Akaela
Authors: E.E. Giorgi
Cover art © Elena E. Giorgi, all rights
reserved.
AKAELA (Mayake Chronicles, Book 1)
Copyright © 2015 by E.E. Giorgi
All rights reserved.
No part of
this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photographic
(photocopying), recording, or otherwise – without prior permission in
writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. All of the
characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either the
product of the author’s imagination or they have been used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to real persons, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
Electronic edition ISBN: 978-0-9960451-4-8
Print edition ISBN: 978-0-9960451-5-5
Also from E.E. Giorgi
CHIMERAS
(A Track
Presius mystery)
MOSAICS
(A Track Presius mystery)
GENE CARDS
(A Skyler Donohue mystery)
Set in the
Apocalypse Weird
world:
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Table of Contents
Part I
The most dangerous parts of a
droid are its hands. That’s the first thing Athel and I learned. They’re also
the most precious components, with state-of-the-art microchips and the fastest
nanobots ever made.
Like human
hands, they can flex, grab, and hold. Unlike human hands, they can be fired off
their arms as explosive projectiles. The scavenger M3 we’ve been tracking down
the gorge has three-millimeter caliber rifles embedded inside its knuckles. So
long as its hands are busy collecting samples from the ground, we’re fine. But
once those hands point at us, we stand little chance against its bullets.
Luckily
Kael, our trained falcon, has no problem dodging fast-flying bullets from
scavenger droids. As I climb higher along the wall of the gorge, I raise my
head and watch the falcon circle the sky, his black feathers shimmering against
the harsh sun.
So, here’s the plan, Dottie
, Athel
messages me through our wireless connection, his words forming on the right
corner of my eye.
Don’t call me Dottie
, I
retort.
My brother
ignores me.
Once you reach the top, you
signal Kael to attack the droid. The M3 will fire first. They usually deploy
their rocket hands as a last resort
.
We’ll make sure it doesn’t have a choice
, I send
back.
It won’t, once it exhausts the magazines. As
soon as the M3 fires its missile hands, you jump. Make sure the droid follows
you and not me
.
I swallow.
Right. Easy peasy. Sometimes I wonder why I even listen to my brother’s crazy
ideas.
My left
foot loses its grip and skids, sending pebbles tumbling down the wall of the
gorge. At the bottom of the ravine, the M3 freezes. It elongates its neck with
a subtle whir and slowly pivots its triangular head in a full circle.
Good thing
it didn’t look up.
Athel
waits with our two mares just outside the gorge. He sends me a new message, his
anger flashing in capital letters on my retina.
Don’t screw up
!
I
won’t
. I bite my lip, find a new handhold in the rock, and climb farther
up, careful not to make any noise this time.
The
droid’s lenses extend out of their sockets, examine the length of the gorge, and
then retract.
It smelled the horses
, I message,
the words forming on the right corner of my retina.
Keep Maha and Taeh away
!
Let me handle it
, Athel
shoots right back at me. The message flashes a few seconds longer then fades
away.
A gust of
wind travels down the gorge, making my skin tingle. Twenty feet below, the M3
seems unaware of our presence. Its treads scrape the ground and roll over the
rugged terrain, adjusting to its uneven contour.
Athel’s
words slide at the bottom of my eye.
I
can see you now.
Twenty-five feet from the ground.
Five more to the top
.
He can
measure how high I’ve climbed thanks to his built-in inclinometer. Five more
feet and I’ll reach the top of the mesa. My bare fingers brush against gravel.
A glaring sun peeks down from above, the sky a pale blue hazed by the smoke of
the Gaijins’ fires. I stretch one arm up and grope for a new handhold until I
reach the top of the ridge and climb over the edge. Up here, the M3 scavenger
droid can no longer spot me. It will keep scraping the rocks searching for titanium-rich
sediments and other metals, robbing our volcanic land of its richness.
Robbing
us.
I scan the
horizon. Kael hovers above me, his shadow drawing black circles over the solar
panel fields. Beyond the fields, the forest brims with tension, naked trees tracing
the snaking path of the Kawa River. I raise a hand and feel the ridge lift—the
wind hitting the cliff side of the mesa—blowing up.
Time to
set our trap.
Now
! I message Athel. Kael catches my
signal and dives into the gorge. The M3 droid spots it immediately, its thermal
imaging sensors built to detect the slightest rise in temperature within a
radius of five hundred yards. Its lenses zoom out of their sockets, trained on
the falcon diving down between the high walls of the gorge.
The droid
lifts its right hand and balls its metallic fist. Its decisional algorithm has
deemed the threat worth shooting. I crouch over the edge and watch, grinding my
teeth. The first rounds zip through the air. Just as fast, Kael dodges them,
his cyborg reflexes fueled by nanoelectric impulses traveling down from his
brain. He swoops over the droid and then lifts up again, the M3’s bullets
trained on his movements yet failing to catch him. Three more clicks and the
gunfire ends. Kael makes another dive, and this time he gets so close his
talons claw at the droid’s head. The M3 protrudes both lenses, then rotates one
hand and points it, its reflexes slow compared to Kael’s.
Come on. Fire the darn thing
!
And then
comes the blast. The droid’s right hand shoots out of its metallic arm and arcs
through the air.
I’ve got it
! Athel types on my retina.
I hear the horses leap from their hiding spot, but there’s no time to watch
them try to catch the missile hand before it explodes. I run to the edge of the
mesa and dive off the cliff, wind whipping against my face.
That
moment when time stops, suspended in the breeze. That brief moment when I could
crash down and die and yet I know I won’t.
That
moment when I’m as alive as any creature could ever be because I feel.
And yet
I’m not human. And I’m not robot.
I’m both.
Akaela
Seconds after my jump, I stretch
my fingers and send electric impulses down my arms. A flap between my shoulder
blades snaps open and the carbon fiber frame snuggled within pops out and flips
into position, freeing the reinforced polyester sail enclosed in it. It swells,
stopping my downward plummet. And as soon as the ridge lift catches me, I’m
airborne.
Now a
small blob at the bottom of the gorge, the M3 sprouts claw legs from its sides,
retracts its treads, and darts out of the gorge after Athel and the horses, the
hole gaping from its right arm still smoking. M3 scavenger droids are big and
bulky, but once they sprout claw legs, they can crawl over walls of rock like
gigantic spiders.
I swerve
and swoop in front of the droid, trying to steer its attention away from my
brother. Its lenses zoom out of their sockets and track me.
Athel quickly
hops on his mare Maha and, together with my horse
Taeh,
they sprint after the M3 missile hand. The gadget contains pieces of
electronics and microchips that, once harvested, are vital to us. Once
launched, the challenge is to catch the robotic part before it either explodes
or disintegrates against a rock or a tree.
It’s up to
Kael and me now to provide enough of a diversion for the droid.
Kael
noses down and dips
in front of me, the droid’s bullets from its
remaining hand zipping past him. We follow the ridge of the mesa, the droid in
hot pursuit behind us. It clambers up along the wall of rocks and tries to grab
us with its front claws. Once the uplift from the ridge fills my sail, I veer
into the upwash and bank up, the thermal pushing me from below.
Now that Athel
and the horses are out of sight and safe, I whistle to Kael to follow me up
higher. The falcon rides the currents with me, leaving the droid flailing its
claws at us from the edge of the mesa. I pick up speed and gain altitude, rising
above the ridge and over the forest.
The M3’s
bullets can no longer reach us. Athel and the horses are out of sight, already
too far for the droid to catch up with them. I exhale a sigh of relief and
enjoy the view opening up before me, the Kawa River a silvery snake rushing
away from the waterfalls, and the Tower, our home, a small blob nestled within
its bend.
The
distraction is enough to make me vulnerable again. I hear the
high pitched
whistle and, by the time I react, the droid’s
left hand is launched mid-air and coming straight at my sail. I lurch to dodge
the projectile and end up riding off the thermal. I tip my arms and start
spinning.
“Athel!” I
scream, plunging down.
Deprived
of both hands, the M3 scavenger droid charges down the cliff. Kael screeches
and swoops down on it. I grab one end of my sail and flail my arms, slowing my
descent.
Hey, Dottie, guess what? We got the hand
! Athel messages
me. And then he realizes what’s happening because his next message comes in
bold letters:
The river! The droid can’t
follow us across the river
!
As I
desperately flap my sail trying to regain control of my glide, I spot Athel and
the horses running by the riverbank. I tilt the sail, trying to prolong the
glide and redirect my landing direction, but I keep losing altitude.
Twenty feet from the ground
.
The M3
droid runs faster, its algorithm anticipating my trajectory as I fall.
Fifteen feet
.
The droid
catches up with me. It lifts its upper body and tugs my sail with its front
claws.
From the
riverbank, my horse Taeh sprints ahead and gallops toward me. She kicks dust
against the droid and positions herself right below me. I close down the frame
of my glider and drop onto my mare’s back, clasping the strands of her tan
crest. I wrap my arms around Taeh’s powerful neck and pull myself up, squeezing
my legs around her sides. The droid chases us to the riverbank and then
screeches to a halt as Taeh gallops straight into the river, splashing water
back at the M3 with her powerful hind legs.
M3 droids
fear water. The bulky machine, now deprived of its two hands, has nothing left
to do but watch us escape across the river.
As soon as
we reach the other side of the bank, my brother waves the droid’s right hand in
the air and grins. “We did it!” he yells.
“Let me
see it,” I beg him, adrenaline still rushing through my body.
Athel
shakes his head. “You think after all it took to acquire this thing, I’m going
to hand it over and watch you drop it in the water?” He carefully wraps the M3
part in the cloth he’s brought along and then slides it inside his backpack.
Our horses
wade out of the water, their hooves sinking in the wet sand. Miffed at Athel’s
words, I dismount and drop on the sandy terrain of the riverbank. Kael has already
gone home—I can see him perched on our kitchen window on the fortieth floor,
probably whistling so Mom feeds him some bread.
“I hate
you,” I tell my brother. He thinks he can boss me around just because he’s a
year older than me. “I’m the one who risked the most. All you had to do was
sprint and catch the darn thing while Kael and I were dodging bullets. How can
you even think I’d drop it in the water?”
Athel
pivots his right foot around Maha’s back and hops down from the saddle.
“Because you’re clumsy, Dottie. You almost gave yourself away while climbing.”
The statement
irritates me. “But I didn’t, did I?” I scratch Taeh’s nose, her whiskers soft
against my hand. My beautiful mare saved me today. “And stop calling me Dottie,
you know I hate it.”
Dottie,
because my nose is peppered with freckles.
I snort. “You
and the horses had fun playing catch with me, admit it. And if somebody was
going to get hurt it was me, not you.”
Athel
jumps in front of me. “That’s what you think,” he says, and shoves his face
into mine, tongue lolling and one eyeball dangling out of its
socket
.
“Stupid!”
I yell, pushing him away.
He pops
the eyeball back in place and laughs. He loves making stupid pranks like that.
When all our parts are in place, it’s easy to forget we’ve got chips, nanobots,
and piezoelectric actuators hidden deep under our skin and in every cell of our
body. The Gaijins call us Kuklas, their word for “mechanical doll.” Most of us
have dark eyes, straight black hair, and no texture on our complexion. The only
exception is my friend Jaycee and her sister Tanya, who have blue eyes and fair
hair. They think they’re ugly, but I find their hair and eye color incredibly
beautiful. I’d trade my freckles for their frizzy, blond hair in a blink.
The Tower
looms ahead of us, its gray façade mottled and cracked by time. Smoke rises
from the open windows carrying the familiar scents of oak and melting metals
from the workshop. The North Wing went missing in 2189, before both Athel and I
were born—the aftermath of one of the deadliest attacks from the Gaijins.
It left a gaping hole up on the sixtieth story, now draped by crawling ivy and
mold. When the dry storms roll by, Athel and I sneak up there in the middle of
the night and watch the sky light up with lightning strikes.
The Tower
is one of the few standing buildings left of what was once Astraca, the city
our ancestors founded. Destroyed by the Gaijins more than one hundred years
ago, we now live in what’s left of it. On our side of the river, the forest has
grown back to reclaim its territory, the ruins of Astraca buried deep beneath
the roots of the trees. On the other side, where the mesa looms, split in two
by the gorge, the scavenger droids sift our land for metals and other resources,
a constant reminder of our enemies’ domination.
Athel
pulls Maha’s reins and starts running. “Come on,” he calls. “
Uli’s
closing
the workshop in thirty minutes. Plus, Mom’s going to throw a fit
if we get home too late.”
I press
the inside of my wrist and yellow digits appear on the right corner of my
retina. It’s 5:03 p.m. already. Athel’s right.
Mom’s going to
be livid.
“Woo-hoo,”
Athel shouts as the horses gallop toward the stables. “We did it! We fooled the
stupid M3 scavenger droid!”
Yes, we did it
, I think,
even though I know there wasn’t anything heroic about it.
I wasn’t paying attention and flew off the
thermal too soon
.
And I
didn’t catch a glimpse of the other side of the mesa, where Dad and the other
two men vanished two weeks ago.
*
*
*
Uli stares at the blackened jumble
of wires, piezoelectric actuators, and metal flaps Athel has set on his
workbench. He scratches one brow, sucks on his lower lip, and then picks up the
droid hand, burnt copper wires dangling from its shooting end.
Uli’s own
left hand is a myoelectric prosthesis, his black fingers not much different
than the loose joints of the M3 weapon. He prods it, bends it, and carefully
examines it.
“Where did
you guys find this?” he asks, a perplexed look hanging from his round face.
“In the
forest,” Athel replies a little too hastily. If Uli learns we’ve been out in
the gorge again, he’ll tell Mom and then we’ll be in trouble. “I checked,” my
brother adds, before Uli can object. “At least half the actuators inside are
undamaged and still viable.”
Uli sets the
hand back on his workbench, opens a drawer, and fishes out a drill and a bunch
of screwdrivers. He starts disassembling the hand before our eyes, lining up
the microchips and tiny bolts and electrodes on the side of his workbench.
I wish I
could read Uli’s mind. “You think it’ll work, right, Uli?” I prod. “There’s
enough components to make a new hand for Mom?”
Mom lost
her left arm and leg in the 2189 attack. She never complains, never asks for
anything, but her prostheses are old and outdated. Her current left hand is
basically a two-fingered gripper she manually activates via cable.
There was
a time when we Mayakes thrived on technology, when no newborn baby had to wait
for implants or prostheses. Things changed after 2189, when the Gaijins conquered
our land. Many, like our mother, selflessly chose older appliances so the newer
technology could be saved for children and newborn. Many years have passed and
Athel and I decided she needed an upgrade. Dad’s been gone for two weeks
already and we wanted something special this year to cheer her up on her
birthday.
The
Gaijins took our land, once rich in minerals and metals, and robbed it, leaving
us with aging technology and outdated electronics. As Mayakes, we’re not
supposed to steal or lie. Yet if we don’t do anything about our situation,
we’ll all die. Our worn out prostheses and nanobots won’t keep us alive
forever.
We’re
cyborgs, the children of the Unfit, though nobody uses those names anymore.
Because when the Plague came, it changed everything: the Unfit were no longer
such. Their genetic make-up made them resistant to the Plague. That handful of
mutations that made our ancestors genetically unfit saved us from the Plague,
while the rest of the world collapsed. Hemorrhagic fevers and diarrhea killed those
who had once been healthy. Only the Gaijins survived.
The
Gaijins and us, the Mayake.
Crippled
and deformed, we had little chance to make it. We may have beaten the Plague,
but we were still going to succumb to the brutality of a decimated world. We
didn’t stand a chance until Dr. Prado fixed us.
He wasn’t a
real doctor. He was an engineer, but we still call him Doctor. He invented
chips that could be implanted under the skin to revitalize the immune system.
He grew limbs through bioengineered tissues, creating prostheses that were part
human, part robot, reducing the risk of rejection to virtually nil. He gave us
cyborg flesh: nanowires and transistors interwoven in our cells, nanobots that
travel through our blood, and chips directly connected to our nervous systems.
Dr. Prado died years ago, before Athel and I were even born. He left a legacy,
a new way of living for us.
Until the Gaijins came and took
it all away, our technology, our resources—everything.
We live off
scraps, now. Whatever we have left.
Our babies
are still crippled when they come to the world. Some have such severe defects
they wouldn’t survive a week if it weren’t for Dr. Prado’s implants.
Uli lets
out a heavy sigh, his large belly squashed against the edge of the workbench.
“I’ll do my best, kiddo,” he says. “In the meantime...” He raises his eyes and
points his chin to a corner in the workshop. “Your kitten is doing much
better.”
I gasp and
clap my hands. “Ash!” I dash to the little critter bed Uli’s set between the
two charging stations. My four-week-old kitten Ash was about to die of a nasty
infection, so I’d asked Uli if he could spare an immune-boost chip for him.