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By the time the Darwin Elevator touched down, Europe was still in catch-up mode America was a distant ly called the former superpower At least Australia hadn’t been so closed-o, the local population stillBeléht as he skimmed the rest of the article And they had the bloody Aly hills and a dore to his mind of the island as viewed fros in need of lubrication He grinned "Ana?"
She looked up fro
"Can you pull up the navfor? We’ve studied the whole island"
"Not the island," Skyler said "The ocean We’re looking for giant white propellers Or …" He racked his ies "Long tubes floating in the surf Wind and wave power collectors"
By noon he set out with Ana to the target location, all the way across the island on the western shore A forty-kiloenerators had been easy to spot, once they knew to look Long, dark disjointed lines a kiloht path to shore revealed the collection station that transy out to the rest of the island
At first they’d all planned to go, until Skyler changed hisher alone makes me nervous"
They’d seen no other iht be out there, watching the for a chance to escape
"Let’s just take the plane over there," Pablo suggested
"Can’t do it," Skyler said with a frown "We’ve got enough juice to move her once, if we’re lucky I’d rather save that for e’re sure"
Skyler offered to stay, but the group collectively decided he was the best person to scout the site This was no time to fool around, and since the handhelds only had a six- or seven-klick range, there’d be no consultation with the others
Naturally, Ana ca the base of that cliff through his binoculars She’d seen dead bodies before, they all had, but so about the mass suicide chilled her Chilled all of them Maybe it was the manner of death, or the apparent way the towers seeh the croith callous indifference It was easy, Skyler thought, to iine the subhumans as somehow on the Builders’ side, their creations, after what had happened in the rainforest near the Belé of confusion that surrounded everything related to the aliens
Skyler fought to keep the i, those corpses seeet them
"Hey, look," Ana said She’d stopped in the street They weren’t even at the edge of town yet, still a full day’s hike ahead of them
From the exciteht on soh, was the dark s of abandoned stores Ana moved closer to one , picked up a chunk of broken asphalt frolass pane
The sound of it shattering echoed along the narrow street
"What are you--" Skyler started Then, "Oh …"
She’d found a bicycle shop Touristy things,daily rental prices She crawled inside and, after a ed ainst the outside wall and went back in A er than the first Ashocks and knobby black tires
Skyler re for any sounds of subhulass He heard nothing, though After a week he didn’t really expect to It was as if that one pathetic sub scratching at the door of the ship was the poor, lone survivor When Skyler looked down the eine that he and his creere the last souls on the planet
Ana went inside a third time, and when she came out she carried a kit of some kind as well as a tire pump She tore it open and produced a s by the bikes, she began to oil their chains
They rode in silence The bikes made the trip much easier, but Skyler insisted they keep a slow pace in case they needed to ditch the transportation in a hurry Once out of the city, though, that fear di around derelict cars and the occasional skeleton Seagulls drifted overhead, calling to one another as they flew in lazy arcs A perfect, post-apocalyptic day in paradise
After an hour riding on the bumpy road, Ana called for a break A sht marked a break in the otherwise rocky shoreline, and it had caught her attention
They left their bikes on the roadside and she led the way down steep, weed-choked steps to the beach Without a word she stripped and trod carefully out into the surf, diving under the first wave that threatened to drench her When she ca the water from her hair and motioned for Skyler to join her
He was one of four people on the entire island, yet still he looked up and down the beach before pulling his clothes off
They swa sun, and ed to kiss their toes and soft sand cradled the hands, staring up at the endless blue sky until the sun and wind dried them
From when they’d left the road to when they returned, Ana had said nothing Back on the bikes, she rode a few rin
Skyler knew in that s: He loved her That, and she’d probably be the death of hiht just above the tree line he almost fell off his bike
The power station was a squat building tucked back into a thin forest on the inland side of the road, on the edge of a town called Mosteiros
Ana thrust her ar in Spanish Her bike swerved, forcing her to cut the celebration short and focus on reht
The coastline on this side of the island consisted of sheer cliffs that rose twenty id water below, only to then level off into a long, gentle grade up to the rins of hu reclaimed by the wild, with snakelike forests of crypto their way down the slope Copses of srass
Skyler dis Ana followed his exa a structure that ht be a heat source Subhumans often dwelled within such places, like a cave with a built-in fire to wared bodies He kicked in the door and went in with his rifle at the ready Ana came in at his shoulder, a position and tactic now routine for her The recklessness she’d exhibited in the past had faded, perhaps for good More and more Skyler viewed her as a study in contrasts to Sath, Ana displayed cunning and speed
The less building proved devoid of life, save for a few field mice that scurried into the shadows in the presence of two huhed aloud when the LEDsbea him a little pat on the behind