whip myself out of bed as quickly as I can without waking Mica. Tying my hair back in a tight ponytail, I shimmy into an old pair of dark cargos and zip my jacket over a threadbare t-shirt. It’s a risk to venture out so soon after the rain, so I want to make sure my skin is well covered. I pull a pair of gloves out of a drawer and shove them into my pocket.
I tiptoe out of my bedroom and dart over to the kitchen table with my boots gripped tightly in one hand. A glance in the direction of Mica’s room reveals his door still ajar in its standard position. The thought that he still won’t close it, as mad as he is at me, simultaneously warms and wrenches my heart.
I reach over to unhook my bag from its usual resting place but pause before removing it. The electric blue sack, while great for avoiding being run over in the dark, is definitely unfit for secret excursions. I look around for an alternative and, through his half-open door, I notice Mica’s worn black backpack hanging from the back of his desk chair.
I creep in, tossing a furtive glance at his snoring form: hair sticking up on one side, a growing drool spot on his pillow. I quietly pull out the contents of his bag: two textbooks, a notebook, some pens, and a handful of comic books. I smile as I peek at the cover of one of the comics—a giant, floating alien waving its tentacles as it descends on a green planet—before stalking back out of the room. I’ll be back long before Mica wakes up and notices I’ve taken his bag.
I take a canteen out of the fridge and toss it into the bag, along with a small flashlight. With one strap slung over my shoulder and my boots still in my hand, I steal out the front door and close it behind me as gently as possible.
I quickly tiptoe down the stairs. The air outside is brisk and still. There is no movement on the street. I quickly bend over to put on my shoes, sheltered under the apartment building’s awning, and inspect the area around me. Most of the ground seems dry enough to walk on, though I can still see a few steaming puddles that have collected where the gravel is uneven. Easy enough to avoid. I take a deep breath and silently hopscotch across the road in the moonlight.
The route to the southern wall takes three times longer than usual. With every other step, I find myself looking behind me, but by the time I finally reach the wall, I’m confident I haven’t been followed. I pull the gloves out of my pocket and put them on to protect myself against any residual water that has pooled in the wall’s cracks, then begin to climb. As I scramble up, the moonlight casts an eerie glow on the black brick, making me feel uncomfortably visible. My anxiety level is high as I reach the top, and I climb down the other side without checking the ground below. My boot lands in a shallow puddle of rainwater, splashing up a cascade of droplets that land on the arms of my jacket with a sizzle.
“Augh!” I yell out, then bite my lip and mentally curse myself for making noise. I leap out of the puddle and instinctively wipe down my arms with my gloved hands. Drawing a deep breath, I survey the damage. Fortunately, the thick soles of my new boots seem virtually unscathed, and there are only a few light scorch marks on the sleeves of my jacket. My gloves, on the other hand, are completely shredded.
“Well, those were a good investment,” I mutter under my breath, peeling off what remains of the gloves and inspecting the pink skin on my palms. My hands feel a little raw, but they don’t actively hurt. It appears the still-smoking material of the gloves absorbed most of the damage from climbing. I toss them into the puddle and offer up a sarcastic salute as they disintegrate, leaving nothing but decorative metal studs floating on the surface. Hopefully the rain will have evaporated by the time I return, or climbing back over the wall won’t be much fun.
I tighten the straps on Mica’s backpack and stride off. By the time I reach the Dead Woods, the ground is mostly dry. I pick up my pace, jogging through the brush until I’m back at the fallen trunk. I take a long swig of water and survey the area. It’s been less than a week since I was here, but it feels like eons have passed.
I pull the flashlight out of the backpack and, with my eyes to the ground, feverishly begin my search. I trace a path that spiders through the tightly knit trees out from where I found the machine. I head in one direction, then, after a few dozen feet, retrace my steps and start over at a different angle. It isn’t long before the tedium gets to me, though, and soon I’m forging forward indefinitely in one direction.
Sweat gathers on the back of my neck as I check underneath tree roots and paw at the dirt with the tip of my boot, finding nothing but newly fallen bits of scrap metal. Every now and then I stop to snatch up an errant bolt or length of wire, unable to ignore the practiced scavenger in me.
I am so caught up in my search that I don’t notice the sky’s transition from black to increasingly light gray. With its slow brightening, I start to see beyond the immediate circumference of my flashlight’s beam and it invigorates my search. After a while, thirst convinces me to look up. The trees have begun to thin out, and I can just make out the hazy outline of the District ruins in the distance. I’ve ventured so deep into the woods that I’m almost out the other side. This is unfamiliar territory.
I mentally calculate how far I must have come and, consequently, how long it will take me to get back. The answer makes me stop short and, in doing so, my boot catches on the edge of a large rock. I move to steady myself on the nearest tree but miss, falling forward. I reach out to catch myself with my hands and end up skidding forward. My palms burn as they run over the rough ground.
My breath hisses through clenched teeth as I roll myself onto my back, crushing the backpack underneath me before I sit up. I slip it off and lean against the tree I had been reaching for when I fell. Wincing slightly, I hold my hands out in front of me and flex them a few times. I haven’t broken the skin, but they still smart. I tilt my head back against the tree trunk and stare up at the sky. What had I honestly expected to find? It’s almost daylight, I’m miles away from town, and all I have to show for my efforts are skinned hands and a few measly generics. There will be no avoiding the morning scavs by the time I get back, which means I’m in for some serious verbal thrashing at best. I don’t want to think of what “at worst” might be.
I sigh and gently knock the back of my head against the hard trunk. I need to go back, but I can’t bring myself to get up just yet. I pull out the canteen again and gulp down half of my water, staring out into the landscape. Beyond the last few trees, the hazy fog is evaporating; gray-tinged morning light illuminates the ruined metropolis that lies beyond the woods. I stare at the deteriorated silhouette of the District—just one of thousands of once-great cities that have been turned into decaying shrines, or tombs. Forever reminding us of the Skyfall.
Nobody really knows why the city of Intheria, the bastion of scientific research and medical knowledge, fell from the sky centuries ago. And, as if the tragedy of tens of thousands of deaths wasn’t horrific enough, something else was unleashed when the great city fell. Nobody knows exactly how the plague was created either; only that it was. Some say that scientists grew it in a lab. To this day, the religious folk insist it was sent down from God. Punishment for the sins of humanity and all.
The plague spread like wildfire. The major cities were the first to go, but before long the disease made its way to the smaller ones. After that, they tried to isolate the contamination to the groundworld, but eventually it hit the skycities, too. Millions succumbed. Those who might have been able to help had perished when Intheria fell, and historians conjecture that any antidote or cure was lost with them.
Within the year, Earth’s population was decimated. Our great global civilization had been reduced to ashes. No survivor’s story was exactly the same: some had fled far and fast enough to outrun it, some were too secluded to have ever been at risk, and some, miraculously, were simply unaffected. The religious folk really go nuts over that last one.
Eventually, those who survived began to rebuild. With the government of old collapsed, the Tribunal took control and declared themselves our leaders; their progeny still lead us today. The skycities were temporarily evacuated so they could be cleansed, with skydwellers begrudgingly moving into ground settlements they would later abandon. Meanwhile, the infected areas on the ground were simply cordoned off and quarantined.
Urban survivors became refugees, forced to leave everything behind. Homes and belongings were automatically condemned as contaminated and, thus, quarantined as well. Occasionally someone would cross the quarantine line in an attempt to recover their belongings, which landed them in observation for weeks to ensure they showed no signs of infection. Isolation, observation, decontamination. That was the drill. That is, assuming they didn’t end up dead first.
Survivors who still had money or connections ultimately returned to the sky while the rest banded together down here. The Tribunal restored what technology they could, and gave us terrestrials our role to play: sustaining what few resources we had left. And we’re still here salvaging, scavenging, and recycling.
It’s been centuries since the Skyfall, but the Tribunal still keeps an active quarantine on all the old major city sites. They say that the plague is still a threat—dormant but looming. I’m not sure how much of that I believe, since as time has gone on, the enforcement of the quarantine has loosened. The occasional crossing does happen, and it never seems like a big deal. The Tribunal videos we were shown in school said that the disease was spread through contact, so as long as we don’t touch anything inside the quarantine line, we’re fine. But we never forget the risk.
Huh, guess all that schooling wasn’t totally lost on me,
I think, tearing my eyes away from the city’s silhouette. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, willing myself to get up. I brace myself against the tree and attempt to stand without the aid of my hands. Stumbling upward, I begin to tilt to the right. I grit my teeth and grasp the rough bark behind me with my left palm. A low curse leaves my lips as my sore palm meets the bark.
“Now, now, little girl.” A deep voice emerges from the shadows behind me. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you to watch your language?”
Chapter 5
I freeze.
The crunch of multiple footsteps sounds in my ears, and I know the unseen speaker is not alone. With achingly slow speed, I bend my knees to pick up my bag and pivot in the direction of the voice. Three huge men stand about a yard in front of me, lined up in a row. All three of them sport shaved heads, making them almost indistinguishable from one another, save for their differing skin tones. Their long brown coats hang open, revealing bare chests covered with tattoos that creep from below their waistlines all the way up to their chins.
Raiders.
The man in the middle has a chain of thick golden links hanging around his throat. As I watch it bounce against his dark chest, I realize I’ve never actually seen raiders up close before. All that time spent thinking about Lee’s final moments, what his murderers had looked like. Turns out I had it pictured all wrong.
How did I not hear them coming?
I always hear them coming.
My heart begins pounding in my chest and my breathing quickens. I tighten my grip around the backpack, feeling my pulse radiate through my still-raw palm. It’s not to protect anything of real value inside, but to stop my hand from shaking. The man in the middle appraises me with dark eyes. Smirking, he draws one hand up to his face and rests his thumb and fingers on either side of his chin. The back of his hand is branded with a word, one letter inked on each knuckle, but I can’t make it out.