Hugh Howey - Half Way Home

I got down from the bench and went to the cab’s door; I peered across the floodlit base toward the power module. “There’s a few small things I should grab—”

A flash of orange light off to the side interrupted my thoughts. I watched as a streak of plasma lifted up, rising high above the base before exploding with a distant rumble. Tarsi stood and joined me by the glass, both of us peering up at the ball of fire overhead. A moment later, the whistling began, followed by the thudding impacts of bombfruit.

Not as many fell, however, as during the tremors. Not nearly as many. We stood together, our arms around each other as we listened to the odd impact here and there.

“So few,” Tarsi said.

“The trees are big,” I told her, “but how many of those can they produce? And how fast?”

She leaned her head against my shoulder as the canopy burned overhead. The flames from the incendiary missile spread out in a wide circle of destruction as golden embers rained down, fading to ash long before they reached us, very much how I imagined a meteor shower might look.

“We need to get out of here,” Tarsi said sadly.

I agreed. And from a more rational stance, this time.

Kelvin returned late, the hour technically qualifying it as early the next day. He smelled of cordite and smoke and seemed tired. When Tarsi broke the news that we were coming with him, his spirits buoyed immediately. He clasped me on the shoulder and tried to express his relief in a series of mumbling and manic half-starts.

Once he calmed down, we sat together on the bench seat and went through his stash of survival gear. He had stopped and picked up Tarsi’s seeds and a few other things as well. The only thing I had to offer was a battered flashlight I used to see around the power module during outages. I added it to a small pack of my own as Kelvin distributed the things between us—the act of sharing our things somehow sealing our resolve to stick together.

Overall, the gear we were meant to survive on was far less than any of us wished we could bring, but if we took any more, our guilt would get the better of us. We figured nobody we left behind could fault us for taking so little.

The plan was to leave as soon as the floodlights went off, but after an hour of nervous fidgeting, they remained brightly lit, even though they were usually doused after the day’s last shift.

“What are they doing?” Kelvin asked, looking out through a hole he’d swiped in the fogged glass.

“Maybe they’re worried about us,” I said.

“How would anybody suspect the three of us?” Tarsi asked.

“Not us specifically. I mean everybody. Hickson’s gotta know what’s going on, what everyone’s thinking after Mica and Peter bolted.”

Kelvin grunted. “Pretty soon they’ll need one enforcer for every worker. Love to see the timetables once that happens.”

“We should’ve left last night,” Tarsi said. “And why wouldn’t Pete have said something to me about him going? I mean, we were close enough that I’d expect a goodbye, or some kind of gesture—not that I think he should’ve asked us to join.”

“Same reason we haven’t told anybody,” I explained.

Tarsi bit her lip and raised her eyebrows. “I suppose you’re right,” she finally said.

“So what’s the plan?” Kelvin asked, turning from the window. “I say we go anyway. I don’t see anyone standing guard. Hell, who in the camp wouldn’t pass out if they were asked to take a shift tonight?”

I made my own hole in the misted glass, my hand squealing as it circled. I peered out, then turned to the others. “I say we sneak out of the cab and wait on the landing for a few minutes, see if we spot anybody. Nobody can get onto us just for being up at this hour.”

“Good plan,” Kelvin said. “And when we move, let’s head back past the server module. It’s the fastest path to darkness. Once we’re out of the light, we can swing around and go through the fence where Mica and Peter escaped.”

We each nodded. I tried to set my face and seem as calm as the other two.

Part of me wondered if they were doing the same thing.

After what seemed an eternity on the tractor’s landing without a sound—not even a single bombfruit dropping—I led the way down the metal ladder.

As soon as my feet hit the ground, I ducked under the body of the enormous earthmover and hid in the shadow of one of its massive tires. Tarsi came down after, quiet as a sigh, and moved beside me, her hand clutching my arm. Kelvin dropped the last two steps and bent his knees with the fall, landing like a primitive animal poised to strike. As the three of us padded barefoot towards the server module, I admired the lithe movements of the other two and figured of the three of us, I would be the one getting us caught.

The first several hundred feet were the worst. With our surrounds wide open and brightly lit, I felt like our very shadows were trying to turn us in. As we ran away from the low spotlights, the black betrayers grew from our feet, reaching out toward distant modules, threatening to dash up walls and cut across windows. Kelvin waved his hand at us, and we ducked and ran in a crouch, trying to shorten the elongated monsters.

When we reached the server module, I felt like the ordeal must be over. Beyond, lay relative darkness. We could cross to what was left of the fuel depot, circle around to the neglected farms, and then work our way past the dump where the debris from our birthday fires had been shoved. We rested on the back side of the module, catching our breaths and making sure our packs were still on our backs and not leaking survival gear.

With my head against the building’s exterior, I could hear the machines inside thinking. The servers clicked and whirred, the entire building humming with activity. Kelvin whispered our route one more time, but I didn’t hear him. I became lost in the sounds of the servers, the popping of the belts on the recording drives and the buzzing of the fans. It sounded like a machine pulsing and breathing.

Kelvin nodded, seeing if we were ready. He pushed off the wall and began padding his way toward the fuel depot. Tarsi followed, with me right behind.

We were only a dozen feet or so from the module when the klaxons sounded. The noise was so loud and unexpected, I nearly fell to the ground in paralytic fright. Tarsi and I both stopped and looked back toward the server module, as if unsure which way to run. Kelvin hissed at us both and my brain—completely undecided—was won over by the urgency in his voice.

We ran. I swung the tarp pack around to my stomach so I could keep it from swinging wildly and concentrated on pumping my legs. Twice, I looked back over my shoulder but could see no sign of pursuit. I followed Tarsi into the blackness of the scavenged fuel depot, only one of its bunkers remaining to hide us. Kelvin grabbed us before we flew past and pulled us close to the lonely cylinder of gold.

“Same route?” Kelvin asked. “Or do we make a new cut?”

The klaxon was so loud we had to do more than whisper to be heard. It felt bizarre to consider cutting through a fence meant to protect us and to have our efforts loudly betrayed by a horn meant to warn us of danger.

Tarsi voted we stick to the original route. We had brought some tools for the job, but none of us were quite comfortable with our backup plan of cutting through the fence ourselves.

Kelvin took another look back at the collection of modules and cursed. Tarsi and I looked as well and saw figures moving about, their shadows reaching out dozens of feet across the lit ground.

“They’re just being woken up by the horn,” Tarsi said.