Impact (9 page)

I don't know how deep the cave goes.

There's a lantern propped by the entrance, but its light only reaches a few feet in. The space I
can
see reminds me a little of the Nest, back on Outer Earth: a total mess, with blankets and tools spread out over the uneven floor. A battered metal stove is puffing away, smoke curling out of the top and collecting near the ceiling. The narrow entrance is covered by planks of rotting wood, nailed together to form a makeshift door.

The stranger is crouched by the stove. He hardly said anything on the way over, only that his name was Harlan, and that he had a place where I'd be safe. He has dark brown skin, offset by a scraggly beard. Both the beard and his hair are streaked with grey. Guessing his age is impossible–he could be forty, he could be four hundred.

He wanted to leave Syria's body behind. I wouldn't let him. He carried it on his back, bringing it into the cave. It's somewhere behind me in the darkness. I keep wanting to look, have to force myself not to.

It crossed my mind that it might not be safe, that all this could be a trap. I found I didn't care much. There's nothing Harlan can throw at me that I haven't survived a dozen times already.

He shuts the stove door with a clank, then gets unsteadily to his feet, pulling something from a pocket in his cavernous coat.

“Eat this,” he says. He has the strangest accent, mushing together certain sounds, as if he never quite learned how to form individual words. “You were damn lucky with the wolves. They got a big pack round these parts, gettin' more aggressive every year. No idea why those three were off alone, but those leaves you used must have changed your scent some. You want to be careful, though. You pick the wrong kind of leaves, you get this rash all over your body. Itch'll drive you crazy.”

I stare at him, my mouth hanging open.

He grimaces. “Sorry. I ain't talked to other people in a while. Guess I ain't used to it. Here.”

I reach for the food, then hesitate. Alarm bells are going off already. But my hunger wins out, and after a moment I take it. It's like a strip of tree bark, brown and hard, with a grainy surface. I have to work to tear a chunk out.

The taste nearly knocks my head off. It's salty, like the fried beetles we used to get in the market, only a thousand times more intense. My stomach growls, and I take another bite, filling my mouth with the chewy substance.

“Good, isn't it?” Harlan says, grinning. “Cure it myself.”

Cure.
I suddenly realise what I'm eating. “This is… meat?” I say, speaking around it.

Harlan has gone back to work on the stove. There are logs piled up next to it, and he's busy jamming one of them inside. Light dances on the rock walls. “Mule deer. Caught it last spring, down near Whitehorse. First I'd seen in
years
. Didn't even think they were alive any more. Can't believe I got it before the Nomads did, I tell you that. Set a trap, over by the falls. Sucker walked right into it.”

I make myself chew slowly, savouring the taste. It's not just delicious–it's incredible. For a moment I forget about where I am, forget about everything except this, the first piece of meat I've ever eaten. I tell myself to take it slowly, not wanting to upset my stomach.

“Where are we?” I say, after I finally swallow.

Harlan glances up at me. His eyes are rimmed with wrinkles, an endless field of them, reaching all the way round to his temples. “You don't know?” he says. “Seems strange, since you crashed down here. Figured you might have had
some
idea where you were going. That space station you came from–hey, is that really true, by the way? You ain't just trying to fool me? Because if you are…”

I shake my head. “No, it's the truth.

He gives a long, low whistle. “Boy. Is it still there? Or did they come crashing down, too? I think everyone else you came down with is dead, or they will be soon. Can't survive long in these mountains 'less you know what you're doing.” He's having trouble controlling his volume–some sentences are almost shouted, while others drop to a whisper.

I focus on the first question he asked. “I got separated from the others,” I say, doing my best not to think of Okwembu.

Harlan jams a piece of the meat in his mouth, swinging round and pulling a battered backpack from its spot near the wall. He rummages in it, then withdraws something long and thin. It's paper–a whole roll of it, torn at the edges but otherwise intact.

“Scooch over,” Harlan says around the dried meat, and unrolls the paper across the dirty floor.

It's a map. I've seen plenty of them before, but always on tab screens, crisp and sharp. This one is faded, the tiny place-name letters all but gone. The land on the map, marked out with thick black lines, forms an uneven, top-heavy blob. At the top, near the map's edge, the land breaks up into dozens of tiny islands.

“Hold this side down,” Harlan says, tapping the edge closest to me. The paper feels fibrous under my hands, almost alive, as if it too came from an animal.

“All right,” says Harlan. He rests a finger on the map, where the left-hand part of the blob begins to curve and mushroom out. “This is where we are. The Yukon. Canada. Ring any bells?”

I shake my head, but he's no longer looking at me. “Not that it matters,” he says. “Canada, the States, whole damn planet far as I know. Most of it's all dust now. Everything below this line is dry as anything.” His finger traces a curve across the blob, east to west, a little below the place he called Yukon.

“So why is it OK where we are?”

“Can't say. A few years ago, we were living in one of the bunkers here.” He taps a point about ten inches below Yukon, his finger nudging the faded word
Utah
. “Those were bad years. Ever since I was a kid. Dust storm three-quarters of the year and frozen solid for the rest of the time. Air was nasty. You couldn't stay above ground long, not that people didn't try. We didn't get a whole hell of a lot further than Red Rocks. I remember this one time, Garrison told us about this electrical spike he was reading down by…” He looks at me. “Doing it again. Sorry. Just, I don't know, click your tongue or something if I talk too much.”

“It's OK,” I say. “But… what about up here?”

He shrugs. “We got word that things were changing. That you could live outside. Trees, air, whole deal. Paradise, compared to where we were. You hear that kind of thing, you go for it. Beats living in a tunnel underground, believe you me.”

Trees.
I glance at the door, thinking of the barren landscape beyond. The only trees I've ever seen were the ones in the Air Lab–the big oaks. I try to picture a forest of them, stretching to the horizon. I can't even begin to imagine it.

Harlan sees where I'm looking. “They're down at the lower elevation, round Whitehorse. Not much of a forest, but it's there. Air's good, too. Go outside anywhere south of the 49th parallel, and you gotta be wearing a full-face gas mask.”

“What about the wolves? How are there… I mean, we thought all the animals were dead.”

He grunts. “Oh, they ain't dead. Not completely. Most parts, sure, you never see 'em, but animals are funny. They find ways to survive. Probably don't need no more than a handful of 'em to do it, neither. You ask me, I think they just kept moving. Couldn't go underground, like we did, so they found places they could get food. 'Course there's been a lot more in the last few years, now the air's cleared up.”

“And there are more people here? In Yukon?”

“
The
Yukon. You gonna live here, you gotta get the name right.”

He turns away, letting go of his side of the map. It curls over, covering my hand. I spread it out again as he jams a poker into the stove, muttering to himself.

“Why are you up here, and not in the forest?” I say, still staring at the map. “Is it because of the… the Nomads?”

He grunts. “Something like that.”

“Who are they?”

Harlan doesn't answer, poking at the fire.

I don't bother repeating the question. It doesn't matter. What's important is getting back out there. Prakesh and Carver must have come down close by, and if Harlan knows this place as well as I think he does, then we might be able to find them. I actually smile–the thought of seeing them both again, of coming across them, seeing their faces, feels amazing. I could bring them back here.

And then you'll have to choose between them a second time
, says the small voice in my mind.

I ignore it. That can come later. I try to picture the forest again, imagining running in the sunlight, in a place where there's air and water and food. Where I can see the sky.

“So, my friends were on another escape pod,” I say, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. “I need to find them.”

“Yeah?” says Harlan. “Where were you folks headed?”

The name jumps up out of nowhere. “Alaska.”

His brow furrows. “Alaska?” He comes back, bends over the map, so close that his nose almost touches the paper. “The border's over a hundred miles away. Well, what used to be the border. Plus, state itself goes all the way across to the Bering Sea. Nothing but ice out there.”

A sick feeling starts to swell in my stomach, as if the meat is turning toxic. I didn't have time to think about the physics of our re-entry before, but I'm doing it now and it's chasing away the good feeling I had before. At the speed we were travelling, two pods launched thirty seconds apart could come down hundreds of miles from each other.

Not good. Not good at all.

Harlan clears his throat. “Where were you supposed to end up? In Alaska?”

My mind goes blank. My finger hovers above the map, as if a name will leap out at me, but all the letters run into each other.
There's got to be a way. I have to find them.

Then I remember. “Anchorage,” I say. “We were going to some settlement in Anchorage.” I scan the map for it, and let out a cry when I find it, nestled into a small bay. “If they launched when they were supposed to—”

“Kid,” Harlan says quietly.

“—then they would have landed nearby. And there are other people there, so—”

“
Kid
.”

I look up at Harlan, and the sick feeling in my stomach expands, spreading through my body.

“What?” I say.

“I'm sorry,” he says. “Your friends are already dead.”

“We're here,” says Ray.

Prakesh jerks awake. He hadn't even realised he'd dropped off. His neck immediately starts complaining–the vehicle's seats weren't designed for sleeping, and he'd passed out with his head at an awkward angle. His mind feels like it's floating three feet above him.

Iluk kills the engine, then bangs the door open and slides out. For the first time Prakesh realises that they can barely see out of the windows–they're grimed over, caked with dirt. Only a thin strip at the top of each one is still clear, and Prakesh can see the early light of dawn peeking through the windows on his left.

Ray opens the door. Prakesh has to shield his eyes against the glare.

“Come out when you're ready,” says Ray. He and Nessa clamber through the door, with Okwembu following them. Nessa half closes it and Prakesh can feel the chill air licking at his exposed skin.

Carver rolls his head from side to side, massaging his shoulders. He looks exhausted, like he's aged ten years in a single night. Clay, too, is slowly blinking awake.

“Glad
you
got some sleep,” Carver says, as Prakesh rubs his neck.

“You didn't?” He runs his tongue along the inside of his cheeks, trying to scare up some saliva. It doesn't work.

“Five minutes, maybe. We've been driving for hours.”

“Right,” Prakesh says. He's trying to get his thoughts in order, but it's like tying shoelaces with thick gloves on. There's something about these people–Ray and Nessa and the silent Iluk–that he doesn't like.

Carver gestures to the door. “You getting out, P-Man? Or we just going to sit here all day?”

Prakesh pauses for a moment, then pushes open the door and steps outside.

The first thing he notices is that the ground is soft–much softer than the tough, packed dirt of the forest. The second thing is the air. It
smells
different–a mix of a thousand scents, of salt and chemicals and decay and something else, something metallic and alien.

He looks up, and his mouth falls open.

Prakesh has seen pictures of the ocean before. They always showed blue sky, sandy beaches, white-capped waves. He didn't expect oceans like that to exist on Earth any more, but this…

It's a black, seething mass of water, hissing at the shore like an angry monster. There are waves, but they're stubborn little things, barely managing a fringe of froth before sinking into the edge of the water.

And there's a city in the ocean.

Or at least, what used to be a city. The buildings are half submerged, poking out of the water, tall towers reaching to the sky. In the pale dawn light, Prakesh can see that most of the towers are half destroyed, their walls and floors broken away, exposing their dark interiors to the low-hanging clouds. There are dozens of them, spread out along the shore, which curves away on either side of them.

The closest tower is barely fifty feet away–Prakesh can still see the main revolving door, water lapping at its frame, the glass long gone. The interior is dark, with gaps in the far wall that let in a little daylight. Most of the upper half of the tower is gone, the steel beams exposed like old bones.

Carver lets out a low whistle from behind him.

“Something, right?” says Ray. He has the vehicle's hood open, and is rooting around inside. With a yank, he pulls an object from deep in the engine.

“Spark plug,” he says, when he sees them looking. “Make sure this old girl doesn't go anywhere.” He raps a headlight with one hand. Prakesh sees that they're parked a little way off a paved road, pockmarked with potholes, vegetation pushing up through the cracks.

“What happened here?” says Prakesh. Clay is climbing out of the Humvee now, and is looking around, his eyes huge. Okwembu is standing a little way off, looking out over the water, motionless. Her blanket is loose around her shoulders, the wind playing with its hem.

Ray slams the hood closed, pocketing the spark plug. “Anchorage?” he says. “Sea claimed her, just like every other city on the west coast. East, too, for all we know. Happened long before the Engine brought us here.”

There's a noise from further down the beach. Iluk and Nessa appear, dragging another vehicle behind them–a boat, the same size as the first vehicle but flat-bottomed, with a bulging motor on the back.

They drop it near the edge of the water with a thud. That's when Prakesh sees that Nessa has a gun: a lethal-looking rifle with a cylindrical scope mounted on top. Its lenses pick up the thin dawn light.

Ray reaches inside the wheeled vehicle, pulling out an empty canister and an opaque, flexible tube. He flips open a small flap on the side and winds the tube down into it. He puts his mouth around the tube and sucks in his cheeks. A second later, he turns and spits a thick stream of fuel onto the dirt, then wipes his mouth. The rest of the fuel is coming up the tube, draining into the canister.

“Where'd you get this, anyway?” Carver says, gesturing to the vehicle. For the first time, there's a glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

“The Hummer?” says Ray. “Had her for years, long before we even knew about the Engine. It was Prophet's originally. While back, some other Nomads tried to jump him, but he took 'em down and took what they had. She's still in pretty good shape, right?”

“Nomads?” says Clay.

Carver ignores him. “What's it–
she
–run on?”

“Diesel,” Ray says. “Gotta look after it. Not too much around these days.” He looks at Prakesh. “We were kind of hoping that you'd have some with you. Some sort of fuel anyway.”

Prakesh feels a tiny drumbeat of fear in his chest, fear of something he can't quite place. Once they're in the boat, out on the water, there's nowhere to run to. He can't get over the thought, and he doesn't know why it scares him so much.

Carver hasn't noticed. “I built one, you know. Well, not one as big as this, and it didn't have the roof or anything—” he points to the top of the Hummer “—but it was
fast
.”

Ray smiles and reaches inside the Humvee, emerging with a rifle of his own.

“We get animals down here sometimes,” Ray says, seeing that Prakesh has noted the gun. “Wolves, mainly. Nessa swears she saw a bear one time, not that I believe her. And then there are the Nomads, of course.”

He gestures to the boat. Clay is already perched on the side, and Okwembu is clambering on board. “Hop in. Iluk'll push her into the water.”

“Yeah, sure,” Prakesh says. He turns to Carver, who is still admiring the Humvee. “Talk to you for a sec?”

Carver looks up, but before he can say anything Ray steps between them. “Something on your mind?” he says. It's Prakesh's imagination–it has to be–but his accent has grown thicker.

“Just want to talk, that's all,” he says. “The second escape pod might have come down near here. We should look for that one, too.” He tries to sound natural, but struggles to keep the nervousness out of his voice.

“We just saw the one,” says Ray. “Besides, we should get you fed. Cleaned up. Right?”

Prakesh tries a smile, flashes Carver a meaningful glance. “Can't leave our friend out there.”

Carver stares back at him, confused and wary. Ray spits. The saliva arcs through the air, burying itself in the sand, and Prakesh smells a hint of fuel in the air. The drum in his chest is beating harder now.

Ray gestures to the ocean with the rifle. “We'll talk on the way.”

So much for subtlety
, Prakesh thinks. “What's the
Engine
?” he says. “Who's Prophet?”

“Get in the boat.”

“Where are you taking us? What's out there?”

All the good humour has left Ray's face, and what remains is hard and cold. “Food. Shelter. A society. Just like the radio message said.”

“I've been thinking,” Prakesh says, deciding to plunge ahead. “That message? So you're just broadcasting your location to anyone who can listen? I don't buy it. I'm not going anywhere until you tell us—”

Ray raises his rifle, and points it at Prakesh's face. Nessa and Iluk do the same, tracking Carver and Clay. Okwembu watches, not reacting.

Ray's smile is thin and humourless. “Get in the damn boat.”