We speed across the field toward the city of Soto, crashing through high grass, our elbows and hips jostling at every bump. I find myself clutching the doorframe—there aren’t any harnesses in this rover, and Caspen drives… how do I put this? She drives like she talks.
“Get’cha cartwheels in good use!” Caspen yips, throwing up a hand.
“I donot,” I announce over the drone of the engine, “want to do cartwheels in this thing.”
“She means hold on tight,” Avi explains from the seat behind me, grabbing my headrest and leveraging her face between Lament and me.
“I definitely heard the wordcartwheel.”
Cartwheel means limbs, Jester says from Avi’s side, tugging her belt to haul her back into her seat.Like how you use—We hit a bump; the group gives a collectiveoomph—your limbs to do a cartwheel.So if you’re putting your limbs to good use, you’re holding on tight.
“You seriously got that from that?”
Avi and Jester exchange a look. “Of course.”
“Five and two ballots on the way!” Caspen howls.
Ten minutes until we arrive, Jester translates.
I turn to Lament. “Are you hearing this?”
He shrugs. “Seems pretty clear to me.”
“Speckled monster aboard!” Caspen.
“Watch out for the mud.” Vera this time.
“No,” I say. “Nope. You’re all definitely messing with me.”
Ten minutes takes forever, but at last the bumpy field gives way to paved city streets, and I’m able to release my death grip on the doorframe. Soto is built like a bull’s-eye with rings of stone buildings rippling out from its center. Some of the structures are freestanding, but many connect to their neighbors, leaving little room for pedestrians. Of which there are a ton. It’s an eruption year on Venthros, which tends to drive people out of the villages around Mount Kilmon and into the cities. Between the narrow roads and tight crowds, there’s barely enough clearance to fit our rover, but Caspen appears remarkably sanguine in the face of people scrambling to get out ofour way. Most citizens are on foot, carrying bags or tugging children, but some ride in hovercraft or open-top rovers like ours. Caspen stops for none of it, blaring her horn as she shouts, “Scatter, or we’ll bowl ’er under!”
Avi’s face reappears. “That means—”
“No, no.” I wave her off. “I got that one.”
We link up with the Fifty-Seventh in an urban park near Soto’s Capitol Building. Their fleet is like ours, ten members, each with a specialty. They’ve brought rovers of their own, though theirs are smaller closed-body four-seaters. We do a bit of rearranging, and eventually Lament and I land in the back of one of the Fifty-Seventh’s overlands, which is manned by a navigator with chic bangs named Mira Turner and her partner, Beckly Van.
Beckly spins in the passenger seat to shoot Lament a smile. “Hey, Bringer.”
“Hello, Van.”
“It’s been too long.”
Though Beckly is dressed in his whites like the rest of us, there’s something about him that comes off a bit more… self-regarding? It’s his expression, maybe, his manicured hands. His uniform is so starched it looks like it could stand on its own.
“You’ve grown out your hair,” Beckly notes with a slightly feral grin. “It suits you.”
“Meanwhile you,” Lament replies, “look exactly the same.”
Beckly laughs. “Is that a compliment?”
“Hardly.”
“You took no issue with my looks the last time we met.” Beckly is still smiling. “Then again, it was dark.”
I realize quite suddenly that I do not like Beckly. In fact, I might very possibly loathe him. Would it be inappropriate, I wonder, to shove him out of the rover?
“Who’s your new partner?” Beckly asks, arching a brow in my direction. “Actually wait, don’t tell me. You’re Keller Hartman.”
