Athel (5 page)

“The
Gaijins will be back with more,” Akari replies. “Surprise is the biggest
factor, and if we can’t—”

“Like I
said,” Hennessy interrupts, “we’re working on it. In the meantime, we need help
from every one of you.” His eyes dart to the crowd around him. He inhales,
puffs up his chest, and says, “As you all know, we Mayakes are struggling with
resources. Ever since the 2189 deadly attack, the Gaijins have kept us under an
iron claw. They send scavenger droids to strip our land of its precious
resources, leaving us to harvest rice and catch fish for survival. We recycle
our prostheses and nanobots and use what we can to get by.”

Hands
hooked on his belt, Hennessy paces and locks eyes with everyone he passes. The
light from the fire shines on the transparent sheath of his sleek robotic legs,
making them look even cooler.

“We’re
tired of the Gaijins’ exploitation,” he says, his statements echoed by nods and
clapping. “We must stop it. This is why I need each one of you to do your
part.” He grabs his son’s arm and lifts it in the air to show us once again the
powerful weapon. “Are you ready to send the Gaijins back home?”

“Yes!” the
crowd shouts in unison.

“Are you
ready to destroy the sniper droids before they destroy us?”

“Yes!”

I roll my
eyes and hop down from the wall. “Bah. I’m leaving. It’s the usual propaganda.”

Lukas
grabs my shirt. “Wait. It’s getting interesting.”

Hennessy
raises a hand to his face, cups his fingers around his left ear and pulls. The
ear slides out of his skull like a drawer, exposing the wiring and electronics
encased within. He plucks out a chip, severs the wires and shows it to the
crowd. “This is what we all need to do tonight. I’m donating my non-vital parts
for our cause. We have a good weapon; we just need to make it better. With the
help of each one of you, it
will
be
better. It will be
invincible
.”

The crowd
roars. People shout, whistle, clap. One by one, they start unbuckling arms,
sliding off hands, and unscrewing feet. A pile of electronics and prosthetics
forms in front of Hennessy.

“No!” I
shout.

I hear my
voice, then the silence that follows. All eyes are on me. I know what they’re
thinking:
How dare he open his mouth
after all that happened just a few weeks ago
? I can tell from the faces
staring at me that nobody has forgotten what I’ve done. Yes, Tahari has lifted
the accusation of stealing raised against me under “exceptional” circumstances,
but once the doubt has been cast, forgiveness is slow to come.

I swallow.
I’ve already lost everything. I may as well speak my mind.

“We’re
going to war because what we have is failing to keep us alive,” I say, ignoring
the slight tremble in my voice. “Depriving us of the little we have left to
make weapons will not help us win the war. It’ll help us lose it faster.”

Hennessy
squints at me. Yuri regards me with spite and says, “We don’t have a choice.”

“Yes, we
do,” I retort. “We have plenty of choices.” I pump my thumb over my shoulder.
“My friend Lukas here has got some amazing brains. If we all put our heads
together, we can come up with clever ideas. Droids can be harvested instead of
destroyed—”

“What?”
Yuri interjects. “Are you nuts?”

“Nobody
takes down droids,” Hennessy says, looking sternly at me. “Those machines are
programmed to kill. And the moment you touch one of them, you ruin the surprise
factor over the Gaijins. They’ll come back for revenge, not just sit back and
wait for us to make a weapon.”
 

A man
steps forward and drops his ears—wires and chips still attached—on
top of the pile. Hennessy smiles and thanks him.

“Why don’t
you toss your robotic legs on the pile, Hennessy?” I ask.

My
challenge triggers quite the reaction. People press around me, shouting and
gesticulating. Wes grabs my shirt and whisks me away before things can get
ugly.

“You
almost gave us away!” Lukas scolds once we’re far away from the masses. “If
they find out we’ve been trying to take down a droid, they’re going to put us
in Niwang.”

“I had to
say something!”

“No, you
didn’t!” Lukas’s face is flushed, his forehead rippled with concern. “We’re
going to prove them wrong, but right now there’s no point in confronting them.
They’ll never listen to minors, let alone ones who’ve been sentenced to Wela
before.”

“Let alone
ones who are complete idiots to begin with,” somebody behind me says.

I turn and
find myself face to face with Metal Jaw. He leans so close I can smell the
metal on his breath. “You saw what my laser beams are able to do,” he says.
“They’re way more powerful than anything you’ve ever imagined.”

I snort.
“They’re dumb, too.”

He grabs
the collar of my shirt and presses his scalding knuckles against my chest.
“Don’t be a smartass with me, Chicken Face. I’m really pissed at your baby sis
right now. Tell that ugly freckle face that if she gets anywhere close to my
brother again, I’ll turn her into crumbs, just like that boulder over there.”

I stare
into his dull, black eyes. The guy’s got nerves talking to me like that after
what he did to my sister. I’m tempted to mention it, except Dottie—that’s
what I call my sister, the only Mayake girl with freckles—hasn’t told
anyone what happened that night when Yuri and Cal destroyed her glider.

“Wow,” I
say, after giving it a good long thought. “My baby sis pissed you off, huh?
That makes me real proud of her!”

The blow
catches me off guard. My head spins, voices bounce inside my skull. When I open
my eyes again, I’m lying on the ground and the world is spinning around me. A
sharp bolt of pain crosses the right side of my face, making me wince.

“The
bastard!” Wes says, sliding an arm around my shoulders and lifting me up.
“Punched you cold like that!”

I massage
my temple and look around. Yuri’s already gone. “You guys didn’t go after him?”

“We wanted
to make sure you were okay,” Wes says.

“Get outta
here,” I groan, pushing him away. Saying that I’m embarrassed would be an
understatement. Luckily, the rest of the crowd is too focused on hailing
Hennessy and his wonderful ideas to pay attention to us.

Lucky for me, and even luckier for that Metal
Jaw sleazebag
.

I replay
his words in my head to make sure I got them right. “He’s mad at Dottie?”

Wes
shrugs. “That’s what he said.”

Great. I
try to play hero for once, and once again my baby sister takes the spotlight.

What the
heck has she done now?

*
 
*
 
*

I tiptoe inside and close the door
behind me, careful not to make it squeak. Our small family room is sunk in
darkness. The fireplace is cold—Mom has already put it out for the night
after cooking dinner.

I slide
off my boots and leave them by the door. Through the open windows waft the
dwindling voices of the Janmad party and the acrid reek of smoke from the
bonfire.

I peek
into the kitchen to make sure Mom hasn’t fallen asleep at the table again. Up
until last week she spent most of the night either on a kitchen chair or in the
family room, claiming that if she went to bed, she’d never want to get up
again. That’s how badly she misses Dad. She spends entire nights crying—I
can hear her sobs through our shared wall. And yet once the sun comes out, she
dries her tears and gets on with her daily chores.

The
kitchen is silent and empty. Kael’s out hunting, and his vacant perch stands
against the window like a black sentinel. I rinse the tray of the bird’s
droppings, careful not to make noise, then quietly shuffle to the bedroom.

 
As soon as he hears me, Ash comes to my
feet and purrs. He and I share the ability to see in the dark—Ash thanks
to his feline eyesight, and me thanks to my bionic eyes equipped with high ISO
sensors.

I pick him
up and rub his neck. He feels warm, probably from snuggling in my sister’s bed.
A quick glance at the lower bunk confirms that Akaela’s there, curled under the
sheets. I think about Yuri’s threats and wonder what happened today that made
her not come to the Janmad festivities.

“You
didn’t wake Dottie up, did you?” I whisper to Ash.

“No.
You
did.” Her voice catches me by
surprise.

I exhale.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

She turns
and squints at me in the darkness. “You know I can’t. How was Janmad?”

Ash mews
and leaps back onto her bed. I climb up to the top bunk and slump on my pillow.
“It was… interesting. Why didn’t you come?”

“Didn’t
feel like it.”

I roll my
eyes. No use tying to prod stuff out of her. “Hennessy gave an interesting
speech. Followed by a demonstration by Metal Jaw.”

Akaela
stirs. “What demonstration?” she asks.

“A little
thing he can now do with his knuckles. Like, shoot laser beams and turn a solid
rock boulder into breadcrumbs.”

I wait for
a reaction but none comes.

“What was
Hennessy’s speech about?” she asks after a moment of silence.

“Well, he
first showed us the most powerful weapon the Mayakes ever made—according
to him, that is.”

“Is it
really that powerful?”

I think
about that. “It’s pretty cool,” I say, swallowing a pang of jealousy. “Shredded
the big boulder that used to sit in the middle of the clearing just outside the
Tower.”

Akaela
swallows hard but says nothing.

“Hennessy
installed it on Metal Jaw.” I massage my cheekbone, still sore from the blow he
gave me. I can’t help but wonder what Dottie has done to make him angry. He’s
cleared away from us for the past few weeks, and wisely so. But the new weapon
must’ve jacked up his ego again. I bet people will start looking up to him,
consider him a hero, even.

“What have
you been doing today, Dottie?”

“Why do
you want to know?”

“Metal Jaw
sends his regards.”

Silence.

“In the
form of a punch to my face.”

Silence,
again.

“Dottie, the
guy’s dangerous. Can you please tell me what you’ve been doing?”

She
snorts. “None of your business.”

That’s how
she’s been with me for the past few days, all smug and snotty. I’d normally
retort some nasty comment, but I’ve got other plans for tonight. I press the
inside of my wrist and check the time. It’s only a few minutes past midnight.
Still plenty of time
. I set my inner
clock to wake me up in two hours, close my eyes, and fall asleep.

Two hours later,
I spring my eyes open and hold my breath, listening for the faintest noises.
Akaela’s breathing is slow and shallow. I exhale a sigh of relief—she’s
asleep. It’ll make things easier. I clamber down the bunk bed and retrieve the
backpack I’ve been hiding between the wall and the headboard. Ash hops down
from Akaela’s bed and brushes his side against my legs.

Old wood
planks squeak under my feet. Akaela lets out a long sigh and turns in her
sleep. I freeze and hold my breath.

Keep calm. Calm and quiet
.

I slide my
backpack on and, as I tiptoe out of the bedroom, little Ash scampers right
behind me. He adores Akaela and follows her everywhere, but I guess tonight
he’d rather go out with me. Except I can’t take him with me. I put on my boots,
pick up the little rascal, and set him on a chair by the fireplace.

“Stay,” I
whisper.

He tilts
his head and yawns.

Good boy
. I take off, careful to
close the door behind me.

Wind howls
up the stairwell. There’s an old cable elevator that connects all sixty floors
of the Tower, but it’s solar powered and it clanks and clangs as the car moves
up and down. The last thing I want to do is wake the whole place up, so I take
the stairs all forty floors down. Pigeons nesting in the cracks of the walls
stir at the sound of my footfalls.

It’s a new
moon tonight, and the glow from the Gaijins’ factory drapes the horizon like a
shroud. The reek from the bonfire still lingers in the air. The grass around
the fire pit is torn and flattened, the Beiji stands empty and covered in white
sheets. I look over my shoulder, make sure nobody’s watching, and then split
toward the stables.

The
gorge—a tall and narrow opening that splits the mesa like a lightning
bolt—looms on the other side of the river. I need Taeh in order to get
there quickly and be back before dawn. The mare is half asleep when I open her
stall but she perks up as soon she sees me retrieve the saddle. I think of
Lukas and Wes, both tucked in bed and deep asleep.

You should’ve told them
, my other
self says.
You should’ve waited for them
.