Blood and Wires

I.

“It’s going to rain soon.”

Thomas Carn was barely able to hear his brother’s words over the howling wind. It buffeted them from all sides as they trudged forward, sweeping unbrokenly across the flat barren landscape. It filled the air with sand and debris, threatening the smallest square of exposed skin with a rash of microabrasions.

There was no such square, though.

The brothers Carn wore the uniforms of post-Flare travelers: leather gloves, boots, chaps and coats to combat the debris and two to three additional layers to combat the frigid air that was not at all helped by the relentless wind. Where Thomas also wore a gas mask to protect both his face and lungs, however, Adam wore only goggles and a kerchief over his mouth and cheeks because, as he’d put it with a shrug, “The imps can still handle basic filtration and dry skin should be the least of our concerns.” He’d laughed then, adding that before the Flare, people had blasted themselves with granules all the time on purpose. “It was called exfoliation,” he’d explained sagely.

Dry skin was a bit of an understatement, though. Where the cloth had slipped or been blown free by the wind, his skin was raw and cracked and constantly on the verge of bleeding.

“What?” Thomas called over the wind.

Adam repeated himself, and Thomas respectfully resisted the urge to roll his eyes even though Adam couldn’t see him. Instead, he glanced up at the night sky without stopping, knowing full well that it would hold no surprises. As always this time of year, it was obscured by dark cirrus clouds that he knew held nothing that would become rain.

“There’s a short in your circuits,” he said, voice muffled by the mask. “It’s been 96 days since we even saw frost. What makes today any different?”

He could hear the smile in Adam’s voice when he spoke: “Today’s day 97.” He paused to adjust his kerchief and then cough. Thomas did stop for that.

“You know,” he said hesitantly, turning to his brother, “we can take turns with the—”

“Are you kidding?” Adam interrupted. “The dust would shred your throat in minutes. Some parts of your body aren’t meant to be exfoliated, you know.”

“And some parts of yours aren’t meant to stand erosion.”

Adam just shook his head and began walking again, eyes fixed on an unblemished horizon that Thomas couldn’t see through the dust in the air. “I’m fine,” he said.

Thomas frowned but fell in step behind his brother. “I wish we’d just get there already,” he muttered to himself. “It can’t be that much further, can it?”

Adam suddenly made a pained sound that was between a groan and screech as he pitched forward to his knees, clutching his head.

“Are you alright?!” Thomas was kneeling at his side in an instant. “What’s wrong?!”

“6.28,” Adam wheezed, voice thin behind the kerchief. Thomas shook his head in confusion, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe despite the gas mask.

“What?”

“6.28,” Adam repeated, sounding stronger this time if slightly winded. “6.28 miles... until Disston.” The kerchief shifted on his face, and Thomas could tell he was smiling.

He stumbled to his feet, a snarl contorting his features behind the mask. “What the hell’s the matter with you?!” he demanded. “We said you wouldn’t use your active imps until we got to Disston. Are you trying to have another seizure?!”

“Calm down, would you?” Adam said getting to his feet. “I needed to make sure of our location anyway. We can’t afford to get lost out here.”

“We also can’t afford marauders seeing you like that and thinking we’re easy targets,” Thomas bit back.

“All the more reason for us to look like we know where we’re going. I mean, seriously, what did you want me to do?”

“How about not killing yourself?” Thomas snapped. “Or at least waiting ‘til we get to Disston to do it so that I don’t have to die with you?”

Adam sighed, made to bring a hand to his head, but then seemed to think better of it. He turned and started back off into the emptiness. “I’ll do my best,” he said in a voice so low, Thomas only heard because it was carried on the wind.

Time stretched behind them as they trekked onward, Adam in front, Thomas trailing him slightly in silence. The angry exterior of his feelings had been worn away—exfoliated, he thought with grim amusement—by time and fatigue, revealing its true self: anxiety. He stared at his brother’s back, regretting his unfeeling, not to mention unmeant, words. Thomas needed his brother, and that was for more than just navigation. They were brothers, and that Adam treated him like it was proof that by at least some stretch of the imagination, Thomas was still human even though the rest of humanity had left him behind.

“I think you’re right about the rain,” he said quietly.

Adam didn’t turn, but Thomas knew that, thanks to his imps, he’d heard.

“Of course I am,” he said. After a moment, he added, “We’ll need to find shelter.”

Thomas frowned. He didn’t want to stop. He’d only said what he’d said to break the silence. “Shelter?”

“You know,” Adam began. “That place where you have a roof over your head and you’re protected from the—”

“Did they give you an implant for increased sarcasm, or is that bit of assholery just you?”

Adam’s shoulders shook for a moment, but Thomas couldn’t tell from behind if his brother was laughing or coughing, and Adam didn’t turn around to show him.

“Yes, shelter,” he said, a smile in his voice. “You don’t want to rust, do you?”

“I don’t want it to take a week to get to Disston, either,” said Thomas.

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: P.K. Gallagher
Bildmaterialien: venomxbaby.deviantart.com
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 21.11.2013
ISBN: 978-3-7309-6374-6

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