Читать книгу Shattered Roads - Alice Henderson - Страница 15
ОглавлениеChapter 9
H124 came down with a crash, her feet hitting the shorter Repurposer squarely in the head. She knocked him over, then sprawled into the alley. Broken Nose reached for his energy discharger. She flung herself on the shorter one’s body, her quick hands closing around the weapon on his belt. She brought it up, firing at Broken Nose before he unholstered his weapon. Bright tendrils of electricity lit up the alley, burning her retinas.
She rolled off the other one and fired again. Light enveloped him, flashing again in the darkness. Struggling to her feet, she moved to Rowan. “Can you get up?”
She could see all the blood now, too much of it. “How badly are you hurt?”
He brought a hand to his head, and it came away crimson. “Feel sick to my stomach,” he slurred.
“We have to get you out of here.”
The short Repurposer groaned, holding his head and trying to stand up. She hurried back to Broken Nose and grabbed his weapon. But when she tried to shoot them, it wouldn’t work.
“It’s fried,” Rowan said behind her. “A flash burster’s one weakness is being hit by another one.”
She took the one good weapon she still had and shot both of them again. Their bodies jittered on the black asphalt and then lay still. She returned to Rowan. Handing the weapon to him, she hooked one arm around his waist and draped his arm around her shoulder. He gripped the gun. She half dragged him out of the alley with a hammering heart. They had to get out of there.
Struggling under the Rowan’s weight, H124 dragged him through darkened alleyways.
He drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he was dead weight, and other times he managed to stumble. They couldn’t keep this up for long.
“What about your place?” she asked when he came out of a stint of unconsciousness. “Could we hide there?”
He looked at her groggily. “My place?”
“Yes, how far is it?”
“I don’t live in the city.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
He met her eyes. “I come from outside the city.”
“Outside the city?” She raised her eyebrows.
He managed a smile. “Outside the city.”
“But . . . I’ve heard that you can’t survive out there.”
“That’s not far from the truth. It’s a nightmare.”
“How long have you lived out there?”
“My whole life. I was born there. And that’s where we have to go.”
Her mouth fell open. “I can’t . . .”
“No choice. You’ve been marked. I have to get this to my people.” He placed his hand on the satchel where he’d hidden his stolen prize.
“How far is it to the edge of the city?”
“A couple miles or so.”
“Which way?” she whispered.
He pointed vaguely west, so she dragged him in that direction. She looked at him as they walked, too afraid to stop. A deep gash along his temple was already turning purple and red. Blood streamed down his neck, soaking his sleeve and the back of his shirt.
“Can’t seem to focus,” he mumbled.
She ripped off a sleeve from her shirt and pressed it against the wound. “Can you hold that there?”
He tried to focus on her, though his eyes wandered. “I’ll try.”
She readjusted his arm over her shoulder as she continued to hurry down the dark alleys. A few times they had to cross over the main streets, the orange lights gleaming down on them. She felt exposed and terrified, hastening to escape into the shadows.
She lugged him on for what felt like an hour, Rowan half awake and stumbling. “My head . . .” Progress was agonizingly slow.
He almost fell, but she caught him. “You’re going to have to dump me,” he slurred.
“No.”
“Those Repurposers won’t be out long.”
“No way.”
Then they heard footsteps behind them. They’d caught up, closing in fast.
A blinding light flashed down the alley. Rowan shoved her away with unexpected force. She stumbled in the dark, crashing to her knees.
The weapon fired again, and she saw Rowan light up, the snaking current enveloping his body. He gritted his teeth and went down, sprawling onto the asphalt.
She started toward him, but he waved her away. The Repurposers raced forward, now only feet away, but they hadn’t seen her. She crawled back as they hit Rowan with another burst of energy.
Staying low, she crept to a nearby corner and crouched in the darkness. Damn it, she thought. He had the gun. It was probably fried. The two Repurposers had replaced their weapons before resuming their pursuit.
“Hit him again,” Broken Nose said. “I’ve had it with this guy. He’s dead.” In the sickly pale glow of the orange light, she could just make out Broken Nose’s pale face slick with sweat.
They stood over Rowan’s prone body. The short one glanced around. “Any sign of her?”
Broken Nose peered into the darkness. “We’ll find her. Let’s deal with him first. Got to get him to lie still.” From inside his long jacket, he pulled out the same gleaming tool they’d used on her. As the short man held down Rowan’s shoulders, a flicker of sick pleasure turned up the corners of the Repurposers’ mouths.
Broken Nose leaned over Rowan, starting up the blades on the gleaming tool. As the man lowered it to Rowan’s head, H124 looked around for anything she could use. Some fifty feet away in the gloom lay a pile of rusted rebar and an ancient sawhorse.
She knew she couldn’t reach them in time. The tool would have bitten through his skull by then. Instead she began to run back toward the rebar, shouting, “Hey!”
The two Repurposers looked up. As her hand closed around the heftiest piece of rusted metal she could find, she whirled around.
The two men had left Rowan, chasing her instead.
“That’s her!” cried Broken Nose.
“We can deliver them both!” the other said eagerly.
She ran down a side alley, doubling back on them. Once out of sight, she ran back for Rowan at a crouch. Just as she was almost on him, Broken Nose cut her off. “Going somewhere?”
She gripped the rebar tightly. He reached for his weapon, leering down at her. She steeled herself, then swung with everything in her. The metal connected with the side of his temple with a sickening crunch. He crumpled to the ground, a heap of loose bones. She pivoted, facing the second Repurposer. He looked down at his fallen comrade. “What have you done?” he shouted, eyebrows knitted together
She wanted to reach for Broken Nose’s weapon, but she knew the other would fire before she had the chance.
She started back as he circled her, sizing her up. As he took aim, she dove to the ground and rolled, cracking him in the knee with the rebar.
He screamed in agony, toppling to the ground. He rocked back and forth, grabbing his knee, eyes squeezed shut. She raced forward, grabbing the gun off Broken Nose. She shot them both and snatched up the gleaming tool.
Rowan stirred with a groan.
She kneeled over him, finding him barely conscious. She grabbed his arm. “We have to get out of here!”
Over her shoulder, one of the men stirred, but he didn’t get up. “C’mon!” She hefted Rowan’s arm around her shoulders and twined her other one around his waist. Heaving him to his feet, she supported his full weight. He moaned, bringing a hand to his head.
“What the hell . . . ?”
Behind her the short man moved, fingers grasping the pavement.
Rowan came around a little more, taking some of his weight off her. She spun him around, weapon at the ready. She hit both their assailants again. They skittered on the pavement.
Why wasn’t the weapon knocking them out? She looked at it to see if it had some kind of intensity setting, but couldn’t find anything. It fizzled, the acrid stench of burning circuits billowing up. It was fried. She tucked it into her bag in case it could be repaired later.
She found her bloody sleeve lying on the ground and gave it back to Rowan. “Keep pressing this on your wound.” She wheeled him around and made for the end of the alley. “Are you sure this is the fastest way out of the city?” she asked.
He lifted a weak arm, pointing farther west. She closed her hand around his where it rested on her shoulder, lugging him along. She took every corner she could, still trying to keep out of the men’s sight.
“Did they find us again by chance, or do you have something on you they can track?”
He shook his head. “Nothing to track.”
She thought of the PRD in her pocket, praying that the producer hadn’t double-crossed her. She switched it off just in case.
“How far is it to the city’s borders?”
“A mile or so,” he gasped. They hurried, his feet dragging a little. He tripped a few times. “Think I’m feeling better,” he said after some time, taking some weight off her. They picked up their pace. His head had stopped bleeding.
She glanced back, thinking of how Rowan had killed the Repurposers who had come for her. Should she have done the same back there? She’d never hurt anyone before tonight. The guard’s bloody nose in the PPC Tower had been the first time she’d made someone bleed. She couldn’t just kill two prone men, could she?
She snuck a glance at Rowan, whose head was sagging. What was his life like, and what was it like out there?
She gazed up at the city’s atmospheric shield. “How do we exit?”
“Exiting’s no problem. There are huge carbon dioxide vents at the city’s perimeter. They pump all the CO2 out of the city. We can get out through there. It’s getting in that’s the hard part.”
“How did you get in?”
“I know someone on the inside. He opened doors for me. But I didn’t have much time. It’s got to be a quick in and out or they start to notice the open doors.” He hooked his thumb back the direction they’d come. “Let’s hope those guys stay down.”
As they hurried onward, H124 started to feel sick to her stomach. Was she really leaving the city? This place was the only home she’d ever known, such as it was. It may not be a good life, but it was familiar. As far back as she could remember she’d lived in her tiny pod, going from cleaning vacated living pods to cleaning corpses six years ago, when she turned twelve.
How could she leave? Where would she go? She knew nothing about the world outside. She barely knew the city. Maybe she could stay. Maybe she could explain to her employers about the asteroid. Maybe they’d understand and let her stay as she was. Maybe Willoughby could explain to them that she knew something important, that she hadn’t been shirking her responsibilities, but discovering something vastly more important. Maybe she could go back to her little bed, her tiny, comfortable room, the bland but easily acquired food cubes.
She started to slow down. She thought of the PRD in her pocket. Maybe she could call Willoughby and see what he thought.
“What’s wrong?” Rowan asked. “Why are you slowing down?”
She looked up at him. “I—”
He gazed back at her, lifting his eyebrows.
“I don’t think I can do this,” she admitted.
“What?”
“Maybe I could explain to my employers . . .”
He gently took hold of her elbow. “Look, I don’t know why those Repurposers are after you. I don’t live in your world, but I do know a lot about it. You’re a worker. A cog. You don’t even have a name. Whatever you’ve done, they won’t listen to you. They won’t spare you. You’re a machine to them. A machine made of meat. You go back there, and those Repurposers will wipe your mind. It’s not worth their time to listen to you.” He stared at her with compassionate eyes. “If you go back there, you’re signing your own death warrant.”
She thought of Willoughby urging her to leave the city. If he had enough sway to keep them from harming her, wouldn’t he have mentioned that? They hadn’t listened to him in the Tower, at least not for long.
She looked up, thinking of the asteroid out there in the darkness of space, on its way to Earth. Would her employers really do something to stop that? Willoughby said no one even knew how to stop it, except maybe these Rovers. Even if she talked to her employers, and they let her back without wiping her, that wouldn’t change the fact that soon the earth was going to experience the biggest destructive force it had ever known. She could sit in her comfortable little room, clean up more corpses, and then one day fire would fill the sky, and she’d be obliterated along with everyone else.
She looked back at Rowan. His eyes met hers. They gleamed with an intensity she’d never seen in another person. Hope filled them. She had to take this chance. Had to leave the city. She would never forgive herself if she went back now. And besides, if she went back and they wiped her, she wouldn’t even remember about the asteroid. Nothing would save them. All would be lost.
She adjusted the strap on her tool bag. “Okay. Let’s go.”
He nodded, then squeezed her shoulder. She felt a pleasant zing of electricity at his touch. They hurried onward.
Above the atmospheric shield the gray clouds roiled. Lightning flashed. She’d never been outside of the shield. She didn’t know anyone who had. Until now.
“What’s it like out there?” she asked.
“Rough. Be ready.”
They walked on, staying to the shadows, listening to every sound behind them. Relief flooded through H124 when they reached the edge of the atmospheric shield. It was the first time she’d been this close to it. She could hear it buzzing all around her.
“Where are the vents?”
Rowan pointed toward a series of large holes in the concrete base. The concrete swept around them, a one-hundred-foot wall encircling the entire city. On top of it, force field generators jutted into the sky. She smelled the crisp scent of crackling electromagnetic energy. It tickled the inside of her nose, and she fought off a sneeze.
Rowan pointed to one of the vents. “You can go out, but you can’t come back in. It’s a way of pumping out the bad air, and not letting more bad back in.”
She frowned, staring at the large dark mouth of the tunnels. “Is it really so bad out there?”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “I won’t lie to you. It’s like nothing you’ll have experienced here in the city.” He left his hand there, and she felt that sensation in his touch once more, a warmth she hadn’t known before. When he took his hand away, she felt strangely disappointed.
“So what now?” she asked.
“We go through the tunnels. My inside contact hasn’t checked in with me, so we need to find a different way out. You can operate TWRs right?” He pronounced it like “twirs.”
She nodded.
“Okay, then.” He went first, choosing a particular tunnel. When they reached the entrance, she saw that it extended much farther than she’d thought. The concrete wall must have been at least a thousand feet thick. The tunnel stretched on into inky blackness. She took out her headlamp and switched it on. It didn’t even begin to penetrate the gloom.
Rowan looked at her. “Ready?”
She frowned. “This is the only place I’ve ever known . . .”
He nodded.
She bit her lip. “Let’s go.”
“There’s a barrier here at the entrance,” he said in a hushed tone. “It’s a semi-permeable membrane. But a shield protects it. You’ll have to take down the shield first.”
On the wall next to the entrance, she saw a theta wave receiver. Concentrating, she sent a message to the membrane shield to disengage. When she felt it turn off in her mind, she said, “Okay. It’s down.”
He went in front, entering the tunnel and moving quickly through the darkness. She turned as they passed through the shield controls and turned it back on. Then she caught up with Rowan, keeping close, her headlamp’s beam bouncing off the curved walls. The cement beneath glistened with damp, and about hundred feet in the air grew chilly.
She walked behind him, watching his back, the satchel moving against his side. His muscular frame moved with a kind of grace. Now a mildewy smell filled her nostrils, and she fought off another sneeze. When she felt like they’d walked a mile in the darkness, Rowan slowed in front of her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“There’s another barrier here in the middle, another shielded membrane.” He stopped to face her. Her beam shone on his handsome face, set jaw, and powerful blue eyes. “Something worse than death awaits you if you stay in the city, but I want you to be certain. Are you sure you want to leave?”
She gave him a quiet stare.
“I, for one, think you should. But it’s got to be your choice.”
And some choice it was. If she stayed, the Repurposers would wipe her mind, and the asteroid would wipe out more than that. But out there, she’d be vulnerable to a world of dangers she’d never even dreamed about.
She studied Rowan’s face in the shadows, then gave a resounding, “I’m ready.” They moved forward through the stifling air. “I feel light-headed,” she told him.
“It’s all the CO2. It’s really concentrated down here.”
As they moved deeper into the tunnel, she felt her lungs gasping for a decent breath.
“We’re almost there,” he reassured her. “The air will be better on the other side.”
Her vision began to tunnel, and the air grew even more dank and foul. Her side started to burn, as if she’d been running. She saw the TWR for the second membrane and sent a signal for its shield to come down.
“It’s down,” she confirmed.
They walked to the other side. Her ears popped as cooler air filled her waiting lungs. She ordered the membrane to activate again.
They walked a few more feet. “There’s additional security here,” Rowan told her. “A field beyond the membrane incinerates anything that moves through. Watch.” He removed a food cube wrapper from his satchel and threw it back the way they’d come. She saw it freeze midair, with blue volts swarming over it. Then it was gone, leaving nothing but a tiny puff of smoke. “Same thing with organic material, so don’t go back that way.”
He started moving again, and she followed him. “Where did you get in?”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “My inside man opened a spot along the perimeter. But it’ll be closed by now. He can’t risk keeping it open for long.”
An entirely new scent reached her. “What’s that?”
“What?”
“That smell.”
He grinned back at her, that contagious smile that made her stomach light. “Rain.”
She raised her brow. “Rain?” She knew the city collected its rainwater in huge tanks outside the atmospheric shield. She also knew they maintained large desalinization tanks that pulled water from the nearby ocean. Not that she’d ever seen the ocean, no matter how near it was. And rain? She’d always been fascinated, wondered what it would be like to be outside, where water fell freely from the sky.
“I’ve never been in the rain.” She felt herself smile. The gesture felt strange, strained, something she’d only done a couple times in her life. It was a small smile, short of showing her teeth, but she felt the corners of her mouth turn up. It almost hurt.
“Hey, keep that attitude! A lot of people can’t stand the rain. It gets to them.” He regarded her with kind eyes. “You know, you’re pretty refreshing. Unlike anyone I’ve ever met. I think you’re going to make it out here.”
He started moving again, navigating the tunnel as if he’d been in it countless times.
“Just how many times have you broken into the city?” she asked.
His laugh was a rueful sound. “Too many to count. Been coming here since I was a kid.”
The smell of fresh air grew stronger, so they hurried on. Soon her headlamp picked out the edge of the concrete tunnel. Beyond was the most pitch-black landscape she’d ever seen. At least while inside the tunnel, her headlamp had reflected off its close walls. But out there, the space was immense. Her headlamp reached out into that abyss and simply ended.
She stopped. “What’s out there?”
He turned. “Everything.”
“I’m . . .”
“Afraid?”
She nodded.
“I don’t blame you. This is huge. But you can make it.” He held out his hand, and she took it. His skin felt rough and warm as his strong fingers closed around hers.
As they reached the mouth of the tunnel, the stale air gave way to a fresh gust. She heard a roar, like the drone of distant machinery locked away in some residential building. “What’s that sound?”
He stuck his head out of the entrance. “A storm.”
She’d never been in a storm. Weather in the city was always the same. The same temperature. The same humidity. The air out here felt cold and windy, like nothing she’d experienced inside the city.
Then she heard something crack in the sky, a deafening cacophony of sound. It cracked again, and this time she felt the vibration in her breastbone. She backed into the tunnel, her hand withdrawing from his. “What was that?”
He walked back to her. “Just thunder.”
“And the drone?”
He smiled. “That’s the rain.” He took her arm gently. “C’mon.”
She let him lead her out through the opening. Rain poured from the sky, instantly soaking her hair and shirt. The wind picked up, so loud it roared. Rowan said something to her, but the wind carried it away. He leaned closer. “Let’s find some shelter!” he yelled, running out into the storm.
She followed, finding herself on a ruined street amid giant crumbling buildings that leaned on each other. Old bricks and stonework littered the decaying road. Pieces of shattered glass crunched under her feet.
Rowan ran for a recessed doorway in one of the buildings. He dashed inside and turned to wait for her, but she was mesmerized. She couldn’t help but stop and look up. Now she saw the clouds roiling above, illumed by the orange lights from the city. Behind them the huge cement barricade swept away on both sides. Inside the atmospheric shield loomed the tremendous buildings of the city.
Then it hit her. She couldn’t go back. She was on the outside now. She felt strange, floating, her anchor gone. How was she going to survive? She felt the pang of homelessness, her roots ripped away beneath her. Tearing herself from the sight of the city, she reached the recessed doorway and ran inside, joining Rowan.
“You okay?” he asked.
She peered out at the storm. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” Lightning flashed in the clouds, making the surrounding terrain go from night to day and back again. Rain gusted by in a level sheet. “I had no idea storms were so intense!” Wind whipped inside the doorway, so powerful it pushed her backward.
He gave a mirthless laugh. “I hate to tell you, but this is a break in the storm.”
She faced him.
“It’s going to get a lot worse.” He took the satchel off his shoulder and placed it on the ground, crouching down beside it. “Listen. I have to leave. But you’re going to be okay.” He started pulling things out of his satchel and stacking them on the floor.
She stared at him. “What?” Panic filled her. He was her lifeline, the only way she’d been able to get out of the city.
“Where I’m going . . . it’s dangerous. You can’t come.”
“More dangerous than what we just went through?”
He lowered his head, then looked up at her with regretful eyes. “Yes. I’m afraid it is. I can’t bring you with me.” He took her hand again. “You can do this. You can survive.” He dug through his bag. “Look, I’ve got some food here, and a bottle of water and a filter to collect more.” He reached into his pack and pulled out an aluminum bottle and a little filter and hose. He handed them to her. “And here are some MREs.”
“MREs?” she asked.
“Meals Ready to Eat,” he explained. “They taste pretty bad, I won’t lie. But they get the job done.” He handed her all the rations he had.
“You’ve got to keep some for yourself!” she insisted, handing them back.
He pushed her hand away gently. “I can get more. And so can you. Do you have a PRD?”
“I do. I was told it couldn’t be traced.”
She pulled it out, and Rowan took it, flipping it over and removing the back. He whipped out a small tool and removed the circuitry board. “Damn. You’re not kidding. Never seen one like this. It doesn’t even have a slot for a tracking chip.” He put it back together and turned it on. Pulling up the map function, he waved his hand through the floating display, scrolling to an area about thirty-six miles away. “Go here. It’s an old weather shelter, built a long time ago when the megastorms first hit. You’ll find a place to sleep, a water purification system, and lots of MREs to replenish your supply.” He typed in something else. “Put in this code when you get there.”
She watched him enter it, feeling hopeless and lost, then dug around in her tool bag and pulled out the fried flash burster. “Any chance this will work again?”
He took it from her and turned it over, then used his tool to open the casing. The circuitry and electricity generator were fused as one. “Sorry. This thing is done for.”
She decided to take a chance. “Have you heard of the Rovers?”
He snapped his gaze up to her. “Not since I was a kid. They were the ones who allegedly built the network of weather shelters, but I don’t think they’re around anymore. No one has seen them, anyway. We’ve all wondered, though. I grew up, moving from shelter to shelter, thinking about the people who built them. But all we have are stories, all made up, I think.” He looked back at her. “Why do you ask?”
“I need to find them.” She told him about the asteroid and its fragments, and how Willoughby had told her that they might know how to stop it.
Rowan parted his lips as he listened. “How much time do we have?”
She bit her lip. “Two months before the first fragment hits, followed by two more. A year before the main one collides.”
His eyes widened. “Small window.”
“I know.” She stared out at the rain, thinking of the devastation heading their way.
“Maybe a long time ago we could have stopped it. But now?” He stared out into the storm. “We’re all just rats hiding in a hole. Your friend is right. If anyone would know what to do, it’s the Rovers. They held onto things. Onto knowledge. You’ll get a sense of them when you get to the weather shelter. They left books.”
The word was new. “Books?”
“They’re old and strange, but cool. Printed on weird stuff. And they’re full of information. Some people take them from one shelter and leave them in the next. So the inventory changes.”
“What kind of information?”
“Old stuff. Like what the world was like back in the day. Strange animals. Maps of places that have been gone a long time. You wouldn’t believe the things that used to be out there.” He stared out at the driving rain, the wind blowing it sideways down the street. “It’s all gone now.”
She followed his gaze, shivering in her wet shirt. “What’s out there now?”
He met her eyes in the growing dark. “Heat. Death. Storms.” He pulled a jacket out of his satchel and handed it to her. “You’ll need this. It’s waterproof.”
She accepted it reluctantly. “Won’t you need it?”
“I’ll be fine.” He rummaged through his satchel and pulled out a clear pouch. “This’ll keep the rain out of your PRD.” He handed it to her.
“Where are you going?” Fear gripped her stomach. Was she just supposed to walk to this place alone, with no idea how to survive out here?
“I have to go north, to my people.”
She felt awkward. “And I really can’t come?”
He met her eyes. “They’re, uh . . . not very nice. You don’t want to meet them. And whatever you do, if you meet anyone out there in the wastelands, don’t tell them that you were a worker in the city. Don’t let them know you can access TWRs, or that you can do work-arounds to open locks. Don’t ever reveal that information.”
She tilted her head. “Why?”
“Because people will kidnap you for that information. That, and your ability. And if you don’t cooperate, torture’s the least of your problems.”
A new wave of fear stole over her, the most sickening feeling she’d had yet. “I don’t think I can do this.”
He closed his hands around hers. “You can. I’ve seen you in action, remember?” He nodded toward the city. “It’s a hell of a lot more dangerous for you in there than out here. Now there’s more distance between you and the bad guys.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“Don’t worry. You probably won’t run into anyone.” He looked out at the wind-tossed rain. “It’s the weather that’s the killer.”
He lifted his satchel and swung it back over his head. “Good luck, H.” He walked to the edge of the recessed doorway. Then he turned back. “You should think of a name for yourself. Your current designation will be a dead giveaway.”
She met his eyes. “Is this the last time we’ll see each other?” She barely knew him, but the thought was a painful knot twisting inside her.
He took her hand again, something hanging heavily in the air between them. She wanted to move closer, to bask in his scent one more time.
“My people have a way to communicate,” he told her. “Devised over years of trial and error. Like Morse code.”
“Morse code?” She’d never heard of it.
“Ancient way of sending messages by tapping out a rhythm of long and short tones.” He pulled out his PRD and brought up a hovering screen. “We had to alter it from the original, in case our enemies still knew about it. The idea’s the same, but the letters are different, and we’ve added some other elements to make messages harder to crack.”
He held up his PRD. The floating display showed a communication window with a button for a short tone, and one for a long tone. A section of the screen showed each letter of the alphabet followed by its equivalent of short and long tones. A was a short tone followed by two long tones. Numbers one through ten also had codes.
“You type in who you want to send the message to, then enter the code for each letter as it appears on the screen. The codes change multiple times a day, but the program saves the date and time you sent the message, so you can always decipher it if you knew what the code was at any given time.” He gazed at her. His eyes were so intense, she fought the urge to look away. “If you need me,” he told her, “contact me this way.”
She pulled out her PRD. They touched devices, and the program automatically uploaded to hers. When she double-checked it was there, she lowered her device, looking back at him. She’d never felt so drawn to someone, but she didn’t know what to do. He’d led a completely different kind of life—free, adventurous, full of risk. She’d only known that which she’d been born into: raised in the machine of the city, fulfilling her duties.
She hadn’t known anything else was possible. She’d always felt unsettled and alone, like she was missing something. And now, despite the fact that she had no home to go to, and was soon to be left alone in this chaotic wilderness, something felt like it was falling into place. She felt connected to Rowan, a feeling she’d never had with another human.
He gripped her hand one more time and forced a smile. But there was a deep sadness in his eyes. He let go, moved back, and stepped out into the storm. She watched him walk down the street. He stopped at a corner and turned back to look at her. Something stirred within her, a strange kind of longing. She wanted to run to him. He stood there for a long moment, gazing back as if memorizing her features. Then he raised a hand and gave a sad wave. She did the same. She watched as he reached the end of the street, gave her one last glance, and rounded the corner of a building.
And then he was gone.
She stood alone, shivering in the doorway, the howling wind cutting through her clothes. She’d never been so cold before. The city was always too hot, too humid. She watched the rain pelt the cracked pavement. She pulled on the jacket Rowan had given her, huddling in its dry warmth.
As she stared out at the gray, she noticed something green poking up between the cracks of the crumbling black road. She pulled the jacket tightly around her and crept outside. She reached out, touching the wet, green strands. They were flexible. It was a plant, she realized, not the flat-leafed ones she’d watched the food workers grind up into food cubes. This was something different. She looked down the stretch of the road, seeing more tufts breaking through the asphalt.
The loneliness sank in. The ancient road stretched into the abyss, the crumbling buildings immense and empty, their brick guts spilling from their decaying bodies. She shivered in her jacket. Hurrying back to the doorway, she checked her PRD. Noting the direction of the weather shelter, she turned off the device, tucking it into the weatherproof pouch he’d given her. Then she walked out into the storm, not knowing what lay ahead, or if she’d even live to see the next day.
