“Top Sector?” Mom grabbed a fistful of her own hair. “The only way up is the tram and there’s only one. How is everyone going to—?”
“Wait,” Jace said. “Why are we evacuating? It’s been five minutes. The force can’t stop this?”
The screams grew louder outside, like they were cascading toward the apartment.
“We—we can’t evacuate.” Jace paced around the table. “What about my parents? I can’t just leave without them. Or maybe — maybe it might be safer to stay.”
As if to mock his suggestion, a tremor ripped through the room. Tayel lost her footing. She fell onto the couch and grabbed hold of the loose fabric. The shaking continued for far longer than the first few quakes. The rumbling took its time to wane, and she released the polyester, her dizziness fading.
“We need to go,” Mom said. The voice from the news echoed her sentiment once again.
Jace chirped, “But!”
“Jace.” Tayel stood and gripped both his shoulders.
He stared back, his eyes dark and wide. “I’m scared,” he whispered, barely audible over Mom shuffling through the closet.
“I know.” Tayel spoke slowly to cover the tremors in her own voice. She steadied him as the ground shifted again. “But we can’t stay here. Your parents are going to go to the evacuation center, too.”
His beak trembled.
“You’ll see them again, okay? I promise.”
He nodded slowly and bent down to grab his mask off the couch. Tayel followed suit, taking the tie off her wrist and wrapping her hair into a bun. No bangs. Nothing concealing her face. On went her own gas mask, pulled snug over her nose and mouth — maybe a little too snug. Too late to fix it, and better too snug than too loose, so she went through the front door after Mom.
Every apartment on the block emptied into the street. Flashlights cut through the murk, but no telltale goggles — not yet. Toxins didn’t come through the gas mask, but the faint smell of exhaust still did. It was stronger now than usual, mixed with acrid smoke and kicked up dust, but Tayel didn’t care about the smell.
People screamed and ran, disappearing into the haze. Yellow porch lights and street signs flickered with every tremor. Far above, higher city roads rained dust and debris onto the streets of the Under Sector. A huge chunk of something fell through the sky. It crashed into the ground where a family once stood, and she gagged at the dark liquid which pooled underneath.
“Tayel.” Mom wrenched her forward, grabbing Jace’s talon with her free hand. “Let’s go — both of you. Don’t get separated.”
More debris came down all around them. It felt like Tayel had been transported to a different reality, only it wasn’t the one she daydreamed about where she was a magball star carrying the Galaxy Cup. People pushed, shoved, and forced her aside too many times to count. She could hardly see a thing through the wall of them on every side, but the sky was falling, and that was enough to keep her legs pumping.
A shadow flickered into existence on the second story wall of the grocer’s mart nearby.
Tayel screamed, “Look!”
“I know. I see it. Keep running!” Mom’s hand slipped with sweat.
The shadow didn’t disappear. It shimmered black and purple, rippling like a water-filled sink after a dish plopped in. Tayel couldn’t rip her eyes away. A Cyborn appeared in the shadow and dropped to the street. Her eyes shot wide at his glowing red goggles, jagged armor, and leather attire. Raider. Ahead of her, people’s screams grew louder.
Half the crowd in front of her fell away at the onslaught of more raiders attacking from the left. Tayel tugged Mom back, her head whipping to the dark portals which unleashed them into the streets. One fired a shotgun at an Argel who collapsed to the ground — dead. At the side of the road, goggled brutes heaved people over the barriers toward the toxic planet surface far below.
Tayel cried out as one of the raiders turned toward her. The crowd didn’t move back fast enough. She couldn’t sink in with the wall of scared faces behind her.
The raider’s goggles’ glow dispersed into a fuzzy-edged blur in the murk. He toyed with his aether-tech blade, orange lines of light carved through the steel, causing the weapon to shine. Waves of heat shimmered the air above it.
He charged.
Tayel pushed back. Jace screamed. Mom took a step forward, her hands forming lightning aether, but the man crumbled — shot from behind by a Cyborn with a very, very big gun and his favored leather jacket.
“Otto!” Tayel yelled.
He ran toward her. Behind him, members of the Delta Defense Force protected citizens from the raider onslaught, firing against the shadowy portals and the enemies within. An armored vehicle drove past — back toward Tayel’s apartment. The crowd still moved all around them, running and screaming. The raiders still lurked among the haze.
“Thank Alhyt you came when you did,” Mom said to Otto.
“We need to get outta here.” He shielded his head from raining dust.
“Otto, the shadow we saw,” Tayel started.
“I know, kiddo. You and Jace were right. It was the start of a raid.”
Mom’s eyes bulged. “You didn’t think to tell me my daughter came to you about a raider attack?”
“Hey now—”
“Mom, stop, I was going to tell you,” Tayel said.
Jace stepped forward. “Otto, have you seen my parents? Please.”
“No, I haven’t. I can’t believe I found you three.”
“We need to go. But we can’t take the tram.” Mom gestured to the station down the block. “There are too many of them.”
“Then we take the maintenance shafts in the city supports,” Otto said.
“Maintenance shafts? Do those go to Top Sector?” Mom asked.
“’Course they do.”
“You’re sure that will work? Won’t the raiders go there?”
Tayel gritted her teeth. “It’s better than sitting here, isn’t it?”
Otto nodded. “Better odds than the streets.”
A nearby fight between a raider and a defense force officer spurred them forward. Tayel pulled out of Mom’s clinging grip, keeping close to Otto’s heels. He paved a clean path with his shotgun while Mom defended their backs with the occasional whip of lightning or wall of fire.
Tayel wished she could wield the aether. She wished she could do anything other than cower. Jace stayed near her, his head hanging from fatigue. They arrived in what Otto said was good timing as he set about opening the pillar entrance with a series of codes. No one else wandered the dark side street, but the noise from the main blocks echoed through the emptiness.
“How do you have the codes?” Tayel asked. “Were you an engineer or something?”
The door slid open.
Otto hummed. “Yeah. Er. Somethin’ like that. Hurry inside, now.”
She moved into the hollow, circular room. Shafts like these existed everywhere in Delta, concealed in giant, mile high pillars which supported the next highest tier of the city. She stepped on the roofless, wall-less elevator, and Otto directed it to ascend. She rested against the navel-high handrail next to Mom. Jace sat in the center, staring upward. Tayel didn’t know if she had the strength to tell him it would be alright.
“How long will this take?” Mom asked.
Otto fumbled with an emergency radio. “Not too long. Twenty or so minutes to the top.”
“Why are raiders attacking us?” she continued, “Don’t they make demands first?”
“Well hell, they’ve always been vicious, but this…” Otto shook his head. “This is insane even for them. Thought they’d gone quiet on that rock of theirs, but they must’ve been building an army this whole time.”
“They’re using portals, though.” Tayel regained her balance as the elevator trembled. “Otto, those shadows, I think they’re—”