30.
Only sand and betrayal existed.
The desert landscape repeated endlessly, as did my tortured thoughts about my not-so-great—and not-so-missing—father.
Tall plants with strange limbs dotted the horizon. The arms grew at funky angles with sharp spikes covering every inch. They stood guard, protecting an unknown secret of the barren wasteland. The sun beat down on me until I poured with sweat.
“Jag,” I panted. “I have to stop.” I fell to my knees, gasping for air. Thankfully, Jag seemed just as winded.
“Okay,” he said. “But only for a sec. One drink.” He pulled off his backpack, revealing sweat stains where the straps had been. He produced a bottle of water and drank the whole thing. He handed one to me and I copied him, slopping a good part of it down the front of my shirt.
Jag took out another bottle and dumped half of it over his head and then did the same to me. The warm water cooled my skin, which felt like fire.
“Let’s go,” he said, repacking his bag and standing up. “Oh, your arms.”
The T-shirt I wore left most of my arms exposed. I touched the bright pink flesh on my forearm. It hurt. Maybe the covering clothes were a good idea too.
Jag rifled all the way to the bottom of his pack. “Here, babe. Put this on. You might be hot, but it’s better than burnt.” He tossed me the long-sleeved prison shirt.
“I thought they took all our stuff away.” I pulled the shirt over my head, waiting for an explanation. A look of supreme annoyance flashed across his face, like we didn’t have time to talk about this. “Well?”
“Pace got it all,” Jag said. “Food and everything. Let’s go. There’s a stream at the bluff, and some trees we can take cover in. Thane can’t arrest us once we cross the gorge into the demilitarized zone.” Lines of worry appeared around his eyes. “Come on, we’ve still got a long way to go.”
I suppressed my questions about the treaties and how Pace had the authority to get our stuff back. Better to be confused than caught.
And so I ran.
Somehow my lungs kept working, but every muscle complained. I’m sure I slowed Jag down, but he never said anything and matched my (s)low-class pace.
The crooked-armed trees and reddish sand blurred together until I could have passed the bluffs without noticing. Finally I fell down and couldn’t get up again. Jag said something about going over the next hill to scout ahead. I think I grunted before he left.
I prayed the outcropping of rocks was nearby and that I would have the strength to get there.
“The cliffs are another mile or two,” Jag said, collapsing next to me. “We can make it by full dark.”
My voice scraped through my throat in an animal growl. That’s Vi-talk for Okay, but then I’m sleeping and you can’t make me take another step.
Jag smiled as he helped me stand up. “I know, babe. We’ll sleep when we get there.” He took out the weapon phones and handed me one. “But we have a welcoming committee.”
I sighed. “Wonderful.”
Halfway up the dirt swell, he crouched and slithered on his stomach, pushing with his feet and clawing with his hands. I copied him, feeling like an idiot. But the intense techtricity drowned out the embarrassment.
“Tech,” I whispered. “Tons of it.”
“Who’s in control?”
We reached the top, and I blinked back the white spots caused by the tech buzz. In the distance, orange cliffs stretched into the sky. A golden flicker of fire licked at the base, just before a dense stand of trees—and water. My mouth grew even drier.
I focused on the glow of the fire and found the minds of the people crowded around it. “Greenies,” I whispered, relieved to feel that my dad wasn’t there. “Mechs too.”
“What do we do?” Jag asked.
“Well, I think I can power down the Mechs.” I closed my eyes and extended my mind across the sand. “There’re maybe . . . twenty of them. High-class ones that require decoders, but, well, I’m pretty sure I can do it without the code.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you can too.”
A flicker of irritation sparked in my mind. I wished he would’ve told me about my talents a long time ago. I sure could have used that information to cross the border.
“Earth to Vi. Come on, babe. Stop blaming me for everything.”
I took a deep breath to quiet the perfect comeback.
“Twenty Mechs present a lot of problems,” Jag continued. “We can’t have them following us into the desert. They never stop; the sun doesn’t bother them. And, technically, they’re immune from the treaties. Man, I hate Mechs. How many Greenies?”
I still needed a course on what the treaties entailed. Seemed to me that if Mechs could enter the desert, then it wasn’t safe.
“I’ll explain later,” Jag said. “How many Greenies?”
Anger smoldered through my veins. I hated how he was inside my head, listening.
“Vi, how many Greenies?” He didn’t sound sorry.
“Ten,” I said, swallowing another insult. “Five men, five women.”
“That’s nothing. Why so few? Hmm, maybe they think we won’t fight back. Weird.”
“Jag, everything is weird to me, including every damn thing you just said.” Yeah, the biting-my-tongue-thing only happens once in a lifetime, and I’d just used my quota.
He shrugged in response, which pissed me off even more.
“Okay, here’s what we can do,” Jag said, rolling over and staring at the sky. “Option number one: stay here and wait until morning so we can see better. That sucks. Forget that as option number one. New option number one: Get as close as we can, turn off all the Mechs, and fight the ten people.” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “Option number two: Get as close as we can, listen to see what their plans are, and then act at the best time. Hell, that sucks too. Okay, option number three: Well, I don’t really have an option number three.” He looked at me, like I was supposed to ramble on to myself about insane options too.
“Okay, why don’t we just start west now?”
Jag sat up and rubbed sand out of his hair. “The road goes straight west from the bluff. There is no other way.”
Why couldn’t we just walk up like we didn’t know they were there, turn off the Mechs, and tase everyone else? Maybe use those bio-canisters I’d taken. Jag could just tell them to sit down or something. I mean, the guy has voice control.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Jag said, standing up.
I grabbed his pant leg and pulled hard. He fell, sending sand into my eyes and mouth. I coughed and spit. “Wait just a minute. Do what? I didn’t say anything.”
His eyes betrayed him—the guy could do a lot more than simply feel emotions.
I punched him, hard. In the shoulder—because I’m partial to his face. “I’m so sick of you reading my thoughts like they’re your personal journal.”
“I don’t—”
“Shut up. Just shut up! Don’t you realize that’s what Thinkers do? Read my thoughts? Get inside my head?” Fury and frustration combined with exhaustion and sparked behind my eyes in a beam of crimson light. “Since you’re so fond of plans, here’s mine: You leave me the hell alone. I’ll get to Seaside on my own.” I stood and marched over the hill, scanning for cover as I went. Stupid, stupid guy. Just because he could didn’t mean he had the right to read my every thought.
Now that I’d let the anger out, it consumed me, driving all rational thought away. Only fury existed. Every injustice of my life piled up until I was pissed at the world—and determined to do something about it.
I slipped behind a plant and got a little too close. One of the spikes stabbed me in the back. I stifled a cry as an idea formed in my mind. Using tech this close would alert the Greenies . . .
I pulled out a bio-cylinder and stabbed it into the flesh of the plant. The explosion puffed out a cloud of dense smoke. The plant shook and white flowers descended from above. Several spines smoldered and fell off.
The Greenies gathered, looking toward me. Dashing to the next plant, the tech from the Mechs nearly blinded me. I closed my eyes and concentrated. I took out my phone just to be ready. I deactivated all twenty Mechs simply by telling them to power down. I imagined how still they stood, how quiet the night would be without their whirrings.
And what I thought came true.
That really got a rise out of the Greenies. Their shouts of concern could be heard from my position at least a half mile away.
There’s nothing wrong. Violet isn’t coming tonight. Thane arrived in time, and he apprehended her. I thought this, I thought it hard, sending it to each Greenie. As one, they turned away from the open desert and took a seat around the fire.
I squashed the rising nausea and snuck from plant to plant, careful to avoid being impaled by the spikes. The silhouettes of the Mechs shone silver in the firelight. I shivered. The sight of twenty high-class robots—that I’d made still, silent, dead—gave me some serious creeps.
The cool air pierced the thin fabric of my shirt and kissed my sunburned skin, making me hot and cold at the same time. My head throbbed with the effort it had taken to deactivate the Mechs and brainwash the Greenies. My own thoughts, what I was capable of, tortured me. The landscape swayed, and I threw up.
A hand touched my shoulder. I spun and fired the taser. Jag flew backward into the sand, arms and legs sprawled, eyes closed.
I swear I didn’t know it was him.