A barrier in Kasey fell. The solution spilled out of her. All of it, including the final piece she’d told no one of. She waited for Actinium’s disgust, his horror. Receiving neither, she barreled on.
“I can help,” she finished, breathless. “But I don’t want to.”
Her confession. Science was impartial to everything and everyone. It either worked or didn’t. It didn’t say who deserved to benefit. The solution existed; therefore, it had to be shared.
“I don’t want to help,” she repeated, more quietly, as lightning flashed in the distance. The storm rumbled in. The rain thundered down.
Actinium was right; the shield ended where they stood. Kasey could almost see the arc of it before her eyes, where the rain passed through less forcefully, misting over them. Nervous, she looked to him, this boy who’d used science for the people’s good. What would he think of her now?
As she waited for a response, a gale swooped in from the sea. Filtered by the shield or not, it felt real. It tugged at Kasey’s clothes, dampened her face. It swept Actinium’s carefully parted hair into his eyes, obscuring his expression. But his voice rang as clear as it had since day one.
“Who said anything about helping?”
||||?||||?||||
MY FIRST THOUGHT IS THAT I’m not dead.
My second is that I’m hanging without a rope halfway down the ridge, clinging to it by a rock, and I’ve almost certainly dislocated my right shoulder and I’m still dead because there’s a long way left to fall and my fingers are slipping and oh Joules, what a shit way to go.
“Strongly disagree.” Pressure—under my left foot, alleviating some of the strain in my arm.
U-me. Her fans whir as she supports me with her head. Whatever she was designed for, it wasn’t this. We’re both going to end up as rubble below if I don’t do something fast.
Think, Cee. My eyes roll from side to side, then down.
The rope.
Part of it is a neon-orange puddle on the ground, but the other part still dangles down the ridge face, no longer tied but caught in the hands of the boy, his figure backlit at the top.
“Tie it!” I’ll take the two of us over if I grab it now. Surely he knows that. “Snap out of it!” I scream when he doesn’t move. “Come on! Be a—”
Acid shoots up my throat.
“—hero!” I choke out.
“Hero,” intones U-me dutifully as rocks tumble out from beneath us, free-falling to the ground with a telltale pock-pock-pock. “A person who is admired or idealized…”
I can’t hear the rest. My vision is spotting and it’s impossible to see the boy’s features, let alone figure out what the hell is going through his mind as he just stands there, rope in hand. Meanwhile, the pressure is back on my fingertips. Pain sizzles white-hot down my arm. This is it. The cords in my neck tense. My lips part for one final shout— —and close when the rope brushes my cheek.
It moves as the boy moves. He’s a blob to me at this point, but I think he’s making tying motions with his hands, and if he’s not, I’m dead anyway, so I seize the rope, pincer my knees, and worm down its length as much as I can before my arms give out.
Sky. Air. Ground.
The impact jettisons the breath out of my lungs.
I don’t know how long I lie there, on my back, before a face eclipses the yellow sun.
The boy’s.
“Cee, can you hear me?” He sounds distant. “What hurts?”
“My shoulder.” And everything else.
The skin on my arm burns as the boy slides up my sweater sleeve. He slips one hand through mine and holds my elbow with the other.
“Okay,” he breathes, almost to himself. “This will hurt before it gets better.”
“What—”
The boy tugs on my arm. Someone screams. I think it’s me. I claw at him—Make the pain stop make it stop—while my muscles flex against the pressure, the tension in my shoulder mounting until it feels maxed out— The ball slides back into the socket.
The boy helps me sit up. When I’m ready to stand, he drapes my good arm over his shoulder and uses his body to support me. Either I’m shaking, or he’s shaking, or we’re both shaking. Our first few steps almost send me sprawling back on the ground.
The rest of the walk is a slow, silent hobble.
Halfway through, U-me suddenly speaks without prompting.
“Hero: a person who is admired or idealized for courage, noun.”
I feel the boy stiffen under my arm.