Above World (19 page)

Nothing on his head except the collar. Nothing on his ribs. Nothing on his four dainty black paws. He ran his hand over the raccoon’s fluffy ringed tail, and . . . the tip was stuck to the desk! Hoku pulled at it gently, but nothing happened. He pulled a little harder, and Zorro’s tail popped off the surface. But what had it been stuck to? The desk was as smooth as ever, no sign of glue or a clip or a plug. No little tail-devouring mouth had been built by the ancients to nibble unsuspecting animals. At least, he couldn’t
see
any such mouth.

He lowered Zorro’s tail toward the desk. At a few centimeters away, it suddenly snapped out of his hand and back into place exactly as it had been before.

“Magnets!” Hoku said. They used magnets back at the colony to keep things from floating away — in fact, his own sticky plate was actually a magnet. He pulled Zorro’s tail off the desk and put it back three more times. “Magnets,” he repeated.

Somehow, Zorro had plugged himself into the building.

“What’s going on?” Aluna asked. She was halfway up the elevator shaft, her back pressed against one side and her feet braced against the other.

“Nothing,” Hoku said quickly. He didn’t have anything to share with them. Not yet. For now, the secret belonged to him and Zorro.

“Okay, boy, let’s see how this works,” he whispered, and plugged Zorro’s tail back into the desk. “Zorro, can you talk to the brain?”

The animal tilted his head. This time, its eyes flashed yellow.

“Zorro, can you talk to the ancients?”

His head tilted to the other side with another flash of yellow. Cute, but not helpful.

Hoku unzipped his backpack and pulled out his books, looking for words that might trigger some response from the SkyTek brain. He tried “Internet,” “CPU,” “computer,” “network,” and even “SkyTek,” which he’d thought was particularly ingenious. More head tilts, more red or yellow eyes, more scratches behind the ears, but no luck.

“Maybe ‘talk’ is the wrong word.” He tapped his cheek with one of his fingers, a habit he developed at Skyfeather’s Landing. “Zorro,” he said finally, “can you turn it on?”

Zorro’s eyes glowed green. Hoku felt warmth emanating from his tiny body, along with a low-pitched whirring.

Suddenly, the huge video screen in front of Hoku came to life, and a strange voice said, “Welcome to SkyTek, our dream for the future!”

H
OKU GASPED
. Images appeared on the screen — bright, beautiful images in full color. It was as if he were flying toward the SkyTek dome again, only this time the landscape was full of Humans. And the dome wasn’t cracked, but glittering in the sun!

He barely noticed when Dash and Aluna joined him. He reached out to touch one of the tiny trees on the screen, expecting to feel leaves, but the surface was as flat and smooth as it had been before.

“With the world’s population growing past the point of sustainability . . .” the voice said, and images fluttered on the screen. Masses of people crammed in landscapes of metal and glass. Grime-covered children, too skinny, begging for food. Huge machines covering the side of a hill like a swarm of glittering beetles.

“. . . SkyTek and its sister LegendaryTek corporations are prepared to bring you the future . . . in the form of the past!”

The picture changed, and suddenly they were soaring over the ocean to the sound of flapping wings. It reminded him of flying with Senator Niobe, and his heart lifted.

“Fly with the birds!” the voice exclaimed. “Our sustainable high-altitude communities of winged Aviars offer freedom from crowded cities, pollution, rationing, and even freedom from the earth itself! The ancient Greeks gave us the idea of winged women, and now we give you the skies!”

The image pulled back to reveal a beautiful winged woman hovering in midair, a huge smile on her face. Her wings were pristine and perfect white, and her long hair fluttered in the wind, like shifting golden kelp. She didn’t much look like a real Aviar — she didn’t have muscles and scars and painted symbols all over her wings — but they got the general idea right.

“Please see your local sales office for more details, or apply online at LegendaryTek dot com, where you can preview some of our other exciting new communities.”

Another flash of images: A half horse, half Human racing across a sandy plain on four hooves; a beautiful Kampii woman with long, silly hair swimming through the ocean wearing shells on her chest instead of a shirt; a man with the long, sinuous body of a snake slithering in an underground chamber full of gemstones; and a Deepfell swimming between two sharks in the dark ocean.

“Many more communities are in development,” said the voice. “It’s time to take evolution into your own hands!”

The final image — a lone figure silhouetted on top of a mountain and breathing fire from his mouth — was covered up in a stream of tiny text that Hoku had no hope of reading. After that, the screen went dark.

“Play it again,” Dash said. “Please.”

“Yes,” Aluna said, similarly dazed. She reached out and touched the screen, just as he had done earlier.

“Zorro, play it again,” Hoku said. The little raccoon’s eyes glowed green, and the screen lit up. They watched the images again, and a third time, and then a fourth.

“Did you see that?” Hoku said. “In the picture with the Kampii — there was a dome in the background!”

“Really?” Aluna said. “I missed it. I kept waiting for those ridiculous shells to fall off that Kampii’s chest. How could she possibly swim like that?”

Hoku laughed. “I know!”

“Can we regain focus, please?” Dash said. “Can you make the animal stop the image in that spot?”

“Um . . . I don’t know. Let me try.”

They replayed the images again. This time Hoku said, “Zorro, stop!” when the Kampii appeared. Zorro’s eyes glowed green, and the screen fell dark.

“Well, that didn’t work,” Aluna said.

“Apparently not,” Hoku grumbled.

They heard glass shattering from outside the building, and distant laughter.

“We need to leave before they get here,” Dash said.

“Why don’t you two find us a place to hide while I figure this out?” Hoku said.

Aluna nodded. “Or maybe we can find some weapons.”

“I would prefer to find an escape route,” Dash said.

Hoku focused his attention back on Zorro. He could hear Aluna and Dash enter a heated discussion behind him, but he didn’t care. It was easy to tune out their words, even though Aluna’s echoed from inside his ears. He had work to do.

He was starting to figure out how Zorro worked, or at least how he was supposed to interact with him. If he didn’t say Zorro’s name first, the animal didn’t acknowledge being spoken to. And the exact words he picked were important. “Stopping” the image hadn’t worked, but what other word could he use?

“Zorro, play it again,” he said.

The screen exploded back to life. He tried telling Zorro to “wait,” but nothing happened. When he said, “Zorro, freeze!” the flow of images halted on the picture of the crowded metal city. “Zorro, play it slow,” he said. The picture resumed its progress, but at half the speed. The voice slowed down, too, sounding much more like someone talking underwater. He found it strangely comforting.

When the images returned to the silly Kampii with the shells, Hoku told Zorro to “freeze” again. The image stood still on the screen, perfectly clear. He could almost feel the ocean current, could almost taste the salt.

The smiling Kampii was there, tail gleaming, one arm waving. This time he pulled his eyes away from her to study the background. And there it was, plain as Big Blue. Behind her, in the distance, a huge dome sat on the water like a giant jellyfish filled with glittering spires.

“I’ve got it!” he yelled.

Dash came over, holding a long, sleek metal sword in his good hand.

“Where did you find that?” Hoku asked, amazed that the scavengers had missed something so shiny.

“I did not find it. I had it with me. In my bag,” Dash said. He pressed a button on the sword’s hilt and its blade retracted with a series of
snikt
s. Another button press, and the blade extended, looking as sharp and deadly as ever. Hoku thought about their first encounter with Dash in the dome and how differently it could have ended.

“Aluna went outside to scout,” Dash said. He looked up at the picture. “That shoreline looks a bit familiar.” The horse-boy squinted. “I may have walked along that beach a few weeks ago. I did not see the dome, but I believe I remember that cliff.”

“Can you take us there?” Hoku asked, his breathing necklace pulsing fast to keep up with the jittering of his heart.

“I am not certain,” Dash said, “but I think so. It was a long journey, and I traveled mostly by night.”

“Good enough for me,” Aluna said from the doorway of the building. She was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed. Both of her talons were unsheathed and waiting in her hands. “If we don’t leave now, the Upgraders will be adding fresh Kampii and Equian to their list of parts.”

“T
HEY’RE RIGHT BEHIND ME,”
Aluna said, glancing over her shoulder. “I don’t think they saw me, but they’re heading for the building.”

“How many?” asked Dash.

She shook her head. “Not sure. Maybe four. And another one in the sky.”

Dash cursed. She didn’t understand the words, but she understood his meaning.

“We’re trapped in here,” she said. “Going up another level or two will only make us more trapped.”

“I will distract them,” Dash said. “You and Hoku try to escape.”

She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. She’d broken his arm, and now he was volunteering to sacrifice himself for them? The Equians, wherever they were, must be an honorable people.

“No,” Hoku said. “You’re the only one who knows how to get to the dome, Dash.”

“Then I’ll stay,” Aluna said. Besides, if anyone was going to sacrifice herself for the greater good, it was going to be her.

“How about none of us stay,” said Hoku. He turned back to that weird pet of his and said, “Zorro, can you access the other workstations?”

The animal’s eyes glowed green.

“Hide under the desks by the entrance,” Hoku said to Aluna. He hugged the raccoon and whispered something to it. Inside her ear, Aluna heard him say, “I’ll miss you, boy. We would have been good friends.”

She blinked and swallowed. Dash retracted his sword and was trying to crawl under the desk without using his bad arm, so she focused on helping him. A moment later, Hoku squeezed in next to her and Dash with his backpack.

They were all still as starfish. She could hear her own heart beating, could feel the sweat on Dash’s arm where he was pressed up against her. Hoku seemed impossibly small crouched in front of her.

The Upgraders’ voices got louder.

“Better find us some true wired sparklies or we’ll be missing more than a few parts when we’s get back,” one of them said.

“I say we go for the harpy witches after this. Heard the tech they got is true wired! We’d eat like Fathom himself if we bring those generators back in flash and glory,” another said. “Imagine! New bits of shiny to play and sell. Been needing a new nose since my last one got blasted to bolts.”

A third uttered some words about the Aviars that made Aluna blush, and the other Upgraders chuckled and grunted with appreciation.

Hoku shifted his weight. Aluna could feel anxiety rolling off him in waves.

“Wait,” she whispered. “Not yet.”

His shoulders relaxed slightly. She tried to calm her own heart as well. Any fear she showed would amplify his, and Dash’s. Their lives were her responsibility, and she couldn’t afford weakness. At least not when the enemies were less than a spear’s throw away.

The Upgraders shuffled through the entrance corridor and into the room. From below the desk, all she could see were their dust-covered pants. One of them sported hidden-needle boots, like the man she’d fought at Skyfeather’s Landing. Another seemed to have bare feet, but they were made of dull-black metal. Even the toenails! If the Upgraders were Humans once, they’d left that legacy behind them, as sure as the Kampii had left the dry land.