Divided Worlds Trilogy 01 - Disconnect (4 page)

The girl ran to the underside of her home.

What did she want to talk to him about? Did she know that Zachary had found her Intercom? How would she know that? Should he tell her?

To his side, the area around the cracked hull was busy. The path to the ship was clear, and nobody knew he was here. Five minutes and he’d be back in his comfy seat. Even though he’d been caught out by this girl, there wasn’t an immediate risk to his safety. Instinct churned Zachary’s stomach. He walked under her home, studying the connective-joints without a trace of rust visible. Standing beside a black screen attached to a wide pillar, she gestured to him to stand ahead of her.

“I’m Zachary,” he said, shuffling his feet at the called-for spot.

“I didn’t ask,” snapped the girl. “Activate.”

A thud fizzled above his head, then a dark shade materialised around him. He didn’t have to think hard to realise that she’d led him into a trap. “Hey – let me out of here.”

“Not until you’ve answered some questions, trespasser.”

Zachary huffed. He should’ve known better than to trust a female. She was no different from the women of Underworld; charming the weak with their conniving promises is all they offered. And he’d fallen for it.

Fist tightened, he punched the edge of the near-invisible cell. A surge tickled his knuckles. He slammed another. This time a sharp jolt penetrated his arm.

“The harder you try, the more it’ll hurt,” announced the girl. “We’ve got fifteen of these dotted around to catch intruders, like you.” Green eyes narrowed at him. “I’ll start again. Who sent you? And don’t you dare feed me any garbage about being with the repairers.”

A circle gleamed overhead. That had to be the driver of the cell. Zachary reached for his screwdriver.
Damn!
It was in his coat pocket – at home. The lining of the crimson suit rustled under his curled fingers. She had him beat.

“This isn’t fair. You didn’t give me a chance,” he protested.

“I don’t care.”

Zachary gripped the air in front of his head. “My dad’s up there cleaning your infected shell. I was meant to stay on the ship in the docking bay below. You can go and check if you don’t believe me. I snuck out because I wanted to see,” he paused for a moment, “Overworld.”

“You’re from Underworld.” A stunned look filled her. “Nice try, snot-bag. Admit that you came here to finish off your game.”

She removed an Intercom, similar to the one he’d found in the box, from her skirt pocket. “I should have told mother and father when my Raptor was stolen. I saw you that night, sneaking around while I sat on the balcony. You got me with the smoke bombs in the fields. One lapse and my Raptor’s gone, but what I don’t understand is why you needed it before attacking us? There are no secret messages on there.”

“That wasn’t me.”

One crease dominated the others on her brow. “I don’t know why you do it, or what you actually think you gain by protesting in Assayer. My father has kept himself from politics and the city for years. What have we done to deserve this? Why did you want to kill us?”

Almost every muscle twitched on Zachary’s face.

“Hit a nerve, have I? Believe me, when General Sokolov, who happens to be very good friends with my father, gets hold of you …” she sniggered. “There’s hardly enough skin on you to harm. They’ll probably mince your bones and eject you into outer space.”

“Do
you
think I caused this? Do I look like a pirate to you?” Not that he knew what they resembled. “If you want to, go and speak to my dad. Over there, with the drills. He’ll tell you where we’re from.” He kicked a pebble forward. It bounced back off the cell’s barrier-wall.

The girl studied him. “Thin. Very thin. Dirty.” Her weak guffaw strained. “You can’t be from Underworld. You’re not allowed. They’d never let your sort up here.”

“
My
sort? What do you mean by that?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” She cleared her throat. “It slipped out.” For the first time, she looked uneasy. “It’s unheard-of for an Underworlder to be here, unless they thought it’d be too toxic for our own repairers.”

Thin fingers traced down the side of her skirt. Her fiery attitude crumbled into a wobbling lip. Her quiet voice struggled to leave her mouth. “I’ve been so stupid. I’m sorry.”

Zachary scanned the girl’s fragile frame. Her eyes remained fixed on hard soil. He understood her angst. If his home were attacked, he’d chase anyone who aroused suspicion. It was unfortunate that she’d found him.

“Forget about it,” he said. “Please let me out.”

She swiped her palm against the black screen on the pillar. “Deactivate.”

The dark shade around Zachary evaporated.

“I’ve been uptight ever since my Raptor was stolen, then the attack, and my parents arguing,” she said. “It’s been too much.”

“Because of the anniversary?” Zachary froze.

Her even, white teeth thrust from her jaw.

Think quick
, thought Zachary. Deceit was a trick a scavenger knew well.

“You mentioned the anniversary.” Anxious muscles tightened within his chest as she shook her head. “You did … you said it, earlier.”

She shook her head again, then sighed. “You really have no idea.”

“Should I?”

“My dad used to be an ambassador in Assayer – the capital of
Galilei
– that you’ve probably never seen, right?” She spoke to the pillar. “I can’t believe I’m talking to someone who hasn’t been to Assayer. Anyway, I don’t know the details, but he was kicked out, and we live here now. Miles from anyone.” She cleared her throat. “Sorry, deviated. What I meant was, although we are not in the city, everyone, I think, knows that we’re here.”

Her harsh tone had gone. “I’m Rosa.” She tugged the side of her skirt and curtseyed. “Rosario Emily Kade, if Mother was listening.”

Somehow the name fit the elegance of her strong cheekbones.

Zachary gave the underside of her home one last look. “I better go back.”

“What’s it like … down there?” asked Rosa.

How unusual that she wanted to know. Didn’t Overworlders look down onto them? Maybe they didn’t. It wasn’t like the ceiling had windows for viewers.

“It’s messy. If you took away the light, the grass, everything that makes your home special and chucked in years of waste and sewage, you’d have Underworld. There’s no space to live freely or to distance ourselves from the dirt we breathe. Then again, it’s not really dirt, or not to me.” He noted the beginning of a frown on her face. “We’re like bugs under your feet, but we’re still human. Someone once told me that you can’t have anything worthwhile unless you have something worthless to compare it to. I suppose Overworld wouldn’t be the place it is without us.”

Rosa’s expression absorbed his words.

“My dad doesn’t do repair work like that – always. He works on the Far-Wall in District Two. It’s a place that allows oxygen to seep in to keep us alive.” Zachary pointed to a tree. “I thought they were all extinct.”

“What do you do down there?”

Was she taking interest in him?

“I’m a scavenger in the Wastelands, which is a million times worse than what I described about Underworld.” He realised that she might not understand the locations he named. “I hunt for things that get washed up and dropped into Underworld, to sell.”

“For money?”

“For anything. Money, food, electricity.” Zachary rubbed his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, or even talking to you. Dad will go mad at me.”

“Why would he be mad? For talking to me? Do you have rules against that?”

“Talking gets me into trouble.”

“It’ll be another hour before they finish cleaning the shell. Tell me more about the Wastelands.” She clasped her palms. “It’s been so long since I’ve spoken with another person. Well, I’ve got my parents and Alice, but not someone young. How old are you?”

Zachary gazed at the glimmer in her eyes. “Sixteen.”

Her hands unclasped and snapped back together aloud. “
Me too!
The first person I’ve met in years, and he’s the same age as me. You really can’t make these things up, can you?”

What did she mean by the first person? Didn’t Overworlders meet one another, or did they have so much time and space that people became an afterthought?

“I don’t know.” Zachary inched to the path they’d taken to reach here.

“What’s the fashion down there? Do you all dress alike? Are women treated equally, or is it a man’s world? Do you have to pay lots to travel into space, like save up for years and then watch it waste away with a click? I’ve got so many questions.”

Rosa’s excitement scared him. What devices could be recording them now? What if they were shown to his dad? Evidence.

He snapped his teeth tight. “Can you just shut up and let me go?”

Rosa scowled. “I get it. You don’t want to talk because you think that we’re too good to be seen with. You’d rather stumble in the shadows than accept that we’re not terrible.” The harsh tone crept back. “Mother says Underworlders consider us to be the real filth of
Galilei
. If you only tried to be more civilised then our worlds wouldn’t be so separated. We could actually live together like they used to before the Reckoning-Age.”

Zachary shook his head. From what he knew, the Reckoning-Age of three hundred years ago was the catalyst that saw exploration into space outweigh the need to calm the civil wars that flattened the old world.

“It was your people that shoved us down there.” He didn’t know that for sure. “In Underworld, we have to struggle to survive. You never have to worry about where your food comes from. You only have to worry about getting any. My dad has been working all day, and he’s tired … but for your stinking money, he came to clean up your mess.”

“
Our
mess? We didn’t ask for
this
.”

Bracing his anger, Zachary thumped his thigh. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Yes – go back to washing in the sewage.”

Turning away rattled, Zachary rasped, “Hopefully next time the pirates will break through and leave your home in ashes. Then you’ll know how it feels to live in muck.”

Her fingers clicked causing him to turn.

Rosa slapped him. She jumped back, gasping.

Zachary clutched his cheek, unbelieving, as the sharp pain deepened. Seeing the slightest of movement is what saved scavengers from being buried under heaps of junk. Yet, here, without a hint of darkness, he’d been slapped by a girl.

“I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve never …” Rosa paused. She removed her Intercom-transmitter again. “Take it. It’s another Raptor model. They’re worth a lot.”

“You’ll say I stole it off you.”

“
No
,” she cried. “Please.” Her ‘please’ was more like ‘sorry’.

The hinges were all in place and the shine on the device’s circular rim dazzled, even in the gloom under her home. As an attempt to make up for the slap, it’d do. Zachary snatched the Raptor.

“Goodbye,” she muttered.

A firm hand seized Zachary’s arm. He twisted, trying to release the vice-like grip. It didn’t budge.

“Alice,” said Rosa. “Let him go.”

Zachary stared into the pale face of a girl with hair cut in a bob. The black pupils of her white eyes shrank.

“Who is this?” asked Alice.

“A repairer.” Rosa lunged forward and took Alice’s hand off his arm.

Zachary pulled back to see the new female’s perfect white tunic and pressed trousers. He’d uncovered similar parts in the Wastelands. “A working bot.”

“An Intuitive-Assist Android.” Alice turned to Rosa. “Did he harm you?”

“No, he’s leaving.” Rosa led her bot by the hand, giving him space to pass.

Sighing, Zachary walked away from the structure. Several times, he almost looked back. Was she still there with her bot? A bot could alert others to his trespassing status. He quickened his pace through the grass.

The repair work hadn’t ended, and the path back to the docking-bay was clear. Zachary smiled at the motion of the Intercom bouncing in his pocket. Something good had come from the trip, though he was sorry it was not her. Because of four files, he’d thought she was different. Gentle. Considerate. Eyes rolling, he cursed under his breath how she’d brought distaste into his mouth. Zachary moistened his lips. Rosa Kade. She had a name. Part of him didn’t care. As far as Overworld was concerned, he was tired and disgusted of it.

“
Stop
,” came a voice.

Zachary spun, hands up.

Nobody. He scanned across the grass. There. A grey-suited man aimed a handgun, but not at him. He fired a pinging shot in the opposite direction from where Zachary was heading. In the distance, a man in green swayed before dropping into the grass.

“ROM member tagged on residential boundary,” said the shooter.

What in Europa!
Zachary darted with his body bent forward and his neck aching to keep up. The grass offered little cover with his jump suit. How could red against green hide him? What was ROM? Resisting the temptation to see if the grey-suited man had spotted him, Zachary charged down the slope. All the time, the walls darkened around him. His thoughts raced. Was that the person who had stolen the first Intercom?

“Whoa – steady,” cried a man wearing shades in the docking bay that Zachary barged into. “What’s the rush?”

Shivers ran along Zachary’s face. “I need to collect some bits from the ship.”

“Okay, but can you do it without treating this like a race circuit?”

Nodding, Zachary sprinted up the
Muirne
’s ramp. He threw off the jumpsuit, wondering at the ease with which the grey-suited man had fired. In Underworld, when not at the mercy of a gang, anyone who committed a theft would be questioned. That man was just shot. Taking a moment to absorb his goose bumps, Zachary collapsed into his seat.

If anyone asked, he never left the ship. He sat here staring at the buttons. But what if Rosa’s bot reported him? What about Rosa? And he had her bleeding Intercom!

Chills crushed his limbs as he ran to the rear of the ship. He crouched to peer beyond the ramp. People everywhere. A shadow moved through a crowd. It was a man in grey. Looking at him.

Zachary jumped up.