Terra, page 1
Terra
Terrestrials: Book I
Gretchen Powell
Copyright 2012 by Gretchen Powell. All rights reserved.
No part of this book or the characters within may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express permission of the copyright owner, except in the instance of quotes or excerpts for review or marketing purposes.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are completely fictional, and any reference to real places or events is used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people or occurrences, past or present, is purely coincidental.
Published by Hopewell Media, LLC
Cover design by Cassie Johnston
Edited by Aileen Brenner
Copyedited by Lori Renner
ISBN: 978-0-9884689-0-0
Please visit the author’s website at
http://gretchenpowell.com.
for my brother, Ben,
the family trailblazer
-
and my sister, Jenny,
for always asking
what comes next
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
Chapter 1
“Terra?” Mica’s voice, heavy with sleep, seeps out his half-open door. “Where are you going?”
Damn, I think. I was trying to be quiet. Lightening my step, I go stand in his doorway and lean my shoulder against the frame. His ancient computer blinks softly on his desk. I walk over and shut the monitor off.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say softly. “You don’t need to be up yet. Go back to sleep.” Through the grime-streaked window above my brother’s head, I see the soft gray light of early morning beginning to peek through. I need to get a move on.
“You got it, chief…” Mica buries his face in his pillow. I hover over him for a few moments, waiting for his breathing to slow, before quietly drawing his door back to its half-closed position. I’m careful not to close it all the way. Even now, after all this time, he still won’t sleep with the door shut.
I walk back into the main room. Our apartment’s layout is based on Floor Plan #4, which means our bedrooms empty out into one large, square room that serves as foyer, living area, and dining room in one. Our bedrooms flank a tiny bathroom that we share, and on the other side of the main room, the kitchen sits in an alcove. In one deft movement, I grab my bag from a hook near the front door and am off.
Thankfully, at this hour it’s still cool out. The sun has barely crested over the horizon. I loop the strap of my blue scavenging bag over my shoulder and zip my black jacket up halfway. The air is thick, as it always is. I know that the sun will be blazing by the time I get back, but I take it as a good sign that there’s even the slightest of breezes this morning. It’s two miles to settlement limits, and I'm headed a good deal farther than that; the longer I can go without breaking into my water canteen, the better.
The streets are quiet. The few people who are up at this time of day will all be out by the docks, getting ready for the bustle of morning business. I choose my route to the southern wall carefully nonetheless. I skim along the outskirts of town, darting along side roads and occasionally throwing a glance behind me to make sure I’m not being tracked.
It might be a little paranoid of me, but you really can’t be too careful around here. Last month, a boy from the East Quadrant was nearly beaten to death by a group of men who swore they saw him sneaking extra food pills into his pack after the Rationing. When they ripped the bag off his back, there was nothing inside but his scavenging spoils from the day before. The mob fought over the bits of copper wire and scrap metal anyway.
Once I clear the limits of the South Quadrant, I start to breathe a little easier. Slowing my pace, I root around in my bag for breakfast. I pull out a white pill bottle, twist off the cap and shake one of the large brown pills into my palm. The bottle rattles noisily, reminding me that there are only a couple of pills left inside.
Mmm, I think sarcastically as I read the bottle’s label. B-E665. So tasty. I unhook my water canteen from the side of my bag and pop the pill in my mouth, trying not to shudder as I wash it down. Bitter as the “meal” tastes, I feel energized immediately. I pick up my pace as I head toward the edge of town.
Reaching the boundary wall, I toss a wary eye behind me before I begin to climb. I’m alone for now, but others will be venturing into the plains soon enough, competing with me in scouring the fields for whatever useful bits and pieces that might have dropped from the trash barges that pass overhead. I want to ensure there’s plenty of distance behind me when they do.
Gran told Mica and me once that, long ago, before her father’s father was born, the walls surrounding Genesis X-16 were a hundred feet high, and the black dystridium brick was smooth as glass. Still feeling the scars of the Skyfall—the catastrophe that brought civilization to a grinding halt centuries ago—the founders of Sixteen built a protective dome that grew from the top of the wall, encapsulating our entire settlement. The giant ceiling acted as a UV filter that kept out both the acid rain and the harsh sun, akin to the ones that still encapsulate the skycities floating above us.
A single gate was built into the northernmost wall as the sole way to get in and out of the settlement. Of course, after the UV filter was destroyed, it wasn’t long before scavs began finding more convenient routes to the outside.
Since the gate is up in the North Quadrant, most scavs don’t bother going that way to get into the plains. It’s not just that it’s out of the way; most of us don’t like dealing with the hoity-toities who live in that part of Sixteen. I’ve only used the main gate a handful of times myself, on the few occasions when I’ve brought Mica out with me. It’s not like what we’re doing is illegal—scavenging is a regular part of life down here. But scavs don’t exactly like to have guardsmen breathing down our necks, so we prefer to climb over the western or southern walls instead.
As it stands now, the southern wall is no more than fifteen feet at its highest point, so I have little trouble climbing up the jagged brick. As always, I’m careful to avoid the remnants of broken glass that still stick out from the top. Soon, I’m jumping down on the other side, kicking up a cloud of dry earth behind me as I land.
The sun has settled in a spot halfway up the cloudless sky; in this light, the dusty brown landscape seems to stretch on forever. Patches of dead weeds line either side of my path, crumbling from the light breeze my boots make sweeping past them. The glint of something buried halfway in the dirt catches my eye. I stoop down and see a pair of small metal plates, maybe three or four inches across, slightly bent in the middle and with holes in the corner where screws would normally go.
Meh, I think, shrugging as I stand. They’re not a bad find as far as generics go, but I decide to leave them for the other poor schleps to fight over. It is Collection Day, after all. All the scavs will be out in full force. The more stuff found just outside town, the less likely others will bother venturing out to where I’m going. I kick some dust over my boot prints and set off again with light steps.
No trails, I remind myself. I don’t want some curious latecomer following me and cashing in on my almost-secret treasure trove. As I trudge on, the ground begins to slope down, and before long I see the tips of barren trees in the distance.
Another half-mile covered and I’ve reached the Dead Woods. I make my way south through the empty forest; the farther I walk, the less space there is between the trees. Scavengers rarely bother coming this far out from town. The woods are the only physical barrier between Sixteen and the District—the sprawling landscape of ruins that used to house one of the groundworld’s greatest cities. A quarantine line wraps around the ruined city to warn us away too, but a few beams of red light don’t provide quite the same sense of security as a petrified forest. Plus, for most, the spoils are hardly ever worth the journey out to the woods, given the risk of your findings being stolen by raiders on the way back.
For those of us who know where to look, however, the odds of finding something worth collecting are much higher out here. Metal generics drop all over the place, but plastic is where the real money is. Mica tried to explain to me once why that is. Something to do with dried up fuel sources or something. I admit that I don’t care too much about the specifics. All I care about is that it’s worth a pretty penny, and the placement of the petrified trees out here makes it far less likely for someone else to scoop up the rare scrap of the stuff. And as for the raiders… Well, I know these woods like the back of my hand. They’ve never even had the chance to get close to me. Though I wish I could say the same for some other scavs.
I weave my way through the thick trunks, the path I forge growing narrower as the roots that have broken through the ground begin to overlap, overtaking the forest floor. I’m less than a quarter-mile in when I start to see the first recyclables, discarded by skyworld citizens without a second thought.
One man’s trash, I think bitterly. I doubt they even realize how quickly they would run out of their luxuries if we weren’t down here, working in their recycling plants and scavenging for their leftovers. It’s not like these resources just grow in the ground, after all. Not anymore.
With my eyes fixed on the ground, I walk with deliberate steps between the withered trees. Back and forth, then over two paces and back again. I stop occasionally to pick up lengths of wire and screws that sparsely pepper the ground, adding them to my bag alongside the pile I gathered earlier in the week. The work is consuming, and at one point I have to force myself to choke down my last food pill.
I’m vividly aware of the sun, which has long since peaked in the sky, beating down through the leafless branches. I roll the sleeves of my jacket up and contemplate taking it off completely before remembering that the thin brown tank I’m wearing underneath will provide little protection against the burning rays. I have more than my share of sunspots on my shoulders as it is.
Time for a break, I think, having just snatched up a cracked square of plastic. I grin as I calculate how much steel it will net me; I’m thinking at least 50 credits’ worth, which means that my trek out to the woods has already been worth it.
I move toward a large fallen tree lying a few feet away. I straddle the trunk and unhook my water canteen again. I take a few grateful sips, and then pull off the stretched-out elastic band that is knotted around my wrist. I tie my sweat-dampened hair into a bun on the back of my head, twisting it a little too tightly. When I pull my hand away, several dark strands come with it.
“Ooh,” I moan. My neck is stiff from the hours of staring straight at the ground. I cock my head from side to side in order to work out the kinks, and I hear a dull series of pops as my vertebrae resettle. I hang my head to the right for a few moments, stretching my neck muscles; from this new sideways perspective, something catches my eye. I see the vague outline of a small silver lump tucked under a raised root about a yard over.
I crawl over and gently dig around the object. After a minute of maneuvering, I pull out a small machine, comprised of dozens of little interlocking tubes and shafts. The device is slightly larger than the palm of my hand and surprisingly heavy. Underneath the caked-on dirt, it looks shiny—brand new, in fact. It’s missing that matte sheen, a telltale sign of having been processed through the recycling center. Some small pieces might be missing—a few loose wires hang out, a lonely peg sticks out from the side—but, for the most part, it seems intact.
“Jackpot,” I whisper aloud. This thing has got to be worth at least a hundred credits, easily. Enough to cover an entire month of Rations. Between this little machine, the plastic, and the myriad of generics already lining my bag, this is going to be a stellar Collection Day.
I carefully tuck the piece of machinery into the inner pocket of my bag and survey the spoils inside. Toting around a week’s worth of generics is bothersome, but I’d rather deal with the annoyance than with the line that will form outside the recycling plant in the time it takes me to collect my spoils from home. Sweat drips down the crook of my arm and I decide that this should be more than enough to carry us through until the next biweekly Collection.
Not bad, I think, swinging the bag over my shoulder and striding back toward Sixteen. The bag bounces softly against my side with each step, and I can hear its contents jingling as the generics roll against each other—a soft symphony that seems to commend me on my success.
I steadily work my way back, still on the verge of overheating but in good spirits. As the trees begin to thin, I can vaguely make out the silhouettes of other scavs scouring the fields. I peel off my jacket and shove it down into my bag to mute the sound of metal on metal before striding into the field.
“Ahoy, Terra!” Mal is the first to see me, and I wince slightly as he shouts his friendly greeting in my direction. He and I have always been on good terms, but he’s one of very few to regard me with such enthusiasm. Several men in the surrounding area sneer as I pace toward them. I’ve been a scav for over three years and they still can’t stand that, at just eighteen, I pull bigger payouts most weeks than they do. The fact that I’m a girl doesn’t help draw their favor, either.
“And just where’re ya coming from? Ya look, uh, kinda …” Mal trails off as I come close, dusting off his brown pants as he stands. I can tell by his expression that I’m not exactly at my most gorgeous. He runs his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, leaving a streak of dirt on his temple.
“What? I can pull off the dirty, sweat-soaked look just as well you can, old man,” I respond with a grin, though my words sound stiff and formal compared to Mal’s easygoing South Quadrant drawl. “I’ve just been cruising the Southern Plains for a while. Picked up a few more generics, nothing too exciting,” I lie smoothly. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a rugged-looking guy who’s been eyeing me return his gaze to the ground.
“Same here. Jus’ some screws mostly, but I did find half a spool of copper wire right outside the wall.” He shoots his eyes in the direction of our eavesdropper before adding in a hushed voice, “Chrys scored the real Jackpot though. Found two metal plates just south of the wall, with a battery core underneath ‘em! That’s, what, 300 credits for the core alone? At least? The lucky bastard was hardly out here twenty minutes. Turned tail and headed straight back in to turn ‘em in.”
Damn it, I think, kicking myself for dismissing the plates earlier.
“Wow,” I say, failing to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Jealousy is a normal reaction to that kind of find, though, so Mal doesn’t seem to care. “Smart man.”
“Yeah, well, at least he only got those twenty minutes in ‘cause of it. Means more scavin’ for us, right?”
“Right,” I respond, smiling at him. “Well, I should get back.”
“Heading in already? But if ya didn’t find that much…” he says with a concerned look, and I know he’s thinking of Mica. I feel a twinge of guilt for lying to him and have to remind myself that he wasn’t the only one who was listening.
“Nah, it’s okay, really. We still have credits left over from the last Collection. I just have to get back. I don’t like to leave the little bro alone for too long, you know how it is. He’s…” I trail off.
“Mica,” we say at the same time. We both laugh. I wave goodbye to Mal and start back toward the wall, pinning my bag to my side nonchalantly as I pass through the other scavs’ lines of sight.
Chapter 2
The line outside the recycling center is blissfully short. Rain kept us trapped inside for two days this week, so I’m not surprised that most scavs are still out searching, putting in last-minute efforts to boost their credit totals as high as they can. I get in line behind a tall, lanky boy with reddish-brown hair that sticks up in the back. He looks a few years older than I am, but I know I recognize him from somewhere. E-something, I think. His name definitely starts with an E.
A tired-looking woman with dirty blond hair loosely braided down her back approaches the drop-off station, which is set up right outside the recycling center doors. She begins to empty her bag out on the table, though since I’m stuck behind Something-That-Begins-with-E, I can’t quite see its contents. I can, however, hear the pathetic clink as each item hits the metal tabletop.
The Collection Agent purses her lips as she pokes the items with her white-gloved hands, then holds her computer tablet over the collection to scan them. She prods at the screen for a minute before looking up.
“Total: 37 credits,” she announces curtly, sweeping the items into a bin that hangs off the edge of the desk. I well up with sympathy immediately. It’s barely enough to make it by between Collections.
The blond woman doesn’t move. She mumbles something feebly to the attendant. The agent stares vacantly, her right eyebrow raised, while the woman speaks. After a moment, she gives a small but distinct shake of her head. I don’t know what the question was, but the answer is very evident. The woman bows her head low as she’s ushered off by a guardsman.
