Above World (18 page)

“I apologize for the offense,” Dash said. “I have never met a Kampii before. I thought . . . well, I believed you breathed water and never left the sea.”

“We don’t,” Aluna said, her hand going to her throat and the breathing shell that should have been lodged there. “Not usually. But our people are dying. Hoku and I left home so we could find a way to save them.”

Dash nodded. “This is a brave plan.”

Aluna felt heat flood into her face.

“So where are you from?” Hoku asked. “Only thieves and cutthroats could call this place home.”

Dash managed to pull himself upright and shifted to lean against the remains of a concrete wall. His shoulders looked stiff, and he held his chin high.

He said, “I have been exiled from my people. I no longer have a home.”

“E
XILED?”
Aluna said. Hoku winced, probably at her lack of decorum, but she ignored him. “Meaning, you can’t ever go back?” The thought of never returning to the City of Shifting Tides, of never hearing Daphine make fun of her clothes or her hair, of never seeing her brothers fight over the last scrap of fish at dinner was too horrible to imagine — and all too real. Unless she found HydroTek and another breathing shell.

Dash kept his face devoid of emotion, but it looked like it was taking every muscle in his body to do it.

“I will never return,” he said.

“Where?” asked Hoku.

“To the Equians,” Dash said, and for a moment, she could see the pain in his eyes. He smoothed it away quickly. “My herd . . . my
old
herd . . . they live in the desert east of here.”

“The Equians!” Aluna said. Like the Kampii and Aviars, they had altered themselves to live in harsh climates that no one else wanted. “The Equians are horse folk,” she said. “But you’re not part horse.”

“Yes? And where is your tail, mermaid?”

She scowled.

Hoku snorted. “That’s a fair point.”

She touched the tiny pouch hanging under her shirt. She still had a tail if she wanted one. But Hoku didn’t know that. No one knew that except her.

“Our tails are none of your concern,” she said.

“And my lack of hooves is none of yours,” Dash retorted.

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

“I’m fine with that, too,” Hoku said brightly.

She and Dash looked over at him, but he seemed oblivious to anything but his new best friend. The animal had curled up in his lap and was happily munching on the apple.

“Raccoons!” Dash said. “Insufferable creatures, every last one.”

“There’s a little tag attached to his collar,” Hoku said. “I think his name is Zorro TM. It also says
WILD BUDDIES PROGRAMMABLE PETS.
I wonder what that means.”

“I have no idea,” she said, “but Zorro TM is definitely a strange name.”

“Not really,” Dash said. “The Equians have many groomer monkeys named Bananas TM. Possibly they are related.”

“Groomer monkeys?” Aluna and Hoku said at the same time.

Dash shrugged. “When you are part horse, it is difficult to reach your tail or to clean out stones from your hooves. We —
they
— train the monkeys to comb out tangles. The creatures are very useful.” He glared at the raccoon. “And they never stole our apples.”

Hoku scratched Zorro behind the ears. “What tricks can you do, little thing?” Zorro licked his nose with a tiny pink tongue.

Glass shattered in the distance, followed by a guttural laugh.

They all stopped, looked, listened.

Upgraders, or just thieves?
She wouldn’t welcome either right now.

“We should keep moving,” she said. “We’re like fish in a tide pool here.”

Hoku stood up. Zorro dropped the apple core, climbed up his arm, and balanced on his shoulder.

“Well, it was sort of nice to meet you, Dash, despite all the fighting and cursing,” Hoku said. “But Aluna and I have to keep moving. Swift currents, safe travels, and may the spirits guide you on your journey.”

“Dash is coming with us,” Aluna said.

“He is?”

“I am?”

“Yes.” She squinted at the sun, her heart beating fast.
Why did she say that? Why was she doing this?
“We don’t have many hours of daylight left. Let’s get moving. If we can find a clue that points us toward HydroTek, we can be out of this place by dawn.”

“What if I do not wish to join you?” Dash said. His stiff shoulders and raised chin were back.

“You have a broken arm, and I’m the one who gave it to you,” she said. “You’re my responsibility, at least until we’re out of danger.”

“I can take care of myself,” Dash said. “I am not without defenses.”

He’d kept his satchel close to his body ever since the fight. What kind of weapons was he hiding?

The people in the distance were getting closer. There were at least three distinct voices now, but no dragonfliers in the air. Maybe they still had time.

“Look, I have no doubt that you’re good in a fight,” she said, trying to be polite. “But we’re all better off if we stick together while we’re in this dome.” She could see him wavering. She decided to make it easier for him. “Besides, Hoku and I could use a hand if things get nasty. You’d be doing us a favor.”

Dash studied her, thinking. He looked wiry strong, but thin. His once-white shirt looked soaked with sweat and dirt, and even a little blood. He’d been out here for a while, she guessed. Even with two good arms it would be hard to survive in this place.

“Fins and flippers, we don’t have all day!” Hoku said. “I’ve already been attacked once. I don’t want to make it a habit.”

Dash sighed and nodded.

“Follow me,” he said. “I know a place that might hold the answers you seek.”

He looked at Aluna, his eyes challenging her to contradict him. She smiled and motioned for him to take the lead. Hoku scrambled after Dash, and Aluna took her place at the back of the line, closest to the sounds of the approaching men.

They quickly fell into a rhythm. Slower than the one she’d set earlier, but quicker than what Hoku seemed to want. The creature on his shoulder squeaked whenever he tripped or stumbled.

For the most part, she watched Dash. The horse folk intrigued her, and she burned to know Dash’s story. An Equian who wasn’t a horse from the waist down. How did something like that happen? Was that why he’d been exiled? His long hair swished across his back when he walked. She imagined it looked a lot like a horse’s tail.

The sun sank lower. After an hour or so of hiking, Dash stopped and pointed. “There,” he said.

The building stood several stories tall, a silvery monolith with a space at the bottom where an opening hatch used to be. Its walls shimmered and reflected the debris all around, making it almost invisible.

“What is it?” Hoku asked.

“It stands at the exact center of the dome,” Dash said solemnly. “It must be important.”

“I don’t understand,” Aluna said. “Why is it still here? Why haven’t the Aviars or the Upgraders scavenged it for parts? It must be a trap.”

“Trap or no, it might hold the answers you seek,” Dash said. “If we can save your people, is any price too high to pay?”

She was here, wasn’t she? She’d given up everything for the crazy idea that she could make a difference.

“What are you waiting for? Let’s go,” Aluna said.

H
OKU HATED
to admit it, but he felt safer now that Dash was with them. Without him, Hoku would either have to go first into the strange building or go last when there were possibly murderous thugs coming up behind them. The middle was a vast improvement.

As they walked through the narrow entrance corridor, he saw evenly spaced holes in the walls. They used to hold security cameras, he guessed, like the kind he read about at Skyfeather’s Landing. The cameras must have been easy pickings for the early tech scavengers. Too bad. He would have loved to take one apart.

The corridor opened into a huge room the size of the whole first floor. The room seemed hollowed out except for a clear tube in the center. He expected to see stairs, but there were none. Maybe it once held an “elevator,” like the one the Aviars had. Dead video displays lined the walls from the ceiling down to the smooth, molded work spaces that ringed the whole room.

Everything had once been shiny and silvery-slick. Despite the intrusion of garbage and the attempts to break everything breakable, very little damage had been done. He ran his fingers over the nearest workstation. Scratches and dings marred the surface . . . the result of hundreds of people trying to get inside the computer or destroy it for everyone else.

“Do you have torches?” Dash said. “It is too dark to see much.”

Hoku hadn’t even noticed the darkness. His eyes had adjusted. Dash’s people were probably more used to the sun.

“We can see just fine,” Aluna said absently.

Hoku heard Dash mumble something about mermaids, but Aluna, staring up the plastic tube in the center of the room, was too far away to hear.

“Can we get to the other levels?” she asked.

“I believe so,” Dash said. “That shaft goes all the way up, though whatever mechanism it used to house is long gone. I have scouted up five more levels. They all look like this. The top floor contains only tables and chairs and is overrun by squatters.” He wrinkled his nose. “Judging from the smell, they are not concerned with infiltrating the computer so much as drinking themselves into sickness.”

Zorro wiggled down Hoku’s arm and clambered onto the work surface. Hoku started to walk a circuit around the room, trailing his hand along the massive desk. It stayed dark and cold and silent, oblivious to his touch. Zorro hopped after him, pausing to sniff the wall or the desk at random spots.

“If this is the brain of SkyTek, then I’d say this dome is dead,” Aluna said.

Hoku paused in his exploration to look at her. She picked up a piece of trash from the floor, turned it over in her hands, then threw it back down. She looked as out of place here as she did in the ritual dome back home. Dash was no better. The horse-boy couldn’t even see. He was cradling his broken arm and sticking his face a few centimeters away from the wall, squinting. Hoku would have to figure this out on his own.

If all the floors looked the same, where was the access point? He’d been half expecting to see a big machine with glowing knobs emitting, “Get your answers here!” in some mechanical voice. Instead, everything looked the same. All the workstations were the same size. If this SkyTek had an Elder, she’d have to sit at a regular old desk like everyone else.

He kept walking, kept scanning the walls and the desk surfaces for clues. Zorro kept pace, his little claws clattering on the smooth surface as he trotted along. Hoku stopped when they reached a small pile of rags on one of the workstations.

Zorro squeaked and jumped onto the pile. He turned around three times, then plopped down in the center.

“Zorro, is that your bed?” he asked.

The raccoon’s eyes pulsed green.

Hoku jumped back, surprised. He glanced back at Aluna. Dash was showing her how to shimmy up the elevator shaft. Neither one of them was paying him any attention.

“Did . . . did you just answer me?” he asked quietly.

Zorro tilted his head to the side, but his eyes stayed unremarkably black.

“Can you talk?”

Zorro started to lick his paw.

“Zorro, can you understand me?” he tried again.

The raccoon snapped to attention. His eyes glowed green once, then fell dark again.

“By the tides,” Hoku hissed.

Zorro tilted his head again — in exactly the same way as before. Did that mean he was listening but didn’t understand? And why hadn’t he acted like this before?

Hoku stared at the raccoon. The raccoon stared back at him.

“Zorro, can you speak?”

The raccoon’s eyes pulsed red.

“Well, it was worth a try,” he said. He gave Zorro a little scratch on the head. The animal’s fur was warm — much warmer than it had been before.

“Hey!” Hoku said. “What are you hiding?” He started to pull away the rags that made up Zorro’s bed. The creature didn’t complain; he sat there staring. Hoku petted the raccoon a few times to keep him mollified, and he nuzzled his arm in response. When all the rags were gone, Hoku ran his hands slowly over Zorro’s body, feeling for . . . well, for anything weird.