Chapter 13: Chapter 13: The River

The free fall was familiar. The month Chleo spent with Will slipping from her hover board into the pond made it feel like second nature. She thought she could feel the phantom pressure of a leash around her waist. Water crashed around her as expected. The current was new.

It rushed and roared, tossing her around boulders and debris. Her head almost connected with a rock before the water shifted and pulled her down stream. It happened again, a boulder barely sticking above the white foam ready to bash her to pieces when something shifted and she went the other way. Then again, a branch wedged between rocks tried to stab her, another shift and she barely avoided it. Chleo quickly lost count of the number of times it happened.

As suddenly as it started, it ended. The whitewater spit her into a lazy pool. The rush was gone, the crazy currents and dangerous debris with it, and suddenly she was drifting in something that could have been her and Wills’ pond. It took a second before her limbs remembered the motions, stunned from the quick turn of events, but soon she was treading her way to the surface. Breaking through, she gulped the air.

She laughed, it was shaky and more relief than joy with a little incredible disbelief mixed in. The cliff lined the pool she treaded, tall and imposing, and she couldn’t help but wonder how she’d survived a fall from that high. Turning away from it in favor of the riverbank, she swam to the other side of the pool.

Loose silt and mud clung to her hands as she crawled out of the water and collapsed. Through half-lidded eyes, she stared upstream at the angry rapids. Yep, she should definitely be dead.

Chleo let her head drop to the ground. The stars sparkled through a light haze. The tangy, charred smell of the pits was thick. Slowly, she began to recognize the rapids and the slight bend to the river. Her stomach knotted… Of course.

She pounded a hand against the ground in frustration. She was cold, she was wet, and she was tired… and now she was on the wrong side of the Pits. Great.

Resigned, she looked back up at the cliff. She could always climb… maybe. The odds of surviving a second fall… she ran the math… yeah, it wasn’t great. Then again, the odds of crossing the Pits… not great either. What was her next move? She let out an aggravated groan, she hated spontaneous plans.

“Hi.”

She jumped at the sudden noise and sat up. What the… she scanned the clearing. It was dark, but light from the planet bathed everything in a silvery sheen. No one was there.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” the voice came again. It sounded familiar. Chleo examined the air around her. Nothing. “Come with me. I need your help.”

“Uh.” She couldn’t follow even if she wanted.

Mic! It was Mic’s voice. She scrambled to her feet.

“Oh, right,” he said. There was a tension in the air, a fuzzy expulsion that tickled her skin. Then it shifted and a collision of gears, pipes, and valves materialized in a shape resembling a ball.

Chleo’s mouth fell open. It was floating… like her board. Unbelievable, someone beat her to the hovering properties of Dancing Lava. Who could it have been, one of the King’s Guilds? How did they get it to disappear… and relay a voice?

“I’ll teach you if you follow me,” it said. Chleo snapped her out shut. She really needed to stop thinking out loud.

The ball-ish figure drifted up the shore. She really shouldn’t follow. She should turn around and find a way up the cliff. It was definitely the safest option… probably.

Chleo looked toward domineering rock wall…. She should just go. She should start climbing… She turned and followed the floating ball… and started climbing boulders instead.

Halfway up the third oversized rock, she was seriously reconsidering her choice. The roundish contraption with Mic’s voice had attached itself to her belt, tiny metal arms grabbing her and softening her landings when she slipped. Learning how to cloak her board really wasn’t worth it.

Putter’s face sputtering with anger after a water balloon fell on him from a phantom spot in the sky popped into her head. Then again, maybe it was.

She topped the boulder and froze.

Chleo flashed back to the Shack. Agent Miles’s gun dug into her neck. She could smell the gunpowder stuffed in the barrel. If a bullet exited her body, and she wasn’t alive to feel it, would it hurt?

Suddenly, the hooded woman was there, and they were all crashing to the ground. Chleo felt herself shaking with relief as she was knocked from the agent’s grasp. She scrambled back against a nearby pile, while the two adults grappled.

Miles knocked the woman back stunning her. He reached for the pistol, but Chleo kicked it farther into the maze of junk. The woman flung herself at the agent. He sidestepped and smashed a hand into the side of her hood. She staggered. There was a small flicker, something not quite there, easily lost in the commotion.

Then the air shifted. The soft glow from the torches was replaced by a consuming blue, a filter that gleamed off the surrounding metal. It pulsed and moved with the woman.

Everyone froze. Their eyes widened. As if choreographed, the woman and agent reached into their pockets. Miles pulled a slender whistle placing it to his lips. He managed a short blast before a metallic marble buzzed into the side of his neck. He dropped.

The woman, creature, straightened. Chleo forced herself closer to the pile, a stray pipe dug painfully into her back. Her eyes never left the gilded figure as she removed her hood and started fiddling with the hem.

Chleo should run. The thought was on a loop in her head, but her body refused. She was scared, but also… curious. The figure replaced her hood, and her skin returned to normal.

“It could pass as one of us,” Putter’s voice echoed in the back of Chleo’s mind. “Beware the Neon." Did the Neon woman destroy her house? Did she… eat her parents? She didn’t exactly seem like the type, but trust was something Luna had worked to beat out of Chleo.

The figure’s hooded head tilted, as if listening.

“On our way,” she said lightly, her voice as careless as the breeze. She turned to Chleo a smile on her lips. It turned to a confused frown. “Don’t worry,” she said, nodding toward Agent Miles. “He won’t be bothering anyone for a while. We should head out, though. His friends are on their way.”

When Chleo didn’t move, she took a few steps forward. Chleo sprang to her feet in a panic. Were Putter and the villagers, right? Was the Neon dangerous?

“Whoa, it’s ok,” the woman said. She gave an easy smile. Chleo supposed it was meant to be comforting. All she saw were teeth. “We just need to get to the wagon. Your friend’s already there.”

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Chleo’s stomach dropped. Will. She sidestepped the woman’s outstretched arm. They ran to the wagon together.

Chleo shook her head forcing the memory back. She was standing by the river on the top of a boulder. For the second time that day, she was bathed in deadly blue light, the floating ball at her shoulder.

“Gruesome, isn’t it,” Mic said, jolting her out the memory. She swallowed. The woman was unconscious, her leg twisted at an awkward angle, cuts and bruises dotting her dully glowing skin. Blood pooled beneath her. Dangerous or not, the Neon, clearly needed help.

“Why am I here, Mic?” Chleo asked unsure what she was meant to do. The injuries looked serious, and she didn’t have any supplies.

The ball rushed to hover over the fallen creature. “Her glow is going out. I need you to help me fix her leg. The bird isn’t strong enough to do it.”

“Bird?”

“Drone.” At her questioning look the ball started zooming back and forth in front of her. “The drone, Chleo. The big hunk of metal floating in front of you. Now, stop hovering, and help me.” It buzzed back over to the creature.

Chleo hesitated. She didn’t want to die. There was no telling what the Neon would do when she woke up…

Except… the Neon had helped her. Chleo would be dead already if the figure hadn’t revealed herself to Agent Miles. She could talk and show emotion, a far cry from the mindless hunter Putter explained, and since when did Chleo get her facts from him anyway? Still, he wasn’t the only one singing a scary tune.

The woman’s hooded face flashed through her mind, concerned as she reached for her on the careening wagon. Chleo had panicked and kicked at her. They both lost their grip and fell. The woman was hurt because she’d tried to help. She was heard because of Chleo.

Chleo squared her shoulders.

“What do I do?”

“Straighten her leg.”

Her head snapped up. “What?”

“Straighten. Her. Leg.”

Chleo stared. “But… the bone is sticking out. Won’t it,” she searched for the right word, “hurt?” she finished lamely.

“It’ll feel like a bucket of rose petals and velvet. Unfortunately, she’s unconscious and won’t feel a thing,” Mic said. “If I have to talk you through every step, we’re going to lose her. Do it.”

Chleo clenched her teeth.

“It’s fine,” she muttered as she walked over. “Just pretend it isn’t a leg. It’s just a set of pipes that broke apart.” She knelt, her knees soaking in blood. “Yeah, that’s it, Chleo. Just a set of pipes I’m trying to put back together.” She grimaced grabbing the glowing ankle laying at an impossible angle. It was cold and lifeless. She forced down a gag. Set of pipes. Set of pipes. Set of pipes.

Cleo pulled. It was heavier than expected. She forced the leg in the right direction. There were at least three breaks. She took the time to line them up, ignoring her rolling stomach when she felt the bones shift under her fingers.

“Good,” Mic said behind her, “Now, we nee-”

The woman’s body started thrashing. Chleo acted fast. She turned her on her side, mangling her leg, but keeping her from swallowing her tongue.

“Quick, inject her with this,” Mic’s voice spoke beside her. A compartment slid out of the bird presenting a syringe. The clear vial swirled with color, the liquid acting more as a gas, always in motion. She grabbed it, trying to keep the woman on her side as her arms and legs twitched in every direction.

Chleo drove the needle into her thigh and slammed the plunger down. The woman went limp. Carefully, Chleo let her roll onto her back. Nothing happened.

“Should I-” Chleo started.

There was a sudden flash of blue. The woman’s skin stuttered, tapping a glowing pattern across her injuries. Cuts began to close. Bruises started to fade. The leg bones that lay broken before snapped into place, the broken skin stitching back together. It was beautifully gruesome to watch. Will would have loved it. Chleo absolutely did not.

The strange dance ended abruptly, the woman’s smaller injuries wiped clear. Chleo checked the leg. Large, deep bruises glared back through her ripped trousers.

“Hello,” a soft voice broke through her examination.

Chleo looked up. The woman was awake, a soft smile battling a grimace across her face.

“Hi,” she answered. The silence stretched. “I’m Chleo,” she finished for lack of anything better.

The smile won. “I’m Dai.” Her skin seemed to skip a beat brighter before returning to a steady blue.

Chleo nodded a greeting. “It’s nice to meet you, Dai.”

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