Shattered Roads. Alice Henderson

met her eyes in the growing dark. “Heat. Death. Storms.” He pulled a jacket out of his satchel and handed it to her. “You’ll need this. It’s waterproof.”

      She accepted it reluctantly. “Won’t you need it?”

      “I’ll be fine.” He rummaged through his satchel and pulled out a clear pouch. “This’ll keep the rain out of your PRD.” He handed it to her.

      “Where are you going?” Fear gripped her stomach. Was she just supposed to walk to this place alone, with no idea how to survive out here?

      “I have to go north, to my people.”

      She felt awkward. “And I really can’t come?”

      He met her eyes. “They’re, uh . . . not very nice. You don’t want to meet them. And whatever you do, if you meet anyone out there in the wastelands, don’t tell them that you were a worker in the city. Don’t let them know you can access TWRs, or that you can do work-arounds to open locks. Don’t ever reveal that information.”

      She tilted her head. “Why?”

      “Because people will kidnap you for that information. That, and your ability. And if you don’t cooperate, torture’s the least of your problems.”

      A new wave of fear stole over her, the most sickening feeling she’d had yet. “I don’t think I can do this.”

      He closed his hands around hers. “You can. I’ve seen you in action, remember?” He nodded toward the city. “It’s a hell of a lot more dangerous for you in there than out here. Now there’s more distance between you and the bad guys.”

      “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

      “Don’t worry. You probably won’t run into anyone.” He looked out at the wind-tossed rain. “It’s the weather that’s the killer.”

      He lifted his satchel and swung it back over his head. “Good luck, H.” He walked to the edge of the recessed doorway. Then he turned back. “You should think of a name for yourself. Your current designation will be a dead giveaway.”

      She met his eyes. “Is this the last time we’ll see each other?” She barely knew him, but the thought was a painful knot twisting inside her.

      He took her hand again, something hanging heavily in the air between them. She wanted to move closer, to bask in his scent one more time.

      “My people have a way to communicate,” he told her. “Devised over years of trial and error. Like Morse code.”

      “Morse code?” She’d never heard of it.

      “Ancient way of sending messages by tapping out a rhythm of long and short tones.” He pulled out his PRD and brought up a hovering screen. “We had to alter it from the original, in case our enemies still knew about it. The idea’s the same, but the letters are different, and we’ve added some other elements to make messages harder to crack.”

      He held up his PRD. The floating display showed a communication window with a button for a short tone, and one for a long tone. A section of the screen showed each letter of the alphabet followed by its equivalent of short and long tones. A was a short tone followed by two long tones. Numbers one through ten also had codes.

      “You type in who you want to send the message to, then enter the code for each letter as it appears on the screen. The codes change multiple times a day, but the program saves the date and time you sent the message, so you can always decipher it if you knew what the code was at any given time.” He gazed at her. His eyes were so intense, she fought the urge to look away. “If you need me,” he told her, “contact me this way.”

      She pulled out her PRD. They touched devices, and the program automatically uploaded to hers. When she double-checked it was there, she lowered her device, looking back at him. She’d never felt so drawn to someone, but she didn’t know what to do. He’d led a completely different kind of life—free, adventurous, full of risk. She’d only known that which she’d been born into: raised in the machine of the city, fulfilling her duties.

      She hadn’t known anything else was possible. She’d always felt unsettled and alone, like she was missing something. And now, despite the fact that she had no home to go to, and was soon to be left alone in this chaotic wilderness, something felt like it was falling into place. She felt connected to Rowan, a feeling she’d never had with another human.

      He gripped her hand one more time and forced a smile. But there was a deep sadness in his eyes. He let go, moved back, and stepped out into the storm. She watched him walk down the street. He stopped at a corner and turned back to look at her. Something stirred within her, a strange kind of longing. She wanted to run to him. He stood there for a long moment, gazing back as if memorizing her features. Then he raised a hand and gave a sad wave. She did the same. She watched as he reached the end of the street, gave her one last glance, and rounded the corner of a building.

      And then he was gone.

      She stood alone, shivering in the doorway, the howling wind cutting through her clothes. She’d never been so cold before. The city was always too hot, too humid. She watched the rain pelt the cracked pavement. She pulled on the jacket Rowan had given her, huddling in its dry warmth.

      As she stared out at the gray, she noticed something green poking up between the cracks of the crumbling black road. She pulled the jacket tightly around her and crept outside. She reached out, touching the wet, green strands. They were flexible. It was a plant, she realized, not the flat-leafed ones she’d watched the food workers grind up into food cubes. This was something different. She looked down the stretch of the road, seeing more tufts breaking through the asphalt.

      The loneliness sank in. The ancient road stretched into the abyss, the crumbling buildings immense and empty, their brick guts spilling from their decaying bodies. She shivered in her jacket. Hurrying back to the doorway, she checked her PRD. Noting the direction of the weather shelter, she turned off the device, tucking it into the weatherproof pouch he’d given her. Then she walked out into the storm, not knowing what lay ahead, or if she’d even live to see the next day.