Read Online Athel by E. E. Giorgi - Free Book Online Page B

Implanted memories. Of course . The nanobots that keep us
alive, that enhance our breathing, our movements, the speed of our thoughts…
they also carry our legacy. Just like DNA carries traits from one generation to
the next, the Mayakes use chips and nanowiring to pass on relevant information
that would otherwise get lost.
    But if
this is true…
    I flip the
cylinder over and stare at the side, etched with thin, concentric grooves.
“What is this, then? It must be something important if it was worth going
through all this trouble. Important and—”
    “Dangerous,”
Wes interjects.
    I nod.
“Exactly. So dangerous that whoever possessed it had to hide it and make sure
it wouldn’t be found for many years. What do you think, Lukas?”
    “That
we’re missing one piece of the puzzle.”
    “Huh? What
piece?”
    “The piece
that Tahari and the other man took.” He points to the cylinder in my hand.
“Maybe this is what they were looking for but didn’t have the engram like
Akaela did. Whatever they were looking for, they found something and left a
hole in the clearing we were exploring.”
    “You think
the two objects are related?” I ask.
    Lukas drums
his fingers. “I don’t know, but it would kind of make sense. It’s—”
    I raise a
hand and hush him.
    Wes jumps.
“What?”
    “That
sound,” I say. “You hear it?”
    The rushed
galloping of a horse. I sprint to the door and push it open. Taeh’s running
back toward the stables, followed by our falcon Kael. Akaela lets go of the
reins and frantically waves her arms at me.
    What happened ? I
message.
    The trap , I read along the bottom
corner of my retina. You’ve got to come
see .

 
    *   *   *

 
    Wes runs, the rest of us ride on Taeh’s
back. The sky is overcast and the wind blows in a light tapering of ashes from
the Gaijins’ factory on the other side of the mesa. Our falcon Kael swoops
ahead of us, riding the currents.
    The first
thing I notice as we approach the mouth of the gorge is that the sapling I tied
the snare to has snapped. The splintered trunk lies across the big boulder,
pieces of torn wire coiled around it. The bare soil slanting off the crevasse
is ridged and blackened, with fresh tracks that dig into the ground all the way
to the first row of trees on the opposite side. Two of the smaller aspens have
been upturned, their exposed roots clawing at the sky.
    To the
left, sprawled against the rocks coming off the wall of the gorge, lies a long
piece of black metal, about five to six feet long, a web of torn wires still
sizzling with smoke.
    “We got
it!” I shout, recognizing the claw leg from one of the scavenger droids.
    “Not
quite,” Dottie mutters, putting a short end to my spur of excitement. I scan
the place, quickly realizing that there’s nothing else to see besides the claw
leg straddled against the rock. The droid escaped my trap.
    I lead
Taeh to the small birch grove, where we all dismount. Wes sprints ahead and
screeches to a halt by the crushed trunk of the sapling.
    “Wow,
Athel,” he shouts. “You did it. You built the trap without telling us.”
    “And you
ruined it, too,” Lukas adds, as I help him off the horse.
    I drop him
to the ground and snarl, “Shut up, both of you.”
    The scene
before our eyes looks apocalyptic: torn trees, blackened soil as though
something exploded, and deep tracks that go all the way back to the mouth of
the gorge. Pieces of wire—the one I used to set my trap—hang loose
here and there, tracing back to the leg the droid lost at the foot of the cliff.
    Kael flies
in circles above our heads, then settles on a high ledge.
    “I was
riding by the waterfalls,” Akaela explains, as we all scatter around the crime scene , “when I heard this huge
rumbling sound. By the time I got here it was all over.”
    “The droid
was already gone?” I ask.
    She nods.
    I look at
the visual clues before me and try to reconstruct what happened. Droid comes,
probably hooked on the metal spoon