Akasha 4 - Earth (25 page)

Clay ran his fingers through his
beard. "Sicknesses, disease – an outbreak of some sort. Or weather,
maybe. How are your powers?"

"I got some of them back. Air and
water, though I can't go too extreme with them." I smiled, thinking
of my wild ride over. The rain jacket plus a few old rods made a
makeshift hang glider; just add air. "Besides, manipulating the
weather could give me away."

"You're right, it would need to be
something subtle…" he said.

"What did you have in mind?" I
asked.

Clay rubbed his chin. I glanced behind
us. As the pace slowly picked up, the column of people became more
strung out. I saw someone shift to the edge of the trail, and a
steady stream of people began to pass her. Erika. Two women stuck
with her, taking a few items to lighten her load and give her what
encouragement they could. But how many miles could that last? How
many more miles did David have planned for us today?

I grumbled, then hopped out of the
column, feigning a cramp and falling to the ground.

Clay followed, crouching next to me.
"Well this isn't exactly subtle."

"Shut up and call for a medic," I
mumbled through my lips.

He turned, opening up his throat. A
deep voice rolled up to the front of the line, "Medic!"

The line stopped, curious faces
turning my way. Three men came trudging toward me; two carried the
extra gear of doctors. The other was David. "What now?" he
asked.

I put my hand at my side. "I've got
cramps."

One of the medics handed me his
canteen of water. "You're probably dehydrated."

I pushed the canteen away. "Not those
kind of cramps – female cramps."

"Oh." The medic scratched the back of
his neck. "I don't think…well, we don't have anything for
that."

The other stood, looking at David.
"Maybe we should take a five minute break?"

"We just took a break!"

The medic shrugged, glancing at me. "I
don't know what else to do; we're running low on
aspirin."

David's faced turned red. "You don't
know? You're the medic!"

As they argued, Clay slipped away
behind the growing crowd of people.

The other doctor rooted in his bag. He
held up a foil-wrapped bar. "I've got chocolate."

I buried my face in my hands, shaking
my head, trying to keep everyone from seeing the smile I could not
get rid of.

David's whole body shook, but clearly
for a different reason. He stomped toward me. "Get up – we don't
have time for cramps! That's not a real medical condition,
anyway!"

"What's not a real medical
condition?"

David turned to address the
questioner.

Erika stood in front of the crowd,
arms crossed, clearly not amused. "Well?"

David stuttered, "I didn't mean…" He
gestured toward me. "She just…"

"She just what?" More women, many I
recognized from Erika's camp, emerged to stand around
David.

David pushed his glasses up on his
nose. "Listen – we have a schedule to keep." He held up his
notebook, pointing to an open page. "I'm just following
orders."

"You aren't going to make it if people
start dropping like flies; female problems or no." Erika dropped
her pack. "Break time!" she shouted.

Her announcement was met with a few
approving whistles, some claps, and a 'Hallelujah'. She stepped
toward David, and snatched the notebook out of his hand.

"Hey!" he protested.

She glanced at the open page. "I'll be
making a few adjustments to the schedule. If you want the group to
get there as a whole; I suggest you follow it." Erika walked past
David and took a seat on the ground next to me.

I handed her a pencil, no longer
bothering to hide the smile on my face.

David was still stuttering, "You…you –
I'm going to report this. Give me back my—"

"We've got flats!" A bellow from the
back of the line cut David off.

"Oh, for Christ's sake. Flats?! As in
more than one?" David shouted as he headed toward the truck bed
gardens.

"As in all of them!" the voice
answered back.

"How in the world? Get some Airs over
here!" David ordered.

My eye caught a short figure slinking
away from the truck beds. Clay. My smile grew wider.

Chapter
38

The Best Thing

By the time we reached Denver, one
month from when we started, David was a hot mess. After the first
few incidents, Clay, Erika and I had very little to do with it.
People caught on, making a game out of trying to drive David
insane.

Very quickly our thirty miles a day
had dropped to twenty, often falling even below fifteen. Half the
camp developed the stomach flu – something I still couldn't
determine was real or fake. We were now two and a half weeks behind
schedule.

Shawn's river group had long since
reached the mile high city, or so said the scouts. He sat waiting
not-so-patiently for the rest of us. Word of the prisoner's escape
also reached him. Something else for David to deal with.

Train would be the transportation of
choice over the Rockies, and word on the trail was Shawn needed
certain people from our group to help with steam
technologies.

Excitement buzzed up and down the long
line of people as we entered downtown Denver, and the 16th Street
Mall. It was an outdoor mall, running the length of several blocks
with stores on either side of the cobble-stoned street. Despite the
self-created slow gait of the rest of the march, everyone was now
picking up the pace – many had an actual spring in their step. This
was home for some.

I gravitated toward Erika.

"I can't believe how much I missed
this weird place." She wouldn’t stop talking. "Every year at
Christmas the entire capital building was lit in color. I never
missed the Parade of Lights – every float, band member, and clown
was decorated in actual lights by portable battery
packs."

Despite the lack of
batteries, 16
^th
Street Mall was alive and illuminated, cutting
through the dull, black night with a light all its own. The
promenade of red-and-gray granite, running through the center of
Downtown, wasn't cracked and crumbling. It wasn't run over with
plant life as we had seen in the concrete jungles of most big
cities. Except for the glow of lanterns lining the path, it
probably looked much the same.

"It's almost like Daybreak never
happened, here. Look how happy everyone is," I said
aloud.

Erika smiled. "Come on, let me show
you." She took my arm and we broke rank, crossing the pedestrian
path to the other side.

I looked back to the rest of the
group. People noticed, but no one cared – Erika could do what she
wanted, after all. The rest of One Less turned right, off the
street and in between two glass-walled skyscrapers.

"You might appreciate this as an
Earth." She winked at me. We approached a large planter in the
middle of the sidewalk. "These are up and down the length of the
mall. They used to hold decorative trees, shrubs, and flowers – you
know, useless stuff."

I ran my hand through the leafy
greens, blossoming over the side of the planter despite the cold
weather.

"After Daybreak, the community came
together. Stoners, college kids, the rich, the homeless, families
with kids – we all created a food system that works, and feeds
everyone. It was really the agricultural knowledge of the large
Hispanic population that saved us."

I looked down the way at another
planter. A woman and a child were pawing through it, picking out
ripe squash. "How do you ration the food?"

Erika shrugged. "We don't. People know
that if the vegetables are over-harvested, there won't be any seeds
for next year. Besides, a lot of hard work goes into it – and there
is plenty to go around. Some leftover, even, that is used for
compost or shipped off to neighboring cities in exchange for other
supplies. Look over there."

She pulled on my arm until we
approached a rectangular, stepped enclosure. Chicken wire hung from
a railing on one side, infused with vines.

"Writer Square. This used to be a
fountain. We took any space we could and turned it into a food
source."

As she talked I turned around, mouth
dropping open. Buses facing both directions of the street sat where
they had probably stalled out during the EMP. The tops were torn
off and the windows knocked out. Corn stalks grew out of one, a row
of fruit trees from the other. The words 'free mall ride' were
still visible on the sides of the busses.

Behind us, the mall was lined with
what had previously been bars, restaurants, and retail stores. On
the left, all of the infrastructure was still intact. People
entered and exited the building with baskets of supplies, sleeping
bags and more food – like they were out for their daily shopping
trip. Across the way, every single window was broken out. There
were even holes in the brick and mortar façade of the buildings.
Plants and herbs, growing inside, were packed in where dresses and
shoes used to be.

"Brings a whole new meaning to window
shopping," Erika said, nudging me. "Beautiful, isn't
it?"

I smiled at her enthusiasm. A man
passed, whistling. He tipped his hat at us. I nodded back. Further
up the outdoor mall, a large group sat around a pair of teenagers
playing a guitar and banjo. In sync clapping sprouted up and people
got to their feet to dance.

Erika waived at one of them, then
turned to me. "Daybreak is the best thing that could've happened to
this place."

The smile froze on my face, and my
ears rang with her words. I was shocked - because she was
right.

Chapter
39

Expediting the Process

"It's been awhile; we had almost given
up hope," Arianna greeted Shawn on the platform.

"Burns take a long time to heal,"
Shawn said.

Especially with no more
skin graft surgery
, he thought to
himself.

"Let's see." Arianna gestured to his
hands.

He held them up for her. The swelling
had gone down. Yellow puss was replaced by angry red and pink
tissue.

"Any infections?" she asked, gesturing
to his unwrapped hands.

"We have medicine, for now," he
replied, looking at the women assembling on the stairs. "How many
will there be today?"

"As many as you can handle, Athame
Wielder." Arianna moved to stand behind him.

"What about you? Aren't you anxious to
be released?" Shawn asked. Without her there, maybe he could find
some sort of shortcut.

She cocked her head at him, almost
smiling. "I will go right before Sarah."

Of course she
will
. Shawn huffed.

He turned to the first waiting in
line. A Water this time. He craned his neck around her, and
motioned for another to step forward as well.

"What are you doing?" Arianna
asked.

Shawn held one of each of his hands
over the Shade's heads. "Expediting the process. My second crew
just reached Denver – I need to go greet them."

Chapter
40

A Little Crazy

"Erika, wait!"

She paused and turned as we headed to
where One Less set up camp.

"I have a confession to
make."

She raised her eyebrow and
waited.

I cleared my throat. "I…um. Well, the
reason I hid in your group…um—"

"Just spit it out." She crossed her
arms.

"Well, I had a thing with Shawn, and I
can't see him again. I don't want him to see me."

She stepped forward, gesturing to the
side of my face now caked with ink. "With the number you did on
yourself, I doubt he'd recognize you."

"Maybe…" I ran my fingers through my
short strands, trying to convince myself of the same.

"Look, if you want to disappear – this
is the place to do it. I can make it look like our camp numbers are
still whole. But you gotta make a decision. In or out."

"In, definitely in." I didn't walk all
that way just to quit now. "But I thought, maybe I could stay away,
just for tonight. That way you can let me know if he is there – and
where he hangs out. I could just avoid those areas."

She crossed her arms, looking me up
and down. "Okay, meet me back at Writer Square tomorrow around
dusk. That should give me enough time to find out. But don't leave
the mall. Things aren't so nice in some parts of the
city."

I nodded and watched her walk away. I
turned in the other direction, watching the people around me as I
strolled. As night, and the cold, set in – there was less and less
activity on the streets. I looked closer at the stores. Starbucks
had grain sprouting out of its broken out windows. Ann Taylor Loft
was now a trade post specializing in sleeping bags; they even
offered repairs. Banks, oddly enough, were still banks. They
advertised safety deposit boxes with around the clock guards. What
did people store in them now? Certainly not cash. Maybe batteries.
Or matches. Or medicine. Everything we had taken for granted until
Daybreak.