Ruby’s Fire

“I’ll come back to talk another time soon. Would that be okay?”

 

 

“Of course. I’ll need to fit your final leg and,” Dr. Varik turns to me, “Ruby, you’ll need further testing and monitoring. So will your brother, Thorn. Perhaps I can come to the school.”

 

“It’d be best to have privacy here, it’s a delicate matter,” I insist. “Our classmates would press us with too many questions if you visit us.” God forbid every student at The Greening find out what we’re up to, what we’ve become, we’d never hear the end of it.

 

“Yes, of course.” Dr. Varik ushers us to the door. “I’ll talk to Nevada about letting you borrow the glider, come for office visits. Surely she’ll understand.”

 

I’m not so sure at all. Armonk and I leave with only a perfunctory goodbye to Nevada. She’ll have to earn back our trust.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 19

 

 

 

Whatever Dr. Varik said to Nevada after we left did the trick. We’re free to take the glider and go for checkups, and take Thorn too. I could kick myself for not insisting the doctor keep my medical condition secret from her, because she tiptoes around me and gives me long, sorrowful looks fraught with sympathy as if I have the plague.

 

I’m not pathetic, I’m not dying; I’m frying amazing! There’s no need to look at me as if I’m going to disintegrate in the wind. I’m able to climb to the top of the Fireseed stalks in seconds, even the ones that wind way past the tarp holes. I revel in choosing a perch and basking in the sun—but not too long—just a half an hour or so, long enough to fill me with supernatural energy and speed. And all the while the plants hum at me: Pretty Ruby, pretty plant lady. And I hum back: My beautiful star plants, I send you love.

 

Thorn’s getting lean and tan and fleet-footed. In the mornings, he hurries through his chore of sponging off the breakfast dishes and then he charges off to the fields to fertilize the Fireseed with a new compound I concocted.

 

After all, the plants now tell me what they need! Minerals, minerals, minerals from shale, they hum. I go out and pulverize those particular rocks. Well, thanks to George Axiom’s decision to donate a grand rock smasher we now we have an Axiom device that does it faster and in more quantity than I ever could.

 

One day I’m up in the tallest Fireseed stalk when I see Jan round the perimeter of the field on his sentry duty. He’s still a bitter guy, not talking much. He always wears a faint sneer, as if he forever disapproves of what you say or do, or how you look. At least he’s not chasing me! Not like Blane, who I often catch staring at me with a raw, troubled look, even after my scars have made me blessedly flawed. I hardly know what to make of it.

 

I’m in the western quadrant by the field’s edge when I raise my face to the wide gaps in the tarp and soak in solar vitamins. We’ve slashed them wider after realizing how much healthier the Fireseed is that way. The only problem is that now the crops are more visible from passing ships. Everything’s a trade-off, it seems.

 

Jan is marching along the perimeter as he does his sentry rounds. He’s a lean figure in a burnsuit, silver pistol holstered at his side. My eyes are lowered in lazy joy, when I hear a whirring off to my left. A glider has stopped by the field’s edge and the helmeted pilot calls out to Jan. I distinctly hear someone shouting his name. Who is this guy?

 

I jerk upright to full alertness when I realize the vehicle’s color. It’s the pearl blue of the ships from my nightmares.

 

By the way Jan and the pilot gesture sharply with their hands it’s clear that they’ve launched into some type of animated exchange. The man hands Jan something—a flipping of Dominion bills—and Jan points my way. My heart beats hard against my ribs as I duck behind a canopy of leaves. Where could the pilot be from and what business are they conducting? Is Jan giving away contest secrets? Can’t say why but that’s the first thing that crosses my mind. Or, god forbid, it could be one of Stiles’ men.

 

Thorn, Thorn, Thorn, hum the plants. Thorn, Thorn!

 

Reds. Reds, Reds, comes the refrain, and repeats, Reds, Reds, Reds!

 

Squinting at Jan and the pilot, something else catches my eye: a red blur of motion rising from the back of the field—frantic, flapping, driving forward like an arrow from its quiver. The Reds! Not just the one that Thorn’s been caring for but an entire V formation as big as a tent top, making its way toward Jan and the pilot at warp speed.

 

They race through the air and determinedly down. Jan’s arms shoot up to cover his face and he emits a high-pitched scream that has me gasping with shock.