The Proving (13 page)

The comment caught Skye off-guard. Saved them? That wasn’t how her father remembered it. “We make decisions together.”

“Blech.” Cleo hopped off the console. “I just hope you’re still as accurate as you were when you were thirteen — whoa!”

The Tumbler shifted violently, sending the Persian to the floor. She got up, rubbing the palm of her left hand. “Medic!” she shouted.

“What? Really?” Ben asked, unbuckling his belt. Skye watched him in the reflection on the corner of her smartglasses — he had a cute look of concern on his face. “Is it your carpus or metacarpus?”

“Oh, sit down. I’m just kidding.”

Skye turned her eyes back to the road.
Don’t even think about crushing on that boy. You’d be the laughingstock of Clan Sparta.

“We’re officially beyond the farm belt,” Skye said. “The road will only get worse from here on out.”

Cleo returned to her console. “We’re off-satellite, too. Totally on our own. Time to panic, if you’re the panicking type.”

“I am,” Ben said in a low voice.

“We’re fine,” Skye said, suppressing an unexpected smile. “We’re only two hours away from the target. Persian, are you picking up any anomalies on the Tumbler’s sensors?”

Cleo slid her finger across the holoscreen, bringing up a 3D image of the area outside of the Tumbler. “This sensor’s for crap. I’m picking up
some
life, though.”

“Is that normal?” Skye asked over her shoulder. Again, she caught a glance at Ben in the glasses’ reflection. He was fumbling with the seatbelt, trying to get it buckled again. “The right strap is backwards, Athenian.”

Ben’s face reddened. Actually, given that he’d decided to go with a buzz cut, and given that he was already losing hair near his forehead, most of his
head
reddened. “Thanks.” He flipped the right strap, then buckled in.

“Well, professor?” Cleo asked. “Should I be picking up life readings or not?”

“Oh. Um, sure. You’re probably picking up bees and birds, maybe an emu or two. Specters seem to be most attracted to the negative charge in human bodies, so they ignore most wildlife. Anytime our nervous system sends signals to our brain, it’s using electricity to get the job done. The electric charge jumps from cell to cell, relying on a slight imbalance between potassium and sodium ions. But, uh, we don’t know why the Specters prefer humans . . .”

“My brain is sending me some negative signals right now,” Cleo muttered. “But your explanation is pretty cool, so I’m going to ignore those signals.”

“I don’t see how you could. You don’t have control over those neural impulses.”

“She meant she was going to refrain from insulting you,” Skye said. She used one hand to open up the Mirror program on her command console. A mirror appeared on the center of the windshield glass, partially obstructing her view of the road. Skye touched it with one finger, dragging it down to the bottom of the glass.

Good. Now she could keep an eye on everyone in the Tumbler.

But mainly Ben.

“Oh.” Ben blushed again. “Thank you for not insulting me, Cleo.”

Cleo blew a bubble and smiled. “No problem, professor. Did you get all that, Historian?”

“Seamus.”

“What?”

“My name,” the Historian said slowly from the rear of the vehicle, “is Seamus. And yes, I will remember all of it.”

“Good.”

In the small mirror, Skye saw Cleo grin wider. It was infectious — Skye had to fight the urge to smile, too.
They’re not Spartans, so they don’t matter
. Just because Cleo had a more bubbly personality than most Persians didn’t mean she was trustworthy.

Trust none of them. Trust the Historian the least.

Another heavy bump. On the console, a small warning appeared, requesting the driver to be aware of the marked road damage.

Stay aware, girl. That’s your job.

She pressed her finger on the touchscreen console, flicking away the warning.

And trust your training. Don’t rely on technology to be your eyes. That was Father’s best advice. That was how you saw that Specter emerge when you were thirteen. You used your ears to pinpoint that eerie moan. You felt the hairs on your neck stand up. You stopped, slipped around one of the tall pines, and spotted the glowing claw coming up out of the ground. That was you. You did that.

She shut off the navigation assistant. The red circles appearing on the windshield disappeared, leaving only open road and a blue line leading them toward the forest on the horizon. Blistered concrete cracked open by freezing water. Potholes caused by long-ago decommissioned transport vehicles. To the left of the road was open grassland with meter-high blades of grass and tall trees with dark gray bark and bright green leaves. To the right of the road was an old abandoned cemetery, the tombstones barely recognizable beneath clustered vines dotted with bright blue flowers. The tombstones rose up on a massive hill in neat rows, like seats in an amphitheater. The ones on top had the largest headstones, rising above the flowery vines. Along the base were crypts, running right up to an old decayed side road.

Another bump. Skye steeled herself and looked forward. The Akashi mountains were spread out across the horizon. A few were tall enough that their peaks were covered with snow. To the north, the mountains were wide and sprawling, lined with squat pine trees. To the south, the mountains rose taller, sharper-looking, as if they’d emerged from the earth more violently.

“You sure you don’t want navigation?” Cassy asked.

Skye nodded. “Just a little practice. Grab the grips.”

He reached underneath his glass console. “These joysticks?”

“Grips. Use the right terminology. There you go. Now keep us on the road.” She felt the grips in her hands move slightly and let go, letting Cassy take over. She looked over at him and smiled. He nervously smiled back.

Another bump. Skye slowed the vehicle by depressing her foot on the manual speed pedal but let Cassy correct the mistake himself, guiding the Tumbler a few degrees right. On the windshield, the blue line disappeared far ahead between a smattering of tall oak trees with stretching limbs. The road was getting worse, blistering so deep in places that thick weeds had taken root. She felt a sick pain in the pit of her stomach. The estimated time to the supply depot had been only two hours — they still weren’t there yet. Every damaged piece of road forced her to slow the Tumbler.

She leaned forward and looked up. The Ring loomed directly overhead, arcing over Earth, curving like some celestial, blood-red rainbow.

They were behind schedule.

Ben closed his eyes for just a moment, telling himself
I will not fall asleep, I will not fall asleep, I will not fall asleep
. It was rude. It was unfair to the Spartans, who
had
to stay awake to drive the Tumbler.

But he’d stayed up so late at Carnivale. Gods, it had been the most fun he’d had at a Carnivale in . . . well, ever. Where some Athenians eschewed the whole thing, Ben’s parents always valued it for what it truly was: a social gathering. An opportunity to foster and strengthen relationships with other clan members and free citizens. Last night, Ben had taken his parents’ ethos to the extreme: he and a group of Athenians had dressed to the nines.

It began early in the evening, when Ben’s small group of friends made the decision not to walk around downtown Neo Berlin admiring people dressed up. That had led to an impromptu visit to a clothing store in the garment district, which had led to Ben very timidly delaying the costume selection process until everyone had snatched up the least outrageous outfits. All that was left was the Blue Ghost: a skull-like mask and a black top hat and a loose-fitting blue jumpsuit with long, flowing blue silks attached along the side. As if that wasn’t enough, the costume came with a pair of blue stilts. The costume couldn’t be rented
without
the stilts.

So Ben, in a moment of bravery that he had attributed at the time to the nanobots freshly flowing through his bloodstream, put on the costume and joined his friends in the festivities happening on every street downtown. It was only when he was on the stilts, when the wind was blowing across his body, that he realized the full potential of the costume. The flowing blue fabric spread out like butterfly wings, engulfing entertained revelers below him. They shouted excitedly. They cheered him on. Ben felt a rush as he stomped his way down the street, arms extended high over his head so the flowing blue fabric caught the wind, flowing over the entertained crowds. From street to street he went, celebrating, chasing screaming kids, chasing laughing adults, adding to the throng of people celebrating humanity’s survival and persistence. He was a butterfly. He was
evolving
.

It was the most uncharacteristic thing he had ever done. And he had felt so alive.

The memory faded. Ben opened his eyes. They were on a road leading through a dense forest. Cleo had fallen asleep, too; her gum had migrated to her lower lip, just hanging there. It seemed risky; if the gum went down her throat, she might choke. Ben unbuckled and reached out, grabbing the gum.

She opened her eyes.

“Oh. Um.” He held the gum up. “I just didn’t want you to choke on it.”

She narrowed her eyes, reached out, and grabbed the gum. She put it back in her mouth.

Ben rubbed his eyes, glancing out the windshield. The old road ran straight through a forest of pines between two tall mountains, each of them with rocky, disjointed peaks. The view was absolutely breathtaking. To their left, the mountain seemed to creep upward, taking tall pines and ash trees along with it. To their right, another mountain took a much more violent route, leaving steep exposed gray rock with only little layers of greenery every hundred or so meters.

“I thought it would be more . . . you know, claustrophobic this far out,” Cleo said, unbuckling and reaching over the backseat of the young Spartan boy — Cassidy — so she could peer out. “Kinda pretty, actually.”

“We’re in a valley,” said Gabriel. He turned to the Historian. “There’s a unique history to this, right? I can’t remember.”

“There is a unique history in all things,” said the Historian. Seamus, Ben reminded himself. His name was Seamus.

“Duh,” said Cleo.

“The Akashi mountains are
fold mountains
,” Seamus explained. “They were formed when two ancient tectonic plates pushed up against each other.” He looked up at the ceiling and cleared his throat. “From above, you might think the mountain range looks something like a wrinkled shirt.”

“Neat,” Ben said. “That’s a great visual, Seamus.”

Seamus seemed taken aback by the compliment. Ben wondered if he’d said something wrong. Were Historians not supposed to take compliments?

“New Earth has tectonic plates,” Ben said, pivoting in the hopes it might make Seamus more comfortable. “It’s one of the reasons we chose it for colonization. Active plates . . .”

“Destination dead ahead,” Skye said, and at the sound of her voice Ben’s head snapped the other way so fast that he felt a twist in his neck, specifically his left
sternocleidomastoid
muscle. Skye pointed to the right of the road, where it forked in another direction through a cluster of pines. The blue line on the windshield followed the center of the road. The Tumbler turned right, bouncing on potholes and causing Ben’s stomach to lurch. He closed his eyes, sitting back. Don’t throw up, he told himself; don’t embarrass yourself in front of Skye.

The bouncing stopped. He opened his eyes.

Ahead was their destination: the emergency supply depot. Ben immediately recognized the architecture: mid-century industrial, with a flat roof lined with tall rotating solar panels modified with quantum dots to enhance efficiency. The building itself resembled a steel disk, water-stained, lacking any windows or glass or anything else that might not stand up against the elements. It stood surrounded by a small, flat concrete space that was choked with weeds, isolated from the forest by a chain-link fence that didn’t seem to serve any purpose in a post-Specter world. Thick, tall trees with sprawling branches and heavy green leaves brushed up against the fence, pushing on it in one place so hard that the links were bent over.

There was a building downtown of the same shape: a quaint museum dedicated to the evolution of household items, from the stirring whisk to the toaster to the mixer to the purifier to the printer. It was just the kind of thing that could only exist in a neighborhood like Ben’s, where there were enough people fascinated with retro devices aimed at putting the “human” element back into food preparation.

A waste of time, in Ben’s opinion. But he didn’t begrudge people their interests. He, after all, had more than a thousand digital photos of buildings saved to his camera at home simply because he thought architecture was neat.

“Pinging the structure’s Wi-Fi,” Cleo said, bringing up a holoscreen. She swiped it and the holographic image transferred over to the windshield. A green digital reticule appeared around the building, centered on the front door. Schematics appeared on the building, followed by lines of supplemental information scrolling down the glass, forcing Skye to lean left so she could still see the road. “Looks like environmental damage to the front door. Not sure from what.”

“
Fallopia japonica
,” Tahlia said in a sleepy voice. She pulled her head off Ben’s shoulder and pointed through the windshield to the green plant sprouting up at the base of the building, near the large front door. “Knotweed roots can damage foundations.”

“She knows her florae and faunae,” Ben said proudly. He shifted in his seat. “There . . . uh, there
should
be a backdoor.”

Skye glanced over her shoulder, looking at him. His heart skipped a beat when he met her eyes. She had beautiful green eyes, full of intelligence. Her left eye was just a little crossed . . . mild heterophoria, perhaps? She wasn’t looking at him; she was looking
into
him.

And it made him a nervous wreck.

“You’ve been here,” she said sharply. It might have been a question, but it sounded like an accusation.