Tesla: A Teen Steampunk/Cyberpunk Adventure (Tesla Evolution Book 1) (3 page)

He turned to face her. “How should I know where he is?”

There was a ringing slap across his face. “Don’t answer me back, insolent child. Do as I instruct.”

He sprinted out the door with tears of fury running down his face. He ran to the Oakleys’ rundown farm and banged on the door.
 

John opened it and leaned lazily against the doorjamb.

“Where’s your fathead brother?” Sebastian spat.

“Maybe I dunno.” John replied. He smirked and looked down at Sebastian.

“I don’t want to be here as much as you don’t want me to be here, so tell me.”

John wandered out onto the veranda and gazed toward the horizon. “It’s a big place out there. And he’s a man of the world.”

“Shut up and tell me where he is.”

“No.”

Sebastian had had enough. His blood was boiling. He was exhausted from the continual menial tasks; he hadn’t seen anyone he liked even vaguely for months; and he was sick of his life being dominated by these greedy, lazy rednecks. He saw red, clenched his fists and charged at John. They both collapsed onto the dust, with Sebastian pounding on John’s chest.

“Tell me where he is,” he screamed as he landed blow after blow on the bigger boy’s body.

“All right, get off me.” John pushed Sebastian off, picked himself up and dusted off his clothes. “In the name of Joshua Richards, he went up the lake. He bought a new boat with your money.” He pushed Sebastian, who stumbled and fell over. “Now get off our property, you complete spaz.”

*

Sebastian made his way up the path out to the west of Talinga toward Lake Woleebee. He kicked the occasional rock out of frustration. He longed desperately for his mother, but it had been months and the doctor had not returned. He could only assume the doctor was taking care of her in the hospital. If she were dead, wouldn’t the man have returned by now? He took some hope from the old saying: “No news is good news.”
 

He followed the cart tracks in the dust as they veered off to a distant clump of trees. The lake was still fifteen minutes away. He followed the tracks down into the low valley, his hands deep in his pockets. He heard voices. He stopped and listened. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled closer until he could make out the voices.
 

Sure enough, one was Lincoln, and the other was a young girl he vaguely remembered from school, a few years older than him. She had disappeared for six months, only to reappear as quickly and mysteriously as she had left. He eventually remembered her name, Caroline. He recalled that some of the meaner boys called her different names, ones he didn’t understand, in unpleasant voices. None of the names seemed complimentary.

“Yeah, let’s see how many times we can jump on it before it breaks,” Sebastian heard Lincoln say.

“Isn’t that a waste?” Caroline said.

There was a rattling sound by Sebastian’s side, which made him jump. A lizard was looking forlornly up at him from inside a dusty old bottle. It was one of the tricks the mean boys did to occupy their bored, evil minds. They would pull the lizard’s legs back then squeeze it into the bottle. The lizard would be stuck inside the bottle until it died. Sometimes the boys would take the lizard-in-a-bottle home and watch it die. Sometimes they simply threw it deep into the desert.
 

He teased the lizard out of the bottle until he could grab its head and slide it all the way out. The lizard bit him on the finger and ran away. Sebastian turned his attention back to the voices under the trees.

“Nah, not my money,” Lincoln was saying. “Anyway, from what I can work out she’s nearly spent the family fortune. She’ll have to sell the house soon, then abandon the stupid boy and go back to her own village. But I’m making sure you and I have got some of the cash for our own place.”

“You naughty boy,” Caroline purred. “Stealing from an old lady.”

“She’s not old. Only in comparison with your lovely body.”
 

Sebastian could imagine Lincoln’s alligator smile as he said this.

“Mine is the one that counts,” Caroline said.

The talking stopped. Sebastian got up and ran away. He didn’t care where he was heading. It sounded like he wasn’t going to have a home soon enough so it didn’t matter. He ran and ran until his lungs hurt. He collapsed face first onto the ground. He rolled over and looked up at the blue sky, waiting until his breathing calmed down.

There was a faint buzzing sound nearby. He turned his head to see what insect was planning to kill him. There was nothing there. He stood up and followed the sound over a small hill. Lake Woleebee was on the other side. And lying on the edge of the water was a body, dressed in black.
 

Sebastian broke a branch off a tree and prodded the body. It didn’t move. He moved closer to inspect it. It looked completely dead. It lay facing the sky, its eyes open. Sebastian reached out to close them.
 

A hand shot up and grabbed his arm. The figure with the pale face and strange black clothing whispered something.

“What?” shrieked Sebastian.

“They come. For you,” he croaked, staring up at the young boy. “You must die.”
 

The figure raised up his other hand, which held a flat, black object. It had a picture of Sebastian on it, and the word TERMINATE written underneath. The image flickered and disappeared. The grip was released and the arm fell back into the mud.
 

Sebastian scrambled up onto the relative safety of the bank. Small jabs of lightning arced across the body and it convulsed; the arms and legs flailed wildly and water sprayed everywhere as the body thrashed. Then it let out a high-pitched cry, so loud and painful that Sebastian had to cover his ears. After several seconds the sound died away and he was left with the gentle lapping of the waves against the shore the only thing breaking the silence of the lake.

He watched and waited.
 

After what seemed like an eternity, he cautiously approached the body. It had such an aura of stillness that this time he was sure it was dead. Completely dead. No scary last-minute-coming-to-life dead. Dead forever.
Dead.

The person didn’t appear to be much older than him. It was just another boy. It didn’t seem right to leave him here, so he dragged the body out of the water and did his best to bury it. He took the strange black object and put it in his pocket for later examination. The boy’s boots looked amazingly cool, but he felt it would be wrong to take them.

He felt something more was needed. He clasped the boy’s hands and said, “In the name of Joshua, I condemn … no, wrong word … send this body to the afterlife. May it, er, he rest in peace.”

He turned and walked back to the town, planning never to speak of the black-clad boy.

*

The next week his aunt announced she felt a little under the weather and would be spending the day in bed to recoup her appetite. She continued to instruct him in his daily duties, working him harder than ever.
 

The next day she did the same. And the day after. At the end of that week Ratty stated that she no longer had a desire to rise, as Lincoln had stopped coming to see her. Sebastian was to wait on her until she felt sufficiently buoyed.
 

The following week her voice grew hoarse. She started to sweat profusely and no amount of fanning cooled her. She beckoned him closer and instructed him to summon the doctor. Sebastian replied that the doctor had not yet returned from taking his mother to the hospital.

Ratty gave him a slap across his face. It didn’t hurt as much as it once might have. She called him a liar. He promised he had not seen the doctor. She shouted at him to look harder, or at least find someone with some medical knowledge.

He ran to the doctor’s house and knocked loudly but there was no response. He sat on the steps out front and wondered whom to call. A stallion trotted past, carrying one of the local women riding sidesaddle.

“The vet,” he whispered.

*

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She doesn’t have equine herpesvirus, strangles or kennel cough. There’s nothing I can do for her,” said the vet, young Dr. Filbert. He adjusted his glasses and began to pack up his medical paraphernalia.

“There must be something you can give her,” Sebastian said quietly, “if only to stop her nagging me.”

Dr. Filbert sighed. “I guess I could inject pig’s urine into her rump, er, backside,” he whispered.

“What will that do?”

“Absolutely nothing. But you must look away; it will be an unpleasant sight.”

“Injecting pig’s urine?”

“No, her backside.” He turned his attention to the sick woman. “Ma’am, you need to roll over so I can administer the medicine.”

“She’s not deaf, you don’t need to shout,” Sebastian said. “You definitely don’t need to stroke her head.”

“Sorry. Habit.”

Ratty groaned loudly as she rolled over onto her stomach. Dr. Filbert raised her nightdress and gulped. Sebastian shielded his eyes. There was another groan from his aunt.
 

“Okay, deed done,” said the vet. He fished a small bottle out of his pocket and handed it to Sebastian. “Give her two of these tablets, ground up in her meat, twice a day. They should return her coat to a lusty sheen.”

“What?”

“Er, they’re protein boosts. They
may
give her more energy.” He picked up his case and turned to leave. “Look, Sebastian, she’s in a real bad way. I don’t know what to prescribe.” He sighed again. “Good luck. You deserved better than this.”

*

The humidity rolled in over the town. As usual, Sebastian prepared the afternoon tea and delivered it to his aunt. Surprisingly, she was sleeping. Her snores echoed around the room. He shook her. Her skin was clammy and he wiped his hand on his tunic.
 

His mother’s jewelry box lay unattended for the first time since his aunt had arrived. He could see the end of the key poking out of the top of Ratty’s nightdress. He held his breath and slowly extracted it. The key was damp and smelled of old sweat. He grimaced and wiped it on his pants. He inserted it into the small box and turned it carefully. There was a tiny clicking sound as the catch was unlocked.
 

Cautiously, he opened the box. He saw an envelope with his name written in his mother’s neat copperplate script.
 

His aunt stirred.
 

He quickly stuffed the envelope in his pocket.

Ratty struggled to sit up. Her hair lay scattered around the pillow. “Help me, foolish child,” she croaked.

He placed some large pillows behind her, propping her up.

She looked down and saw her hair lying on the bed and the floor. “My beautiful hair,” she wept. She turned to Sebastian with a look of disgust and hatred. “It’s you. You’re a cursed, evil child. You make everyone sick.”

Then the great bell rang. His aunt’s eyes shot open and she screamed. For the first time in a month, she rose from the bed. She staggered down the stairs and flung open the front door. In her floral nightdress, she waddled her bloated body into the middle of the track, which was full of people running to the north. She turned and screamed at what approached.
 

Coming up the track toward her were the black-clad men, as the old stories had described them. One raised its arm toward her. There was a loud zapping sound, like a large angry mosquito, followed by a flash of blinding light. Ratty felt a tingling in her stomach and clutched at herself. When her eyes had recovered she looked down. There was a deep hole full of charred and blackened blood in the center of her body.
 

As she fell to the ground, another lightbeam flashed out and sliced into her head. The black-clad men walked on.

Sebastian ran out the door to see what was happening. He found himself in the middle of the men. He gasped as he recognized the strange black clothing of the boy he saw at the lake.
 

As one they all turned to face him, chanting, “Terminate.”

4

“WHERE AM I?” Isabelle rasped. She fought to open her eyes. All she could make out through her blurred vision, in the low light, were two thin dark figures. She felt cold hard stone beneath her. Water lapped around her body.

“You’s in the Dunhidin,” said the first figure.

“We thought you’s a goner,” added the second.

“You had the sickness,” said the first. “But we got you here, and you’s gonna be all right.”

“Where am I?” she asked.

“Dunhidin,” repeated the first figure. “Sacred caves. Heals the sickness from people. You gonna sleep now. You wake when you’s better.” The figure leaned forward and lifted her head up, helping her drink the cool sticky liquid from a rolled-up leaf.
 

She closed her eyes. “Sebby,” she said, as she drifted off into the blackness.

*

Sebastian wheeled around. He was completely surrounded by the black-clad men. He gasped in horror as he noticed the charred and blackened remains of his aunt on the ground. He looked up at the men surrounding him. He felt his head swim and his vision blur. The closest man raised his arm toward Sebastian.
 

Time slowed. He could sense the explosions going on around him. Heat billowed off the houses down the main track. Among the screams and shouts of the villagers, he heard someone call his name.
 

He could see right down the tube facing him. He saw a faint glow from deep within the tube.

There was a blinding light in his eyes. He felt paralyzed with fear. There was an unbearable pain in his head, and all went black.

*

Sebastian woke to the violent rocking motion of a galloping horse. An arm was wrapped tightly around him, pulling him into the person who sat behind him. He and his mystery rider were charging through the forest. The horse leapt over a massive log and through the narrow gap between two trees. One of the trees exploded, covering them in shards of wood and bark.

“What’s happening?” shouted Sebastian.

“Not now, Sebby. I’ll tell you later.” It was the comforting voice of Dr. Filbert, the vet.