Slicing sounds fill my ear. I glance up to find a pair of drones hovering above our heads, and I turn to Vitelotte. “We need to land.”
She offers me a grim nod.
Nothingness surrounds us, and the sun setting over distant mountains acts as our sole landmark. Wind batters the exposed skin of my face and hands, carrying the faint scent of juniper and pine. I can’t bear to look down. Down is an unfathomable drop that will send my consciousness spinning like an out-of-control sycamore seed. I don’t want to turn back, either, because seeing those ligers once was enough.
If the production people met our silent resistance with wild animals, there’s no telling what they will do if we defy them again. The only way out of this is down.
Sucking in a deep, calming breath through my nostrils, I try to block out Emmera’s sobs. With no training in how to use these gliders, we can’t afford for them to run out of fuel. And if they’re solar powered with no battery, the imminent dusk will mean our deaths.
Now that the beat of my pulse no longer fills my ears, I can finally hear the wind blowing past the hood’s fabric, and I finally understand why we needed these garments. What would happen if we pushed our weight to the front? Would we swoop down or would we plummet? It’s better than waiting for the gliders to stop working.
“Has anyone ever used one of these devices before?” I shout over the wind.
Vitelotte shakes her head.
“Yes,” shouts Emmera, but it sounds more like a sob.
“When?” I shout back.
“One of…” she hiccups. “One of the guards brought a glider to the village. He wanted to teach me.”
I push back any speculations about the guard having ulterior motives and focus on the gliders. “What did he say?”
“I only rode behind him,” she says with another sob. “Never on my own.”
Impatience prickles across my skin as she’s just invalidated her claim that my extra weight would sink them. “Emmera, close your eyes and try to remember.”
She nods but remains silent.
I turn to Vitelotte. “What do you think would happen if we put our weight to the front?”
“A forward somersault?” she replies.
My stomach clenches with anxiety. I was afraid she would say that. For the next few minutes, Vitelotte shouts commands at the board, but it continues floating through the air and toward the setting sun. I glance at Emmera, whose features look too contorted with panic to indicate that she’s capable of remembering what the guard said about the glider.
With each passing moment, the pounding of my pulse intensifies until my head is filled with its reverberations.
“The strap,” shouts Emmera.
“What?” we both shout back.
Emmera’s breaths are so fast and frantic that her spine bows with every exhale. Now that she’s stopped struggling and trying to jostle me off her board, I can see she was acting out of panic.
“Raise the toes of your left foot to go down, she says. “Right to go up.”
“Alright,” shouts Vitelotte.
Two more drones join the pair above us, but one dives several feet out of sight. A fresh bout of panic lances through my chest, and a premonition flashes before my eyes. It’s of the girls dropping at different rates and me tumbling through the sky. That’s why the drone is positioning itself—to catch footage of my fall.
“Wait!” The word bursts from my lips.
Emmera yanks her arm free. “What?”
“Coordinate.” I snatch her wrist. “You two need to raise your feet at the same time.”
Vitelotte nods, but Emmera’s lack of movement tells me that my death isn’t a huge factor in her decision-making. The gliders’ engines rumble under both feet at differing speeds, sending tremors through my bones. If I can’t get them to work together, I’m as good as dead.
“Right, then.” I try to keep the tremble out of my voice. “Let’s show the viewers at home some Harvester teamwork.”
“On your count,” says Vitelotte.
I tighten my grip on both wrists, inhale another deep breath, and clench my abdominal muscles. “Ready, steady, go.”
A second later, both boards, along with my stomach, plummet. One of them is descending faster than the other, and they’re moving further apart. I yelp, but the screams of the other two girls drown out the sound.
“Stop!” I yell over their screams.
When they stop, Emmera floats three feet from Vitelotte’s left, and I’m bent forward at an angle with my arms feeling half-wrenched from their sockets. My left foot can barely feel Emmera’s glider and all my weight balances on the muscles of my bent right leg. Spasms ripple through my heart, and cold sweat drenches my jumpsuit. This isn’t going to work.
I turn to Vitelotte and instruct her to ease her board down. When she’s level with Emmera, her stricken eyes meet mine. The only way I’ll get through this alive is by riding behind one girl, but there’s no telling if the production assistants have tampered with the gliders’ ability to hold the weight of two.
Whirring from the drone pointing a camera at my face tells me it’s taking a close-up. The other two draw back, presumably to get a comedic shot of my awkward angle. Now isn’t the time for me to wonder how they’ll present this footage on the Lifestyle Channel, but my mind can’t help drifting to how I’m the new Gemini Pixel, set up for extraordinary punishments and a spectacular death.
Emmera is the first to speak. “You should have stayed with those ligers. What if they were androids?”
I purse my lips, exhale my anger in ragged breaths, and force myself not to snap.
Vitelotte lowers her glider a couple of feet and squeezes my wrist. “I’m the smallest, and you’re thin. Ride with me.”
Gratitude floods my heart. Emmera doesn’t object to the implication that she’s the largest, but I think
