Dream Storm, page 1
part #11 of Remnants Series
DREAM STORM
REMNANTS #11
K.A. Applegate
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
CHAPTER 1
"LIKE LETTING GO OF A LIFELINE."
Mo'Steel wasn't going to cry. True, they were now stranded on the lifeless Earth. Pretty much dead men walking. But he'd just have to suck it up and go on. No use bunnying out. "Mom, Mom, it's gonna be okay," he said soothingly.
Olga was standing next to him, biting her bottom lip, eyes filled with tears. Her eyes were locked on the sooty sky, even though Mother was no longer visible.
Mother was a strange, massive ship. A ship with a consciousness — or at least a ship built around a computer so advanced she could experience emotion. Like anger. And loneliness. Mother had been lonely. Lonely ever since the beings that had created her had fallen into conflict and disseminated themselves, leaving her drifting through space. So when she spotted the Remnants' space shuttle, she eagerly snatched it out of the sky and woke them up from five-hundred-years' worth of hibernation to keep her company.
Most of the time since then they'd been at her mercy. Action figures in a game they were forced to play to amuse her. A deadly game.
Among the Remnants only one of them had proven to be Mother's match. Billy. She came to care for him, and he'd used his influence over her to help the Remnants gain some control of the massive ship. Eventually, they managed to turn her back toward the ruined Earth. Ruined because an asteroid the size of New Jersey had whacked the planet silly. They called the asteroid the Rock, and it was the reason they'd left Earth in the first place.
Mo'Steel, Jobs, and the others had dealt with death and hunger and war and sabotage and some very unpleasant green worms to make if back home.
Then, when things couldn't possibly get worse, things got worse. They'd learned Earth was seemingly unable to support life: no food, no water. And they were abandoned on the broken planet by Yago, a spoiled brat who was convinced he was superior and who wanted control of the ship for his own purposes. The other Remnants assumed he had some help from the Troika — Amelia, Duncan, and Charlie — another faction with their own mysterious agenda. Tate was up there, too. She'd still been on the ship when Yago took off. "Mom?" Mo'Steel said. "Come on, don't cry."
"I — I'm fine," Olga said haltingly. She dragged her eyes slowly away from the sky and met Mo'Steel's gaze. "It's just — letting go of the ship is like letting go of a lifetime." "We're not going to die," Mo'Steel said defiantly.
But so many were gone already. There were only eleven Remnants now — not counting Yago and the other people still on the ship.
Mo'Steel ran his gaze over his companions, trying to gauge how they were holding up. Not too well, it seemed. Depressing. But justified.
Those kids in Lord of the Flies were angels compared to a few people in this group. 2Face included.
At the moment, she was sitting cross-legged in the ash next to Billy. She looked small, scared, and lonely with her dark hair hiding her scarred face, murmuring softly, trying desperately to wake Billy up. She looked defenseless, but Mo'Steel knew better. 2Face had proven again and again that her own survival was her main interest. And then there was Violet.
Something in her expression concerned Mo'Steel. She was standing with her hands on her hips, suspiciously watching the four Blue Meanies that had been abandoned on Earth with them.
The Meanies. They were the same size and build as ponies. They wore midnight-blue armorlike suits fitted with rockets and weapons. The Meanies looked lost, ridiculously out of place huddled together near a hunk of concrete. They communicated by a form of sign language, waving the tentacles bracketing their faces — and judging by the speed of the waving, it looked as if they were having a pretty massive argument.
Maybe Violet was right to watch them so carefully. The Meanies could be very dangerous and they weren't especially fond of humans. The two groups had fought bitterly for control of Mother. We both lost, Mo'Steel thought. This was just another dark plot twist in a long, sad story.
D-Caf and Roger Dodger — Mo'Steel thought they were strapping it up okay. They were a few steps away from Violet, watching her protectively.
Jobs. Jobs was a rock, as usual. Mo'Steel's best friend had one arm slung over his little brother's shoulders. Mo'Steel could hardly see the kid, Edward. His skin had turned ash-colored like his surroundings. Edward — like so many of them — had experienced mutation. Now he was a human chameleon.
And then there was Noyze. She was standing alone, her eyes wide and wild looking. "Yo, Noyze!" Mo'Steel called. "Over here."
Noyze looked at him, smiled weakly, and headed his way. Mo'Steel reminded himself to be strong for his favorite fem, even if the situation did look beyond bleak.
The situation — and the scenery. No doubt it was hard to be gung-ho in all this unrelenting gray. Mo'Steel guessed that billions of pounds of ash had rained down and filled in the rubble of what had once been Tokyo. The wind drove the ash up into the air where it made Mo'Steel's eyes and skin itch and clogged his nose with an ashy crust.
Here and there some random thing poked out of the ash: a stretch of broken stairs reaching up into the sky, a hunk of concrete with exposed rebar. The tallest thing near them was a circular brick chimney maybe two stories tall.
"Ouch," Noyze mumbled, stumbling.
"Careful!" Olga called to her.
Walking across the ash landscape was dicey. The ash hid the occasional tiny shard of — whatever. The rubble beneath their feet was constantly settling, shifting, collapsing. A few times they'd seen a flaming pillar of gas appear without warning. One of these gas eruptions had swallowed Burroway. True, Burroway wasn't the nicest person, but thinking about him reminded Mo'Steel of yet another way they could be hurt or killed. "We can't stay here," Olga said.
"No," Mo'Steel agreed, but he couldn't imagine where else they could go. "Maybe Jobs or Billy —"
"Get down!" someone yelled.
Mo'Steel felt a strange breeze and realized a boomerang had just passed inches from his nose. He tackled his mom, knocking her sideways and sending a plume of ash into the air. "Riders?" Olga grunted.
"Probably." Mo'Steel said, cursing under his breath. Could this day be any worse?
The Riders were a dangerous, brutal race of aliens that resembled overgrown, two-headed roaches. One head was little more than a mouth stuck on a nock. The other, main head, was dominated by two large, glittery-gold, compound eyes. They rode hoverboards and carried primitive but deadly weapons. Mo'Steel twisted around on his belly, trying to figure out what was going on. Anamull.
Anamull was almost hidden by the half-buried remains of a car. He came out of hiding long enough to reach up and snag the boomerang. He squinted one eye, aimed, and let the sharp weapon fly again. "Noyze!" Mo'Steel yelled.
The others were running for cover, stumbling on the uneven ground. But Noyze could only limp along, her right leg stiff with bandages. A beam from the ruined city had fallen on her the day before. Now Noyze was caught in the sudden cross fire. The Riders were counterattacking. One of the Blue Meanies took off. Another let loose a stream of fléchettes. They pinged off the brick chimney. "Noyze — look out!" Olga yelled.
Noyze, confused, froze in her tracks, unsure of which way to go. A boomerang passed a few feet from her head.
Ignoring the bullets and boomerangs and fléchette fire flying over his head, Mo'Steel ran toward Noyze and grabbed her out of the way. They both lost their footing and Mo'Steel felt a sharp pain as a shard of something slammed into his elbow.
"Ow — my leg," Noyze muttered.
"Sorry, I didn't mean for us to fall."
Noyze gave him a weary smile. "I prefer people to save my life with a little more refinement." "I'll try to remember that next time."
Olga began shouting at Anamull and Roger Dodger cried out. Then — silence.
Mo'Steel released Noyze and cautiously raised his head. Anamull was striding toward them. "It's over!" he yelled.
"Great," Noyze grumbled. She pointed off toward the gray horizon. Two Meanies were down. Mo'Steel didn't see the Riders or the other Meanies anywhere. He hoped they weren't lying in ambush somewhere.
"Where'd the other two Meanies go?" Violet called. "And the Riders?"
"Ran off," Anamull said with a nasty laugh. "I guess they were too scared to stay and fight."
Mo'Steel rose shakily to his feet. Noyze started to get up, too. Mo'Steel pointed to her leg and said, "Rest."
Noyze looked down, surprised. "Oh, I'm bleeding."
"Mom!" Mo'Steel called. "Can you come check out Noyze's leg? She's bleeding again."
"Really smart!" Olga hollered angrily at Anamull. "We're in enough trouble as it is. What's the big idea starting a fight?"
Anamull didn't lose his fierce, proud look. "We're gonna need them," he said, jutting his chin toward the fallen Meanies. "For food."
Jobs and Edward ran to Roger Dodger's side. Violet was pressing a piece of fabric — someone's sock, it looked like — to his head to stop the bleeding.
Roger Dodger looked at Jobs with wide, frightened eyes. He wa
"You're going to be okay," Jobs told Roger Dodger. He looked at Violet.
"He's going to be fine," Violet said firmly. "Head wounds always bleed a lot."
Olga appeared at Jobs's side. "Let me see."
Jobs scooted back to make room for Olga. "Is Noyze okay?"
"Fine," Olga said. "A nasty scrape, nothing more."
Jobs took a step back and fought to slow his breathing. He felt dizzy, breathless. The low oxygen atmosphere must be affecting me, he thought. The reality of their situation was beginning to sink in and he felt a depression deep in his bones.
Yago had tricked them. How could they survive? Or, more to the point, could they survive at all?
Eleven humans. A hostile environment. Four warlike aliens, hiding out somewhere. And what did they have?
Easy enough for Jobs to make a list. He'd outfitted them — planning for brief scouting trips, not for long-term survival on the planet. Their stuff was more than inadequate, it was a joke.
They each had half a liter of water and a weapon, a couple dozen crackers, eleven lead-lined bags, eleven pairs of gloves, eleven flashlights, eleven oxygen masks, thirty-three liters of oxygen, some shovels and spades, exactly fifty-six feet of rope, the clothes on their backs, the dead Meanies and — Billy. If Billy could communicate with Mother, he could bring her back and save their skins. The way Jobs saw it, Billy was their only hope for survival. Once again.
CHAPTER 2
"PLEASE WAKE UP."
"Billy, please, please wake up," 2Face pleaded. Billy lay stretched out motionless beside her. She only knew he was alive because of the faint rise and fall of his chest.
"Billy, please," 2Face said, repulsed by her own voice, by her own stupidity. She felt the others glancing at her and Billy, then shifting their attention elsewhere.
She felt their scorn. They'd trusted her and she'd made a huge mistake: She'd underestimated Yago.
Yago and 2Face had been playing a deadly game. A game of survival they'd started more than five hundred years and many, many moves ago. Getting them to the planet's surface and abandoning them there had been Yago's final move. Checkmate.
2Face had lost. And now she was going to die here. They all were. Die of exposure and starvation and thirst. But not just yet. They still had one more slim chance. Billy.
Billy had a connection, some sort of human-computer friendship with Mother, the superadvanced brains of the ship.
2Face didn't pretend to understand how the connection worked. Before they'd been abandoned on this wreck of Earth, she'd thought Billy couldn't be disconnected from the ship. That there was nothing to be severed. But she'd been very, very wrong.
How had Yago done it anyway? Had he gotten the Troika — Amelia, Duncan, and Charlie — to help him control the ship? Amelia and the others claimed to be evolving, turning into some sort of super-beings. Did that mean they'd learned how to fly the ship? And if they had, did that mean Billy couldn't control Mother any longer?
No, 2Face told herself again, biting down on her lip. Billy can control Mother. He had to. "Please, Billy," 2Face said again. "Please wake up." Nothing.
2Face sat back on her heels. She looked at Billy's still form and felt the anger boiling up from her stomach.
Why hadn't Billy told her coming down to the surface was too dangerous? He must have known. He must have known his connection with Mother was vulnerable. He should have warned them.
2Face leaned over, grabbed Billy's shoulders, and began to shake him. "Wake up! Wake up now!"
Hands now on her shoulders. Many pairs, pulling her away from Billy.
"Whoa, that's enough!" Mo'Steel said angrily.
"She's hysterical." Noyze.
2Face thrashed, kicking her feet as the others hauled her backward. Something under the ash grabbed hold of her right shoe and pulled it free of her foot. "Let me go. He has to wake up!"
They let her go about fifty yards from Billy. "Let me deal with him my way," 2Face said, scrambling to her feet and starting toward Billy.
Mo'Steel turned her around firmly. "Take a walk. You need to cool off."
Jobs didn't call a meeting. He had no interest in being in charge. And no less than an hour after Mother had disappeared into the drab gray sky, the others had gathered around where he was sitting with his back against a crumbling brick wall.
The wall made Jobs feel a little better. At least nothing could sneak up behind him. Jobs wasn't worried about the other Remnants, he was worried about — he wasn't sure what he was worried about. But he thought he'd heard — I didn't hear anything. Jobs thought.
Billy was five feet away. He hadn't moved since Mo'Steel and the others dragged 2Face away from him.
Jobs had seen Olga taking Billy's pulse. She then sat down next to Mo'Steel and gave Jobs a sad shrug. "Billy won't be able to help us anytime soon."
"What's the matter with him?" Roger Dodger asked. The kid had someone's pink T-shirt wrapped around his head as a bandage. Blood was seeping through near his right temple. His eyes were droopy and dull, and he was leaned up against Violet for support. "He's unconscious," Olga said.
"Thanks for the update." 2Face was standing, arms crossed, on the fringes of the group. "What we need to know is when — or if— he's going to wake up."
"I can't tell the future," Olga said mildly. "None of us can."
"Well that's pretty obvious," Anamull said with a meaningful glance at 2Face.
"This isn't all my fault," 2Face shot back. "Billy came down here because he wanted to. Jobs was the one —"
"Oh, please!" Mo'Steel exclaimed. "I was there. I saw you arguing with him. You knew exactly what you were doing."
"That's not how I remember it," 2Face said coldly. "And Billy is in no shape to back up your version of events."
"None of us is in any shape to do anything," Violet said. "Without the ship, we're — we're —"
"Dead," D-Caf said flatly.
"Hey — just calm down," Jobs said to the group. "Like Olga said, we can't see the future. I think we need to move beyond how we got here and talk about what we do next." Silence.
Jobs felt his heart slow to a painful thump, thump. This group of people had been through tragedy and death and mind-boggling weirdness, and they'd rarely shown signs of giving up. Maybe they were brave or tenacious or just plain stupid.
And yet, now, they looked beaten. Jobs met Mo'-Steel's gaze and willed him to say something. Anything.
"Uh, we could start walking and look for some more water," Mo'Steel said hesitantly. "I mean, it's obvious we don't have enough."
Jobs felt like groaning. What they didn't need now was a panic over their pathetically small water supply.
"How much water do we have?" Roger Dodger asked, running his tongue over dry lips.
"Five and a half liters," Jobs said as evenly as possible. A pause as that sunk in.
"Does anybody know how much you need each day to survive?" 2Face asked quietly.
