Broken sky, p.20
Broken Sky, page 20
Encouraged by Niels’ confidence that Sarah was safe, Jack was actually looking forward to continuing the journey. It wasn’t until they’d left the island that he realized Niels had referred to Uncle Charles as their grandfather. And so had Aunt Grace. He was wondering about this when the sense of familiarity he’d been feeling since yesterday faded.
As Anders piloted the boat across the lake, Jack became certain that he hadn’t imagined it—they were at the same distance where he’d felt it yesterday. Just like the cave, he knew he’d never been here before either. Does Niels feel the same sense of connection? Is that why hasn’t left the island in twenty years?
“Sir,” Jack said. “Last night you said Niels had the island specially created for him.”
“That’s right. Had it blasted out with an asteroid.” Anders watched for their reaction and got the response he expected.
“What?” Ethan exclaimed. “That’s insane.”
Jack understood now why the lake was perfectly round. He knew from school that Cirrus’ crust was less than two miles thick and partially constructed from asteroids and comets. “I don’t remember reading anything about that in history class.”
“They covered it up. Some say it was a miscalculation, that the asteroid was denser than expected. I’m not so sure.”
“It was deliberate?” Ethan asked.
“The impact was planned, but the crater went much deeper than predicted, right down to the core. It even affected the gravity generators in the area—snapped some of the lines.”
“Why plan to hit it with something so big at all?”
“Cirrus will never have earthquakes. There were a lot of cliffs in the rim that were even taller than they are now. The shock wave traveled around the ring seven times and caused thousands of slides. So, the mountains are safer now, more settled because of the impact. And Niels got his island. The lake is deeper than expected, that’s all.”
-- -- --
If Jack still had doubts about Niels’ friends, they’d have evaporated soon after reaching the shore. He passed a collection of single-room shacks on the hike to the now-restored car shelter. They’d been built mostly from branches, tarps, and warped plastic panels. These people were clearly not part of the group hiding weapons and tools outside of Fairview. The huts had been invisible last night, and he guessed the trees would hide them from passing drones in daytime too.
Ethan grabbed the handlebars of a motorcycle leaning against the shelter and tilted it, testing its balance. “This wasn’t here last night.”
“It’s Terrance’s,” Anders said, as if it were obvious who the powerful machine belonged to.
“Can we look at your GPS for a few minutes?” Jack asked.
“Sure.” Anders led them to his truck. “I’m sorry I can’t let you borrow it. I’ve got to travel on the highways tomorrow.” He left them to study the map.
“It looks like we have to follow the rivers.” Ethan swiped and tapped the screen. “There’s a service road on the north side of the forest that will take us there. All the other roads are controlled. You ready to go?”
“Just a minute. I want to check something.”
Jack scrolled the map to the intersection east of Fairview. A yellow triangle indicated a traffic advisory—the crash site was still being cleaned up. He was about to get out of Anders’ vehicle when another thought occurred to him. He swiped over to the Vault.
“What are you looking for?”
“It’s not there.” Jack tapped the screen. “The route we drove through the Spine. Look.”
Ethan took over. He zoomed and panned but found nothing. “What does that mean? We both saw it yesterday.”
“I’m not sure.” Jack glanced at the group of people chatting by the shacks. “But I don’t think we’re getting the whole story.”
Anders returned and described for them a shorter route out of the forest, one too insignificant to show up on the map. Ethan would need to drive slower, but it would save them an hour of backtracking.
Ethan shook Anders' hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”
Jack extended his hand and added, “I hope we’ll meet again. Did you say you’re not leaving until tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Anders said gruffly. “I’ll stay another night and keep the old man company.” He grinned. “Someone has to make sure he doesn’t build himself a portal and skip town again.”
Chapter Thirty
Danny arrived in Caerton before dawn. But instead of traveling by train to Port Isaac as instructed by Pieter—to search for Jack—he stayed in the city. He made his way to the noisy workshop at the back of UV Mobile.
As per his orders, the shipping crate had been left on a table. He lifted it to expose the sphere and inserted an H-shaped key. The safe’s upper shell rose on four metal pistons. A thin cloud of bluish dust—all that remained of his cargo from Earth—spread from the gap.
He roared and hurled the sphere, then overturned the table, smashing it into a tall rack. A section of steel pipe wobbled on the top shelf, then rolled for the edge.
The girl.
The drones had been a deliberate taunt, he thought. Whoever this Traveller was, they wanted him to find the electronic spies at the camp. It would have been simple to delete the footage of the destruction of the drone that had found Jack, but they’d left that too. It had all been too easy—someone was leading him to the girl. She couldn’t possibly be the one behind the scheme, but someone wanted him to think so.
He had less than a day to find the answers, and few options. She’s connected somehow. And if they want me to find her, then that’s what I’ll do.
The heavy chunk of pipe rolled silently off the shelf and plummeted toward Danny’s head. He couldn’t see as far into the future as Pieter could, but his talent was more precise. He stepped aside from the deadly projectile with half a second to spare and left the room without looking back.
-- -- --
After so much time driving, Jack’s seat was as painfully familiar as it was comfortably restrictive. Like the all-terrain-vehicle itself, Dave’s seats had been designed for rough roads. That meant there were no lumps, angles, or pinch-points for Ethan to complain about. That didn’t stop him though.
“If we follow the rivers to approach Caerton from the west, how long will that take?”
Jack guessed. “Eight hours at least.”
“But if we use the grain roads, we should get there in three, right?”
“Not without a transponder. The roads here are the same as the others—one lane wide and the distance between pullouts is much too long. But we don’t have to rush; our parents got away. They’re safe.”
“I know. I’m just sick of driving.”
“I’ll take over.”
“Not that sick.”
-- -- --
The aviary was a noisy place at dawn. Thousands of birds flitted and splashed, chorused and chittered through their morning meals. Danny strode the net-covered boardwalk that cut through the heart of the complex, paused briefly at a chain link gate to extract a slim, powered crowbar from his jacket pocket, then broke the lock and entered the administration building unnoticed.
He found the records office. The only staff working at this hour were outdoors—he wouldn’t be disturbed. His contractors had already hacked and searched their server and determined that no regular staff member fit the girl’s profile. Pieter had already worked out that she was Jack’s age, but all the regular employees were over thirty. That meant she was a volunteer. Unpaid. An intern. Danny opened a folder on the Human Resources Manager’s workstation and found the file easily.
Tracking an unknown person was difficult. Now that he had an ID, the job would be much easier. He texted a name to Eyes:
Danny checked the time. He still had to put in an appearance in Port Isaac to satisfy Pieter.
An hour there by train, an hour to take care of business, and an hour back.
He’d thought about ignoring Pieter’s order, but that would leave traces. With less than twenty-four hours to go, now was not the time to take chances. He left the aviary and headed for the train station.
-- -- --
The sun was only just coming over the horizon when Ethan drove out of the trees. The transition was abrupt; one moment they were driving past a pitch-black crag Anders said marked the edge of the thick forest, the next they were bumping through a field of tall grass. Drones had planted the forest decades ago, resulting in long, perfectly straight borders. There were only a few smaller trees in the field, naturally seeded by the wind or animals.
Ethan stopped Dave at the end of the dirt track, near a three-way intersection. The grain road traveled east; their route went north. “Last chance.”
Jack shook his head. “It’ll be safest to head north and follow the river. We can take breaks if we need to. Either they think we’re stuck without power, in which case they’ll be searching for us on the other side of the Spine; or they think we got a ride with someone, and we could be anywhere in the sector.”
Ethan pointed down the road, where a cloud of dust was rising in the south. “I hope those are just farm vehicles.”
“I’m sure they are.”
“Then I’ll wait until they turn. I don’t want to be caught in front of a convoy if it goes straight through for some reason.”
A minute later, a pair of grain carriers slowed for the intersection and turned east. Both cabs were empty. The giant vehicles sped up the grain road, raising another dust cloud.
“Okay,” Jack said, “let’s go.”
Ethan shot out of the field, straight across the intersection, into the churning haze.
“Wait, where are you going? You were supposed to go north.” This was no time for one of Ethan’s stunts, Jack thought as he clutched the grab handle mounted below the roof rack.
“Look.” Ethan pointed south again.
A hundred feet above the road, a large black drone with stubby wings was approaching. The wings were set in their vertical position—for slow flight or hovering—instead of horizontal for high-speed pursuit. Jack couldn’t see it clearly through the dust, but the aircraft was the same size as the one he’d seen at the basin.
“That’s no farming drone,” Ethan shouted.
Jack spun in his seat, scanning for cover. “We need to get back to the forest.” The closest trees were too sparse.
“It’s too far. I have a plan.” The carriers had a lead, but Dave could accelerate faster. Ethan swerved alongside the second vehicle.
“Getting us killed is not a good plan.” Jack gripped the handle tighter.
“We’re going to hide in plain sight.”
The road ahead narrowed to a single lane. It would be a tight race. Jack swiveled to watch the drone. Is anyone watching the video in real time? The moving grain haulers would certainly trigger an alert. “It’s almost to the intersection.”
Only yards before the second lane ended, Ethan swerved violently in between the carriers, enveloping Dave in a cloud of dust. “Is it following us?” He was too busy concentrating on the distance to the lead vehicle to look around.
“I can’t see anything. The dust is too thick.”
“Wait a second.” Ethan sped up again. He drew to within two feet of the carrier, in a pocket of clear air.
Jack glanced ahead. “If that brakes, we’re done for.”
“I’ll worry about that. Where’s the drone?”
A few seconds passed before Jack spotted the drone through the churning dust. It was continuing north, following the service road that bordered the forest.
“We’re safe.” Jack faced the lead grain carrier again. Its high tailgate loomed twelve feet above them. “Or maybe not.”
-- -- --
Over the next two hours, Ethan shadowed a variety of northbound vehicles. As Dave had done, he frequently braked and swerved into pullouts to avoid oncoming traffic. Eventually, they stopped behind a line of semis waiting at an intersection.
“Don’t follow.” Jack pointed to a bridge on a side road. “I remember that river from the map. Turn right.”
Ethan reclined his seat and drove with only one hand on the wheel. “I’m beat. I didn’t know driving would be so hard.”
“For future reference, that’s not how you’re supposed to do it.” Jack shook his hands to relieve the fatigue caused by repeatedly gripping the dashboard. “But it saved us at least five hours. Caerton’s on the other side of this forest.”
The cousins traded places for the final stretch. They encountered other vehicles in the woods, mostly small two-seaters like their own. After two days on dirt tracks and gravel roads, theirs was easily the dirtiest vehicle around. They were themselves almost as dusty. Jack gave a friendly wave whenever he passed another car, and no one paid them further attention.
Emerging from the forest, they found themselves on the outskirts of Caerton, on the lip of a crescent-shaped plateau that bordered the northern half of the city. Their viewpoint overlooked rows of vertical farming greenhouses. The structures were identical to those in Port Isaac, except there were many more of them.
Caerton was also much farther inland than Port Isaac. The rim mountains were too far away to see, but they still influenced the local environment. Between the city and the rim, an enormous lake collected fresh water that melted from the glaciers. The river that drained the lake cut a steep ravine through the plateau and ran through the city itself, east of the downtown core.
“Where does Uncle Carl live?” Ethan asked.
Jack pointed to the cluster of massive towers in the city’s center, many of which were over a thousand feet tall. “Right downtown, within walking distance of the train station.”
“Finally. We’re only about ten miles away.”
“The building we’re looking for is called the Magnolia, but I don’t know the address. We’ll have to find the station and work our way out from there.”
“That doesn’t sound difficult.”
“It’s not.” Then Jack slumped in his seat. “But I just remembered; Dave doesn’t have a permit for Caerton. And I don’t have a driver’s license anyway.”
“I thought you said you had one. Isn’t the age lower here?”
“It is. And I’ve got an off-road permit now. But you still have to be nineteen to drive in the cities.”
“What about buses?”
“I don’t know if we can use our IDs safely. CorpSec might be able to track them.”
Ethan considered the distant towers. “So, we walk?”
“We can drive to the end of the greenhouses. That’ll save us an hour.”
Jack drove to where the paved roads started once again, then pulled over and parked on the grass next to one of the tall, glass-walled structures. “This is as far as we can go.”
Once past the greenhouses, Caerton resembled Fairview in that its buildings grew taller toward the center. They’d begin their journey walking through miles of brownstones and four-story apartment blocks, and end up navigating canyons of glass, concrete, and steel. But they’d gone just half a block when Jack stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked.
“I know where we are.”
“About two hours from downtown?” Ethan trudged on.
“No, this is where Sarah lives.” A large park and soccer field separated the greenhouses from a cluster of townhouses. “Let’s cut through here. I think I can find her street.”
“Any chance her parents have a car?”
“Not likely. But we can at least get a map and not waste time getting lost.”
Jack remembered the street name. He soon found the correct address and recognized the building—a three-story structure with dormer windows on its steeply sloped roof. Sarah’s room occupied the top floor of a narrow unit in the center of the block. He walked to the door and rang the bell.
Ethan waited behind Jack, glancing nervously at the street. A few seconds later, a woman in a CorpSec officer’s uniform opened the door.
“Jack Scatter.” She’d seemed surprised, but now smiled. “I was wondering when we’d meet.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“Come in, Jack.” The uniformed woman stepped back and opened the door wider.
Jack was about to turn and run, fearing CorpSec had finally caught them, when the woman added, “You’re at the right house. I’m Sarah’s mother. I recognize you from the photos on her phone.” She’d misread his expression as confusion.
“Who is it, Mom?” Sarah stepped into view from the stairwell, then stopped in surprise when she saw Jack.
“You didn’t tell me you were expecting friends from out of town.”
“Uh …” If Jack had been able to look away from the woman, he might have noticed Sarah blushing. “We came on really short notice.”
Ethan was also trying not to stare at her uniform. “Actually, we’re just passing through. We’re, uh, working for our uncle’s company outside of town. He dropped us off at the worksite this morning, then we found we had left our ID and phones at his apartment. We’re staying at his place.”
“Oh.” Sarah brightened. “Where does he live?”
Jack was grateful for Ethan’s quick thinking. “His building is called the Magnolia.”
“I know it. It’s right in the center of town. Jada’s family runs the restaurant on the roof. You can borrow my phone.”
“Thanks.” Jack relaxed, believing Mrs. Rogers only recognized him from one of Sarah’s photos, but he still had to come up with a convincing story. “The rest of the crew has gone farther out of town. They won’t be back until tonight.” He slapped his shirt sleeve, raising a cloud of dust. “Can we borrow a bus pass?”
“Sorry, boys,” Mrs. Rogers said. “You’ll need your IDs.” Her voice held a tone of authority, as if she was used to explaining the rules. Her phone beeped just then and she tapped the screen. “And I’ve got to get to work.” She gestured with her phone. “The shuttle will be by in one minute. You can’t even ride that without ID.”
“I can borrow bikes from the neighbors,” Sarah said. “I’ll ride downtown with you.”
As Anders piloted the boat across the lake, Jack became certain that he hadn’t imagined it—they were at the same distance where he’d felt it yesterday. Just like the cave, he knew he’d never been here before either. Does Niels feel the same sense of connection? Is that why hasn’t left the island in twenty years?
“Sir,” Jack said. “Last night you said Niels had the island specially created for him.”
“That’s right. Had it blasted out with an asteroid.” Anders watched for their reaction and got the response he expected.
“What?” Ethan exclaimed. “That’s insane.”
Jack understood now why the lake was perfectly round. He knew from school that Cirrus’ crust was less than two miles thick and partially constructed from asteroids and comets. “I don’t remember reading anything about that in history class.”
“They covered it up. Some say it was a miscalculation, that the asteroid was denser than expected. I’m not so sure.”
“It was deliberate?” Ethan asked.
“The impact was planned, but the crater went much deeper than predicted, right down to the core. It even affected the gravity generators in the area—snapped some of the lines.”
“Why plan to hit it with something so big at all?”
“Cirrus will never have earthquakes. There were a lot of cliffs in the rim that were even taller than they are now. The shock wave traveled around the ring seven times and caused thousands of slides. So, the mountains are safer now, more settled because of the impact. And Niels got his island. The lake is deeper than expected, that’s all.”
-- -- --
If Jack still had doubts about Niels’ friends, they’d have evaporated soon after reaching the shore. He passed a collection of single-room shacks on the hike to the now-restored car shelter. They’d been built mostly from branches, tarps, and warped plastic panels. These people were clearly not part of the group hiding weapons and tools outside of Fairview. The huts had been invisible last night, and he guessed the trees would hide them from passing drones in daytime too.
Ethan grabbed the handlebars of a motorcycle leaning against the shelter and tilted it, testing its balance. “This wasn’t here last night.”
“It’s Terrance’s,” Anders said, as if it were obvious who the powerful machine belonged to.
“Can we look at your GPS for a few minutes?” Jack asked.
“Sure.” Anders led them to his truck. “I’m sorry I can’t let you borrow it. I’ve got to travel on the highways tomorrow.” He left them to study the map.
“It looks like we have to follow the rivers.” Ethan swiped and tapped the screen. “There’s a service road on the north side of the forest that will take us there. All the other roads are controlled. You ready to go?”
“Just a minute. I want to check something.”
Jack scrolled the map to the intersection east of Fairview. A yellow triangle indicated a traffic advisory—the crash site was still being cleaned up. He was about to get out of Anders’ vehicle when another thought occurred to him. He swiped over to the Vault.
“What are you looking for?”
“It’s not there.” Jack tapped the screen. “The route we drove through the Spine. Look.”
Ethan took over. He zoomed and panned but found nothing. “What does that mean? We both saw it yesterday.”
“I’m not sure.” Jack glanced at the group of people chatting by the shacks. “But I don’t think we’re getting the whole story.”
Anders returned and described for them a shorter route out of the forest, one too insignificant to show up on the map. Ethan would need to drive slower, but it would save them an hour of backtracking.
Ethan shook Anders' hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”
Jack extended his hand and added, “I hope we’ll meet again. Did you say you’re not leaving until tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Anders said gruffly. “I’ll stay another night and keep the old man company.” He grinned. “Someone has to make sure he doesn’t build himself a portal and skip town again.”
Chapter Thirty
Danny arrived in Caerton before dawn. But instead of traveling by train to Port Isaac as instructed by Pieter—to search for Jack—he stayed in the city. He made his way to the noisy workshop at the back of UV Mobile.
As per his orders, the shipping crate had been left on a table. He lifted it to expose the sphere and inserted an H-shaped key. The safe’s upper shell rose on four metal pistons. A thin cloud of bluish dust—all that remained of his cargo from Earth—spread from the gap.
He roared and hurled the sphere, then overturned the table, smashing it into a tall rack. A section of steel pipe wobbled on the top shelf, then rolled for the edge.
The girl.
The drones had been a deliberate taunt, he thought. Whoever this Traveller was, they wanted him to find the electronic spies at the camp. It would have been simple to delete the footage of the destruction of the drone that had found Jack, but they’d left that too. It had all been too easy—someone was leading him to the girl. She couldn’t possibly be the one behind the scheme, but someone wanted him to think so.
He had less than a day to find the answers, and few options. She’s connected somehow. And if they want me to find her, then that’s what I’ll do.
The heavy chunk of pipe rolled silently off the shelf and plummeted toward Danny’s head. He couldn’t see as far into the future as Pieter could, but his talent was more precise. He stepped aside from the deadly projectile with half a second to spare and left the room without looking back.
-- -- --
After so much time driving, Jack’s seat was as painfully familiar as it was comfortably restrictive. Like the all-terrain-vehicle itself, Dave’s seats had been designed for rough roads. That meant there were no lumps, angles, or pinch-points for Ethan to complain about. That didn’t stop him though.
“If we follow the rivers to approach Caerton from the west, how long will that take?”
Jack guessed. “Eight hours at least.”
“But if we use the grain roads, we should get there in three, right?”
“Not without a transponder. The roads here are the same as the others—one lane wide and the distance between pullouts is much too long. But we don’t have to rush; our parents got away. They’re safe.”
“I know. I’m just sick of driving.”
“I’ll take over.”
“Not that sick.”
-- -- --
The aviary was a noisy place at dawn. Thousands of birds flitted and splashed, chorused and chittered through their morning meals. Danny strode the net-covered boardwalk that cut through the heart of the complex, paused briefly at a chain link gate to extract a slim, powered crowbar from his jacket pocket, then broke the lock and entered the administration building unnoticed.
He found the records office. The only staff working at this hour were outdoors—he wouldn’t be disturbed. His contractors had already hacked and searched their server and determined that no regular staff member fit the girl’s profile. Pieter had already worked out that she was Jack’s age, but all the regular employees were over thirty. That meant she was a volunteer. Unpaid. An intern. Danny opened a folder on the Human Resources Manager’s workstation and found the file easily.
Tracking an unknown person was difficult. Now that he had an ID, the job would be much easier. He texted a name to Eyes:
Danny checked the time. He still had to put in an appearance in Port Isaac to satisfy Pieter.
An hour there by train, an hour to take care of business, and an hour back.
He’d thought about ignoring Pieter’s order, but that would leave traces. With less than twenty-four hours to go, now was not the time to take chances. He left the aviary and headed for the train station.
-- -- --
The sun was only just coming over the horizon when Ethan drove out of the trees. The transition was abrupt; one moment they were driving past a pitch-black crag Anders said marked the edge of the thick forest, the next they were bumping through a field of tall grass. Drones had planted the forest decades ago, resulting in long, perfectly straight borders. There were only a few smaller trees in the field, naturally seeded by the wind or animals.
Ethan stopped Dave at the end of the dirt track, near a three-way intersection. The grain road traveled east; their route went north. “Last chance.”
Jack shook his head. “It’ll be safest to head north and follow the river. We can take breaks if we need to. Either they think we’re stuck without power, in which case they’ll be searching for us on the other side of the Spine; or they think we got a ride with someone, and we could be anywhere in the sector.”
Ethan pointed down the road, where a cloud of dust was rising in the south. “I hope those are just farm vehicles.”
“I’m sure they are.”
“Then I’ll wait until they turn. I don’t want to be caught in front of a convoy if it goes straight through for some reason.”
A minute later, a pair of grain carriers slowed for the intersection and turned east. Both cabs were empty. The giant vehicles sped up the grain road, raising another dust cloud.
“Okay,” Jack said, “let’s go.”
Ethan shot out of the field, straight across the intersection, into the churning haze.
“Wait, where are you going? You were supposed to go north.” This was no time for one of Ethan’s stunts, Jack thought as he clutched the grab handle mounted below the roof rack.
“Look.” Ethan pointed south again.
A hundred feet above the road, a large black drone with stubby wings was approaching. The wings were set in their vertical position—for slow flight or hovering—instead of horizontal for high-speed pursuit. Jack couldn’t see it clearly through the dust, but the aircraft was the same size as the one he’d seen at the basin.
“That’s no farming drone,” Ethan shouted.
Jack spun in his seat, scanning for cover. “We need to get back to the forest.” The closest trees were too sparse.
“It’s too far. I have a plan.” The carriers had a lead, but Dave could accelerate faster. Ethan swerved alongside the second vehicle.
“Getting us killed is not a good plan.” Jack gripped the handle tighter.
“We’re going to hide in plain sight.”
The road ahead narrowed to a single lane. It would be a tight race. Jack swiveled to watch the drone. Is anyone watching the video in real time? The moving grain haulers would certainly trigger an alert. “It’s almost to the intersection.”
Only yards before the second lane ended, Ethan swerved violently in between the carriers, enveloping Dave in a cloud of dust. “Is it following us?” He was too busy concentrating on the distance to the lead vehicle to look around.
“I can’t see anything. The dust is too thick.”
“Wait a second.” Ethan sped up again. He drew to within two feet of the carrier, in a pocket of clear air.
Jack glanced ahead. “If that brakes, we’re done for.”
“I’ll worry about that. Where’s the drone?”
A few seconds passed before Jack spotted the drone through the churning dust. It was continuing north, following the service road that bordered the forest.
“We’re safe.” Jack faced the lead grain carrier again. Its high tailgate loomed twelve feet above them. “Or maybe not.”
-- -- --
Over the next two hours, Ethan shadowed a variety of northbound vehicles. As Dave had done, he frequently braked and swerved into pullouts to avoid oncoming traffic. Eventually, they stopped behind a line of semis waiting at an intersection.
“Don’t follow.” Jack pointed to a bridge on a side road. “I remember that river from the map. Turn right.”
Ethan reclined his seat and drove with only one hand on the wheel. “I’m beat. I didn’t know driving would be so hard.”
“For future reference, that’s not how you’re supposed to do it.” Jack shook his hands to relieve the fatigue caused by repeatedly gripping the dashboard. “But it saved us at least five hours. Caerton’s on the other side of this forest.”
The cousins traded places for the final stretch. They encountered other vehicles in the woods, mostly small two-seaters like their own. After two days on dirt tracks and gravel roads, theirs was easily the dirtiest vehicle around. They were themselves almost as dusty. Jack gave a friendly wave whenever he passed another car, and no one paid them further attention.
Emerging from the forest, they found themselves on the outskirts of Caerton, on the lip of a crescent-shaped plateau that bordered the northern half of the city. Their viewpoint overlooked rows of vertical farming greenhouses. The structures were identical to those in Port Isaac, except there were many more of them.
Caerton was also much farther inland than Port Isaac. The rim mountains were too far away to see, but they still influenced the local environment. Between the city and the rim, an enormous lake collected fresh water that melted from the glaciers. The river that drained the lake cut a steep ravine through the plateau and ran through the city itself, east of the downtown core.
“Where does Uncle Carl live?” Ethan asked.
Jack pointed to the cluster of massive towers in the city’s center, many of which were over a thousand feet tall. “Right downtown, within walking distance of the train station.”
“Finally. We’re only about ten miles away.”
“The building we’re looking for is called the Magnolia, but I don’t know the address. We’ll have to find the station and work our way out from there.”
“That doesn’t sound difficult.”
“It’s not.” Then Jack slumped in his seat. “But I just remembered; Dave doesn’t have a permit for Caerton. And I don’t have a driver’s license anyway.”
“I thought you said you had one. Isn’t the age lower here?”
“It is. And I’ve got an off-road permit now. But you still have to be nineteen to drive in the cities.”
“What about buses?”
“I don’t know if we can use our IDs safely. CorpSec might be able to track them.”
Ethan considered the distant towers. “So, we walk?”
“We can drive to the end of the greenhouses. That’ll save us an hour.”
Jack drove to where the paved roads started once again, then pulled over and parked on the grass next to one of the tall, glass-walled structures. “This is as far as we can go.”
Once past the greenhouses, Caerton resembled Fairview in that its buildings grew taller toward the center. They’d begin their journey walking through miles of brownstones and four-story apartment blocks, and end up navigating canyons of glass, concrete, and steel. But they’d gone just half a block when Jack stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked.
“I know where we are.”
“About two hours from downtown?” Ethan trudged on.
“No, this is where Sarah lives.” A large park and soccer field separated the greenhouses from a cluster of townhouses. “Let’s cut through here. I think I can find her street.”
“Any chance her parents have a car?”
“Not likely. But we can at least get a map and not waste time getting lost.”
Jack remembered the street name. He soon found the correct address and recognized the building—a three-story structure with dormer windows on its steeply sloped roof. Sarah’s room occupied the top floor of a narrow unit in the center of the block. He walked to the door and rang the bell.
Ethan waited behind Jack, glancing nervously at the street. A few seconds later, a woman in a CorpSec officer’s uniform opened the door.
“Jack Scatter.” She’d seemed surprised, but now smiled. “I was wondering when we’d meet.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“Come in, Jack.” The uniformed woman stepped back and opened the door wider.
Jack was about to turn and run, fearing CorpSec had finally caught them, when the woman added, “You’re at the right house. I’m Sarah’s mother. I recognize you from the photos on her phone.” She’d misread his expression as confusion.
“Who is it, Mom?” Sarah stepped into view from the stairwell, then stopped in surprise when she saw Jack.
“You didn’t tell me you were expecting friends from out of town.”
“Uh …” If Jack had been able to look away from the woman, he might have noticed Sarah blushing. “We came on really short notice.”
Ethan was also trying not to stare at her uniform. “Actually, we’re just passing through. We’re, uh, working for our uncle’s company outside of town. He dropped us off at the worksite this morning, then we found we had left our ID and phones at his apartment. We’re staying at his place.”
“Oh.” Sarah brightened. “Where does he live?”
Jack was grateful for Ethan’s quick thinking. “His building is called the Magnolia.”
“I know it. It’s right in the center of town. Jada’s family runs the restaurant on the roof. You can borrow my phone.”
“Thanks.” Jack relaxed, believing Mrs. Rogers only recognized him from one of Sarah’s photos, but he still had to come up with a convincing story. “The rest of the crew has gone farther out of town. They won’t be back until tonight.” He slapped his shirt sleeve, raising a cloud of dust. “Can we borrow a bus pass?”
“Sorry, boys,” Mrs. Rogers said. “You’ll need your IDs.” Her voice held a tone of authority, as if she was used to explaining the rules. Her phone beeped just then and she tapped the screen. “And I’ve got to get to work.” She gestured with her phone. “The shuttle will be by in one minute. You can’t even ride that without ID.”
“I can borrow bikes from the neighbors,” Sarah said. “I’ll ride downtown with you.”
