14.6 grams flash dust
THE STORM LASTS less than an hour. We leave Winn in the shelter and press closer to the curtain. I’ve given up hope, so I let my anger fuel me instead. I’m determined Graham won’t have died in vain. The shift in attitude affects my focus, and soon I’m picking up traces of flash dust like they’re calling my name.
I’m lead ore scout once more.
Gabe’s cirium hands strain the burnt sands faster and with more success than our thick gloves and sifters, but our pails slowly begin to fill. I lead us to a deposit and then we all drop down and mine the Congress’s precious element.
“How long have you known?” I ask Dram. I can still hardly believe it. I never dreamed our government was this depraved. Or this desperate.
He doesn’t answer right away, but taps his sifter into his pail. Finally, he meets my eyes, his own red-rimmed. I feel a punch of guilt. If possible, he loved Graham even more than I did. At least I still had Dad after Mom and Wes died. Dram has lost everyone close to him. Everyone but me.
“Graham told me,” he says. “When he gave me the flash wand. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“How is it even possible? They’re just human bodies.”
“They’re not just human bodies,” he counters. “Everything is altered by the flashfall—transformed by elements we still don’t understand—and then the curtain alters them again when…” He trails off, and I have a vivid memory of Graham spinning on one foot before the flashfall swallowed him beside our shelter.
“Think of how the curtain affects living things,” Gabe says. “It infuses everything with a bit of its substance. It doesn’t incinerate its own elements, so it’s left behind as flash dust.
“And in terms of it being ammunition?” He sifts the dust through his metal fingers. “We’re talking about traces of the flash curtain—unexpended energy.”
I still see Graham telling me my mother would be proud.
“Why don’t they just have machines do this?” I grumble, my hands burning as I sift the particles into my pail.
“Machines malfunction this close to the curtain,” Gabe answers.
“That’s not the only reason,” Reeves murmurs. “If we die out here, we’re more dust in someone’s pail.” He slips his hand beneath his headpiece to swipe the blood trickling from his nose. His skin gleams, pale as bone.
I share a glance with Dram. Something’s wrong with Reeves. He’s sick—sick in a way that none of the rest of us are, which tells me it’s something other than the cordon.
My stomach twists. I don’t want to put a name to it. Not yet.
“What do you think is the other reason?” I say instead.
“It’s a convenient way for the Congress to get rid of us.”
“But we supply them with cirium.”
“Which is probably why we’re still breathing.” He coughs, and I avert my eyes, half expecting him to vomit again. Dad’s voice in my head catalogs all his symptoms, so I tune it out and listen for the elements in the sand instead.
“Wait,” I command. I stand and face the curtain, closing my eyes. “Something’s happening.” I kneel and press my palms to the ground.
“Another storm?” Dram asks.
“Different,” I murmur. “Hold this.” I hand him my pail and pull my gloves off.
“Orion!”
“Just for a second.” I set my hands on the sand and bite back a scream. Blistering welts form over my palms even as I shove them back into my gloves. But it was enough. Enough to read the elements pulsing across the cordon.
“We need to get back.” I stand. “We have enough dust—enough for Mere and Winn, too. Let’s go—quickly.”
“What is it?” Dram hands me my bucket and jogs at my side.
I force my legs to go faster. “Sandstorm. Any moment now.”
“Fire,” Dram mutters.
“You guys head back,” Reeves says. “I’ll get Winn.” He sprints past us toward the shelter, and I stare after him.
“He’ll make it,” Dram says. “He’s still got time.”
So he’s drawn the same conclusion I have. And he’s not putting a name to it yet, either.
* * *
Flash storms hint at their approach, streaking the sky with orange virga and sending ahead warning winds of sulfur and particle dust. Cordon sandstorms rise up like a snake striking. You barely register the fangs in your skin, and you’ve got venom coursing through your body.
We run for the corral, its white top the only indicator of sanctuary in the black sand swirling around us. It hasn’t reached us yet—but I can feel that a massive wave of sand is about to break over the cordon. If it reaches us, it will swallow us down to the bowels of this hell.
“Almost there,” Dram huffs beside me. Gabe ran on ahead of us. He’s probably tucked safely behind the fence by now.
I’m slowing. Even with fear propelling me forward, I don’t have the kind of stamina to maintain this speed—especially not through burning sand with the weight of a cirium suit slowing me down.
“There!” Dram points to a heap of rubble that looks like it might have once been a bridge. “Climb!” He leaps for a twisted projection of metal and hauls himself up.
This is like the Range. My hands slide into grooves, and my feet push off pitted cracks in the stone. Dram grasps my arm just as I reach the top.
“Lie down!” He yanks me over the side just as the wall of sand hits.
We flatten ourselves, facedown, our hands and feet anchored to bits of metal and concrete as the cloud of sand erupts over us. Sand fills the air, bites at us through our suits, until I feel like an ore mite’s parasites are working their way in. The air clears of sand a moment later—the length of a few held breaths.
“Still with me, ore scout?” Dram asks, coughing like dust got through his headpiece.
“No,” I murmur hoarsely.
The corral buzzer sounds. Congress, calling for its collection.
* * *
We empty our flash dust onto the scale one at a time, adding the dust slowly, until it shows 2.0 grams. We keep all extra hidden in our pockets.
“Deposit accepted,” a voice says through a speaker. “Proceed through the turnstile.”
We shuffle through, toward the small tents that await us beyond the corral fence.
“Fewer people,” Dram murmurs. He pulls off his headpiece and eyeshields.
“Probably the sandstorm.”
We search for Winn and Reeves, but the first few tents are filled with Gems.
“She’s with the Conjie woman,” Reeves calls, poking his head around a tent flap. “She met us beside the deposit with extra dust for Winn. The kid took to her like she took to Roran.”
So Mere helped us, after all.
“I can’t believe you have the strength to smile,” Dram says.
“I can’t believe you two have the strength to stand,” Reeves adds, coughing into the dirt. Blood spatters the ash at his feet. He lifts his head and drags a hand through his hair. “Guess the sand got to me after all.” His brow furrows, and he looks down at his hand. Long strands of blond hair fill his fist. “Fire,” he whispers, meeting our eyes. “Don’t say it. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
Dram and I don’t say it. None of us want to acknowledge the horrible truth of Reeves’s radiation sickness.
The sands didn’t get to Reeves, but the cordon shards in Outpost Five did.