Wild-Side
Gray was overdue, and although Piper was concerned, she sensed that no one was more worried than Doctor Cormac. He and the rest of his team tried to hide it, but the Seeley were not skilled at concealing their underdeveloped emotions. While she knew less about the science behind dimensional crossing, Piper understood Gray better than anyone. If he was alive, he’d be back. They just needed to give him time and try to keep the wheels from coming off the Bus until that happened.
“You mentioned there was an operation on hold until Gray returned,” Piper said.
Lacy sat at a table in the open-air amphitheater, a space commonly used for recreation. It was the closest thing the Seeley had to a park since they didn’t possess many recreational areas. Nor did they have the same appreciation for nature as the people from her world. Pushing the plate and half-eaten sandwich aside, Lacy nodded. “When Mara came out of her coma, she was able to provide us with more information about the expedition that led to her condition. We thought there might be a connection to the Elend based solely on the coincidental timing, but her spotty recollection of events adds support to the theory.”
Lacy thumbed the edge of the plate and gazed into the distance, as if contemplating how to express what would come next. “Her expedition took place in the Badlands,” she said. “And aside from Mara, the entire team was lost. We have no idea what happened to the team that day. All the data was corrupted. Seismic activity opened up some new faults in the area. We believe a new cavern or cave might have been exposed. If that’s the case, a team would have been dispatched to search for artifacts.”
“Artifacts?”
Lacy waved a hand vaguely in the air. “We occasionally discover things in the wilds. Anachronistic relics that must be quarantined.”
Piper’s face twisted in confusion.
With a shrug, Lacy said, “Can we skip the twenty questions on this one? We already went through this with Gray. I’m happy to answer all I can for you… I’m just not sure I’m up to this topic today. If I’m honest, my heart just isn’t in it.”
Not knowing what that meant, Piper chose to move on. “Fair enough.” There were countless peculiarities associated with the Seeley. Some of them Piper found charming. Some were entertaining. Many were simply baffling. For a group that was advanced and mostly enlightened, they could be shortsighted and narrow-minded at times. “Tell me about the operation you need Gray to help with.”
“Mara helped us pinpoint the location of her expedition.” She raised a hand in the air and swayed it back and forth. “At least she provided us with a general location. It should be sufficient to find the site. Gray was planning to take a team out to explore. If there’s anything there that might help us understand the Elend, where they come from, or how to combat them, it could be worthwhile.”
Piper waited. It seemed like there was more Lacy wasn’t saying. “A team? Who’s going with when the time comes?”
Lacy shrugged. “My people are not an adventurous lot,” she admitted. “Word has spread about what happened to Mara. There aren’t many volunteers, as you can imagine.”
“So, it’s you and Tripp?”
With a smirk, Lacy added, “I’m pretty sure Wes will go too. Doctor Cormac wants to go, but I think we can all agree that he’s too important to take into the field.”
“I think you’re all too important. Do you think Gray is going to let anyone tag along? This sounds like what he would attempt to do solo.”
“He won’t have a choice. He’s smart and brave. No question he’s the only one among us with any chance of standing up to one of the creatures face to face. He just isn’t proficient with our technology. That’s why he needs us.”
Piper was impressed to learn that Lacy and Tripp were willing to risk their lives in the field. However, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like the kind of information they should have right now. Waiting for Gray felt like a waste of effort. If there was something to be gained from the expedition, they should take the trip as soon as possible.
“Would you be willing to risk the trip even if Gray wasn’t leading it?” Piper said.
Lacy’s eyes widened. That, along with the pregnant pause, provided enough of an answer.
“I mean, what if I take your team out?” Piper clarified. “Gray’s been gone longer than expected. There’s no telling how long he’ll be away. This doesn’t sound like something we should wait to investigate, especially if there’s valuable insight to be gained.”
Lacy became suddenly distracted, and Piper knew she had seen something in her heads-up display. This was confirmed when her lips pinched into a scowl of frustration. Before she could ask about it, Wes walked into the room. He looked distracted as well, swiping his hand through the air as if manipulating something in AR while he walked.
“How long will we be offline?” Lacy asked.
“The estimate is six to ten hours,” Wes said. We’re in luck. The front is actually advancing quickly this time, and it’s smaller than anything we’ve encountered in the last two months. Doctor Cormac’s biggest concern is that we didn’t notice it until just a couple of minutes ago. The Thonian cloud formed rapidly and without warning.” His expression was one of deep concern. “There’s no doubt things are getting worse.”
Piper was confused. “Can someone explain what’s going on?”
Lacy’s hands waved rapidly through the air, deftly manipulating unseen AR space. “We’re about to lose primary power. There will be limited communication, transport platforms will go offline, and our perimeter sensors will have a limited range.”
With her heart racing, Piper sprang to her feet. “We’ll be sitting ducks.”
Lacy and Wes paused in what they were doing to stare at her, clearly not understanding the statement.
Piper gaped. “Defenseless, even for us,” she sputtered. “There’s never going to be a better time for the Seeley to attack.”
Wes nodded. “We believe Fresno was probably taken during a similar blackout,” he confirmed. “We’ll move everyone to the safe rooms, and we’ll now post lookouts at stations along the perimeter wall for the duration of the outage.”
“We have limited backup power,” Lacy confirmed. “It’s sufficient for short-range communications and near-field perimeter sensors. It operates using a battery technology that Gray brought over from your world. We’ve only just begun retrofitting it to work with our equipment.”
With acid churning in her gut, Piper concluded that the efforts put into the retrofit so far were woefully inadequate. Given what Tripp had engineered to power Gray’s hover Airbike, he certainly had the capability to create whatever crazy idea was presented to him. Someone just needed to challenge him with something on a larger scale.
Piper had the room to herself. Doctor Cormac and Lacy met with Administrator Hargrave for the third time in two days and were finally deploying the perimeter defense guns. The Seeley were a peculiar people, she now knew. Piper had been stranded with them for nearly five weeks and had yet to find a term to describe their reluctance to take up arms for their own defense. Another city had gone silent, and while teams from her location could teleport to survey the now radio-silent metro center, no one was willing to risk the trip.
Gray would have done it, she knew, just as he was the most vocal advocate for the perimeter defense guns. After all, they were his idea. This concept had faced resistance at every turn from a population more willing to be taken silently in the night than to take up weapons in their own defense. They weren’t pacifists. They didn’t know enough about violence to take a moral stance against it. Rather, it was that they had no understanding of self-defense, and the very idea led to cognitive dissonance.
It wasn’t the first time she had seen the Seeley behave this way. It felt as if they were conditioned to overlook specific circumstances or struggled to handle particular situations.
Very precise, clearly defined circumstances.
She thought about how Gray had made the arguably poor choice to expose the people of Wild-Side to some of the more questionable culture from home. If someone or something had conditioned the Seeley according to a playbook or blueprint, they likely hadn’t anticipated Gray Crossing from back home. They certainly hadn’t expected him to expose the people here to music, art, film…or pornography.
What was he thinking with the pornography?
Gray wasn’t one of those people distracted by such things. He certainly wasn’t someone obsessed with it like a friend she had back at school. The guy practically lived and breathed it, believing very strongly that it was its own artistic genre. Bringing music, movies, and film to Wild-Side made sense. It was Gray’s attempt to share something from home with the people of this place. He was expanding their minds and exposing them to something they had no concept of, though she still couldn’t imagine how that was possible. The juxtaposition of an advanced society lacking in such key areas seemed inconceivable to her.
Maybe it’s my own cognitive dissonance?
The sound of whispers in the corridor pulled Piper from her musings. She thought she was alone. Slipping from the stool and walking silently to the open door, she crept to the edge and listened for the voices. After a long silence, she heard it again, low and indistinct. The words were unintelligible. The inability to understand what was being said between the hushed speakers proved too much for her, so Piper took a steeling breath and moved silently into the hall.
Tripp and Lacy were leaning against the wall of the empty, dimly lit corridor. They were wrapped in each other’s arms, their lips gently mashing and probing with the clumsiness of inexperienced teenagers. Piper’s eyes widened, and she froze, words hovering on the edge of her lips. Then, without making a sound, she retreated back into her room.
Her pulse pounding, Piper moved through the empty lab and into the hallway on the other side. Two minutes later, she reached her quarters, secured the door, and sank stiffly onto the bed. She sat up straight and stared at the distant wall with blank eyes. Lacy and Tripp? Why was that such a surprise? It was the most natural thing, wasn’t it?
Natural for home, but not here.
It finally clicked in Piper’s mind, leading her to understand why something seemed so normal while triggering a peripheral sense of panic. Something about what she had witnessed felt abnormal.
However natural they might be as a couple, it wasn’t a typical occurrence on Wild-Side. Throughout her time here, she had never seen any couples. Over the course of her weeks here, she hadn’t witnessed any romantic entanglements of any kind. Gray even explained that these people didn’t have a sense of… that. The Seeley had no romantic relationships whatsoever. They had no sexual relationships of any kind.
Ever.
But that didn’t make sense either, Piper reasoned. She’d seen Lacy looking at Tripp, and she’d noticed Tripp going out of his way to spend time with Lacy. Their getting together had seemed inevitable. Little things over the last couple of weeks had led her to think it was only a matter of time.
This indicated that something new was happening. She reasoned that change was in the air.
Swiping at her HUD, Piper opened a communication channel.
“Yes?” a voice said. It was Doctor Cormac. If Lacy was with Tripp, it made sense that Cormac’s meeting with Administrator Hargrave had concluded.
“It’s Piper,” she said, then rolled her eyes. Of course, his HUD would have informed him who was calling. She still wasn’t used to this technology. “Do you have a minute for a couple of quick questions?”
“Of course. How can I help you?”
“I vaguely recall someone mentioning that everything Gray sees when he’s outside the walls is recorded by his nanotech. Is that correct?” Piper felt almost breathless asking the question but wasn’t entirely sure why.
“Unless he’s in one of the dead zones,” Cormac clarified. “None of our tech works in the Badlands, so we lose all video in those areas. We have special hardware we can use, but it’s not something Gray typically has with him when he’s out there, so we don’t have those recordings.”
Piper was nodding to herself. That made sense and brought back memories of what Tripp had touched on peripherally while explaining one of the Airbike’s onboard systems. “Does recording occur only outside the wall? Is it full-time—” she paused, trying to clarify her thoughts. “I mean, twenty-four seven, whenever he’s awake, or whatever?” This was coming out clumsily because her mind was already tripping over the implications of what she thought she might be able to prove.
“Every waking hour is recorded,” Cormac said.
“How long is Gray’s footage retained?”
Cormac’s tone grew very serious. “We keep all of it. What’s happening to him is extraordinary. Once this threat has passed, everything that has occurred must be studied in detail. No one is more curious about the cause of what’s happening than Gray, as you can likely imagine.”
Nodding once more, Piper asked, “How can I access the recordings?”
Cormac remained silent for several long seconds. Long enough for Piper to consider that the connection might have dropped. She checked the connection time counter in the corner of her screen to confirm it was still counting up, and then said, “Doc?”
“Those recordings are somewhat sensitive because they are personal,” Doctor Cormac said. “We must treat them accordingly. Everything Gray said and did while he was here is captured on those recordings.”
Piper felt relieved to see that Seeley valued personal privacy. However, this raised a new question. “The recordings are captured by the nanotech in his head?” she asked. “Does that mean he’s recording while he’s here as well as back home?”
“Well,” Cormac elongated the single word into multiple syllables. “Presumably, that’s the case,” he added after a long pause, “but I can’t say for sure. We only have access to the recordings made here. For reasons we can’t explain, nothing recorded on your side is accessible to us. If the technology functions correctly, it should be recorded when he’s back here. There’s even neurological evidence to suggest that recording is happening. The data is simply inaccessible to us.”
It was Piper’s turn to be silent as she contemplated the incongruity of this. Especially considering that the means by which Gray transported information from home to Wild-Side was through neurological data capture. His brain essentially functioned as an organic flash drive to transfer data across the Brane barrier.
Why would that data transfer function when the recordings do not?
Shaking her head, Piper resolved to concentrate on the topic that had originally excited her. “How can I access to Gray’s recordings?”
“You need his permission,” Cormac said matter-of-factly.
With those words, Piper saw her ambitions crushed. She was already overwhelmed with anxiety as she waited for Gray to return. So far, he was weeks overdue, and no one could guess the reason. This wasn’t going to help.
“Lucky for you,” Cormac replied. “He made accommodations so that anyone on this project team can access whatever they need from his recordings whenever required. You, of course, are part of the team—aren’t you?”
Piper smiled. Moments later, Cormac explained how to access the recordings she was interested in.
The next several hours passed effortlessly for Piper as she reviewed footage spanning every moment Gray had experienced while on Wild-Side. The technology of the Seeley never failed to astound her, and this was yet another example. Scrubbing through endless hours of video was unnecessary; she could search the captures based on the names of the faces that appeared in the recordings and the locations where they took place.
Since Piper was interested in observing any progressive changes in the relationship between Lacy and Tripp, she simply searched for footage featuring both of them and played the clips back chronologically. Just as she suspected, there were subtle yet unmistakable changes in the verbal and physical interactions between the couple. These changes were nuanced in the earlier clips from just over five weeks ago but became more pronounced and obvious, at least to someone familiar with what they were observing, as the footage grew more current.
Right up until Gray’s disappearance.
Piper finally slid back onto her bed and leaned against the wall. With a wave of her hand, she closed the multiple AR displays she had been projecting. Now, she gazed into the middle distance, sorting through what she’d learned. Thinking about the message from Cormac that had popped up in her HUD an hour ago and combining that with what she had just seen in the footage, Piper decided she hadn’t given Gray enough credit. He might have the most creative way of sidestepping whatever cognitive programming was influencing the Seeley.
Piper finally understood what had changed.
It was cognitive dissonance. Something deeply ingrained in the Seeley prevented them from doing very specific things. The more she examined it, the more obvious it became to Piper, just as it must have been to Gray. Most importantly in this case, they wouldn’t fight to defend themselves even when the survival of their race was at stake. Observing this, Gray considered other areas where they, as a people, were blind. They didn’t age, and they didn’t have children. They didn’t have sex. Perhaps they could have children but didn’t know how? That posed an entirely different set of issues, and it seemed like it might be the next set of problems on the horizon. Regardless, Gray’s approach to breaking free from their destructive mindset was to use pornography, of all things.
Whoever or whatever was responsible for placing these restrictions on the Seeley hadn’t accounted for someone coming here from another Brane, nor had they considered someone exposing these people to wildly unfamiliar concepts. While it might have been possible to condition minds against aggression and violence, conditioning a race against its drive to connect, toward intimacy, and toward procreation was an entirely different matter. In that regard, Gray’s tool of choice hadn’t been a scalpel; he’d chosen a hammer. Provide the people with porn and free time, and it’s only a matter of time before they start rubbing up against each other and doing what people are meant to do.
And sidestepping any other obstacles that had been placed in their way. That was merely the first social barrier to fall. The crucial one was the reluctance to stand up for themselves, Piper understood. But when Gray couldn’t get the Seeley to budge on that matter, he had pursued another route.
Piper shook her head and laughed. Gray’s unconventional approach to problem-solving never ceased to amaze her.
But it raised another question: if there truly was some kind of cognitive block placed on these people, who had imposed it? How? Why?
Gray was certainly ahead of her on these questions as well.
And with that, her mood darkened. He had been gone for so long. Something had happened; there was no question about that. Had he been captured? Did something happen to his ability to cross? Maybe something changed when he accidentally brought her to Wild-Side.
A hundred questions flooded her mind for perhaps the thousandth time.
There were no answers.
Thinking about the HUD recordings, Piper realized she now had access to a wealth of new information. The challenge would be to find something valuable in the torrent of data. Sliding once again to the edge of the bed, she placed her feet on the floor and waved her hand through the air to bring up an AR display. Selecting a recent clip at random, she discovered footage of Gray preparing for the Quad Airbike before his first test flight. He was just putting on the protective suit before the flight.
Piper watched as the suit, a visual combination of motorcycle leathers and protective armor, expanded from a series of rings at the various joints in his ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, wrists, and neck. The rings resembled narrow bands of tape on his clothing, so thin they were barely noticeable. However, when he activated the suit, the nano polymer expanded from the rings to envelop his body in a flexible, armor-like material that was matte black and form-fitting.
Rewinding the footage, Piper repeatedly watched as the nano-particulate material seemed to envelop his torso and limbs in the blink of an eye, forming the suit. The suit appeared to materialize seemingly out of nowhere in the span of just two heartbeats.
She opened a communication channel to Tripp. “Hey,” she said. “I have a question for you.”
“Uh huh?” Tripp sounded distracted.
“Do you know how Gray’s flight suit takes shape?”
Tripp was silent for several seconds before he finally spoke. “Wait, what?”
“You know how you just sort of blink twice and the suit kind of forms around him? What would happen if he wore a heavy insulated coat when he activated the suit? Wouldn’t he be too large to fit into the gear since it would try to conform to a shape bigger than it was designed for?”
Tripp laughed. “Of course not. The suit sizes itself to fit the user on the fly. You could wear his riding suit—helmet too—and you’re nowhere near his size.”
Piper remained silent as she replayed the footage of the suit forming around Gray’s body again. “So, in theory,” she said slowly, “the nanomaterial can be made to assume any shape it requires. We just need to provide it with the right instructions?”
A vague sound emanated from the connection. “I suppose,” Tripp finally replied. “But I’m not understanding you.”
With her heart racing again, this time from excitement, Piper made her way to the door. “I have an idea. Can you meet me in the lab?”
Another noncommittal sound came from Tripp.
Piper paused mid-stride and listened to the connection very carefully, suddenly recalling the sight of Tripp and Lacy in the hallway. The smile on her face spread as she tried to keep the amusement out of her tone. “You know what? Sorry about that. I lost track of the hour. Why don’t we talk in the morning? I’m sorry for calling so late.” She disconnected the line without another word, her cheeks flushing with unabashed amusement.
Piper wedged her shoulder against the underside of the heavy multi-barreled mini-gun and pushed up with the strength of her legs. Tripp was positioned with his heels dangling precariously over the back of the wall at the city’s perimeter, guiding the heavy weapon into the mount. Piper couldn’t recall the technician’s name on the other end of the gun, but she was grateful that they had mostly streamlined this into a foolproof process now that only two more perimeter guns were left to be mounted.
The sound of a heavy metal pin sliding into place was followed by a pair of clicks that felt gentle in comparison. “That’s it,” Lacy called in confirmation. “We’re set.”
Piper lowered herself from beneath the articulated gun emplacement and watched with amusement as Lacy extended a hand to Tripp. Over the last several weeks on Wild-Side, she had observed many changes. Gray’s prolonged and unexplained disappearance affected those closest to him on Doctor Cormac’s team in unexpected ways. Certainly, his absence raised concerns when he failed to return on his semi-regular schedule. However, as she noted while watching Tripp and Lacy crouched low and speaking quietly in the windbreak beneath the shelter of the parapet, his influence resonated throughout the team. In recent weeks, the pair continued to showcase moments of intimacy entirely foreign to their people until recently.
As far as Piper could tell, Gray’s absence had affected even his vocal critics among the Seeley. The decision to place automated guns around the perimeter of the city was a prime example. As Doctor Cormac explained, this was a defensive measure that the Administration of the Seeley had steadfastly opposed. Gray had unilaterally equipped the city with an early version of the guns, positioning them at nodes every seventy-five yards along the city walls of Fresno. However, unbeknownst to him, when Gray left the city, the guns had been disabled. The Elend had overrun Fresno, and the city’s entire population remained unaccounted for. Now, with Gray missing, Primary Administrator Hargrave had reversed her decision and agreed to deploy the weapons to defend their city.
That didn’t mean they had much support in deploying the weaponry. Changing people’s direction didn’t happen overnight. It still fell to Piper, Cormac, and Cormac’s team to establish the defensive perimeter.
Piper arched her back and felt the bones in her back and neck pop. She glanced at the sun, low on the western horizon, and noted how the occasional raindrop had turned into an occasional ice crystal. The wind was picking up speed as her eyes began to water when she caught one just right. “Two more,” she said in a tone loud enough for Tripp and Lacy to hear over the wind.
A pair of technicians waited with the next gun on a hovering cart. Tripp immediately set to maneuvering the cart into position, raising it as close as possible to the mounting bracket where the gun needed to align. At the same time, Lacy prepared the set of latching mounting pins. They’d done this more than a dozen times already this afternoon and over two dozen times the previous day.
As she prepared to climb to her position on the edge of the wall once again, Piper found Doctor Cormac waiting for her. He explained that she was needed inside and mentioned that a pair of sturdy-looking individuals from the engineering team had been chosen to replace her.
Piper followed Cormac into the room that had become their main workspace. Only then did she remove her insulated jacket and fingerless gloves. The nanotechnology she had received upon arriving at Wild-Side made her largely immune to the effects of cold weather, but that didn’t mean it didn’t negatively affect her body. While it was easy to get lost in the wondrous tech available here, it was also important to remember that beneath it all, the Seeley were just as human as she was.
Then, considering their inability to age, she mentally added, mostly.
“Is it Gray?” Piper asked, not hesitating. Her heart raced. This was the only reason she could think of for Cormac pulling her from work on the defensive perimeter.
Cormac looked momentarily confused, then shook his head vigorously. “No, apologies. Nothing like that.” He stroked his beard and seemed suddenly uneasy. “Oh, no. Unfortunately not. Or—fortunately—depending on your perspective. While I still can’t explain his prolonged absence, as you’ve mentioned before, there’s far more we don’t understand about the Crossing.”
Dropping onto a stool in frustration, Piper struggled to find solace in a perspective that was becoming increasingly tenuous over time. She no longer knew if she was advocating for that viewpoint for her own mental health or to buoy the spirits of her new extended family. What she did know with certainty was that, while Gray’s trips to Wild-Side had never followed a clear pattern, he had never gone this long between visits. Never anywhere close to this length of time. She could only wonder if he might already be here, lost somewhere in the wilds of this world, perhaps hurt and in need of help. Or there was a more distressing possibility she tried not to dwell on. He could have been captured or killed by the Elend.
In either case, he was there on a timer whenever he landed on Wild-Side. It was only ever a matter of time before he rubber banded back to their world. Thus, with a certain degree of confidence, she could find comfort in the idea that, regardless of what happened out there, he had a means of escape.
Unless…
There were two potential scenarios that Piper, Cormac, and his team had brainstormed, which remained unaccounted for. If Gray were to die out there, whether by accident or through an attack from the Elend, his ability to return home was uncertain. It was a situation no one could test, and clearly, no one had any experience with. Additionally, it remained possible—albeit unlikely—that the mechanics of how Gray jumped Branes had changed in some fundamental way.
Cormac led Piper to the next room, where three technicians worked at their counters. AR displays hung in the air before each of them, their hands manipulating keyboards projected across the counters in front of them and suspended in space before them.
“Wes,” Cormac said without hesitation. “Can you show Piper the relevant storm system?”
Wes turned from his counter and made a hand gesture to bring up a large screen on the wall at the back of the room. Piper turned and noticed Tripp for the first time. He must have come down from the wall with her and Cormac. That she had missed his presence until now highlighted just how distracted she had become over Gray’s continued absence.
Tripp must have noticed something in her expression because he placed a hand on her shoulder. She saw a resolute sense of calm in his face. The comforting, slow nod of his head seemed to reflect something she had witnessed Gray do in solemn situations. This was very different from the Tripp she had met shortly after her arrival, and somehow she knew Gray had influenced these people in subtle and nuanced ways.
I just hope I get to tell him about this someday soon.
The map Wes projected showed Portland in the lower right and a small dot with a red ring around it in the upper left. Between the two was a vast swath of wilderness in between. There was a small area of arid desert expanse dipping in from the top of the map near the right, various lakes and ponds were visible across the remainder of the surface, and what Piper took to be a relatively minor mountain range between Portland and the red ring near the top left of the map.
Wes activated the weather layer on the map. Cloud cover and meteorological data were instantly overlaid. The storm front she had seen while up on the wall was immediately apparent—a medium-sized weather system moving toward the city from the west. It seemed they would catch the northern edge of the front as it moved southeast. Of greater concern was a larger front not far behind it. This more extensive system was at least three times bigger, and while the front that was about to skirt the city was annotated in pale blues, indicating it would be moderately unpleasant with small amounts of snow and ice, the larger front was entirely colored in yellow and orangish red.
“This weather system is headed straight for us,” Wes said. “It’s large, intense, and it’s moving slowly.”
Piper slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans and turned her gaze toward Cormac. “What does this do to the operation?”
Cormac and Tripp shared a nervous glance.
“We should push it back,” Tripp said.
Cormac said nothing.
Piper looked at Cormac for several seconds, then returned to the map. She placed her hand on Wes’s shoulder. “Can you add the Thonian layer?”
A large purple cloud was added to the map. It hung to the northwest of the city, oblong in shape. Taking a rough estimate at the scale, it was perhaps one hundred and twenty-five miles wide at its center. North to south, it would have measured between five and six hundred miles in length. “Any noticeable movement in the last week?” Piper asked.
Wes was shaking his head halfway through her question. “Almost none in the last month. Over the past forty-five days, it has decreased in surface area by nearly one percent, but it hasn’t moved.”
“Can we tell how high the weather system reaches into the atmosphere?” Piper pressed. She instantly felt all eyes in the room focused on her.
“How…high?” Wes asked, his voice trembling voice.
“Altitude,” Piper said. “What’s the maximum altitude of the storm system?” He was confused by the question.
A massive grin spread across Tripp’s face. His eyes sparkled with a mix of amusement, enthusiasm, and horror as his hands started manipulating a private display in AR. “That’s exactly the kind of question Gray would have asked. I see why you two fit together the way you do.”
Cormac, for his part, only looked concerned. Wes no longer seemed to grasp what was being discussed. Cormac was about to speak when Tripp responded.
“Here it is,” Tripp said. “Seven thousand feet and change on the low side, and…” he seemed to be scrolling through a long list of data points as he spoke. “Just under eleven thousand feet at the most extreme points.”
Piper gave a slow nod. “Then we’re still on track. I have to stick to fourteen thousand feet anyway to avoid the dead zone. As long as I’m airborne in time to beat the worst of the storm, we won’t have a problem.” She shot Tripp a deadly serious look. “Will the modifications be ready in time?”
Tripp glanced at the timeline projected at the bottom of the screen that Wes still had displayed on the wall. “It’s going to be close.” He turned to Cormac. “I could use a few of Stillwell’s people to speed things up.”
Cormac nodded. “I’ll have the approval by the time you get over there. Whatever you need. She took her time, but we finally have Administrator Hargrave’s support.”
Looking at Piper, Cormac said, “I’m most concerned about you. You mentioned it yourself—you’re terrified of heights. Are you sure you can handle this?”
Piper shrugged. “Gray’s missing, and none of your people can do it.” She seemed to struggle to meet his gaze. Swallowing hard to suppress both the bile rising in her throat and her own reluctance, she squared her shoulders. “The perimeter wall is a meager defense at best. These creatures can’t be killed unless we land a lucky shot in the eye. That means we’re screwed if they come at us in a coordinated attack. It’s only a matter of time before they get organized enough to figure that out. We need to have Plan B ready before it gets to that point.”
Tripp hunched over a small platform, securing a short stack of pewter-colored, thickly insulated packing crates when Piper entered the area the team simply referred to as the Garage. The crates were connected and fastened to the platform with thick straps that incorporated a ratchet mechanism at the end for maximum security. A massive canvas tarpaulin obscured the far end of the platform.
Only after counting the stack of mismatched crates to confirm there were thirteen did Piper’s gaze shift to the massive fan blades protected by shallow ducts. One was positioned at each corner of the platform, and each blade-like rotor had a circumference slightly wider than she was tall. She stooped and ran her fingers along the checker pattern of screen mesh designed to keep debris from fouling the blades and the motors. “This is a lot thinner than I expected,” she said. “Are you sure it will protect the hardware?”
Tripp looked over the top of the stacked boxes and nodded aggressively. “I can quote you the tensile strength if you’d like, but I know how you feel about that. Suffice it to say, each strand is equivalent to a braided steel cable a quarter inch in diameter where you’re from.”
Piper shrugged; it was satisfactory.
Her gaze shifted to the far end of the platform where the control system was supposed to be. The platform was symmetrical, making it impossible to distinguish the front of the craft from the back. “Tripp? How do I fly this?”
He pointed to the larger tarped object just beyond the platform. “From there,” he said without looking up. He secured the last of the retaining straps before sliding off the platform and taking a moment to stretch the discomfort clearly evident in his back and knees. “The transport platform is slaved to the pilot’s craft,” he said as if it were an old logical conclusion.
Piper looked at the Airbike parked near the Garage’s far wall. “Good idea. But why not just pair it with that if you’ve got that route?”
Smiling with a face that turned pink and then red, Tripp said, “Well… you’re afraid of heights, right?”
Piper nodded slowly.
“And while you’re doing this, you wouldn’t be doing it if there were anyone else willing or able to take it on?”
Piper nodded even more slowly.
“That thing,” Tripp said, pointing at the Airbike. “Is not for the timid. I built it to Gray’s specifications, and I can tell you one thing with absolute certainty—anyone who gets on it needs to have either complete confidence or a death wish.”
Considering how she’d seen Gray maneuver the craft during his first test flight, along with what she’d observed at ten thousand feet and beyond, she had to agree. Not for the first time, she felt a surge of anxiety that was increasingly accompanied by the urge to vomit. She had every confidence in herself, but there was too much at stake now. She didn’t understand how Gray managed to put himself through this for these people time and again.
Tripp must have seen the distress in her expression because he stepped closer. “Take a deep breath,” he said. “Have a seat.” He was pointing to the side of the platform.
Lacy pushed a small, hovering cart through the pair of double doors on the nearest wall and paused when she noticed the grim expressions on the faces of Tripp and Piper. “Stage fright?” she asked.
Piper looked up. “I’m going to throw up.”
Lacy positioned the cart and prepared an injector. “You’re afraid of heights,” she said in a calm, soothing tone. “And you’re about to take the second flying machine in our people’s history on the longest flight of record.”
Tripp was scowling. “We’re going to start practicing your pep talks before you’re allowed to give them.”
“My point,” Lacy said with a theatrical roll of her eyes, “is that you’re a hero just for wanting to try this.”
Piper swallowed hard, pausing before she spoke to ensure she didn’t throw up. Although she had explained that she was afraid of heights, she hadn’t conveyed that she was actually terrified of them. The fear was less a conscious discomfort and more of a physical and medical issue. Exposure to anything beyond moderate heights triggered vertigo, followed by symptoms ranging from nausea to unconsciousness. What she felt so far was merely panic about what was to come.
She didn’t know how to explain this to the people who were counting on her. If she could reach the underground city and configure the teleportation hardware packed on the hover platform, it might finally be possible to move the Seeley to a location beyond the Elend’s reach…if only for a while.
Lacy knelt and held out the subcutaneous injector. “This will relieve the vertigo and nausea,” she said. “I can administer a sedative for the panic if you’d like.”
Piper froze, her brows arched in confusion. She couldn’t remember sharing her concerns with anyone. Only Gray knew just how absolutely terrified she was of heights. Unless, she thought with a new sense of worry, she had been so out of her mind that she’d said more to the people here than she currently recalled.
Exactly how panicked have I gotten?
Lacy placed her hand on Piper’s knee and offered a sympathetic smile. “Your genetic profile indicates with ninety-eight percent certainty that you have a borderline crippling sense of vertigo when exposed to shifts in barometric pressure. Your inner ear and brain tend to—” she pointed a finger at her own ear and then twirled the finger in the air until the circles grew wider and wider before ultimately pointing off in a seemingly random direction. “Anyway…” she held up the injector. “This will work in conjunction with the nanotechnology and address the problem until we have enough time to fix you up properly. I can completely fix it. I’ll just need more time and some diagnostic testing to execute a permanent solution. Unfortunately, we don’t have time for all of that now.”
Piper nodded. “So this is a bandaid?”
Lacy appeared confused but then seemed to grasp the reference. “Yes!” she laughed. “Good analogy.”
Piper pulled Lacy in for a hug. “Perfect. Let’s skip the sedative. As long as I don’t black out, I can deal with my fears.” Actually, the more she thought about it, if she could separate the physical side effects from the mental aspects, she was already looking forward to the personal challenge. Recognizing that, she realized just how much faith she’d come to have in Lacy and Tripp. She was willing to take Lacy at her word that she could do something so medically extraordinary. At the same time, she was ready to put her life in the hands of a device Tripp had just finished fabricating based on concepts his team had never before considered.
“Your people have never flown before?” Piper asked, eyeing Tripp with skepticism. “Not ever?”
Tripp shrugged, waving his hand toward the Airbike along the wall. He said, “Gray was the first. I’m not sure anyone ever seriously considered it before he asked me to build that. We have ground transportation and the teleportation platforms.” Another shrug followed. “Why would we want to leave the ground? Birds do that.”
Slapping her palm on the platform beside her, Piper said, “And now I’m doing that.”
“Point taken,” Tripp said, looking suddenly pale.
“So what’s that?” Piper was pointing to the tarp.
Color returned to Tripp, and his eyes lit up with excitement. “Gray’s Airbike is perhaps a bit unwieldy for anyone but him to attempt without instruction. I designed it to his specifications, after all. But those concerns led me to consider what a more user-friendly version of the machine might look like and how it would run.”
Piper and Lacy followed him to the covered device and stepped aside as he pulled back the tarp without any fanfare. The quadcopter-style bike beneath featured a snowmobile-style seat, only longer, as if designed to better accommodate a second passenger. The four-bladed rotors, positioned in shallow ducts at each corner beneath the bike’s frame, were perhaps twenty percent larger, though they were covered by the same mesh-like screen that had been used on the fans of the transport platform.
“The props are larger,” Tripp explained. “The overall footprint of the machine is also twenty-five percent larger, allowing it to spread across a wider surface area of air. This design will provide greater stability. Additionally, with the larger footprint, the bigger props will enhance energy efficiency and make it quieter than the first version at the same prop speed.”
Piper walked slowly around the new Airbike in a circle. It appeared larger than the first version, though not by much. She understood what he meant about it having a larger overall footprint since it took up more space parked on the Garage floor. Likewise, she reasoned, it would displace more air when hovering.
“The controls are the same?” Piper asked.
Tripp raised a flattened palm in the air and wobbled it back and forth. “For the most part,” he said, lacking conviction. “I reduced the overall sensitivity of the pitch and roll by twenty-two percent to make it easier to fly, and I did the same for the yaw, reducing it by fifteen percent.” As he spoke, he used hand gestures to indicate the orientations affected by the aircraft. “According to the literature, that should make the aircraft substantially more friendly for beginners.”
Lacy looked nonplused. “And if she wants to more aggressive flight controls?”
Tripp was grinning. “Easy access to that from the top-level menu of the HUD. I don’t doubt her ability. I just want to make the machine as easy to fly as possible.”
Piper was smiling. “Mission success above all else,” she agreed, then looked at Lacy. “But I like where your head is at!” Then she turned back to the transport platform. “How do they work together? Is it a trailer?”
“Only in the strictest sense,” Tripp said. “The transport platform is linked to the Airbike. You control its tether length, but there’s a buffer that allows flexibility in how you fly. For instance, you can have the platform follow at a distance of fifty to seventy-five meters. It can be whatever you want. The settings are accessible in your HUD.”
Twisting the throttle, Piper held her breath and waited for her stomach to rebel. Her guts clenched and her insides sank, but it was only in response to the sudden increase in gravitational force as the Quad-Airbike launched into a vertical climb that was unlike anything she had ever experienced. While Piper focused on the handlebar controls of the machine, she was vaguely aware of the G-force indicator in the corner of her HUD. It read 1.72 and had just ticked up from 1.69. The corners of her vision were glowing dark, and she reasoned that it shouldn’t be due to the gravitational forces.
Easing back on the throttle, she saw the indicator drop immediately to 1.22 and then to 1.17. Still, her vision continued to darken. The altitude display showed nine thousand three hundred sixteen feet, and she suddenly realized how quickly that counter had been rising.
At last, she remembered to breathe and gasped a sharp, choking lungful of air that was thankfully filtered and climatized through the system built into her helmet. “Oh my God,” she muttered, taking another breath.
Only after her third deep exhale did Piper fully return to herself. She had completely released the throttle, which she had been warned against doing. Instead of plunging to the surface below, thankfully, the onboard safety system had entered a hover and maintained her altitude: nine thousand, four hundred feet and change.
Holy shit.
There was no vertigo, and if she simply focused on the handlebars or looked into the distance, the heights weren’t as daunting as she had feared. She reasoned that the trick was to keep breathing. It seemed simple and logical… if launching oneself into the heavens on the back of a glorified Cuisinart could be considered rational.
Piper realized that the buzzing in her ears was actually frantic voices. Apparently, they had been there for some time.
“I’m okay,” Piper replied, even before she could grasp the meaning of the words. She eased the throttle open and pushed the handlebars forward, moving the craft forward for the first time. “There we go,” she smiled.
“She seems to have control now,” a voice from far away said over the comm channel. “I think she’s okay.”
“Are you with me?” Lacy said over the channel. “You just scared the crap out of us.”
Piper’s smile grew wider. Gray’s euphemisms had definitely won over Cormac’s team. She turned the craft to the left and adjusted to the gentle yaw as it swiveled on its axis while still moving forward. “Just getting the hang of things,” she finally said. “Everything’s good up here.”
Piper counted at least three sighs of relief. Lacy, Tripp, and the third must have been Cormac, even though he had yet to speak. It wasn’t surprising that he was keeping an eye on her test flight. It was interesting that he was doing it covertly. While she understood it was an attempt to give Tripp and Lacy more experience and confidence, she knew the project lead was also deeply concerned about Gray’s prolonged absence.
“I’m circling around to pick up the payload,” Piper said.
Her test flight was over. It was time to get the long flight to the abandoned underground city complex underway. The Elend had been quiet lately, and she felt it was in preparation for a more concerted attack on the last stronghold. It would be a race against time to prepare the underground facility and relocate the population to a more secure location before the creatures were ready to move against them.
Wild-Side
Yesterday
Finally, shouldering through the last thick vegetation, Pemberton stepped from the forest into the field’s tall grass. He gasped and dropped to his hands and knees. The exertion from his mad rush through the woodland hadn’t exhausted him as quickly as he’d expected, but eventually, even newfound reserves of adrenaline had run dry. The field grass was tall, and with his collapse, he knew it offered him a degree of anonymity.
Having cleared the woodland for the first time since his escape from the cave, Pemberton looked down as his fingers flexed and explored the rough texture of the thick grass. This was his first clear glimpse of moonlight since escaping, and the sight of his hands made his breath catch in his throat. His fingers were thick, double-jointed, and scaled and…
They ended in short, thick claws. No, not claws. These were talons. His five fingers had been replaced by three fingers and something resembling a thick, less flexible thumb.
Pemberton rocked back on his knees. He quickly noticed how strangely his body moved and looked down across his torso. It was thick, powerfully built, and covered with coarse gray-black scales. Tears filled his eyes, and a cry escaped his lips. Somehow, both experiences felt foreign and…wrong.
Hands instantly went to his face; the talons would have flayed flesh had there been any. Instead, he felt thick scales beneath the pads of his fingers. He glanced briefly at his hand again to confirm that it was indeed his hand before returning it to his face. He could feel the texture of his own scaly flesh through what now appeared to be the scaly flesh of his hand, but it didn’t make any sense.
He dropped to his backside and turned roughly in the direction from which he had escaped, trying to recall what had just happened. It had all been a blur. The only thing he could remember with certainty was a pain beyond anything he had ever experienced. It seemed to last forever. He thought it was death. It had to have been hell. Then there was light…not much, but some. Light and shadow. There were figures in the shadows.
Pemberton was on the verge of rubbing his eyes in fatigue and frustration but stopped himself. He glared at his taloned hand and groaned. The sound was deep and resonant. Had it not come from his own body, it would have terrified him.
The shadows had sparked a primal fear within him, and Pemberton began to recall the experience clearly. He had run—well, stumbled. He felt injured. He recalled the certainty that the massive dark figures around him would stop him at every turn, but none had. Dozens of the figures had looked at him as he passed, yet none had stopped him. Now that he considered the experience, he hadn’t so much escaped as walked from the cave.
Once he reached the tree line, he would definitely run. He picked a direction and didn’t stop running until he arrived at this clearing.
Now he listened. Wildlife clearly chirped, clicked, and burbled in the woods, but as far as he could tell, he hadn’t been followed. That was good. However, he looked down at his hands once again and couldn’t explain what he saw.
He then looked down at the rest of his body. It was a long, wide, alien form resembling a cross between a lizard-man and a dragon.. His gaze shifted to the sky and the stars scattered across the cloudless expanse.
“I made it to the other side.”
