Blue's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Blue gripped the handlebars. The engine hummed under her, warm and strange. She had never driven anything. Behind her, the sky turned a hard gray. The next storm was coming, and fast. "You've driven this before?" Raven asked. He climbed on behind her, crossbow slung across his back. "No," Blue said. Raven did not argue. He just gripped the frame. "Then learn fast." She pressed the lever. The machine lurched forward and nearly threw them both off. The cub yelped and dug its claws into her shoulder. Blue eased off. The skis bit the ice. Slowly, the vehicle crawled across the open white. The wind rose. Snow began to streak sideways. Ahead, the ice stretched flat and endless. She fed the lever a little more. The machine picked up speed. Her hands shook on the cold metal. Then the whiteout hit. The world turned to blowing white. Blue could not see the ground from the sky. She let off the lever on instinct. The engine coughed, sputtered, and died. "No," she breathed. She pumped the lever. Nothing. The machine sat dead on the ice. Behind the snow, she heard the storm roar closer, swallowing the ground they'd crossed. "It stalled," Raven said. Flat. A fact. "It won't start cold." Blue's mind raced. She could not see the path. She could not find north. She reached into her coat and pulled out the compass. Its runes glowed through the snow, gold and silver, steady. The needle pointed left, off into the blind white. But a dead machine could not follow a needle. She needed warmth. She needed to feel the engine wake. Her hand brushed another thing in her pack. The old human device from the library shelf, carved stone and metal, studded with diamond facets. She had taken it without knowing its use. Now she pressed its center. It woke with a low, pulsing tone. A beam swept out through the whiteout. Where the beam struck, the snow seemed to thin. It found a hard shape ahead, buried in drift, and the tone sharpened to a ring. "There's something out there," Blue said. "The ruin?" Raven leaned forward. "No. Closer." She squeezed the starter again, and this time jammed the lever down hard. The engine caught. It roared to life. Blue drove toward the ringing signal. The storm howled at her back. The skis cut through drift. The beam pulled her forward until the shape rose out of the white, a wide metal disc set with glowing crystals, half-sunk in ice. Concentric rings. A bright core at its center. She stopped the machine. She stepped down, the compass hot in her hand. Its needle no longer pointed left. It pointed straight down, into the crystal disc under the snow. "This isn't the ruin," she said. "It's a door to it." The storm closed over them. But they were off the open ice. And the ancient humans had left a way down.