Текст книги "The Rift"

Автор книги: Chris Howard

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“You were dreaming. Hollering.”

“Is it morning?”

Kade was scrambling for the panel. Frantic as he tried to bust the thing loose. And when he got it free, no light poured in.

Everything stayed muffled.

“It’s froze solid outside,” he said.

We were buried in snow.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

We punched at the steel walls around us. Rocking and heaving and finally shoving the shelter to one side enough that we could force our way out.

Then we were tumbling into the big white drift.

I shook and scraped, shoveling my way upward. I thrashed at the snow and kicked myself free. Aiming for the sunlight above, high and bright, yellow and gold—and finally I broke loose into it, and I shivered, squinting at the vastness of a clear blue sky.

“Banyan,” called Zee, staggering up beside me and coughing. “Help me with Crow.”

We reached into the snow and dragged him up, and then we helped Kade dig his way out.

“You can stand?” Zee asked Crow, brushing the white flakes off his purple coat.

“It seems so,” he muttered, staring down at his legs, still sounding like a shell of the man we’d known. “For now.”

“For now’s a start.” She smiled up at him, and it was as if her smile could melt even Crow. He took her hand in his, his huge fingers squeezing Zee’s through the gloves she wore.

“Thank you, Miss Zee.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“But you didn’t leave me behind,” he said. “And now look at us. Look at all this.”

I followed Crow’s gaze, and my eyes grew full of what soared up ahead. A new world, now the blizzard and mist had vanished. A world of tall silver cliffs and spires. Rivulets of stone and ice engraved against the sky in an endless uprise, scraping the sun and tugging open the clouds.

Mountains, that’s what they were. Mountains that stretched on and upwards. And I could see no way we could cross them. I couldn’t even imagine a route through. But beyond those monoliths, far above the etched earthy swell, I saw plumes of ash. Steam and smoke.

“The Rift,” Kade said as our eyes scratched the horizon. We couldn’t see the lava fields, not yet, but the sky glowed orange out there, as if a terrible fire raged beyond the great peaks.

“I read about mountains,” Zee said, her voice small as the view was big. “Never thought I’d see them.”

I’d heard about mountains, too. My old man had told me. They were the call and curse of many a tale. And out of their snow had run old world rivers, deep and wide and clean.

I peered back the way we had come, and then scoured every other direction, searching for Harvesters but seeing no sign of life. The snow must have slowed Harvest down. It had even covered our tracks.

As the others gazed up at where the world grew jagged, I waded across to the tank, thinking we had best get moving, knowing Harvest wasn’t going to give up, and the trees weren’t going to make it south by themselves.

I dug out the tank’s wheels as the others talked, pointing up at the peaks and arguing about something. Next, I got the top of the tank loose of snow, and I set to work at breaking off the slabs from the sides. But as the snow crumbled and dusted, my hands quit working.

I backed away from the glass, stumbled smack down on my ass.

And I didn’t try to call out or nothing. It was like my voice had been snatched out of my skull.

Thought my mind was gone, too. Like it had given up and run away from me. Because inside that tank was the seven saplings and my father’s remains, shrunken and shrubby at the root of them, but next to that mess of green and black, there was now another body, all wrapped in purple.

I spun up off the snow and pounded my fists at the glass, and Alpha’s eyes blinked open, then locked on mine. Her head was floating up out of the liquid, her skin slippery and gold.

I heard Zee holler behind me. The others rumbling up. So they could see what I saw. It weren’t just the hunger and loss playing tricks on my mind.

Alpha shoved at the glass ceiling above her, and I got my hand under it so we could pry the top back, hoisting it open on stiff hinges. And before there was really space for it, I’d wedged my arms inside the tank and was reaching for her and holding her. The glass still between us. The warm, gluey liquid oozing up my shoulders and neck. Alpha pressed her head against mine, and I breathed in the chemical smells of the tank as I kissed my girl’s eyes and her lips, and all of her was so warm and soft but at the same time electric.

I peered down and saw the coiled saplings, and they were close enough I could have reached out and touched them, too. But I didn’t touch them. I just squeezed Alpha against me and hauled her out into the snow.

Crow slapped his arms around us, laughing. He leaned on my shoulders, and I could feel his breath blow hot on the top of my head. Then he pulled away. Trying to give us a moment, I reckon.

Zee and Kade just stood there and stared.

“How?” I said, gripping Alpha’s shoulders and holding her out before me, like she was a drink and my eyes were blown open with thirst.

“I’d been following your tracks. Then the snow started,” she whispered. “The tank was the first thing I saw. Bright and warm through the snowstorm. Even warmer once I managed to get inside.”

“I thought you was dead.” I was shaking so hard, I started shaking her, too.

“Almost. Got pinned under bodies, stuck in the hull, but when the boat sank, they floated off me. I swam up and out. Swam from one building to another, till I made it to land. Thought I was the only one still heading south, then I saw your tracks just before dark. Figured only one fool would be out on the snow with that tank, hell-bent on nowhere.” She turned to Crow. “Maybe two fools, I guess.”

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “They dragged my ass the whole way.”

I hugged Alpha so tight against me, we fell back into a big drift of powder. And she was grinning so hard, it was like I’d never really seen her smile before now. I kissed her. Right there, in front of the others. Hell, I might never have stopped if she hadn’t finally pulled away from me and pulled us back up off the snow.

She blushed red as she smiled at Zee. But then she frowned at Kade, glancing at the sub gun where it hung from his shoulder, her face turning sour as she turned back to me. “And what’s he doing here? We’re all still on the same team?”

“Hell-bent on nowhere,” Kade said, and he made this stupid salute.

Alpha leaned and spat in the snow. “What happened to your face, Red?”

“Your boyfriend’s fists.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“It’s all right,” I said. “A misunderstanding is all.”

Kade made an empty laugh.

But we had to trust him, I reckoned. He was the one had let us go, called a truce on the boat, and he could have shot me any time he’d felt like it, once we’d made it to land. He needed us, and we needed him. And I knew now he was as broken as we were—a one-handed field hand, his mind wrecked from crystal. Hell, Kade was damaged, so I figured he fit right in.

“There’s no one else?” Alpha glanced about as if a bunch of strugglers might bust out through the snow to join us. “I went into the hull to get the kids out. The little ones.” She gazed back in the direction of the lake but couldn’t finish her story.

“It ain’t your fault,” I told her.

“No. It’s Harvest’s fault. And I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna kill him or die trying before all this is through.”

I peered into the tank, my hands still squeezing Alpha’s fingers. Still marveling at the feel of her skin against mine. “I can’t believe you climbed in there.”

“It saved me. The lights flashing red and gold through the blizzard. I was seizing up, stumbling and shaking something fierce.”

“Did you touch them?” Kade peered in at the bundle of green limbs. “The trees?”

“Tried not to. Didn’t want to mess with things.” Alpha gave me a look as she said it. And I wondered what it’d feel like to hold the tiny saplings in your hand.

Zee blinked back tears as Alpha put her arms around her. My sister surprising me again with how much she cared. But she was already building a new family, I reckoned. New people to stop her from being alone.

“You all right, girl?” Alpha squeezed Zee like she was her own sister, and I envied the way she could show her affection, but there didn’t seem to be room in my heart for all of them. I don’t know. Maybe your heart gets smaller if you spend too much time just looking out for yourself.

“It was awful,” Zee whispered, her voice stifled and choked as Alpha held her. “It was like we lost Banyan, too.”

My face burned as Zee started to cough worse than ever. But what the hell? I hadn’t abandoned her. And what more did she want from me? Ain’t easy, being a brother to a stranger, I tell you that much.

Alpha soothed Zee until she began to breathe easy, and then we all stood there a moment. Crow wavering on the wooden legs he’d anchored in the snow, my heart finally slowing down as I gazed at my pirate girl in all her ragged beauty.

“All right, hon,” she said to Zee, letting go of her gently. “I hate to break up the reunion, but we got a long ways to go yet.”

“True that.” Crow gazed south at the mountains and the orange glow beyond them. “And this new snow will make us easy to track.”

“How many rounds you got left?” Alpha asked Kade, and he uncoiled his too-big coat, revealing a belt full of bullets. One strip of ammunition, tied below the bite of his ribs.

“That’s it?” Zee said.

“Keep that chin up,” Alpha told her. “Some’s better than nothing at all.”

But I swore then, if I could get back to the dusty world that lay south, I’d leave all the bullets behind me. No more guns. No more fighting. I’d plant those trees and be a builder once more. I’d build that house for Alpha and me in the treetops, surrounded by sweetness and shielded from suffering. And I started to think love is like every tree I ever crafted, taking broken pieces and making something beautiful, something better. Something to believe in. And something to hold onto, when all else is black.

PART TWO

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

We steered the tank towards the mountains, moving as fast as we could, but we sank too deep in the powder to keep up a good speed. We were as hungry as we were exhausted. And we had to keep glancing behind us, searching the frozen landscape to see if Harvest was closing in.

My body felt weak and shriveled close to the bone. But I waded along next to Alpha, shielding my eyes from the sun and studying each part of my girl like I was about to go snow-blind. I even let myself grow hopeful, with our hands once more entwined and our eyes setting fires between us.

But too soon, the fear seeped back like a cold fever sweat. I mean, all I’d wanted was my pirate girl back, and it ain’t right how quick you can take things for granted. As the day wore on, the dead spooked at me again, prying open my mind so I could see their faces—my father and mother, Hina and Sal, every struggler I’d seen perish along the way.

“We get back,” I said to Alpha as we pushed on ahead of the others, following the plateau to the base of the mountains, “we plant us a forest. And I ain’t never letting you out of my sight.”

“Can’t say that, bud.” She squeezed my fingers, but her gaze was fixed on the peaks up ahead. “Can’t let me and you make us weak. Not if we’re gonna keep fighting.”

“Get south,” I said. “Somewhere safe. And I’m all done fighting.”

“That easy, huh?”

“There ain’t been nothing easy about it.”

“But you think we’re gonna dig down and plant us those trees,” she said, “and just sit there watching ’em grow?”

“Sounds real good to me.”

“And how do you think GenTech’s gonna feel about that?”

“I don’t give two damns about GenTech.”

“Yeah, you do.”

I quit wading through the powder, and Alpha stopped to wait for me, still clutching my hand in hers. Both of us were breathing hard from the effort required to keep moving, and the deep snow sparkled far as the eye could see.

The others were starting to catch up. We’d got the tank boxed up back in its steel cloak, and Crow had the control pad in his hands as he sat up on top, nudging the thing’s wheels through the snow. Kade and Zee were stomping along beside him, and I saw Zee was laughing, cracking up at some joke Kade had made.

It bothered me. There weren’t no reason to be laughing out here. But I’d decided to trust that redhead, I reminded myself. So I busied my brain by peering north to see if I could spy Harvest’s troops behind us.

“You ain’t thought this thing through,” Alpha said, letting go of my hand.

“I’ve thought plenty. I ain’t losing you again.” I turned back to face her, but she was staring up at the peaks. “We get back, we keep these trees secret. And I keep you safe.”

Her face looked all prickly and pissed. “That’s what your dad would have wanted?”

“How the hell would I know?” I crossed my arms at my chest, as if it was just the cold I was feeling. “Man did nothing but keep secrets from me.”

That night, right at the foot of the mountains, we pulled the steel cloak off the tank so we could settle inside its walls again. I hadn’t wanted to, but Zee’s cough had got worse as the day wore on, her crusted lungs sounding rougher than ever.

Tired as I was, I didn’t feel like turning in yet, so I stood under the stars awhile, watching the numbers count down on the tank.

The red lights pulsed inside the glass as the time ran out, and I tried to picture what would happen when there was no time left. The tank would lose its charge, that had to be the problem. And then the trees would be too cold, I reckoned. Hell, maybe that liquid would freeze, and we’d have nothing but seven icy saplings.

“Take turns keeping watch?” Alpha said, appearing beside me. She’d been ignoring me through the last part of the day—such a waste, when all I’d wanted was to be with her.

I glanced at the blanket of snow that stretched beneath the darkness behind us. And there was still no sign of Harvest’s commandos, but it was as if I could feel them out there on the frozen plateau, closing any gap we’d created between them and the trees.

“You can sleep first,” I told Alpha.

“With Crow’s snoring?”

I turned to face the tank and saw the two of us reflected in the glass, our bodies lost inside thick clothes, our faces peering out from the hoods of our jackets.

“The tank’s warm,” she said.

“Well, I ain’t getting in there for nothing.” I stared past my reflection at the twisted limbs of the saplings where they floated in the liquid, still tethered to the knotted remains of my dad.

“I meant we could lean against it,” she said, and I sure needed something to lean on, so we sat with our backs against the tank, the glass hot through our chunky coats.

We faced north. Watching for Harvest. Knowing his troops weren’t the sort who’d stop and rest someone’s broken lungs. One of them replicants needed to stop, the others would have just kept on going.

“I know I ought to be more grateful,” Alpha said, after I’d just sat there saying nothing, feeling all closed up. “For you, I mean. For how you feel about me.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“But it’s like something out of an old world song,” she said. “This feeling. Love. The way that you mean it.”

“The way I mean it don’t belong to the old world.”

I watched the tank’s lights throw crazy patterns on the snow, making silhouettes of the saplings, as if the trees had already grown tall enough to cast their shadows upon us.

“I know you want to keep me safe,” Alpha said. “And I mean to look after you, too.”

“Lord knows I could use it.” I tried to make her grin, the way I said it, but she was too lost inside what she was trying to say.

“It’s just I know you want to keep these trees safe, too. And we both know what that means, Banyan.”

“I don’t want to talk about it no more.” I turned to her. Her face chapped from the cold, but so beautiful, and so damn alive. “Let’s just try to get back. I mean, look at us.” I pointed out at the white freeze and the big black sky. What was it Kade had called it? A blank slate.

“I wanted you to know I’m grateful is all,” she said, her voice small in the vast emptiness of the night.

“I don’t want you to be grateful. I want you to feel how I feel.”

“I’m working on it,” she said, like she was trying to sound easy, but the words came hard. “This is new for me.”

“It’s new for me, too.”

“So we figure it out together?”

“I’ll do it any way that you want.”

She smiled as she leaned her head against the glass.

“Do what?” Crow’s voice crept out of the darkness.

“You should be resting,” Alpha told him.

“And so should you.” He crawled up beside us. I mean, literally dragging his ass through the snow.

“You gotta try,” Alpha said. “You need to try standing. Walking. The more you do it, the better it’ll get.”

“And how would you know? These things they scienced onto me are tired and useless. I and I is flimsy, all the way through.”

“And what?” I said, trying to force some cheer upon him. “You’re gonna leave my sister alone in there, sleeping next to that scoundrel?”

“Don’t you worry. Crow here’s still looking out for Miss Zee. I believe the redhead be all right.”

“You sure about that?” Alpha got to her feet. She glanced at Crow, then rolled her eyes at me before heading to the shelter. “Guess I’ll take the next watch, bud.”

“What’s the rush?” Crow called after her. “Don’t want to talk story with me?”

He collapsed back so he was propped against the tank beside me, right where Alpha had been. Quite the damn trade.

“You all right, little man?”

“Oh, sure. Just figuring I’d freeze first and starve second.”

“Nah. Tough young guy like you.” He punched at my leg. Not hard or anything, but there was something painful in the gesture.

We both watched Alpha crank up the side of the shelter, then crouch in beneath it.

“Glad she’s back, no?” Crow said.

“Somehow makes it all worth it.”

“Aye.” Crow bared his teeth, white as the snow, but he weren’t really smiling. I’d given up hope I’d ever see him smile again.

“So she talked to you?” he said. “About Old Orleans?”

“What about it?”

“About her plans.” Crow picked at the bark on his leg. “For our trees.”

“Yeah. We talked about it,” I said, though I wasn’t really sure that we had. “What she say to you?”

“Girl’s got lofty ambitions.”

“When were you even talking to her, anyway?”

“On the boat.”

“All I remember’s you stood at the bow. Silent.”

“True that.”

“True what?”

“We talked, man,” Crow said. “Take it easy. I figured you two been talking also.”

“Sure. We talk plenty.”

“And not just talking to that sweet thing, I hope.” He nudged me, but playful weren’t something he was good at no more.

“So what about you, anyway?” I said. “What’s your ambitions?”

“Told you, just get me to Waterfall City.”

“Didn’t you get thrown out of Waterfall City?”

“They’ll welcome me back with open arms, if I come bearing fruit trees. You’ll see. You born Soljah, then you die part of the tribe.”

Crow made another attempt at smiling. Then he pointed to the far edge of sky, where the giant moon was poking its head up, and we sat there for a bit, watching the moonbeams flood the snow. Crow leaned closer to me and dropped his voice. “Rastas know how to keep a secret,” he said. “The rivers. The falls. Good places to hide from GenTech.”

“Niagara.” I nodded. Sure, you could stay out of sight there. If you knew the right place to go.

“Agents keep their distance,” Crow said. “Always have.”

“The Rastas would let us in? All of us?”

“Course.” He tapped the back of his head on the tank. “When they see what we got.”

“Nice to know we’re all set then.” I shook my head at him. “Guess we just have to get over these mountains, huh?”

“Past the Rift.”

“Keep away from Harvest.”

“And steer clear of GenTech.” Crow’s eyes glittered, as if they might work up a grin from the rest of his face. “Told you before you should have stuck to building.”

“I’ll be damned,” I said.

“What?”

“Thought for a second you was gonna smile.”

After all, he had to know all this talk meant nothing. Except I could see that it mattered to him. Not just securing the trees for his people—it was more than that. He seemed to want my support for something. Because we were friends now, I guess. Because of all we had been through. I mean, I couldn’t see why else he would care.

“Alpha’s right, you know. Your legs might work better,” I said, “if you don’t get so down about it.”

“You saying it’s all in my mind?” Crow stared into the night, and he sure weren’t close to smiling no more.

“I never said that.”

Tell you the truth, I just reckoned Crow was as tired as I was. I figured one uprising had been enough for him, too.