Akaela (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Athel

Day Number: 1,533.

Event: Our mission failed.

Number of Mayakes left: 431.

Goal for today: Save Wes’s life.

I brush my hand against the steep
rock. It’s cold and wet.

“It’s
going to be slippery,” I say.

Akaela
looks up and squints at the strip of sky framed by the walls of the gorge. “The
sky is clearing, the clouds are rolling fast. The winds are perfect.”

She can be
so stubborn.

“You don’t
get it. The winds can be perfect, but I doubt you’ll get up there with this
kind of terrain. I know you did it once already, but it was broad daylight and
the rock wasn’t wet.”

She stares
back at me, her face blank, as though I’m missing the obvious. “There’s no other
way, Athel. Wes is going to die if we don’t do something.”

She’s
right. Wes is in really bad shape. I found him splayed in the mud as I was
looking for Maha, his right titanium leg crushed by a rock. The implant was
already clinging to his bone and flesh by a thread. I did the unthinkable and
yanked him off the weight of the rock, tearing it apart. Wes’s outcry of pain
still rings in my ears.

“What are
you going to do once you get to the Tower? They’re not going to listen to you.
You’re a traitor now. The minute they see you they’ll take you straight to the Kiva
Hall and condemn you.”

“I’ll make
sure they don’t see me and sneak into Uli’s workshop. He’ll listen. You said it
yourself, that’s what we should do. Uli is our last chance.” Her eyes are
pleading now. “I know you don’t trust anyone, Athel, but we have no choice now.
Uli’s our
friend,
he’s known us since we were babies. He
will listen once I tell him how bad Wes is.”

He will
listen. But what can he do
? I wonder. Will he drop everything he’s
doing to come to our aid inside a damned gorge, a place we’ve been admonished
to avoid since we were little?

I swallow
and look up again. There’s no way she can make it, I tell myself. But then
again, this is my baby sister we’re talking about, a one of a kind cyborg,
stubborn, relentless and fearless.
Literally
fearless.

“I’ve got
to stay here and help Lukas,” I say, knowing it’ll take some time to install
the implant, wire it up and then haul Wes on Taeh’s back. And then it’ll take
forever to head back through the debris and torn vegetation. “But I’ll be here
while you climb, watching your steps, Dottie. You may have wings, but I’ve got
the best eyes.” I wink. “Can’t deny that.”

Akaela
bites her lower lip and cracks a smile. She throws her arms at me, which is something
totally unexpected that makes me blush to the roots of my hair.

“Ok,
then,” she says, brusquely pulling away from me. “Tell me where to start.”

I inhale
and scan the wall of rock looming in front of us. “Pick a vertical slab with
enough edge to give you a grip. Test everything before trusting it with your
weight. The tide has draped everything in mud and what may look like rock can
be just a blob of dirt.”

Akaela
squints at the sky. “Looks to me like it’s washed most of the rock.”

“It’ll be
slippery. Just be careful, will you?”

She smiles
at me, and this time it’s a devious smile. She raises an arm, gropes for her
first handhold,
then
steps up. I watch her climb
without a kink for the first ten, fifteen feet, just a
well coordinated
routine between her arms and legs. Kael settles himself on a protruding rock
and bobs his head, carefully following Akaela’s moves.

You’ve got two pairs of watchful eyes on you,
now, sis
.

She loses
her grip in a couple of instances but manages to shift her weight on time, her
other foot or hand always well planted. I’m awed by her steadiness, her lack of
fear keeping her nerves calm.

My nerves
are everything but calm right now. Adrenaline courses through my body, making
my legs jittery and my breathing fast. I worry for Wes, for what’s going to
happen next. I got into this because Dad was in danger and I wanted to save
him. Instead, I put my best friends in danger. Even if Akaela makes it back to
the Tower, there’s no guarantee she’ll be able to contact Uli before they sweep
her away and condemn her to Niwang. And what if Uli decides not to listen to
her?

I push the
thought away. Kael hops closer to Akaela now that she’s about twenty feet up. Twenty-two
and six inches, the built-in inclinometer in my retina tells me. The sight is
frightening. She’s just a black silhouette painted against orange rock. If she
falls now she’s doomed. I look away.

Taeh
stares at me from behind a jumble of torn bushes. She’s moved from her comfort
spot by the rock to cheer Akaela. I step away from the wall and pet her. She
salutes me with a bob of the head and rubs her nose against my face.

“Good
girl, Taeh,” I say, hugging her. “Good girl. Not like that stupid sister of
yours.”

Damn, I
miss Maha. I wish I could’ve kept her closer and protected her better. But there’s
no time to think about Maha now. Wes is in danger, and Akaela—

“Athel!”

Lukas
waves at me. I shoot one last glance at Akaela, now over thirty feet up and
click my tongue at Taeh, signaling her to follow me over to Lukas.

Wes looks as
pale as ever, his face a white moon in a mud covered landscape. I kneel next to
him and check his wound first, then his breathing. Slow and steady, just like
his pulse.

“You were
right,” I tell Lukas. “Putting him out did help. In the vegetative state he’s in
now, the blood loss is significantly reduced.”

Lukas
nods, but his face looks grim. The device he’s been making lies on the plastic
sheet in front of him, half assembled. He cups his face in his hands and stares
at me, the lost look in his eyes worth a thousand words.

“What’s
up, man?”

He shakes
his head. “I’m missing a piece.”

I suck in
air. My eyes stray back up to the wall of rock. Akaela’s still steady in her
climb to the top. Twenty feet away from the edge, the inclinometer tells me.
It’s also the steepest part, the rock dry now and probably brittle and
slippery.

I bite my
lip and avert my eyes, trying not to think about what she’s doing now.

Think about Wes
.

“Let’s
haul him up on Taeh’s back and get going, then,” I say.

“The
rocking of the horse could resume his bleeding.”

“Damn it,”
I mutter. To think I’d managed to acquire so many precious parts from Uli’s
closet.
All for what?
A sentence to
Wela and the mess that followed.
They took my backpack
away from me and everything with it
.

I dip a
hand inside my pocket. My pants are
sodden
wet and stick
to my skin, yet I manage to fish out a small transparent plastic bag.

Everything but one tiny object
.

Lukas
frowns. “What’s that?”

I stare at
it. “That thing you said you needed when we met in the barn.”

“That’s
not a bridge rectifier,” he immediately corrects me.

I droop my
arms. “Great. I got myself into Wela and didn’t even manage to get the right
part.”

Lukas
walks around the rock and stoops next to me. “Let me take a look.”

Up in the
sky, Kael squeals. He’s flying in circles over the top, the clouds almost
cleared out of the way and the golden hue of sunset setting over the edge of
the gorge.

I squint,
quickly scan the wall of rock, but I can’t see Akaela. I hold my
breath,
let my eyes run up and down the wall’s full length,
yet I can no longer see my sister.

And
suddenly she pokes her head over the edge and beams at me.

“I made
it!” she yells, waving at us.

I exhale a
sigh of relief and wave back. “How are the winds?”

She points
at Kael gliding over the mesa and gives me two thumbs up.

“Good
luck!” I shout.

She
vanishes again, probably searching for a good spot to jump from.

The hardest part has yet to come
, I think.

You can
climb walls, you can jump into the currents and fly, you can survive a
twenty-foot high surge of water. And yet you can’t change someone’s heart.

Lukas taps
on my shoulder. I beam at him, still dazed that my baby sis made it all the way
to the top. He doesn’t seem to share my enthusiasm. He holds the part I
mistakenly thought was a bridge rectifier, something I’d taken off the shelves
in Uli’s closet, and shoves it in front of my face.

“I think
we have a problem.”

And from
the gloom on his face, I know it’s something I don’t want to hear.

Chapter Eighteen

Akaela

Now that the storm has passed, the
sky burns into the reds and golds of a vibrant sunset. Blown away by the wind,
ribbons of puffy cumulus clouds roll along the horizon. I reach the top of the
mesa and rejoice at the sight of the wide horizon after so many hours spent in
the constrictive space of the gorge. Excitement builds in my veins.

I need to
fly.

I
want
to fly. Desperately, like an itch at
the pit of my stomach that doesn’t subside.

Kael swooshes
past me and shows me the currents.

The mesa
is a flat line across an orange sky. Warm winds blow in my face as I bask one
minute longer in the last rays of sunshine. I feel goose bumps on my skin, my
whole body still cold and drenched. It’ll be worse once I’ll be up riding the
currents, but at least right now the last rays of sunshine are taking some of
the chill away.

The dry
terrain of the mesa feels like a different planet after walking for so long in
the slosh and humidity of the gorge. Swirls of sand curl at my feet with every
step I take, and wherever I turn, all I see is the flat edge of the land
staggering against a golden sky. It feels like I could walk straight into the
clouds. The mesa itself, though, is wider than I’d originally thought. It feels
like it’s taking me forever to get to the ridge. But when I finally do, the
view is stunning. Beyond the steep cliffs sprawls the forest that once was Astraca,
our ancestors’ city, fallen after decades of war with the Gaijins. Yet now,
unscathed by the bloodshed and nourished by our father the Kawa River, the
green extends beyond the horizon, lush and vibrant as if it had a life of its
own. A flock of herons rises from the fringe of the trees, flies into the
setting sun and vanishes behind the clouds.

Kael glides
in front of me and then veers to the right. I follow his path along the ridge,
knowing he’ll point me to where the hot air released by the earth clashes
against the rocks and turns
upward,
creating the lift
I need for my dive. There’s a ledge a few hundred feet ahead, a slab of rock
leaning out over the edge of the mesa. A lonely juniper is perched at the end
like an old sentinel lost at sea. I always marvel at the most unlikely places
where you can still find life. Old and contorted, the juniper clasps the rock
with its naked roots, its branches bowing to the dying sun. I step over the ledge
and look down, the drop before me at least a hundred feet deep.

I raise a
hand and feel the wind blow through my open fingers.

Kael
circles low over the mesa, his broad wings bracing the currents. My heart
starts racing.
The drop, the thermals, the cumulus clouds.
It’s all so perfect, and
yet it may as well be my last flight
, I
think gloomily.

 
“Well if that’s the case,” I say out loud,
“we’ll have to make sure this one last jump is
epic
.”

As the sun
dips beneath the horizon, its last rays painting the clouds red, on my far left
I spot the eerie glow of the Gaijins’ factory. I think of Dad one last time, my
heart heavy with the notion that whatever danger he’s in right now, we failed
to help him.

And then I
jump.

The wind
slaps me hard in the face and my whole body goes rigid, my damp clothes
freezing against my skin. I spread my arms and give in to the pull of gravity.

I love of
freedom I get from jumping. I love the adrenaline rush, the intoxicating notion
that I’m so close to death. I could leave the sail closed and feel the rush
until the end, the ground coming closer and closer.

I could
.

But I know
I won’t.

I ball my
fists and press the heel of my hand. The flap between my shoulder blades pops
open and my built-in frame slides underneath the open flap of my shirt. The sail
instantly springs open to its full twelve-foot width, and as soon as it does,
the thermal catches me and lifts me. The trees turn smaller again, the ground
snatched away from my sight.

“Kaheeee,”
I scream as I soar above the mesa and into the low clouds, the last remnants of
sunset painting the sky purple.

The
thermals are strong, the winds steady. Kael flies ahead of me, and, as always,
I envy his elegance and the perfect control he has over the glide.

We will never beat what Mother Nature did
.

The air
whipping against my face is gelid, yet the exhilaration at being up in the sky
again, free, one last time, makes every fiber in my body vibrate with excitement.
The thermal whisks me away from the mesa and down along the ridge. I glide over
the forest and watch the Kawa River unfold before my eyes as it snakes through
the forest.

About
forty minutes later, I finally spot the Tower emerge at the end of the forest.
The thermal is still strong beneath my wings and, for a moment, I wish I could
glide past it and fly long into the night, following the river all the way to
the ocean.

But that
wouldn’t be fair to Wes, or Lukas, or my brother.

Each one
of us has a story arc to complete, a mission to follow, whether it succeeds or
not. We try, we fail,
we
keep trying.

Nighttime
is falling. The first stars glimmer in the sky as a last dab of orange rims the
horizon. The Tower now glows with its lit up windows. The forest spreads apart
and the solar fields appear, dark panels spread out in a grid.

I wish I
had my brother’s eyes so I could see better, but I’ll have to content myself
with the experience gained from my one successful night landing only a few days
ago. I already know the best landing spot is by the stables, so I circle around
it as I drop in altitude. Kael circles with me then dips down and dives toward
the Tower. I whistle, trying to stop him, but he’s already flying to our
window.

That’ll give me away
, I
realize.

But then,
what choice do I have? I have to find Uli, and find him fast. Maybe Kael’s
sudden presence at our windowsill will alert Mom to call Uli. Maybe it’ll make
things easier for me.

I
concentrate on the winds. I tilt the sail and shift downwind to lose speed, and
then back into the wind to prepare for landing. As I focus on my landing spot,
I catch a quick light shining from the ground. It points straight at my face
and then disappears. I brush it off and focus on my landing, nervous for the
little visibility I have now that darkness has fallen.

Thirty feet
from the ground, the stables come in full view.

Twenty feet.

Fifteen
—

I see it a
split second before it hits me. A dark object rises from the ground, opens up
to a net and coils around me, catching me in midair. My sail crinkles backward
and I start spinning, plummeting down to the ground. I kick and flail my arms,
desperately trying to wriggle out of the net. Broken and tilted, the left side
of my sail stretches back, slowing down my fall. In the maddening seconds that
follow, all I can think of is to bend my knees and cover my head. I hit the
ground feet first, throw myself to the side, and roll to reduce the impact.
The net tightening around me until I stop.

Silence.
My heart thumping wildly against my chest.

What the
hell?

I make a
quick assessment of my bones, limbs,
head
. The sail is
broken, the frame kinked and tilted. I try to retract it but it won’t. I can
hear the mechanism uselessly whir and clang between my shoulder blades. My arms
and legs are stuck against my body, the net tightly wrapped around me, making
it impossible to move. I grunt, wriggle and tug at the rope with my teeth while
wondering who the hell would do this to me.

I don’t
have to wonder for long.

“Oh look. Quite
the catch tonight, Cal, wouldn’t you say?”

I freeze.
Metal Jaw
. How could I ever forget that
voice?

“You
filthy liars!” I shout. “Thanks to you, Athel was condemned to Wela! How does
that make you feel?”

In the
shallow darkness I spot their shadows approaching from a patch of trees not too
far away.
The same patch of trees from where I spotted the
light shining in my eyes minutes ago.

They ambushed me. They spotted me up in the
sky and ambushed me
.

Yuri’s
metal jaw shines eerily in the dim light of the night as he stoops down and ogles
me. His odd grin tells me he’s feeling quite accomplished right now.
Unfortunately, his jaw is not the only shiny object glimmering. He’s holding a
penknife in his right hand and no matter how hard I think about it, I’m pretty
sure it’s not to cut the ropes holding me hostage.

His brother
Cal leans over his shoulder and the two stare at me with their dumbass smirks
plastered all over their idiotic faces.

“Get me
out of this!” I grunt. “I’ve got an important message to deliver and you can’t
stop me now.”

Cal
sniggers and Yuri clicks his tongue. “Who are you talking to like that, Freaky
Freckles?” He pinches the piece of rope stretching over my face, stretches it,
and then releases it until it lashes back like a whip on my nose. “I don’t
think you’re in any position to make any demands right now, are you?”

They both
guffaw.

“I’m not
scared of you,” I snarl.

I soon
regret it. Yuri narrows his eyes and flicks his fingers. At the signal, Cal
jumps on my back and twists the frame, yanking it from my shoulder blades. I
try to bend backwards but Yuri grabs my hair, shoves my face down and holds the
blade of the knife against my cheek.

“I hate
you, Freckles,” he says while his brother, saddled over my back, tugs at the
frame. I hear the clangs and thuds of the metal bars and my eyes well with tears.
With a swift movement, Yuri jerks his arm and stabs the sail. One last pull and
the frame
comes
off my back. Cal laughs out loud,
jumps to his feet and kicks the broken sail into the air.

“How are
you gonna fly now, little girl, huh?”

He raises
the twisted sail above his head and flaps it while running around in circles
like a chicken. I say nothing, my face hot with shame and tears.

Yuri
guffaws at his stupid brother. He slides a finger along the edge of the blade
just to show off and then presses it against my cheek again.

“Look at
you, Freckles. I could play connect the dots on your face. Carve ‘em all out
with my knife.”

I grind my
teeth. “Go ahead and kill me. I’m already dead anyways.”

He jumps
over my back, shoves my head deeper into the ground with the heel of his hand
and leans over me. I feel the blade tug at my shirt and cut it clean open at
the back as he presses his cold metal face to my cheek and whispers into my
ear, “When I’m done with you, you’ll wish I did kill you because that would’ve
been a far lesser punishment.”

I try to
wriggle but the creep is too heavy, the net still tightly wrapped around my
arms and legs. He slides the blade down to my waistline and grabs the hem of my
pants.

“You pig!”
I yell, suddenly realizing what the piece of scum has in mind. “Don’t you
dare—
”

Cal drops
my sail and comes to kick me in the head. I yelp as pain bursts into my skull,
hot tears trickling down my neck. I start choking, the pain so strong I can’t
breathe. I wheeze for air as Yuri presses his full body weight against my
chest. I shut my eyes and hear them guffawing, Yuri’s hands running over me
while his stupid brother asks when will it be his turn.

“Hey!”

Yuri and
Cal freeze.

“Hey, you!
What the hell are you doing?”

I spring
my eyes open.
Uli. Sacred Kawa, that’s
Uli’s voice I just heard
!

“Help!” I
yell, spitting grass and dirt.

The two
pigs drop off me and run, leaving me tied up in the grass, my face covered in
dirt. “Uli!” I scream. I hear him running toward me, or at least I hope it’s
him and not the creeps coming back. As I’m lying face down in the grass, a net
wrapped around my body, I jerk and yell Uli’s name, hoping he’ll see me.

“Akaela?”

Uli stoops
down and rests a warm hand on my chilled skin. “Uli,” I cry. “Oh, Uli, thank
you, thank you!”

I feel his
strong arms work the net around me, his voice soothing. “It’s ok, baby. It’s
ok. What happened?”

As he loosens
the ropes around me, I try to
explain,
yet half of my
words get swallowed by sobs. I stutter about Athel and the gorge and how we
wanted to save Dad but ended up with a badly wounded Wes. I feel the net
finally come apart. I roll over, sit up, and yelp, “Wes is in grave danger,
Uli. You’ve got to help us. I think—I think he might die if you don’t
come help us.”

Uli stares
at
me and swallows, his face
scrunched in worry and
something else, something that takes me aback—is he not believing what
I’m saying?