“Very badly!” I tell him about my hope to win the prize money in order to rescue my friends and mother from the cult—that’s how I think of it now. “I’ll buy a shiny blue house in Vegas-by-the-Sea and move them all in. We’ll get blue dishes and blue tablecloths and eat blue crabs. Ha! What would you do with the money?”
“Help my sector dig wells. Black Hills has no more drinking water, and most can’t afford enough water pellets. My mom said that George Axiom used to be in the oil business before the border wars. He knows drilling. George Axiom could drill incredibly deep wells that may still actually hit water.” Armonk sighs wearily. “I’d also pay for my mother to get better medical help. She has bad breathing problems, we’re not even sure what it is.”
“That’s terrible,” I say.
“I hope Dr. Varik comes soon.” Armonk adjusts his leg. “So many people need him here.”
I’d like to ask the doctor about the humming in my head, whether it means I’m going insane. And about the strange greenish tint on my bite wound, plus my eating problem, or should I say non-eating problem? I examine the scar. Whatever it was, it’s healed normally. “I should ask him a few things myself,” I say.
Armonk looks over at me. “You’re getting awfully skinny. You could use a check up.”
I hug myself, embarrassed. “I hoped no one would notice. I’m never hungry,” I admit.
“Really? Nevada has such good food at The Greening.”
“Have you spoken to Dr. Varik recently?”
“Sorry to say, I’ve lost touch.”
My gut sinks, and then rises, with an idea. “Let’s ask if anyone’s heard of Dr. Varik at Skull’s Wrath Depot. They’d know of any news, any new residents.”
“Quick thinking, you’re—”
Just then, we hear the whirring of a lowlying hovercraft, as if it’s landing on the roof of this cockeyed house. In a panic, I run toward the door. As I do, I catch my pants leg on a broken doorframe, and go flying, headfirst. My forearm cuts against a sharp edge of a metal scrap, buried in the sand. I brush myself off and spit out a mouthful of grit.
Outside, whatever hovercraft was overhead has zipped away. How is that possible, when it was so incredibly loud only a few seconds ago?
As Armonk and I exchange mystified glances, Blane’s words when he told me about the time he saw that pearl blue hovercraft flit through my mind: when I didn’t answer the guy’s question, his ship disappeared into thin air.
My arm is smarting. I turn it over gingerly to survey the damage, and gasp. It’s not bleeding red—rather some thin, greenish liquid. My insides freeze. “Armonk, I need to find that doctor now.”
He rushes over. His pale, frightened expression tells me he agrees.
Chapter 18
When we reach the depot, we hurriedly shop and pay, stuffing the sea beets and other groceries in our reusable bags: a sack of grains, jug of oil, sea potatoes, a hefty bundle of northern kale, a new sponge, and of course, two-dozen Axiom Blue Water pellets.
Then we prepare to ask the proprietor our questions. She’s a gargantuan woman in a thick, grey burnsuit with a tattoo of a rock formation on her left forearm. She pulls her burn mask down to get a better look at us. “Ain’t seen you ‘round these parts.”
“No, we only moved to The Greening a couple of months ago,” Armonk says.
“Ah, yes, I know Ms. Pilgrim. Now, what’d you want to ask me?”
“Have you heard word of a Dr. Varik Teitur moving down this way, or news of a clinic being built?” I ask. “Anything?”
I’ve bandaged my cut with a twist of cloth from Nevada’s glove compartment, and the depot lady eyes it. “Calm yourself,” she says, “no reason to get in a flurry, it’ll make you sick and then you’ll really need a doctor.” She laughs at her own dubious joke.
“Well, have you?” Armonk asks impatiently.
The depot lady rests her trunk-like arms on the counter. “Seems to me I did hear of a clinic being built by a crew that comes here looking for work.”
“Yes?” My heart pings.
“They’s mighty happy to have the work. Seems that this man has some deep pockets, you get my sand drift?”
“Sure!” I laugh for good measure. “Which direction is it from here?”
“Well, now …” She eyes our clothes, as if to see how expensive they are. “Depends on if you have, uh, compensation for a poor ole gal, alone and raising five hungry sons.”
Armonk and I exchange looks in an unspoken awareness that she’s likely lying through her teeth—that is, the few she has left. If she owns this depot, she’s pulling in all kinds of cash. But we need to play along. Armonk paws out the rest of Nevada’s shopping money. We’ve been frugal so there’s almost a third left for another shopping expedition.