Arise: A Dystopian Novel (The Ravenmaster Chronicles Book 1) Page 3

  “You want to hide in the bucket?” She leans toward the front window and tilts her head skyward toward the immense black crane towering a few hundred yards away high over the far side of dumping and loading lot. “I take a new load in less than two minutes. You’ll get crushed.”

  I give her a wink and flick my thumb toward Brohn. “Not getting crushed is kind of his specialty.”

  “The load weighs over a ton,” Zephora whimpers. She twists around in her seat to look at the giant bin through the small window at the back of the cab. “The palettes are modular. They’re designed to slide in there, wall to wall. There’s no space for anything to fit back there other than the cargo.”

  “Trust me,” I assure her. “Just follow your procedures and let us do the rest.”

  Her eyes a flood of fear, Zephora nods and tilts her head back toward the hopper. She looks like she wants to say something—maybe offer us a more insistent warning or wish us luck—but no sound comes out of her open mouth, and I think maybe the thought of our gory, squishy deaths in the back of her rig has her too choked up and flustered to form words.

  “Listen,” Brohn whispers to her as he opens the passenger side door, “we appreciate this.”

  “And what you did for our students back in the desert. They told us what good hosts you were.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened to their friend,” Zephora sniffles.

  “Us, too,” I tell her.

  Cat-quiet, Brohn and I drop down from the cab on the passenger side and scale the silver access ladder behind the cab. Slipping over the thick coils of rubber-coated control cables between the cab and the hopper, we pull ourselves up to the top edge of the huge empty bin. Swinging his feet around, Brohn drops down first, his boots echoing in a horrifyingly loud clunk on the steel bottom.

  Lying on my side on the narrow top edge, I pause, waiting for a hail of alarms and gunfire. But when nothing happens, Brohn calls up to me in an urgent whisper, and I take a deep breath and drop down into his waiting arms.

  Safely inside, we press our backs to the steel wall as the truck swings around in a tight arc with Zephora positioning it under a huge steel platform, ringed with blinking warning lights and glowing proximity indicators.

  At least the hand-off system seems to be automated. The last thing we need is an attentive, gung-ho guard looking down and catching us hiding in the empty bin of Zephora’s transport rig.

  Above our heads, the mammoth crane swings over the top of the hopper and lowers a thirty-foot long palette of silver pipes and thick black conduits into the giant bucket.

  Braced on his elbows in a plank position and with me lying flat on my back underneath him, Brohn groans as the weight of the cargo descends and settles onto his back.

  “It’s not too heavy,” he whispers. But with the strain in his breath and with his face in a knot, I know he’s lying for my sake.

  The sparse haze of light seeping in from the edges of the cargo palette are barely enough to enable me to see his expression. But I don’t need much light. I’ve known Brohn nearly all my life. We’ve been side by side as we risked our lives together and eventually fell in love. So I know every pore, freckle, and follicle on his perfect face, and even in the dark, I can see him clear as day.

  I risk shifting one arm in the tight space between us. I ease my hand onto his cheek and crane my neck up just enough for our lips to meet. “Maybe it’s your muscles or the fact that you’re using them to keep us alive right now,” I whisper. “But I love how you look from this angle.”

  “You know, Kress,” he huffs through a wince, “this isn’t nearly as romantic as you think it is.”

  We both laugh as quietly as we can until Brohn’s shoulders and arms tremble, and I point out how dumb it is for us to goof around with a metric ton of building supplies on his back.

  “You started it,” he groans.

  My heart does a little jump in my chest as the rig jolts and clunks under us.

  We hold our breath as we feel the giant truck rattle and clang as it transitions from the paved road to the glowing mag-strip.

  A few minutes later, with Brohn shaking and sweating above me, we breathe a mutual sigh of relief as a we hear a crane clip onto the top buckle of the cargo palette.

  “We’re inside the wall,” I whisper.

  “Too bad,” Brohn jokes with a strained huff. “I was hoping it would take longer.”

  Above us, the giant palette shifts and starts to rise.

  “My turn,” I tell Brohn.

  I hook my arms around his torso and lock my hands between two of the slats on the palette. I do the same with my legs, wrapping them around Brohn’s legs with the toes of my boots locked into the slats, clamping Brohn in a tight, very unromantic embrace between me and the bottom of the steel skid.

  The loaded palette rises into the air with us along with it.

  Letting my eyes go black, I initiate my bond with Render.

  Like most birds, Render isn’t a fan of flying at night. And I don’t blame him. I’ve seen what the night looks like through his eyes. Unlike for us, it’s not just dark. It’s a kaleidoscope of hazy colors, crests of light-wave interference, and scraps of partial images shifting in and out of focus.

  So my connection with him isn’t strong right now. But it doesn’t need to be. All I need to do is send him a signal:

  Now!

  The guards around the truck shriek as Render dive-bombs them, and I cross my mental fingers that he doesn’t get shot.

  As Render bellows out deathly barks and zips around the loading dock, the automated crane continues its hoist-and-store protocol, swinging its cargo, with me and Brohn clinging to its underside, over an open-topped flatbed trailer. The crane lowers the palette, and, with the guards distracted by Render, Brohn and I release our grip and swing down, landing on the ground on the far side of the truck.

  We pause, side by side, waiting to be discovered, but Render has done his job to perfection, and the guards are now fifty feet away, their backs to us as they try to identify the mysterious ghostly form streaking and screaming at them from the deep shadows.

  “We’re inside the city’s barrier wall,” Brohn pants. “What now?”

  “This way,” I suggest, making my way along the side of the trailer and sending a metal thanks out to Zephora and Render.

  They did enough to get us inside. But being in here and staying alive are two very different things.

  After skirting past the end of the trailer and then around a ten-foot-long, modular concrete barrier, Brohn and I come to a screeching halt.

  We spot the Devoted guard at the same time. Unfortunately, he spots us, too.

  It figures there’d be one guard who was too disciplined to leave his post.

  Bracing ourselves for combat, Brohn and I are about to make sure this particular guard regrets his diligence.

  3

  Spotted

  Dressed in the red, white, and blue body armor of the Devoted, the lone guard is too far for away my Talons to do any good, and we can’t risk drawing any more attention by turning this mini adventure of ours into a full-on shoot out.

  Besides, we have limited ammo, and who knows how much we’re going to need before this little infiltration caper of our is over?

  It doesn’t matter if the guard shoots first or if we do. One gunshot—or even a shout or a single call for help, for that matter—and we’ll have this entire transport facility swarming down on us.

  Brohn solves the problem with his arbalest.

  Slinging the weapon from his back and snapping out the arms of the powerful crossbow—all in a motion too fast for my eyes to follow—he loads a bolt and fires it at the guard.

  The guard’s shout catches in his throat as the black carbon-composite bolt sears through the night and then through his neck. Brohn follows the first shot with a second, mercy-shot to the man’s chest. At close-range the second bolt has no problem puncturing the man’s armored jacket of overlapping chest plates and
lodging square in his heart.

  The guard slumps to the ground, his eyes glazing over as he hits the pavement.

  It’s a quick, gruesome death. I’m not happy about killing these guys. He’s a cog in a wheel, a Devoted guard who’s “just following orders.”

  Of course, it’s gears that run the machine, and it’s the cogs that keep the gears turning. So, unfortunately for guards like this, some of these anonymous cogs are going to have to get snapped off.

  Kneeling next to the man to make sure he’s really out of commission, I tell Brohn, “Nice shot. Someday you’ll have to tell me how you—.”

  My compliment is cut off by the pump of a twelve-gauge shotgun from right behind us.

  I leap to my feet, and Brohn and I whip around, and I’m wondering in a flash if our mission will be over before it’s even started.

  A second guard, a woman this time, levels her matte black shotgun at us and orders us to freeze. “One move, and I’ll—”

  Whatever threat she was about to make is cut off by a thin arm sliding under her chin and pulling as tight as a noose around her neck.

  The guard’s eyes go buggy, and she thrashes for a second before dropping to her knees.

  Behind her face-shield, the woman’s bulging eyes roll back, and she melts the rest of the way to the pavement, leaving us face to face with Zephora who’s standing over the guard’s slumped and unconscious body.

  “I decided to make sure you got out of the loading dock okay,” she smiles across the dark space between us.

  “And we appreciate it,” I promise.

  “Most of these Devoted guards are a nasty bunch,” Zephora informs us through a gulp and a grim smile as she points down to the unconscious woman at her feet. “I’m taking about kitten-stomping levels of evil. This one here was one of the worst. Besides, it’s the least I could do for Branwynne’s teachers and the famous Kakari Isutse.”

  Zephora doesn’t pronounce the term exactly like others have, but I know what she means, and who am I to judge, anyway?

  I smile my “Thanks” and resist the urge to roll my eyes at the nickname I picked up back in San Francisco and the title that seems to have made its way across the country faster than we have. (Sometimes, I think the nickname is following me. Other times, I think it’s gotten far ahead of me.) The term comes from an Indigenous group called the Ohlone—once known as the Costanoan—of Northern California. It apparently translates into something like, “The girl who dreams in raven.” Brohn keeps asking me to explain to him exactly what that means, and I always promise I will. As soon as I figure it out, myself.

  It’s supposed to have something to do with bridging the gap between what we call dreams and what we call reality. The combination of my forearm implants, my abilities as an Emergent, and my bond with Render have given me access to a realm called the Lyfelyte.

  What I’m supposed to with this ability, why I have it, and who decided to make me the Kakari Isutse remain very unanswered questions.

  Her eyes darting in the dim light, she starts to edge her way toward the dark line of cargo crates behind her. “I’m supposed to be with my rig. The pylon scanned me in, but there’s still a whole check-in procedure. If the Devoted find me here—”

  “Stop explaining!” Brohn insists with a head shake and an amused grin as he shoos her away. “Go!”

  Zephora is gone practically before the final syllable is out of his mouth.

  “Good advice,” I tell Brohn. “We better get moving, ourselves!”

  Side by side, we trot down one of the lanes between the steel-sided crates and skirt around the edge of a dimly-lit, glass-walled guard station with one of the Devoted—his back to us—shouting orders into a glossy white wrist-comm. After a crackle of a response Brohn and I can’t hear, he draws his sidearm and sprints off in the opposite direction.

  Another guard from an identical station about fifty yards down the way waves him over, and together, the two of them run around the corner of a loaded trailer that’s floating on a mag-pad next to one of the glass and chrome inspection stations.

  The second the two guards are out of sight, I release the breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding.

  As much as I’d love to channel Render right now, sharing his enhanced senses and reflexes won’t do us a lot of good in the guarded, light-spackled gloom of the shipping yard.

  Fortunately, Brohn and I are no strangers to stealth. We’ve had to sneak in and out of more places than I care to count. Of course, we’d better be good at surveillance and infiltration. After all, we teach a class in it.

  We catch sight of the yard’s chain-link perimeter fence up ahead, but we freeze at the crack of gunfire that rings out from behind us.

  We drop to our knees in the dark space between an empty military jeep and the side wall of one of the forty-foot-long, steel-sided shipping containers.

  Brohn puts his hand on my arm, and we both crane our necks, trying to identify the source and location of the gunfire.

  “It’s not aimed at us,” I whisper. We’re in a crouch, our shoulders pressed to the container’s warm, corrugated wall.

  “Then who else could they possibly be shooting at?”

  A woman’s scream rings through the night air.

  In unison, our voices heavy with the truth, we whisper, “Zephora.”

  “We have to go back for her,” Brohn insists.

  I’m tempted. I really am. Zephora helped us. Twice. And it only seems fair that we return the favor. Besides, saving people is our entire mission. It’s why we’re here. It’s why we’re anywhere.

  Our telempathic bond blossoms open as Render initiates the connection, and his consciousness slips into mine. His tone is urgent, serious, and severe.

  ~ Keep going.

  I know. But which direction?

  ~ To the arcology.

  If we leave Zephora, she’ll die. She could be dead already.

  ~ She’s not. But if you help her, she will be. And so will you.

  She risked her life to help us.

  ~ Some pawns need to be sacrificed.

  She’s not a pawn!

  ~ Yes, she is. And so are you. The mission is king.

  Our connection is fading as the black of my eyes bleeds away. I can always feel when it happens. This time, though, the sensation is accompanied by the salty wash of tears.

  “Render said we need to keep moving,” I tell Brohn through a choked-back sob.

  “But Zephora…” His eyes are wide, his palms flat to the ground as he prepares to push himself to his feet and head back the way we came to be the hero I know he is.

  Shaking my head, I tug his jacket sleeve. “Render’s right.”

  He doesn’t ask me what Render’s right about, and he doesn’t wait for me to elaborate or explain. He knows me, and I know Render. Sometimes it’s easy to trust what you know.

  This isn’t one of those times.

  Steeling myself against the crashing waves of sorrow and guilt, I join Brohn in a crouched jog away from Zephora and toward the perimeter fence.

  Render is just trying to keep us focused, I remind myself. And with good reason.

  With the Devoted gaining more control and more power, the country—and eventually the rest of the world—will be as enslaved as Zephora and the Unsettled. The Devoted are driven by what they see as a historical progression pushed along by the people they consider “worthy rulers.” They’ve amassed their resources, they’ve built their army, they’ve conquered their enemies, and they are poised to carry out their final push toward absolute power.

  That’s the big picture.

  But the small picture is important, too.

  As Brohn and I run, my eyes stinging with tears, I send Render one last thought:

  You know. Sometimes you’re wrong. Even when you’re right.

  4

  Marsh

  Getting past the interior security fence is easier than we could have hoped.

  Although standard operating proc
edure at a checkpoint station like this would always call for one of the two guards to stay on post, apparently curiosity has gotten the better of the guy who got left behind, because he pauses for about two seconds before sprinting after his partner in the direction of the gunfire.

  Brohn and I aren’t about to wait for the guard to change his mind and come back to his station. Gifts like an enemy’s impulsive incompetence are rare, so we jump at the chance.

  Dashing behind a pair of gas jeeps and a third one floating on a mag-pad at a docking station next to the guard booth, Brohn and I duck past the guard station and slip under the security turnstile. From there, it’s a quick sprint down the paved entrance ramp before we plunge out into a field of crisp, waist-high reeds along the side of a narrow access road.

  A string of lights runs on high, evenly spaced posts planted along the side of the road. Dynamos from a pair of car-sized generators about fifty feet from us whir in a thrumming pulse.

  Despite the intense, dry heat, the ground beneath our feet is surprisingly swampy. And the smell is overpoweringly bad.

  “Sewage,” Brohn gags, reading my mind and squinting against the foul, greenish mist hanging over us.

  Trudging further into the marsh and staying as far from the lights and the road as possible, we make our way toward what looks like a cluster of trailer-sized sheds in the distance.

  Brohn starts to ask if I think Zephora will be okay, but I have to stop him.

  “She may have just given her life to save ours,” I tell him with as much confidence as I can manage.

  In the dark, he takes my hand in his. “Then we’ll make sure her sacrifice was worth it.”

  I give his hand a little “Thank you” squeeze as we slog on.

  Our boots continue to make sucking pops as we trudge deeper into the putrid field of waste run-off.

  We walk along in silence for a while before Brohn shakes his head and clears his throat. “I would have thought things would be nicer on this side of the wall.”