The storeroom is larger than any hut I’ve ever set foot in. Shelves reach from floor to ceiling, labeled with Old World symbols that I can’t comprehend. Not that it matters. I know exactly what I’m looking for.
On the far wall, rifles are stacked in narrow compartments. They look nothing like the rifles I’ve seen on the wastes. The semi-somethings, Amory had called them. A type of weapon that didn’t fail during the geostorms, and the only type Amory let people take when they left the bunker.
But the mag-rifles . . .
Amory mentioned them when talking about compasses. Our Old World compasses go haywire during silent storms: needles spinning, never finding north. But once the storm is over, they come back to their senses. I’m hoping the mag-rifles, for whatever reason, are the same: operable most days, useless during the storms.
I take one from a compartment and pass it to Asher.
“They’re lighter than the modified rifles,” he says. “Easier to load, too. Watch.” He takes a dull gray box from a shelf above and feeds it into a slot where the rifle’s barrel meets the grip. I take it that he figured all this out when he was doing inventory with Reed. “No more shoving bullets in with a rod, no more lighting powder. Just clip in”—he touches the gray box—“and squeeze the trigger. Why the hell did Amory leave all these behind?”
“The silent storms must have been really frequent. He mentioned something about the sun and an active period, whatever that means. If storms hit every few days back then, these would be completely useless.”
“But they’re not now?”
“They shouldn’t be. Not till the storm gets here.”
“So why do you want to give these to the General?” Asher asks, struggling to keep up.
“Come on.”
I grab the mag-rifle from him and run back the way we came. Once we’re out of the bunker again, perched atop the rubble, I aim the weapon at the horizon. The green-blue warning ribbons are twisting still, and I point the barrel at them, as though shooting them can banish the storm that’s yet to hit.
I’ve never fired a rifle—not the modified and popular Old World rifle and certainly not this fancy tech in my hands—but Asher made it sound easy.
I squeeze the trigger, and the blast of the gun is nearly as bad as the way it punches into my shoulder. My ears ring. I rub near my collarbone, knowing I’ll have a bruise by morning.
I take aim again, holding the weapon more firmly this time, bracing for the punch.
“It works, genius,” Asher says after another deafening blast.
I look at the dancing aurora. “But in a few more hours, they won’t work. At least that’s what I’m hoping to prove.”
“And then what?”
“Then I can bring these weapons to Bedrock. I can tell the General that I figured out how to read my map. I’ll tell him the truth: there is no Verdant, just a bunker filled with Old World tech. He’ll test the rifles, see that they work. I won’t go to him until the weather is clear. I’ll tell him he can have all the weapons if he lets my pack go.”
Asher bites his lip. “I want to save them too, Delta. I do. But I’m not sure giving the General the most easily fired rifle the wastes has ever seen is the smartest way to go about it.”
“He’ll give them to his Loyalists, arm them all.”
“Right. It makes him too powerful.”
“But Powder Town will know our plans. And when the Prime sees an aurora on the horizon, she can head for Bedrock and attack the very next day, during the height of the silent storm—when the General’s new weapons won’t work.”
“It takes more than a day to get from Powder Town to Bedrock,” Asher points out.
I jerk my head toward the Gods Touched below us. “Not on a wind wagon.”
Asher’s brow peaks. Now he sees what I do.
The wind wagon fleet Powder Town can build.
The Loyalist army whose weapons will fail when they need them most.
A chance to truly overthrow the General.
“And then Bedrock is just there for the taking,” he murmurs.
I nod. “We’re going to steal it from him. It can be our Verdant, Asher, at least for a little while. The Oracle said the water supply is fading, but I’m sure it can be stretched further. We’d stop wasting it on ilkcorolla crops, for starters. And we could explore above the Backbone, too. See if there’s more fertile land that way. Partner with Powder Town through it all.” I turn toward him, my pulse pounding. “The wastes won’t be so bad once the General’s gone. There’s enough to go around if the right people are put in charge.”
Asher looks away from me toward the green tendrils of light on the horizon. “We should sleep. At least until the next test.”
* * *
I’m not sure how much time has passed before I wake. The sharp lines of Eden’s rooms make me uneasy, and I lurch upright in the bed. Asher’s arm dangles in my view, hanging over the edge of the mattress above me.
I’m reminded of my time spent on Zuly’s tanker—the beds stacked on top of each other in those windowless gray rooms.
I slide from the bed. The excitement of my plan has faded, and I’m left with the aching throb of a moonblitz fog. Asher’s sleeping on his stomach, head turned toward me. He looks younger in sleep, his features relaxed and his lips slightly parted. It’s a face I remember from Alkali Lake, a shadow of the boy I once knew. I consider waking him, but if he had anywhere near what I did to drink, he could do with sleeping off the blitz. I guide his hand back onto the mattress and tuck it beside his body.
Then I snatch the rifle from where we’d left it beside the bed and slip from the room.
Back outside, the aurora is gone, and morning light creeps over the wastes. I aim the weapon, but when I squeeze the trigger, nothing happens. I squeeze it a second time, a third.
I detach the small box Asher had slid into the rifle. One of the narrow sides is see-through. The edges of eight bullets wink in the strengthening sunlight.
I clip the box back in. Try again.
Nothing.
It won’t fire.
The aurora is gone, meaning we’re in the thick of a silent storm, and the Old World tech is useless. Just like Amory claimed.
I pull my lodestone from beneath my shirt and let it shiver to a standstill. The indentation points due north.
I wonder briefly if this is why my father disappeared to the south—if he thought the lodestone material could be used in other ways, perhaps to power weapons. Perhaps he was trying to beat the General all along, and his plan required leaving before he could return for a final fight.
I choose to believe this possibility. Like Amory and his Federation crew, I want to believe that my father didn’t abandon me without a reason.
Resting the mag-rifle on my shoulder, I go to wake the others.
* * *
I explain everything. Harlie grouses and moans as she stretches, but Reed jumps from bed like a drop of water on a hot skillet. “I need to show you something,” he says, dragging me back to the room where we watched Amory’s confession. He points at the table made of square toggles. “I was playing around with this last night. It has arrows, like the tiles Rune could carry. Tapping the arrows brought me to different information.”