Refuge (6 page)

   It’s not his touch, I want to tell him. It’s his voice. The quiet, steady tone he uses when giving instruction scares the daylights out of me. Almost like he’s compelling me to listen to his every word, with the implication that something bad is going to happen if I don’t.

   Sierra lifts her hand and crouches down. She’s reached the edge of the trees. Luke, Dakota and I scramble to catch up and get behind her. “East side of the circle,” she tells three of the others. “Go, set up cover.”

   Ovid, Peyton, and Skye slip out into the street. They move swiftly, quietly, disappearing into the late afternoon shadows almost immediately.

   Behind me, I feel the warm press of Luke. He’s edged forward, his chest pushing into my shoulders.
Cedes…

   I don’t need to tell him I don’t have a good feeling about this. The sense of foreboding running through me is his too.
…Luke.

Node: 101

Luke and I leave the trees at a run, following Dakota and Sierra. Cali, Vesta, and Luka are ahead of us, rifles drawn and readied.

   Sierra looks back to us. “Madison and 110
th
, in case we get separated.”

   Cali, Vesta, and Luka keep ranging in front, moving as if one. I hear a low whistle ahead.

   The pace quickens. No one and nothing else moves on the street except the light rain. We enter the circle from the west. I don’t see Ovid, Peyton, and Skye until we’re practically on top of them. It’s the whites of their eyes I see first, from the shadows.

   Sierra, Dakota, Luke, and I stop, take cover. Sierra clasps hands with Peyton. “Good, good,” she whispers.

   We wait until Cali, Vesta, and Luka disappear from view. Then the seven of us follow.

   “Like jumping frogs,” Sierra says to me. It takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about our movements. “Safer, so we can provide cover fire for each other if needed.”

   I nod. All I can think about is what a terrible mistake we’re about to make. I have to know what’s going on with Matthew and the machines. I’m going crazy not knowing.

   At the intersection of Madison and 110
th
, we regroup in the shadow of a tall building. My heart is beating in my chest from the brisk pace. Luke beside me is hunched over panting. The others are barely short of breath, like brisk maneuvers with heavy gear are something they do every day.

   “You and Dakota,” Luke says quietly. “What were you talking about before?”

   “Nothing really. He was just giving me some pointers.”

   Luke shakes his head. “No, I meant before we left.”

   “John,” I whisper back without thinking.

   All the color runs out of Luke’s face, as if he’s just seen something that shouldn’t be there. “John, John. Our John?”

   I realize I didn’t tell him about John earlier. I know I should have but his sober reaction is what I was hoping to avoid until much later.

   “Park and 110
th
,” Sierra tells the others. “West side, east side. We’ll cover from the north.”

   Getting the final orders, Skye has a hint of fear in her eyes. She’s trying to hide a tremor too, but her clenched jaw is losing the battle with her teeth. When I see it, Sierra does and her reaction is unexpected. I don’t see the hand coming around. Dakota does and he steps into it as Skye drops to a knee and puts up her hands.

   As Luke helps Skye up and steadies her, I notice how much taller he is than her. How she’s just a little slip of a thing, more chest and teeth than flesh and bone, with short-cropped hair the same brown as her eyes.

   My eyes flit from Skye to Sierra. I don’t like the dark side of her I keep seeing. The sense there’s something going on that I don’t understand is strong. Sierra and Dakota skulk away and speak heatedly. I hear most of what they’re saying.

   “You said she was ready,” Sierra says. She’s all business, like a switch inside her flipped and the Sierra of old is no longer there.

   “She is,” Dakota hisses.

   Sierra glares at him. “You saw her, only a breath away from a breakdown. That’ll get us all killed.”

   Dakota puts his metal hand on her shoulder, says more firmly, “Maybe if you stop blaming her for Stone, she’ll stop blaming herself. He’s gone, nothing’s going to bring him back.”

   Quiet whispers I can’t hear follow. Before they return, I see Dakota touch his metal hand to her cheek. She doesn’t shy away.

   When Sierra turns to Skye, I expect her to extend some small kindness. She doesn’t. Instead, she says coldly, “Lose it out there again and I’ll put you down myself.”

   “Stone’s not dead, I told you,” Skye says unexpectedly, half to herself. “Blame me if you want, but I saw what I saw.”

   Sierra’s glare silences her. “Go now,” she tells the others. “Stay alert. Do it like we planned, like last time.”

   Ovid, Peyton, and Skye leave us behind. The other three slip away a moment later.

   Sierra, Dakota, Luke, and I follow. Soon we are entering a building on the north side of 110
th
and working our way up and up. When I step out onto the roof, the orange ball of the sun is deep in the west, mostly hidden by dark clouds. Thankfully, during our run the rain lessened and all but disappeared.

   Our vantage point, ten stories up, gives us a commanding view in all directions. Park is a street we used often when we left Central and ranged north. Once having been used by both cars and trains, Park itself has two avenues for cars running north and south with six train lines between them, making it wide enough for a sixty-four to walk shoulder to shoulder and still have room to drive lines of mechs on either side of them.

   “They’ll come from the south,” Dakota says. He and Luke set up their heavy rifles near the southeast corner of the roof and start sighting into the distance.

   Sierra holds back. “About before,” she says, “I’m not going to apologize. Not to you, to Skye, to anyone. You can think me unkind, hateful even. I don’t care.”

   “I understand,” I say, “but you have to let me in. You have to let me help you. All this anger you’re holding in—”

   “You don’t understand anything. This isn’t anger—it’s rage, and it’s the only thing that keeps us alive out here.” She unshoulders her heavy rifle and throws her pack at me. “Supplies... Extra rounds on the right, rations on the left, bandages up front. You don’t have a sighting rifle, so you make sure the rest of us get what we need when we need it and you watch the door behind us. Got it?”

   I eye the door. Then I step toward her and appeal to her with my eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

   She brings up her heavy rifle, wraps it around her shoulder. It comes a little too close and I jump back. “We get back to Refuge ten for ten and four, you can say whatever you want. Out here, you don’t get to question anything I say. Got it?”

   I glance away and back. “Yes, got it,” I say coolly. I want desperately to see in her eyes the girl I knew. The girl who was my sister.

   After that, there’s nothing to say. I walk away. She sets up in the southwest corner of the roof but is facing north. I think she does this so she can easily swing around to the west if needed. I don’t doubt she knows what she’s doing. I do doubt her reasons for going after a column of machines.

   Watching as I wait, I mourn for the sister I knew. The Sierra who wanted to kiss butterflies. The Sierra who’s eyes lit up whenever I touched the words in the book. I wonder what has changed her so dramatically. I thought I knew most of what happened since I left in search of Luke. Obviously though, there’s so much more she hasn’t told me.

   We don’t have long to wait. I can tell something’s happening in the distance because of the way Luke and Dakota are sighting and focusing.

   I crawl forward at Dakota’s signal. “First quad coming,” he says. “Two mechs in the lead. Two trailing. No sign of the other quad or any wisps.”

   Sierra’s watching our backs, so she’s not seeing this. I crawl to her. “It’s starting,” I say. “First quad, no wisps.”

   I turn to crawl back to my position near the door. She grabs my hand, squeezes. “You’ll see. Soon,” she says, “then you’ll know.”

Node: 101

Everything happens so quickly when the quad comes into view. I’m on my belly beside Luke. Somehow he’s opened his wound and I’m trying to apply another layer of bandages. He has his rifle at the ready, but he can’t sight very well with me fussing over him.

   Dakota has his eye pressed into his rifle scope, his finger ready on the trigger. Sierra is scanning with her scope, watching the approach from the north.

   Half a block to the south, on the west side of the street, I see Ovid, Peyton and Skye preparing themselves. Across from them, on the east side of the street, I see Cali, Vesta and Luka doing the same. Both groups are hunkered down, out of view from those coming but clear enough for me to see from above.

   I don’t know what to expect because I’ve never attacked the machines in this way before. I feel useless and wish I’d taken the heavy rifle earlier. The others have tasks and objectives. I have only to wait for them to need me.

   I pull the fabric back across Luke’s shoulder, patting softly to let him know I’m finished. “All done,” I say, leaning up to his ear. “Be more careful next time.”

   Even before I zip him up, he’s waving me away, returning to his scope with renewed purpose. “I’ll see you later,” he says, “Stay strong. We’ll get through this. Then you and I need to talk.”

   “We do,” I say, touching his arm. We’ve been so preoccupied we still haven’t talked through all that happened before we found each other. Knowing might explain his reaction to the news of John’s return.

   I crawl back to the middle of the roof, losing much of my view of the street below. For the first time, it occurs to me that waiting was one of our options too. We didn’t have to do anything. We could have stayed in Central Park and let the machines sort everything out for themselves. We wouldn’t get the answers we wanted, but we’d be safe and together.

   I think more about Luke. He’s been keenly interested in what I’m talking to Dakota and Sierra about, but has told me nothing of his talks with them or others. I know he wants to be out there searching and wonder if he’s planning something without me.

   I want to be somewhere else too. But it’s more that I want to know what’s true and what isn’t. I am different. More different even than Luke, Sierra or Dakota I suspect. This broken city may be the only home I’ve ever known, I may know there’s no such thing as “safe” with the machines occupying it, and I may have other things on my mind than what I should. And so, apparently, do they.

   Sierra’s hand signal draws me to her. “The second quad?”

   I turn over on my back, and look up at her as I try to calm my breathing. “No sign as yet.”

   She frowns. “Something’s not right. Get down below. Tell them to let the first quad pass, to wait for the second.”

   I rush off. It seems an eternity before I reach the landing on the first floor. The side door exits on the west side of the building. I hustle around to the south side. Skye is on me before I turn the corner.

   “It’s me, Cedes,” I say. My rifle is on the roof with the heavy pack. The only weapon I have is the pistol in my hand, which I holster to reassure her.

   Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t lower her rifle. “Is there a problem?”

   “Change of plans,” I say. “Let the first quad pass, wait for the second.”

   She grabs my arm and pulls me down into the shadows. It’s a reaction to something I don’t see or hear.

   I start to ask her what’s going on. She cuts me off with a hiss: “Follow.”

   She rushes off, stooped over, and I do my best to keep a low profile while moving as fast as I can after her. She doesn’t look back at me as she works around and into the nest where Ovid and Peyton are set up. She just reaches back occasionally to determine whether I’m close. But the secluded spot is empty when we reach it.

   Skye mumbles some kind of apology before racing away. I’m left asking the empty air, “What’s going on?”

   From the nest, I watch in mute horror as Skye tries to catch up to Ovid and Peyton. I think Skye is going to wave them off, that’s not what she does.

   While the trio stalks the west side of the street, Cali, Vesta and Luka shadow the east side, moving alongside the marching remnants. They’ve left their rifles behind, and I have no idea what they plan to do when they catch up with the quad. With two mech trucks at the front of the line and two mech trucks at the rear, engine noise and the turning of mechanized wheels drowns out everything else.

   I glance up to the roof. From here, there’s no hint that Dakota, Luke and Sierra are up there watching over us. I can’t help thinking that this shouldn’t be happening, that there has to be a way to stop this, even though I know there’s nothing that can be done.

Node: 101

Skye, Peyton and the others make their move when they are lined up with the final row of the quad. It happens in a few blinkings of the eye. One moment the six are shadows, the next they are out in the street.

   I expect weapons fire, rifles and pistols blasting in greeting. Instead, there is silence and nimble moves. Twelve hands reaching out, clasping mouths, gripping chests, and taking down the four remnants with the barest of struggles. Two are pulled to the west side of the street by Skye, Ovid and Peyton. Two are pulled to the east side by Luka, Vesta and Cali. It’s a perfect plan, executed flawlessly, but not an accomplishment without consequences. And what follows is mayhem.

   I duck down as the quad reforms into defensive wedges. Soon after, octets of golds with rifles and pistols are fanning out in all directions, blasting away at every shadow. Despite the chaos, Skye, Ovid and Peyton manage to reach me, their illicit cargo intact and unconscious.