Banished (The Ravenmaster Chronicles Book 2), page 23
“You and your bird are going to save us,” she cries back, pointing up to where Render is banking in nervous circles overhead. “It’s only right that we save you first!”
After one last handshake and a goodbye hug, I get ready to clamber over the top to join Brohn and the Fallen.
Turning back one final time, the last thing I see is the fierce combat between the Devoted and the Unsettled below, while escaping in the distance, Epic and his Hypnagogics are sprinting at top speed down the road in the opposite direction.
34
IMPORTANT
Méridienne knows the city better than the rest of us.
Through Corbin, she tells us getting to the area outside the city walls—an abandoned suburb called Aurora where we parked the Terminus—should take us about five or six hours.
After a relatively easy mag-tram ride, we follow Anya’s directions and empty out into a half-built tram station. We climb a series of treacherously shaky stairs. Part of the ceiling has collapsed into the stairway, but we’re able to work together to move enough of the big slabs of concrete to give us access to the surface.
The suburban area we step out into has been flattened. The roads are still visible and mostly passable, but they’re about all that’s left. With its devastated landscape of crushed homes, trees, and vehicles, the horizontal landscape is a hellish contrast to the arcology, which rises to its taunting vertical height back inside the city walls.
As quickly as the rough terrain allows, we start to pick our way through fields of bodies and brambles as we try to make it across the stretch of desert between Denver’s exterior walls and Aurora’s trampled and lifeless emptiness.
Spurred on by the ever-present shadow of the arcology in the middle of the city and by the city’s high, silver perimeter wall behind us, we press on.
Still, it’s slow going, and we have to stop and lie face-down on the ground a dozen times as drones go whizzing overhead.
The first fleet we see is just Broadcast Drones. Palm-sized and resembling little satellite dishes, they zip through the dusky evening sky, no doubt sending signals back and forth between the Denver Devoted and their other colonies scattered throughout the country.
After that, though, we start seeing convoys of Surveillance Drones. Clunky and glistening a slick, metallic black, they’re more like gliding binoculars, soaring bird-like high above the open desert. As night falls, they turn almost invisible, until they’re reduced to a kind of zipper sound that makes us panic and duck every time we hear them.
“I don’t think they’re looking for us,” I whisper to the Fallen.
“If they were,” Brohn starts to confirm, but he doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. Either through experience or instinct, we all realize how exponentially more dangerous the last leg of a journey is compared to everything that’s come before.
True to Méridienne’s word, it’s not much than about five or six hours from the time we boarded the mag-tram to the time we wind up bouncing all over each other at the sight of the Terminus.
The huge rig—with its eight pairs of studded tires, its gun-metal gray armor plating, and the round Communications Pod at the back—is right where Brohn and I left it over a week ago. It’s got drifts of red sand pressed halfway up its tires, but otherwise, it’s untouched and a beautiful sight for some very sore eyes.
“Can we all fit in there?” Corbin asks me as Brohn presses his palm to the input panel and sends the huge side door whooshing open.
“See for yourself.”
The Fallen clamber in and fill the military battle and troop transport rig with a deluge of impressed “Oohs” and “Aahs.” We give them a quick tour—from the fold-out sleeping berths and mag-stools to inside of the Pod, the bubble-shaped operations and communications station at the top and rear of the rig—and then Brohn tells them we really need to be on our way.
With me accompanying him up front in the cab and with the six rescued members of the Fallen seated safely in the cabin, Brohn powers the Terminus over a long stretch of uneven desert, up a steep hill of leafless brambles and smooth stones, and onto the desolate two-lane highway that will lead us to our mountain, and ultimately back up to the Academy.
Render has flown far ahead, as anxious as the rest of us to get home. I’m not getting any specific messages from him, but he is bouncing back warm, radiating waves of contentment over being out here rather than cooped up in the confines of the gloomy, polluted, and war-ravaged city we left behind.
Like everyone else in our original recruited Conspiracy of Emergents, Render doesn’t look for trouble or get a high off the thrill of battle. And he certainly doesn’t relish the idea of bringing harm to others. But also like the rest of us, he’s been preparing for years to make sure that when the battle comes to him, he’s prepared for it and that he’ll be among the last combatants standing. Or, in his case, flying.
I know he misses Haida Gwaii and their offspring, but he’s a weirdly proud and focused bird, so he rarely lets emotions like that pass along the mental conduits linking our psyches. Besides, his feelings, moods, and mentality aren’t exactly like a human’s, so—even after all this time linked together—I’m not sure I’d be reading him right, anyway.
“They made it out okay, didn’t they?” Brohn asks, his eyes riveted to the cratered and buckled road. “The Unsettled, I mean.”
“Last we saw, they were holding their own. They’ve survived a long time. And they know that whole underground tunnel system. I’m not about to bet against them.”
“Yeah. I’ve got to give them credit. Those kids can fight.”
“Hm.”
“You don’t agree?”
“I do. But back there, they had the advantage of surprise. The Devoted have guns. A lot of them. They already control the interior of the country. How long before they come after our people on the coasts?”
“That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing, right? We may not have their numbers or their arsenal, but the more Emergents we can find and train, the better prepared we’ll be for whatever war the Devoted try to start.”
“I guess. Still, it’s going to take more than one street skirmish to stop them from turning the country into a military dictatorship.”
“Stratocracy.”
“What?”
“A military dictatorship. It’s called a ‘stratocracy.’” Brohn flicks his eyes toward me and blushes before turning them back to the road. “I looked it up.”
We drive for a while longer before he breaks the silence. “We owe the Unsettled our lives, you know. Do you ever feel bad about getting helped like that?”
I don’t answer right away, because I know what he’s really asking: Do you feel guilty knowing someone else might have given their life to save ours?
When I do answer, it’s with complete and total honesty and with tears in my eyes I don’t try to hide. “It breaks my heart. Every time. I’d rather be the one doing the saving than be the one getting saved.”
“What we’re trying to do…this whole saving the world and guiding the course of humanity’s future…it’s heroic on the one hand.”
“And on the other?”
“A little selfish,” Brohn admits through a half-smile “We still have to learn how to let ourselves be helped.”
“That might take some doing,” I concede as I cross my arms across my chest and slouch a little in my seat.
Physically exhausted, mentally depleted, and spiritually drained—Brohn and I barely talk after that as the huge rig continues to rattle along. Although the Terminus has a self-guidance navigation system that alerts it to obstacles in our path, Brohn prefers to keep those controls switched off. Relying instead on his own vision, instincts, skills, and reflexes, he guides the Terminus with enviable expertise between junked cars, overturned military jeeps, and around the outer edges of the jagged-toothed craters that appear in the road every few miles.
He steers clear of the families of dead bodies we come across in the middle of the litter-strewn highway. Giving them a wide berth, he handles the truck’s controls with a kind of respectful grace. Part of me knows it doesn’t matter. The dead are dead, and most of the corpses out here stopped looking human a long time ago. But I love Brohn for not letting something as simple as death stop him from caring about the deceased.
At one point, he catches me looking at him. He gives me a quick, corner-eyed glance and asks what’s so funny.
“Who said anything’s funny?”
“You’re smiling.”
“Am I?”
“It’s creeping me out,” he chuckles, running an open hand along his cheek and jaw. “Do I have something on my face?”
“Kindness,” I answer with all the seriousness in my soul. “And it’s not just on your face. You have kindness written all over you.”
Suppressing a smile, Brohn gives a slight tilt of his head, somewhere between a shake and a nod. “I think I’d rather have you tell me I’ve got intelligence, Buddha-esque wisdom, or even just plain ol’ handsomeness written all over me.”
“Trust me,” I assure him. “Kindness is better. Don’t get me wrong. That lantern jaw, the bulging pecs, and those ropey arm muscles of yours have me drooling. But that’s not what makes you sexy.”
Brohn harrumphs an amused chortle as he turns his attention back to the road. “As long as ‘sexy’ figures into the equation somewhere.”
“It does,” I laugh as dual waves of contentment and optimism wash through me. “It definitely does!”
We cruise along for the next hour or two, just letting the scenery scroll by as we get closer and closer to home. Except for Simeon, the Fallen are all asleep in the cabin. Out of the corner of my eye, I keep catching glimpses of him, but he drops his gaze as soon as he catches me looking at him.
Or maybe he’s looking at me first, and I’m the one who glances away.
I know I’ve got no business looking at him or being looked at by him in the first place, but there’s something incomplete about our relationship. It’s not affection. But it’s not tension, either.
What’s the sweet spot between affection and attraction?
I don’t ask the question out loud, but with me and Render practically living inside each other’s heads these days, an answer pings into my mind all the same.
~ Friendship.
I exhale a sigh of relief. The world is complicated enough as it is. The last thing I need is to be attracted to someone I’m not supposed to be attracted to.
Brohn and I haven’t talked much about what happened between me and Simeon, which I’ve been trying to convince myself is just fine. After all, nothing really happened between us. And anything that did happen wasn’t because of anything I did or didn’t want.
I love Brohn, which probably explains why I feel terrible about having kissed Simeon before and why I feel nearly suicidal about having enjoyed it.
I tell myself not to stress about it. It happened under a drug-induced bout of impulsivity. It’s not like I deliberately set out to betray Brohn or make myself the middle of a tug-of-war rope or the peak of some unholy love-triangle.
But if there’s really nothing to it, why is it so hard to say it out loud? Maybe it’s because Brohn and I never really defined our relationship. Never talked about it in any kind of detail. Never put a label on it or outlined its dimensions. Never laid out its rules. It’s easy to be exclusive when there aren’t really any other options.
Reaching over, I let my fingers dance along Brohn’s forearm.
“What was that for?”
“Just reminding myself what’s important.”
Drawing me in with one hand, he leans across the space between our seats and kisses me before sitting up straight and re-focusing on the road. I’m amazed as ever at how deep into my body he makes the tingles go.
35
FIRST FEATHER
As we trundle along with the red sky of dust and vapor swirling overhead, the engines of the Terminus shift and chug under us. We’re just approaching one of the abandoned military checkpoints near the base of the mountain when Méridienne and Corbin, swaying with the rhythm of the rig, make their way into the cab and ease into two of the swiveling, second-row passenger seats.
Brohn keeps his eyes on the road, but I swing my navigator’s chair around to greet the brother and sister duo. I’m happy to have someone—even the exclusively French-speaking Méridienne and her oddly precocious, bird-obsessed brother—interrupt my moment of quiet contemplation. But I stop mid-greeting when I see the look on their faces: It’s somewhere between excited, serious, and scared.
“We’ve been talking back there,” Corbin says, flicking his thumb toward the cabin where the rest of the Fallen are sprawled out—mouths open, legs draped over the armrests, arms draped over each other—in various states of exhausted sleep. Corbin bites his trembling lip, and Méridienne gives him a nod of gentle encouragement. “We have something we think you should know.”
Méridienne folds her legs under herself in her chair and slides her hair back into a thick, wavy ponytail, which she ties off with a strip of springy leather. “C’est très important, mais c’est peut-être très dangereux, aussi.”
“It’s important,” Corbin translates. “But also dangerous.”
“Nous savons que vous êtes courageux, mais cela pourrait repousser les limites.”
“You’re brave. We know that. But what we have to tell you could go beyond anything you’ve ever experienced before.”
Brohn squints at the kids over his shoulder before returning his focus to navigating our huge truck up one of the old access roads cutting through a steep swath of dead trees. The whip-like branches snap and scrape against the truck’s steel sides as we bump and wind our way along. “If it’s that important, why didn’t you tell us before now?”
“Nous ne pensions pas qu’aucun d’entre nous vivrait aussi longtemps.”
Together, Brohn and I turn toward Corbin.
“She said she didn’t think any of us would live this long.”
“Great,” Brohn grumbles.
“We’ve got kind of an intimate relationship with danger,” I remind the siblings. “So…what is it?”
After taking a deep breath, Méridienne launches into an oration of rapid-fire French. She talks for a long time while Brohn drives, and we both listen in rapt silence. Corbin does his best to interpret for her as she goes. Eventually, she’s talking too fast and gets too far ahead of him. When she’s done, Corbin offers a translated summary of the highlights:
“We come from a place in France called ‘Beynac.’ It’s an old town with a castle high up on a sheer cliff of limestone. When we were younger, we lived on a small farm on the castle grounds. Our mother and our grandfather ran the farm. There were animals there, too. A couple of goats. And geese. Lots of birds. Two dogs. And there was a raven. A very old raven. My grandfather said his father told him it was there from when he was a boy. We told him that was impossible. Ravens don’t live that long. We told him that forty years was about the oldest they could ever get. But my grandfather swore this raven was around for longer. A lot longer.”
If Brohn’s voice had eyes, they’d be rolling right now. “That’s the nature of myths, kid. They’re told by everyone everywhere, and they don’t mean anything.”
“If they’re everywhere,” I correct him, “maybe it means they mean everything.”
He drums his fingers on the steering post and grunts his reluctant concession of the point as Corbin gets back to telling his and Méridienne’s story.
“We came to this country eight years ago. Our father was recruited to work on a secret scientific military project. We didn’t know that at the time. For us, it was just an exciting trip to a magical, faraway land called ‘America.’ The project was something called ‘the First Feather.’ We thought it was code for something. We thought that for a long time. We even used to joke about it. But then Méridienne became a Fallen and spent a lot of time in the arcology. Because of what she can do, she was able get into places she wasn’t supposed to.”
“Epic’s Technogenetic Emergent Research lab,” Brohn guesses, although he says it like he’s one hundred percent sure.
“Uh huh,” Corbin confirms. “She got into there. That’s where she found out the truth about the First Feather.”
“The truth?” I ask.
“It’s not a code name. It’s an actual flight feather from an actual bird. The old raven from our farm, as it turns out. That specific old raven contained some kind of unique genetic marker. The project was supposed to combine binary and genetic code, which would then lead to a total rebirth of the human species.”
His eyes still fixed to the road, Brohn’s broad shoulders shake under a dismissive growl. “And you think that has something to do with our abilities as Emergents, right?”
Corbin squints at the floor before lettings his eyes wander toward the small window on the side of the cab. “My sister doesn’t think so. Not exactly. The things you all can do as Emergents…Méridienne says our father claimed it was never the end goal.”
Squinting and leaning so far forward I’m in serious danger of face-planting onto the floor of the cab, I ask Corbin, “How do you mean?”
“Those things you can do, they’re not powers.”
“They’re not?”
“They’re side effects. The real difference between Emergents and Typics doesn’t have anything to do with having extra dense skin or being able to tap into electrical signals or talk to birds.”
“Then what does it mean?”
Corbin looks to his sister who nods for him to keep going. “It was supposed to do other things: make people immune to viruses and make it impossible to get brainwashed—to make people into healthy, true free thinkers. It was supposed to give people enhanced empathy and kindness. It was supposed to help a new generation of a new kind of human reconnect with each other in a way that hadn’t happened since our distant ancestors lived communally to survive.”
