Terra (9 page)

I glance over at Adam. The distrust in his expression has melted into compassion. It makes me instantly uncomfortable.

I clear my throat and start to walk more quickly again. Adam matches my pace. “Right. My turn again,” I say. “If you know how to get out of here, why haven’t you left?”

“Don’t have anywhere else to be,” he says with a laugh, though a frown plays at the corner of his lips. His face perks up again after a moment. “I’ve done some exploring up top, but I don’t have any idea where to go from there. Where are you from?”

“Sixteen.”

Adam looks at me blankly, and I have to remind myself that a skydweller wouldn’t know one settlement from another based on number alone. They need continent and territory titles, too. “Genesis X-16,” I say.

“Genesis X-16,” Adam repeats quietly, as if he’s testing the words out. “That’s a mouthful.”

“The sixteenth settlement on the eastern seaboard of the Genesis continent. I thought they would have at least taught you guys the formula for how the groundworld is laid out. ”

Adam’s face scrunches up, like he’s trying to remember something, but he relaxes after a moment. “So where is Sixteen exactly? How did you get here from there?”

“Tsk, that’s more than one question, and it’s not even your turn,” I chastise. “It’s kind of a long story. Scavenging and raiders and running… God, so much running. Let’s just say it was never my plan to cross the quarantine line. I won’t even bother asking where you’re from.”

“Oh?” he says apprehensively.

“Who can even tell one skycity from the next?” Adam looks like he wants to interject, but I continue. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Each city is special, each has its
thing
. Korbyllis is the Capital, Lexicon’s a dream for entertainment junkies, and most modern tech is manufactured on Altara. Blah, blah, blah. They’re all the same to me. It’s obvious enough you’re a skyboy, so who really cares which city you descended from?” I cut myself off, literally biting my tongue to keep the rest of my contemptuous speech at bay. This is my first real interaction with a skydweller who’s even close to my age, and so far Adam seems all right. A little cocky, maybe, but not bad. I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s obvious, huh?” Adam says.

“Need me to list it out for you?”

“Please.” He looks curious, amused.

I roll my eyes and tick the reasons off one by one on my fingers. “One, you have no idea where Sixteen is, even though we’re one of the largest settlements on Genesis. Two, somehow you know a ton about the technology in this place, whereas I’ve never even heard of, let alone seen, most of this stuff. Evidently, they teach you guys a little something extra up there.” I almost add a nasty remark about the implicit unfairness in that, but manage to keep my commentary to myself.

It’s not his fault he was born into a life of privilege,
I tell myself.

“Three, it’s clear you’ve hardly spent any time in the sun without a UV filter over your head. And lastly, even if all of those other factors weren’t present, your eyes would still give you away. I’ve never even seen eyes that blue down here.”

Adam cocks his head to the side.

“You should probably get back up top soon if you want to keep them like that, by the way,” I tease. “Sure, right now it’s early days. But stay down here too long and you’ll end up with a set of greeners. Or maybe a light hazel. And if you’re truly unlucky, you’ll end up with these muddy things for the rest of your life.” I widen my eyes and blink purposefully into his face, affecting an angelic expression.

“Noted,” he says with a laugh. “Whose question is it now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Pretty useless to strike a deal if you’re not keeping track.”

“Okay, fine, I have one more,” I say after a beat. “Why did you save me? There could have been a dozen raiders closing in on me. You could have been hurt.” My mind flashes with the image of Adam prostrate on the tunnel floor, heavy boots kicking at his side, and I feel a pang in my chest.

He looks down for a moment before replying. “How could I not?”

His eyes meet mine so fiercely that I have to look away. I feel heat in my cheeks. With that, our mutual inquisition ends.

I plod along through the forest, a step behind Adam. It takes me a second to realize that he’s subtly taken the lead. I’ve been following him for a while now and haven’t even noticed.

“Hey!” I cry out, making him stop short. “I told you, I don’t need your help. I can find my own way out of here.” My boast is good-natured, egging him on as I amble off in a different direction.

“Stop.” Adam’s response is not as agreeable. The air becomes suddenly serious. Threatening. I look behind me and see the outline of a pair of squat gray buildings behind the tree line. Where has he been leading me?

I quicken my pace, turning back into the forest.

“Terra, stop!” he yells. I cringe at the intensity in his voice; I don’t think I have another chase in me today.

“Watch out!” His shout comes after I’ve already heard the snap. I throw my gaze skyward and see a heavy branch plummeting toward me.

I fling myself to the ground with my arms wrapped protectively around my head. A moment passes but no crash sounds. Assuming that the branch got caught somewhere above me, I open my eyes and have to stifle a gasp.

The thick tree limb hovers three inches from my face, suspended in midair. It’s even bigger than I thought, easily 90 pounds of solid oak. I hear a grunt and turn my head just in time to see Adam, ten feet away, wave his outstretched arm. The branch drifts to the side before dropping to the ground next to me with a thud.

I lie still, paralyzed by what I’ve just seen. Adam stands with his hands over his ribs, his chest heaving from obvious exertion. After a moment, he slowly walks over to me and offers me his hand. Cautiously, I take it and he pulls me upright.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“I have another question,” I say shakily, dusting myself off. “
What the hell was that?
”

Chapter 8

“What was that?” I say again, more accusingly this time. “What did you just do?”

“Are you okay?” he repeats purposefully, ignoring my question. “You’re lucky. If you’d been just a few inches over, that branch would’ve nailed you.” Adam’s innocent banter is infuriating.

My eyes narrow into a glare. “Don’t you dare do that.”

“Do what?” he says.

“Play dumb with me. I know what I saw. You… you moved the branch. You stopped it from hitting me.”

“How might I have accomplished that?” he asks blankly. “I was back there when it fell.”

“I don’t know!” I yell, throwing my hands up in frustration. “I don’t know who you are! You won’t tell me anything about yourself. I can barely get a straight answer out of you.”

“You’re not exactly an open book yourself.”

“Well, I’m not the one who can move things without touching them! So who are you, really?” I sway a little on my feet. The adrenaline that sparked through my veins as I leapt from the branch starts to leave my system, taking with it what little strength I’ve regained. I’m suddenly aware of just how hard I’ve pushed myself today.

Adam draws a deep breath and lightly touches his middle finger to the split on his lip. “Okay, fine,” he says solemnly. “I’ll explain, just come with me.”

“Where?” I eye the gray buildings, still visible in the background despite my panic-driven detour. “You said you knew a raider-free way out of here, so where is it already?”

“It really is all questions, all the time with you, isn’t it?” he says with a shaky laugh.

“So I should just follow you blindly? If you can’t trust me, why the hell should I trust you? You may be some kind of underground superhero, but I’m not stupid.”

He searches my face, but I lock it into a scowl. “You look like you’re about to keel over,” he says. “When’s the last time you ate something?”

“Stop changing the subject,” I say, but he’s already walking back toward the buildings.

I balk as my stomach growls loudly, right on cue. My dinner with Mica last night feels like it was ages ago. I briefly estimate how much time has passed since I left on my clandestine scavenging run; it must be at least midday by now. I wish I had eaten something before I left.

“All right, all right!” I call out. Adam is already a good distance ahead. “Hold up.”

I fall into step behind him. I contemplate asking him more questions, but the hard set of his jaw tells me there’s little point.

We approach the twin buildings in silence. When we’re close, I see that they’re not separate buildings, but two towers that share a base. A continuous row of windows wraps around the first floor, broken only by a set of double doors.

“What is this place?”

“Patience isn’t one of your virtues, I’m noticing.” He leads me around the side, where a window has been smashed in. I raise my eyebrow and he chuckles. “It was like this when I found it,” he says defensively.

“Have something against doors?” I ask.

“It’s on lockdown. I tried overriding the system to open them up, but I think they’re synced up to a biometric lock.” He hops through the makeshift doorway, giving a wide berth to the broken glass still clinging to the edge of the window frame, then turns back and offers me his hand. I don’t have the kind of height he does, so I grab his palm reluctantly. With one easy pull, I’m suddenly inside; I barely even felt myself move. I yank my hand back as soon as I’ve cleared the glass.

We are inside a small white room. Adam opens the door on the far side and ushers me into a dark, windowless hallway. The light from the small room illuminates the hall just enough for me to see where I’m walking.

I follow Adam down the hallway until we reach a set of swinging doors that he pushes open to reveal a cavernous room filled with workspaces. Rows of shiny metal desks cross the room lengthwise, all facing a heavily windowed wall that looks out onto the forest. Light streams in through the windows, and near them I see double doors that indicate we’re just on the other side of the main entrance.

Adam immediately heads for the back of the room while I take in the setup. Computer monitors sit on each desk, their casings cracked open, wires and components spilling out. I walk up the row in front of me and can instantly tell that the computers are very old. They’re far more ancient than Mica’s secondhand PC—the one luxury our father left us. Chairs with wheels attached to their legs are intermingled with the desks, some upright, some tipped over.

The back row of desks stands out from the wreckage, and I walk back to inspect it more closely. The computer that sits on the end boasts a small green light. It blinks wildly; unlike the others, this unit has power. An array of silver instruments is laid out next to it, arranged by size. Beside them is a tablet computer that resembles the ones Collection Agents use, as well as a lockbox, an innocuous-looking metal cylinder about the length of my hand, and several thick metal rings like the one currently attached to my canteen. I take off Mica’s backpack and lay it on a desk, then pull out my bottle to confirm the rings are the same. A portable filter, Adam called it.

Rage suddenly flares up inside me. Because of these little things, skydwellers have access to clean, drinkable water whenever they want, while we’re stuck purchasing canteen refills every week from the Marketplace.

I glance back at Adam, who is crouched in the corner of the room near a small pile of blankets and pillows—a crude bed. My anger dissolves into surprise as he lifts his shirt and pulls it off, revealing an enormous yellowing bruise along his right side. A swirled mass of green, yellow, and gray stretches from the dip of his waist to his shoulder. My first thought is that the raiders must have gotten a few good hits in while Adam was saving me, and guilt washes over me. But, jarring as the bruise looks, as I watch him I realize it has already been healing for a while.

Adam discards his silvery shirt—it shimmers slightly as he drops it to the floor—and pulls a clean white undershirt off a short stack at the foot of the makeshift bed. He crouches down to root around in the blankets and tosses a small rectangular packet in my direction, before putting on the clean shirt. I reach to catch the packet, but am distracted by the brief flash of pain that crosses Adam’s face as he pulls the shirt on, and I miss. The packet lands on the desk next to me, displacing the metal tools with a jingle.

Adam laughs as I eye the packaging—blue with gold stripes—suspiciously. “Food,” he says with a hint of exasperation.

My stomach rumbles and I rip open the packaging. Inside is a bar of tiny round grains that are pressed together. I take a tentative bite. It’s chewy and sweet.

“Thanks,” I say, my voice garbled as I cram another bite into my mouth. Despite the bar’s small size, my hunger is rapidly disappearing. “Am I allowed to ask questions now?”

“I suppose,” Adam says resignedly. He sits down in a nearby chair and rolls over to me.

“How did you stop that branch?”

Adam avoids my eyes, his lips set in a line. He’s guarding himself.

“You promised me answers,” I remind him.

“I never
promised
anything,” he says. “It’s… it’s not that simple to explain.”

“It’s can’t be that hard,” I persist. “Just tell me already.”

“So you’re allowed to have things you don’t want to talk about but I’m not? How about I make you talk about your parents some more before you get all the nitty gritty details of
my
life?”

His defensiveness catches me off guard. “Okay,” I say after a moment of stunned silence, “I’ll start with something easier then. Where are we?” I pick up one of the filter rings and thread my finger through it.

“We’re in the research complex for this biodome,” he says, visibly relaxing.

“Oh, right. Of course. How silly of me. The research complex. The
biodome
,” I say, rolling my eyes.

He shrugs.

“We are underground, in the
ruins
,” I say. “Nobody’s been here for centuries, and yet somehow you just happen to find this whole world down here. With green trees and sunlight and wind and fake walls that look like the sky.” I start to pace and the volume of my voice rises uncontrollably. “How do trees grow underground?”