Akaela (8 page)

“Crap,
this is not enough,”
Uli
mutters.
 

He fishes
something out of a drawer and walks away. I can’t see him anymore, but I hear
metal grating against metal and then a click.

The closet! He’s unlocked the closet at the
back
!

I pry open
the cabinet door just enough to glimpse him vanish behind the metal door. A
voice in my head tells me this is my chance to slide out of my hiding spot and
vanish before I get into trouble. I stay where I am and tell the voice to shut
up. Uli comes out of the closet holding a small plastic bag in one hand. He walks
back to the countertop, fumbles a bit more with some glassware, and then rushes
out of the room.

I hold my
breath. A small miracle just happened.

In his
hurry, Uli left the closet door ajar.

Run, Athel. Get outta here fast
.

No. He forgot
to lock the closet. You don’t walk away from an opportunity like that. I sneak
out of the cabinet, take a quick glance at the office door then sprint to the
closet. I step inside, leaving the door ajar just like Uli left it. The closet
is narrow and dark, with two shelved walls on either side. Bits of electronics
are stacked on the shelves, larger robotic pieces on the bottom and smaller parts
on the top, organized in plastic canisters. I frantically sift through the containers
looking for the black plastic squares similar to the one Lukas showed us at the
stables. I come across something that looks close enough. It’s tucked in a
small transparent bag sealed at the top. I shove it into my pocket and keep
looking. I find more random parts that I stick in my pouch because you never
know what we’ll need once out
there
in the middle of
the night.

Two and a
half minutes into the closet, the read-out on my retina tells me.

That’s plenty of time
,
get out now, Athel
.

But what
if I still haven’t gotten the piece Lukas needs? I can’t risk it.

So I wade
deeper inside the closet. And that’s a mistake. By the time I hear Uli’s steps,
he’s already back into the workshop, walking straight to the closet door.

“Give me
one second and I’ll be right with you, Tahari,” Uli says. “I left the closet
open.”

I flatten
against the wall. Uli pushes the door closed and locks it.

A shiver
runs down my spine. “No!” I yell. “No, please—“

And then
bite my lip.

Akaela
would’ve never done that. Akaela knows no
fear,
she
wouldn’t have panicked like that. I close my eyes and hope Uli hasn’t heard me.

The key
rattles once more inside the hole. Uli opens the door and slowly peeks inside.

“Athel?”

Chapter Eleven

Akaela

I bang at the door and shout, “Lukas!
Open up, Lukas! Something’s happened and you have to come
now
!”

I hear the
drag of a chair and other random noises, then steps, finally, coming to the
door. Lukas opens, his face ashen and his eyes slowly blinking, taken aback by
my sudden haste.

I swallow,
not sure how to break the news. “Athel has been taken to the Kiva Hall. A
special assembly has been called.”

Lukas
tilts his head, processing the information. Man, for someone who’s faster than
his own data feeder, he’s being freaking slow right now. I grab his hand and try
to drag him out in the hallway. “Come!”

He pulls
away from me, the incredulous stare still clinging to his eyes. “Wait. What
happened? What did he do this time?”

Oh,
goodness. How do I tell him? I’m embarrassed to even say the word. “Stealing.
That’s all I know. He’s been taken to the auditorium for sentencing. Mom’s in
tears, but she won’t tell me anything more. I just—I want to know what
happened! My brother’s stupid, but not
that
stupid. Please, help me!”

“Wait,” he
says and runs back inside. His place is a hole—two rooms, one after the
other, probably an office suite back in the days when the Tower was a hospital.
He lives alone with his uncle Akari now that his dad left with the other ambassadors.

What a mess
, I think, staring at the messy
state of his place. Lukas can be such a nerd at times, the annoying kind. What
part of “We need to go right
now
”
does he not get?

He comes
back, satchel weighing down his shoulders and making him look even tinier and
skinnier.

I flinch.
“Why do you need all that?”

“Because
you never know.” He pushes me out the door. “Let’s go. I know how to eavesdrop
on the Kiva.”

Now he’s
talking.

*
 
*
 
*

Lukas drops his bulging satchel on
the ground and points to the metal cabinet against the wall. “Move that,” he
says.

“Say
what?”

“The
cabinet,” he insists, pulling his data feeder out of the satchel. “It needs to be
moved away from the wall.”

I’m
annoyed at him. When Athel gives me orders, I stick my tongue out. But now there’s
no time to be wasted. I pull the metal cabinet and drag it forward. I’ve no
idea how long Athel has been in there and what they’re doing to him. How could
he get caught for stealing? There’s no forgiving for something like that. The
Mayake people aren’t allowed to even
think
about stealing.

I push the
cabinet away from the wall and uncover an air vent on the floor. Lukas sticks
his fingers between the slats and pulls the grate off.

“Athel
discovered it,” he explains, whispering. “Hear those voices? They’re from the Kiva.”

I get down
on all fours and press my right ear against the vent. Lukas returns his
attention to the data feeder. He pulls more cables out of his satchel and
connects them to the various ports in his device.

I hear a
man’s deep voice, one of the Kiva Members most likely. “They’re waiting for the
full assembly to come in,” I say.

“Good.
That’ll give us a few more minutes.”

“What are
you doing?”

He
connects a tiny box with a two-inch antenna to his data feeder and then taps a
bunch of commands on the feeder’s terminal. “When I come with Athel, he pops
out his right eye and drops it down the vent. If he throws it hard enough, it
reaches the end of the vent and dangles down the ceiling, allowing him to see
what’s going on down there. Without him, we have to be more ingenious.”

I frown at
the tools he’s lined up on the floor. “What do you mean?”

“I left
the microtransmitter in his eye this morning. Once Kael came back wounded and
exhausted, you guys rushed to see Uli and I forgot to take it off. So now…”

He pompously
taps his thumb on the screen and leaves his hand suspended in the air, waiting.
The screen flickers, then a grainy image appears. It’s upside down from where
I’m sitting. I slide next to Lukas so I can properly stare at the picture. The screen
shows a raised stage in the middle of a large hall—the auditorium, I
guess. On both sides, slanted walls staggered by pillars converge to the stage
where, behind a cracked podium, a man sits on a big chair, his arms crossed and
his face a web of anger and disappointment. Two rows of empty chairs depart
from his sides. Behind him, a black screen hangs from the ceiling, split in the
middle by a deep gash.

If this is
the sacred Kiva Hall everyone talks about, it is deeply disappointing. The
walls are cracked and peeling, the chairs made of chipped wood. It’s no
different than the rest of the Tower, a subtle reminder that our future is
really in the past, the place we call home a mere ghost of what once was and
never again will be.

The camera
shifts to the right and I spot Uli hunched over at the end of the first row of
seats. Mom’s sitting in the row behind him, nibbling on the hook of her
prosthetic hand.

I think of
the hand we stole from the droid so Mom could have a brand new prosthesis for
her birthday. After what just happened, will Uli ever trust us again and make a
new hand for Mom like he promised us?

“Where’s
Athel?” I whisper. The image flickers again, panning back to the stage, and I finally
realize what’s happening. “Goodness, we’re in his head!”

“Not
quite,” Lukas replies. “But we’re seeing things through his eyes. Eye,
actually, the right one.”

We watch
on the screen and listen from the air vent. Athel turns to the Kiva entrance
and watches as two adults walk down to the stage, followed by two kids. One of
them turns and locks eyes with Athel, the bottom half of his face shining
eerily against the overhead light.

“Metal
Jaw!” I say. “What the heck is he doing there? Kiva is closed to anyone under
eighteen!”

“There are
exceptions,” Lukas replies. “Stealing is one.”

“It’s all
a mistake, my brother would never do such a thing!”

Right, Athel
? I almost message him but
then remember what he said earlier.

Any Kiva Member can tap into the network and
read messages as we type them
.

“Shh!”
Lukas hisses and points to the screen. “Tahari’s about to speak.”

The man sitting
on stage rises. “Here are our witnesses.”

No way!
Cal and Yuri … witnesses
?

About a
dozen men and women file up on the stage and occupy the chairs on either side
of Tahari. I recognize the elder who threatened Ash the other day.
These are the Kiva Members
, I think,
heart pounding in my throat.

What did you do, Athel
?

Athel
keeps his eyes on Yuri and his brother, probably wondering what the heck those
two up-to-no-good rascals are doing there.

“It’s all
a mistake,” I whisper. “It’s all a big, huge, mistake. I’m sure once they
realize the misunderstanding, Athel will be cleared.”

“Depends
on what he’s done,” Lukas says.

“Oh, shut
up!” I hiss.

He blinks.
“I was just saying the truth.”

You and your truth, Lukas
.

“I declare
this Kiva open under extraordinary circumstances.” Tahari’s voice booms from
the stage, bounces up the twisted air vent, and reaches our tiny closet one
floor up. “Uli, do you want to explain what happened?”

Uli lifts
his gaze, then sends a sideways glance to Athel and shakes his head. “Tahari,
I’ve known Athel all his life. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for
what he did.” Again, he looks at Athel, his eyes almost pleading.

Tahari
scowls. “I was there with you, Uli, when you found the young man in your
workshop closet. I asked you to look into his backpack and, had I not done that,
you would’ve never suspected him a robber. I believe you are biased. You are
therefore excused from testifying any further.”

One row
behind them, Mom wails. Seeing her like that angers me. Why is she not standing
up and defending her son? All she does is hide her face and sob.

“I know my
brother does a lot of stupid things, but if I were there in the auditorium, I’d
walk right to that Tahari guy’s face and tell him Athel’s no robber.”

“No, you
wouldn’t,” Lukas says. “Nobody talks to Tahari like that.”

I want to
reply but don’t want to miss what Tahari is saying. He recounts how Athel was
caught red-handed stealing from Uli’s workshop. Uli and he had just stepped
inside the room and found Athel in the closet, his backpack full of parts he’d
lifted from the shelves.

Tahari
looks down on Athel, then back to the men and women seated at his sides. “Do my
fellow Kiva Members have any questions?”

Athel
scans the faces of the men and women on stage, their eyes narrowed with spite. “How
long have you been stealing?” one man asks.

“I’ve
never stolen anything,” Athel replies.

“A liar,
too!” Tahari bellows. “I saw you with my own eyes.”

Athel
turns to Uli, perhaps hoping for a word in his favor, but Uli reverts his gaze
and says nothing.

“Let the
witnesses speak!” Tahari says.

A burly
man brings Yuri and Cal to the stage. From up there, Yuri looks down on Athel
and smirks, the bastard. Tahari nods and Metal Jaw chatter about all the stuff
he “overheard” us say at the stables.

It’s the
final straw. I stomp my foot, fuming. “Overheard my boot, the prickle head
eavesdropped on us!”

Lukas
scowls. “Shh!”

“Athel
meant to steal the stuff,” Yuri says. “He and his friends wanted to make
batteries but were missing some parts. My brother and I heard them say how they
didn’t have everything they needed.” He shrugs and flashes a disgusted look
toward Athel. “I guess he found it convenient to go take a look in Uli’s shop.”

“He’s
making that stuff up!” I protest. “That’s not what we said!”

Lukas
blows air through his tiny nostrils. “I know. I was there too,
remember
?”

I snort
and keep my mouth shut this time.

“Who else
was there plotting with him?” Tahari asks.

Yuri’s
eyes sparkle with pleasure as he replies, “His sister was there, together with
the nerdy guy, Lukas. And the super fast one—”

He frowns,
searching for the name.

“Wes,” Cal
chimes in. “The super fast kid’s name is Wes.”

Tahari
shifts his gaze to the man who’s accompanied Yuri and Cal into the hall. “Go
find them,” he says. The man bows and leaves while Yuri and Cal gloat. Tahari
dismisses them and, as they exit the stage, their eyes meet Athel’s. Yuri looks
straight at us through Athel’s eye and his gaze is so full of triumph and
hatred I almost shriek with the urge to punch him in the face.

“I
should’ve taught the prick a lesson when he came after me the other day. I
should’ve kicked him in his privates, him and that doofus brother of his.”

“Stand up,
Athel,” Tahari orders, stepping down the stage. He stands in front of my
brother and looks down on him. “You are hereby found guilty of treason and
deemed unworthy of the Mayake’s people trust.”

My heart
sinks. “N—”

“Shh!” Lukas
stops me before I can utter my disbelief.

“Your punishment
shall be seven days of Wela.”

Tahari
walks behind Athel and out of our screen. Athel jerks his head and the video
shakes imperceptibly. I hear Tahari’s voice from the air vent and yet what I
see on the screen makes me imagine him behind my back, his threatening voice
booming behind my ears.

Wela! Athel will be put out for seven days
!

“You’ll
also be banned from any future participation to the Kiva. You will always be
reminded of your betrayal to the Mayake people.”

At the
back, Mom yelps, yet she says nothing.

Uli stands
up from his chair. “Tahari, I think this is too much. He’s just a kid. You
didn’t give him a chance to explain his actions.”

“He was
given the chance to explain himself and he lied!” Tahari replies.

Athel
looks down at the tip of his boots.

What are you thinking, Athel? Why are you not
saying anything? This is unfair
!

Tahari’s
voice comes muffled,
then
the video goes out.

I blink at
the blue screen flickering before my eyes and slap Lukas’s shoulder. “It broke.
I can’t believe it. Can’t you fix the screen? We’re missing the most import—”

“The
screen is fine,” he says. “They just put Athel out. They deactivated him and
started the Wela.” And then he looks at me, his face paler than ever. “We need
to find Wes. They’re going to come after us next.”