What type of events have the High Rulers been hiding from their people?
“Shocking isn’t it?” Quin says from behind me.
“What happened here?”
“No one knows for sure,” he says as he sits in the other chair. “Any records of the event would have been altered by the High Rulers and those who survived are long dead. We are only left with decaying reminders of those who once were. This is the true Wasteland.”
We sit and watch the land as it goes by. I’m beginning to understand why they use imaginary landscapes, who would want to see this day after day? The shuttle approaches a long range of mountains capped with snow. We enter a tunnel and are thrown into darkness. This lasts only moments as we exit out the other side into a landscape similarly scarred and desolate. I’ve had my fill and leave, Quin following behind me.
We reenter the cargo hold and break open one of the crates holding crackers and nuts. It’s not much, but it’s easy to pilfer. We eat only enough to sustain us until we reach Acheron. Quin and I find nooks in which to conceal ourselves. He falls right to sleep, but I can’t get comfortable, as the air is too stale and warm. I crawl out from my space and retreat to the passenger level and into one of the private bedrooms, where I plop myself down on the firm mattress and drift into oblivion.
Bodies lay scattered across the once pure granite floors, some burned beyond recognition, others in pools of their own blood. The walls begin to crack from the heat, but the woman keeps running.
Cool, fresh air hits our faces as we reach the outside. The building we exit is at the edge of a large pool that sits in the center of the complex. We move farther away from the building as the structure begins to collapse. The night sky is alight with fire, ash flakes float down from a cloudless sky.
The forward motion has stopped. My eyes fly open as I hear voices moving down the aisle towards my direction. I can’t make out what they are saying, but the tone being used suggests they are Regulators.
The handler at Oasis Two said they would be boarding, but only to check the cargo, so why would they be up here on the passenger level?
The voices are just outside the door, moving towards the front of the shuttle. I let out my breath slowly, not realizing I’d been holding it. I wait for several minutes until I hear their footsteps retreating, then get up quietly and move over to the door, pressing my ear against it.
“All set?”
“Set.”
They retreat further down the shuttle.
When I can’t hear them any longer, I slowly open the door and peer out, staying low to the floor. No one is in sight. I open the door wider, leaning farther out. The aisle is empty as the shuttle begins moving again. I close the door and make my way back to the cargo area. I don’t go more than two steps before noticing something flashing above my head. The object attached to the wall is about two feet above the windows.
My heart begins to race as I look around to see if there are any more similar items, which there are, about every five feet. I race back towards the ladder, counting the number of devices. There are forty blinking detonators, which means there have to be more than two hundred, covering the entire top deck of the shuttle.
“Quin,” I shout before my feet even hit the floor of the cargo area. “Quin!”
He emerges from behind a stack of crates, looking puzzled.
“We have to get out of here,” I say, as I frantically begin looking for the door that we entered through.
“We’ll be in Acheron in ten minutes,” Quin says, as he struggles to extract his rucksack, caught on the edge of a crate.
“We don’t have ten minutes. The entire top floor is rigged with detonators, we need to go now.” I find the door behind a crate that must have slid in transit. Shoving it away, I yank on the handle, but it doesn’t give.
“It’s pressure-sealed,” Quin utters, as he slings his now freed rucksack over his shoulder. “We’re moving too fast, there’s no way for us to get off.”
The shuttle jerks violently before coming to a complete stop as the first round of explosions go off. Crates topple onto us as we are thrown to the ground. Quin removes them as another set go off. We are at the back of the shuttle, so we only have a matter of moments before the set over our heads detonates. Quin grabs the Levin gun and shoots the handle on the door. We push the door open, nearly falling out of it. I thought we would be on the ground like the shuttles are in Tyre, but we’re at least a hundred feet above a body of water.
“Now what, Meg?”
“We have to jump.”
“Are you nuts? The fall will kill us!”
“We don’t have any choice,” I scream, as another round of explosions shake the cars. The air outside the door is acrid, large plumes of smoke pass by. I lean out the door to see where we are in comparison to the last set of detonators. “There is only one more section to go before we blow.”
We’re halfway out when the detonators go off. I
