Akaela (16 page)
Authors: E.E. Giorgi
His last
words send a vibe of energy through the crowd. Men raise their fists and nod.
Women hug one another. Lukas lifts his eyes from the screen of his data feeder
for the first time.
“Today,”
Tahari says, his voice louder. “Today I say to all of you: we will fight. We
will march to the Gaijins and demand back what has belonged to us from the
beginning: our technology, our lives,
our
survival.
Today, my fellow brothers and sisters, I declare war on the Gaijins. We will
bring down their fire factory and either succeed or die fighting.”
The uproar
is complete now. People cry,
hug,
pat one another on
the back.
Mom has
tears in her eyes. I know what she’s thinking. She’d probably hoped for a
peaceful resolution. I know that’s what Dad would’ve wanted too—that’s
why he’d volunteered to talk to the Gaijins in peace.
I’m sorry, Dad. The time for a peaceful
resolution is gone, now
.
I squeeze
Ash to my chest thinking,
This
is the time. I’m ready
.
I put an
arm around Mom’s narrow shoulders and whisper in her ear, “If we don’t do this,
Dad will have died in vain.”
She nods.
She’s still crying, but she nods and hugs me back.
Akaela
It’s raining ashes again. It
always does when we’re mourning, as though the sky knows of our pain and sheds
its own tears. I still believe it even though I know the ashes don’t come from
the sky. They come from the Gaijins’ factory.
I ride
Taeh all the way to the Bridal Veil Waterfalls.
Uli took
it all away from us.
Our faith in mankind, our trust, our
loved ones.
He didn’t even leave us a body to mourn, only a pile of scattered
bones and a handful of used electronics that he was planning on recycling and
reselling.
I let go
of Taeh’s reins and cup my hands around the one thing I’ve got left of my
father: the piece of metal Kael brought back from his expedition to the
Gaijins’ factory. We thought he’d gotten it from the factory, when instead he’d
collected it from a pit near the landfill. Our men are still excavating the
site where Uli dumped their biological parts. They’re also investigating the
deaths of the past six months, all due to battery failure, most likely caused
by Uli himself so that he could harvest their implants.
I squeeze
Dad’s piece of metal in my hands, then return it to my pocket. Did Uli act
alone? Or did he have accomplices, other traitors lurking among the meek Mayake
people?
I can’t
get rid of the thought, just like I can’t get rid of the last memory I have of
my father, his blurred face made of dancing lights, telling me, “You’re special,
Akaela. Wake up, Akaela, wake up.”
You saved my life, Dad. I couldn’t save yours,
but you saved mine
.
He told me
I’m special.
I have
technology that no other Mayake has. Technology worth killing for, Dad said. He
was right. Mom told me Uli knew about my special implants, the only one my
parents had entrusted with the secret.
The breeze
picks up, gray ashes swirling in the air like snowflakes that have long lost
their charm. I inhale and swallow the pain, my eyes dried up of tears.
I kick and
Taeh sprints to a trot. The mesa sprawls in front of me. Up here, the river is
at its widest point. It spreads into a U and then drops into the waterfalls. I
inhale the mist rising from the falling water and feel the breeze on my face. A
new memory replaces the sad ones, Dad taking me to ride out on the mesa, when I
was little, and teaching me how to fly.
My heart
quickens.
I love you
,
Dad
, I think.
I love you
.
I prompt
Taeh, and as we descend down to the riverbanks, I push her to a gallop. And so
we run, the two of us, our movements in sync, toward the waterfalls, wind
whipping ashes against my face. My sweet Taeh trusts me so much that she
indulges me. I let go of the reins, set my feet on top of the saddle and spread
my arms.
“Go, Taeh,
go!”
The flap
between my shoulder blades clicks open and my sail—dutifully fixed and sawed
back in one piece by my mother—stretches out and swells.
This is how you taught me, Dad
.
He’d hold
my hand as he’d push the horse to a gallop and watch me soar right above his
head, never too far, never letting go of me, just enough to feel the wind carry
me.
I stand on
my horse’s back and, right as Taeh swerves at the edge of the waterfalls, I
dive.
For you, Dad
, I think, jumping off the
cliff and into the waterfall mist.
This
jump is for you
.
~
END OF BOOK 1 ~
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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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Akaela
is my first venture in the Young Adult genre. After many years writing
adult thrillers like
Chimeras
and
Gene Cards
, I decided I wanted to create something my kids would enjoy. Akaela is
dedicated to them, the love of my life and my hope for the future.
As always,
none of my work would be possible without the help and support of my fellow
author friends and beta readers: many thanks to
John L. Monk
, author of the
Jenkins Cycle
, for lending me his amazing editing skills; to
Carol Kean
, book critic at
Perihelion Science Fiction
, for her heart-warming enthusiasm
and for shaking her fist at me every time I Italianize English or Anglicize
Italian; to Kat Fieler, for her invaluable feedback and support; to Sam Point,
because when everything else fails I can always count on him for the right
answer; to
Moira Katson
, author of
The Light and Shadow Trilogy
, and
Chris Pourteau
, author of
Unconditional
and
The Serenity Strain
, for reading the very first version of
Akaela; to David Walters for his incredible support and for making sure all my
commas are in place; to Karen Alaniz for reading everything I write no matter
the genre; to Debbie Stapleton for catching all my plot holes; to Teresa Cypher
and Carolyn Fahm for reading not once but twice; to Emily, Seraphine, Jennifer,
Jessie, and Elisa for being my very first Young Adult readers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
E.E. Giorgi is a scientist, a writer, and a photographer. She spends her
days analyzing HIV data, her evenings chasing sunsets, and her nights
pretending she's somebody else.