Subordinance

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

The thrumming of the AirTram’s engines is unusually apparent in the early morning hour. The skies that blur through the open windows show musky hints of pink, the grey canvas streaked with threads of rose and gold. I shake my half-empty ration packet around and try to decide whether or not it’s worth it to finish. Next to me, Rho’s lip curls, her eyes pinching into a pained grimace as she downs the powder. The Quadrant Officer across from us just looks at us with a guise of amusement playing on his features. I wonder how long it took him to build up an immunity to whatever nasty junk they dehydrate and label ‘food’.

I decide not to ask.

The car is empty save the three of us. The Quadrant Officer is taking the two of us rookies on a longer Scouting mission, him being the only one with actual Scouting experience. He tells us we are capable, however, and I really try to believe him. Confidence seems lacking and self-consciousness only too abundant this morning, though.

We’ve been in the AirTram for nearly an hour, and for the most part, it’s been silent.

I don’t like it.

Without the life conversation brings, the mood falls flat, empty and listless.

That is, until the train begins to slow and we near our landing destination. Rho looks at me excitedly, raising her brows in an expression of anticipation.

“Shall we go?” she says, standing up as the AirTram glides to a complete stop. She nearly skips off the train, the bounce in her step a sign of her eagerness to prove herself. I wonder, sometimes, if she ever feels invisible. You’d never know it by talking to her, but it seems like it wouldn’t be too hard to feel neglected in her position.

If Rho doesn’t mind it, though, I won’t drag up the issue.

“Where to, Rho?” I ask. She checks her data pod, a slightly modified version of mine. Zooming in and spinning the map, she shows her screen to the Quadrant Officer and me.

“This,” she explains, indicating our current location with a wave of her finger, “is where we are. This,” as she taps the screen again, a purple building icon appearing, “is where we have to go. That little purple building is a supply warehouse, and it’s our job to navigate a safe way to get there on foot, track that path, and then submit it back to the Base so they can begin installing an AirTram circuit that runs from the warehouse to the Base.” She lowers her data pod. “We ready?” I nod, turning to the Quadrant Officer.

“Ready when you are,” he replies, motioning for Rho to go. She eagerly obliges, spinning on her heel and skipping forward. On my data pod, I see a series of drops and rises on the map, the heavily textured area not too far ahead, directly between the warehouse and the Base.

“Oh,” I say, zooming in on the map and looking ahead, where, sure enough, the shadows of heights are visible against the morning grey. “I see why they had to have us go on foot.” The Quadrant Officer looks ahead, nodding.

“Usually we can take an off-road car, or a motorbike, but the terrain required us to be on foot. You can’t pass through the ruins of an Old War city in a car.” I blank.

“That’s what those are?” The drops and rises I’d mistaken for natural landscaping were the remnants of the Old War?

He bobs his head in agreement. “We only now are Scouting this area because it was only recently cleared as non-toxic. For the past hundred or so years it’s been so radioactive you’d die within minutes of exposure.” I glance up, the foreboding shadows of the ghost city towering not too far ahead. The buildings are a dilapidated mess of scorching ruins and twisted metal, brick and concrete cracked and disintegrating.