Rootless - Howard Chris. Страница 35

“There it is,” Crow said, kneeling on a seat, getting up close to a glittery console on the wall.

Alpha still had her head out the top of the hatch, watching the skies.

“What is it?” I said to Crow.

“This here’s the main hub,” he said. “And the readouts. But there’ll be another one around somewhere.” He yanked open some panels and rummaged inside.

“You see anything?” I said to Alpha, giving her leg a squeeze.

“Quiet,” she said. “I’m listening.”

I stared around the pod again. Picked up a foam hat with the GenTech logo plastered across the front of it.

“Fancy shit,” I said.

“As fancy as it comes,” said Crow, digging inside a box of tools. “Look in the back for their guns, little man.”

I stuck my head back there and found a spare set of suits all neatly folded and stacked in place. And there, hanging off the ceiling, were two purple handguns that looked a whole lot better than the one I’d been using. The guns were clean and smooth, looked like they’d never even been used. I unclipped them, grabbed them off the ceiling, then I scooted back to the front of the pod.

“I got it,” Crow said.

“What is it?” I stared at the small box in the palm of his hand.

“This,” Crow said, his grin broad as I’d seen it, “is a GenTech Positioning System. Agent types in coordinates, it tells them where to go. This is it, little man. This is what we been needing. This right here is our GPS.”

Sal couldn’t believe it. His eyes grew as big as his whole head. Hell, I could hardly believe it myself. But there we were, heading west, winding through the service roads, weaving our way through that maze of corn, and when we popped out the other side, all we’d have to do is enter those numbers, the north one and the east one, and then we’d just glide right on through. My old man seemed close all of a sudden. Like he could be waiting around the next bend in the road.

Alpha wanted to enter the numbers right then, see how far away we’d be heading, but Crow just dangled the gadget off his fingertips, holding it away from us. Had to conserve the battery, he said. Better to wait till we were out of the maze.

I drove through till the sun went down, and when it got dark I pulled over next to the corn and shut the engine off. We couldn’t risk using the headlights, and the absence of moon made it too dark to see.

The five of us clumped in the back of the wagon, all rammed together as we guessed about the future. Closest thing to family I’d known since Pop had been taken. A team, all of a sudden. A real team. Hell, even Hina seemed to be smiling, though she also kept stealing strange looks at me. I paid that no mind, though. We had food in our bellies and tomorrow on our brains. And the next day, and the next one. And every day after that.

“What do you think they look like?” Alpha said.

“Like that, you dummy,” Sal yelled, pointing at Hina’s belly and laughing. “What do you think they’re going to look like?”

“But do you think there’s just a couple?” she said. “Or a whole big stand?”

“There’s a stand,” I said, picturing the photo of my father. “Whole forest.”

“You bet there’s a whole forest. And I bet there are oranges and coconuts and almonds, too. Imagine the flavors.” Sal let out a shriek. He slapped me on the thigh. “We’re going to be so loaded. So rich we won’t even know what to do.”

Crow had stayed quiet mostly, but now he chimed in. “Just remember, Mister Sal, your daddy might be there, too.” Crow stared at me as he said it.

“That’s right,” Sal said, nodding at Crow. Then the kid turned his face so I couldn’t see it. I thought about the correction, the hidden tattoo.

And I thought about Zee.

Thinking about her made me solemn. Couldn’t help but picture her in the back of the wagon with us, celebrating something we’d not yet done. And it made me think about what was going to happen when the journey ended. Would I really find my father in that stand of trees? Alive? The old Rasta had said Pop had until spring. And winter had only just barely begun.

So if my old man was there, what would come next? Could we build us a house in those treetops? Or had the trees already been cut down and sold? Was that what it came down to? Selling the forest like a bucket of corn? Something for the pirates. Something for the Soljahs. Who else? The Salvage Guild?

Still, as long as GenTech didn’t get it. I thought about the endless rows of crops that surrounded us. Enough food you could feed every struggler. Or you could just get rich off your prices, and keep people low down and starved.

Soon we had eaten and talked enough to be sleepy. No damn air in the wagon that hadn’t been breathed a thousand times over. We were drowsy. All of us. Even the watcher.

“Been awake since Old Orleans,” Crow said, pulling my old man’s sombrero over his face. “Believe I earned me some shut eye.”

And one by one, our heads dropped till we were all passed out and sleeping. Reckon I was the last to go, pressed up against Alpha as her face twitched and her mouth hung open. I loved the smell of her, and I remember thinking that right before I fell asleep.

Before my eyes fell shut and everything changed again.

It was Hina that woke me. She was poking at my back, and I sat up and glanced around the wagon. Everyone was sleeping. Everyone but her and me.

She pointed at the hatch, gesturing that she wanted to go outside. The moon was up now, white on the cornstalks.

“We can’t,” I whispered. But she nodded. And I wondered if this meant she had something to tell me. About my father. About the trees.

I popped the hatch open, nice and quiet, and I breathed in the fresh smell of crops as I poked my head through.

Straining to listen, I climbed out of the wagon and held the hatch so Hina could come beside me. I stared around at the night, thinking about the locusts and that awful noise they made, thinking how Hina had better make this real quick. But she surprised me by clicking the hatch shut behind us.

“Come with me,” she whispered, taking my hand. And then she led me inside the corn.

Our footsteps made a dry, cracking sound. We squeezed past the stalks until we found a sort of clearing, just enough space that we could stand facing each other. All I could hear was the thump of my heart. It was stupid being out there. I knew it was dangerous. But if Hina had something to tell me, I reckoned it was something I needed to hear.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“I remembered where it came from,” she said, and as she spoke she lifted her shirt off her belly, showing me the leaves and branches of that beautiful tree. I could see her pulse through her stomach.

“I thought you were dead,” she said. “When you climbed that machine and the swarms came. But you’re strong, like your father. And I remembered it. How they sent me to find him. To bring him back home.”

I went to speak, but she talked right over me, all the while stroking at the colors tattooed on her skin.

“He wanted to stop it,” she said. Her voice was like she’d just come awake. “All of it. And now I have to warn you.”

“What?” I said. “Warn me about what?”

But Hina just closed her eyes. Her fingers still caressing the tattoo tree but the rest of her like she was sleeping, standing on her feet but caught in a dream. And for a moment everything was silent. Everything was still. But then I heard the footsteps come crunching toward us. Closer and closer. Someone stepping through the corn.