Gregg Hurwitz - The Rains

“Hey, kid-please help me!”

“Over here! Over here!”

A young girl was curled up in a ball, weeping.

It was horrible, and yet I had to keep moving.

I couldn’t save them all.

I couldn’t.

Tearing my eyes away from them, I risked sticking my head out and peering down the assembly line. Nothing. I looked the other way, behind me. There Alex was, twenty yards up. I’d passed her, all right. She’d been the last kid strapped to the belt before the bulldozer diversion. I could see the soles of her shoes lurching away from me.

Relentlessly, the sounds carried in from outside.

Thump. Squelch.

I reversed course, scrambling beneath the belt back toward Alex. When I peeked out to gauge my position, I saw one of the plier clips pinning her down up ahead. The Hosts had moved off the bulldozer now, resuming their duties, their legs sweeping past me in both directions. Raspy breaths filled the air all around me. Despite the pauses in the belt’s movement, I was having trouble catching up to Alex. It was hard to move through the narrow space, and the hard floor hurt my hands and knees.

Thump. Squelch.

Ignoring the pain, I hurtled forward.

I was making headway. Closer, closer-

Then I collided with the wall. I’d been so focused on rushing that I’d forgotten to look up at where I was heading.

I’d reached the point where the belt continued through the wall to the foundation outside. I watched helplessly as Alex lurched out of reach. The plier clips binding her to the belt passed through the hatch over my head.

Thump. Squelch.

The lip of the wall beneath the rough-cut hole left little room under the assembly line, squeezing the crawl space even more. Thrusting my arms through the narrow space like a diver, I launched with my legs. The belt bit into my back and shoulders, scraping them. As it jolted ahead, it shoved me backward until the edge of the wall cut into my gut. Then the belt paused.

I was stuck.

Thump. Squelch.

The next movement was going to rip me apart.

I had a moment of blind panic.

I closed my eyes. Heard Patrick’s voice.

You can. You always could.

I thought of Alex up there, three kids from the end of the line. And I thought about what the Queen was about to do to her.

I blew my breath out all the way, shrinking my chest, and pulled my stomach taut.

The belt juddered backward again, tugging me the wrong way. With everything I had, I shoved against it. The wall ground across my ribs and stomach, the belt moving in the opposite direction above, threatening to skin me. For a second I thought my hips would catch and the bones simply snap.

But then I shot through.

I landed under the belt outside, pain screaming through my body.

Thump. Squelch.

Alex was two kids away from the Queen.

Pulling the folding knife from my pocket, I jerked it open and bit down on the blade, clenching it between my teeth like a pirate. Then I shot toward Alex and the end of the line. The Queen’s slender sheathed legs came into view alongside the thick calves of her Drone.

I didn’t have time to be afraid.

The boy ahead of Alex lunged into position beneath the Queen.

Thump.

I could hear the stinger uncoil wetly. Then the conveyer belt shuddered under the impact, dust raining over me.

Squelch.

Alex was next.

I was directly beneath her. I could hear her crying above me. A drop slid off the side of the belt, tapping the ground beside me.

A tear.

The next movement of the belt would bring her into position.

Rolling onto my back, I rammed the knife up through the bottom of the belt, wedging it between two of the powerful metal rollers.

The belt went to lurch again.

The machinery groaned above me. It seemed it would just power through the blade.

But then the conveyer snapped somewhere farther back on the line, the belt rippling like a sheet of paper jammed in a printer. Heavy rubber folds fell around me.

A moment of silence as dust swirled in the air.

Then the Drone trotted off to check on the trouble, his legs vanishing from view. The seamless, bootlike feet of the Queen’s suit remained right there by my face. I could have reached out and rapped her toes with my knuckles.

I waited, holding my breath.

Finally one boot pivoted away. Her knee bent slightly.

A moment passed. Another.

Then her feet moved off, heading toward the building.

I didn’t wait long. I couldn’t. I wormed my torso out, slid my aching hips through, and crouched beside Alex.

Her green eyes, wet with tears, turned to me disbelievingly.

“Chance,” she said.

It was just my name, but it was all the payment in the world.

I didn’t answer; I just undid the plier clips from the ridges, the straps springing free. We were mostly alone out here. The other Drones patrolled the floating slabs way across the foundation, and the Hosts and Queen were inside the cannery trying to figure out what had gone wrong. More Hosts scoured the hillside, examining the bulldozer’s path, searching for whoever had loosed it. The metal slabs of the kids who’d just been implanted glided away across the vast foundation to join the others.

The slab designated for Alex hovered right off the end of the assembly line.

“Slide up onto this,” I said.

She scooted herself onto it.

When I crawled beneath the floating slab, I felt an intense energy in my joints and bones that made it hard to breathe. It wasn’t completely unpleasant, but it forced me to fight for focus. When I touched the underside of the slab, it responded easily, sliding like a puck across ice. I scuttled under the slab, using it for cover, guiding us to the edge of the foundation nearest the tree line.

For now Alex looked like another fertilized kid drifting to join the others, but soon it would be evident that we were off course. From my squashed position, I watched the legs and feet in the distance. Hosts and Drones everywhere.

And then the Queen’s slender boots exited the cannery, rounding the corner to head back to her spot.

Alex and I reached the edge of the foundation. When I rolled out from beneath the slab, the heavy pull on my joints lifted away. I grabbed Alex’s arm. “Let’s go,” I whispered, and she slid off next to me.

I tapped the slab, sending it back toward the others. It reentered the stream heading to the far side of the foundation.

I could hear the clamor of the kids inside. One girl’s keening rose above the din. I felt emotion welling up beneath my face. “I have to…” My voice cracked. “I have to go back for them.”

“Those things in armor,” Alex whispered. “There are hundreds of them. We’ve only got our fists.” She looked frail, her face white and bloodless. “I doubt we’d even make it to the kids, but I’m willing to die trying if you are.”

Her legs were trembling, and not from fear. She was spent. I’d never seen her so fragile.

I remembered the unspoken promise I’d made to Patrick. Had I come all this way just to get Alex killed in a pointless charge to the death?

I tried to drown out the chorus of cries from the cannery. Alex was looking at me, doing her best to keep her feet, waiting on an answer.

I shook my head.

No point in killing ourselves today.

We broke for the woods. A bunch of the Hosts were north of us, crawling all over the trail of wreckage from the bulldozer.

Alex moved weakly, though from fear or exhaustion, I couldn’t tell. She seemed to be favoring her left leg. We reached the massive hollow tree where I’d stashed the backpack. The inside was deep and dark, stretching back several yards. We fell to our knees before it.

That’s when I heard the crunch of a pinecone behind me.