To Rise

A short story

The blitz drone seemed to be staring at him from the shadows. Polj whispered an offering to the martyrs as he flicked a corroded switch on the control widget he gripped.

He knew it wasn’t staring at him. He’d disabled the war machine’s sensor arrays. Its missile ports and turrets were empty. Polj had even attempted to scrape the Consortium Civil Defense Force logo and registration number from its hull.

He’d seen the death and destruction delivered by CCDF blitz drones too often to not feel anxious in close quarters with one. A shudder slithered up his spine as the drone blinked to life, the low thrum of its stabilizers echoing off the walls of the tumble-down workshop. Its bulk almost filled the entirety of the small, cluttered bay as it buoyed off the hydraulic lift to hover in place.

His lips formed a smile, tongue nervously darting out of the space where his front teeth used to be.

It had taken Polj three weeks to circumvent the blitz drone’s security systems and remove its tracking beacon. He’d found it while salvaging wires in the rubble of the Div4 factory tract that had been obliterated during a CCDF attack two weeks earlier. It was rare for a damaged blitz drone to not auto destruct, let alone be mostly intact.

Polj went into debt renting a hauler to move the drone from Div4 to his squat on the edge of Ozek District, in the shadows of the Mawqe Mountains. After another week of repairs and modifications, he could hardly believe the drone was working again. And now it was under his control.

His toothless smile vanished as the aircraft began to wobble in the air, the hum of the stabilizers cutting in and out.

Polj quickly maneuvered the drone back onto the lift and shut it down. He popped open a side panel on its hull and examined the avionics bay. A small wisp of smoke led him to the offending part. He pried the still sparking modular connector from its base and hurled it across the workshop.

“Shitlicker.”

Yutta wiped a tear from her cheek, cringing from the spikes of pain stabbing her limbs as she clambered from the bed into her carrier. Some days she could manage the steady aches that had racked her body for most of her thirteen years alive; this was not one of those mornings.

The seat of the battered, two-wheeled carrier wobbled as she settled onto it. The rusty bearings squealed as she carefully wheeled out of her small room and into the kitchen. She moved to the sink only to find the faucet would not yield any water. It was the third time this month their water system had shut down. She was afraid to tell her father, reluctant to see the familiar rage the news would ignite in him.

Yutta swiveled to look out the kitchen window – the largest in the squat – running from floor to ceiling, her favorite spot aside from the rooftop. From their location at the base of the Mawqe Mountains, Yutta would spend hours looking out at the endless ocean of squats and hovels in Ozek District below. She missed her friends and cousins since her father moved them here four months ago, but when she was on the rooftop, so far above the pollution and the noise, she felt like she’d floated away from the pain in her body.

She jumped as Polj shoved open the front door and stormed inside. His hands were grimy, he had obviously come from his workshop. Her father glanced at her for a moment, quickly turning away as if his gaze could add to the pain she lived with. When Polj grabbed his shoulder bag off the couch, Yutta knew he was going into Ozek.

“Opah,” she called to her father. “Will you take me to the roof before you go?”

The only way to the rooftop was by climbing a narrow ladder running from the terrace. Polj had rigged a pulley and rope to assist, but Yutta couldn’t climb it without help.

“I gotta skut,” he said, already moving toward the door. “It’ll take me half the day to get back.”

“But you were gone all day yesterday – “

“I said what I said, Yutta,” Polj barked. The door slammed behind him.

He’d been spending so much time in his workshop the past few weeks. With the treads on her carrier nearly bald, she couldn’t wheel down the winding path to the workshop, so Yutta had hardly seen him.

It was obvious that he’d forgotten it was Azzeh Day. Once night fell, hoverlights would fill the dark sky to commemorate the martyr. Yutta had looked forward to experiencing Azzeh Day from her perch on the rooftop, watching the festive display free of obstructions.

Even if Polj returned in time, he would probably rush back to his workshop and not make the time to help her.

Yutta wheeled herself onto the small terrace and eyed the pulley.

Polj’s ribs throbbed by the time the two hour ride to Rawko’s shop in the heart of Ozek District was over. The techwalla laughed when he saw Polj gingerly climbing off his dilapidated skitter.

“Unless you’re here with the ten bits you owe, I have no time for you,” called Rawko through the bars across the front door.

“It’s seven,” Polj grunted as he slid open the gate and shambled inside the shop. “But I ain’t here to quib.”

Polj dropped his shoulder bag and unzipped it. Five JX-60 rockets toppled onto the counter. Rawko’s mouth hung open a full three seconds before he whistled in disbelief. “Where’d a nuk like you prof these?”

Polj crossed his arms, ignoring the question. “I need a modular connector.”

Rawko rubbed his stubbly chin, sighed. “This could bring me unwanted attention from the Authority.”

“Could also bring you a grip of bits from Zeta Dawn.”

Rawko nodded. The local insurgents would pay generously for this kind of ammunition. “What do you need a mod con for?”

“You have one or not?”

The techwalla squinted at Polj. He didn’t like the evasiveness, but also didn’t want a deal like this to slip away. He grunted and slid open the curtain leading to the supply room.

The door to the terrace was ajar when Polj returned home three hours later. He could see Yutta’s carrier through the doorway, sitting empty. His heart seized as he realized she must have tried to climb up to the roof by herself.

She had begrudged him since he moved her to the edge of the district. She didn’t understand that the quiet, the isolation was what she needed. That being away from the sneers and the cruelty and the vultures who saw a broken girl as easy pickings was best for her.

And now she’d gotten herself hurt, or killed…

Polj dashed onto the terrace, shoving the carrier out of his way. His mouth hung open when he saw Yutta sprawled against the banister on the far side of the terrace, her hand still gripping the rope near the ladder.

“The Fuck!” Polj could not contain his anger.

“Opah, I’m sorry – “

Polj grabbed the carrier and shoved it toward her. “Get your ass back where it belongs. Now!”

Yutta could hardly contain the despair swelling inside her chest. Polj had wheeled her down the path and parked her carrier on the top steps leading to his workshop. He growled a threat if she dared move and disappeared into his workshop for more than an hour. The sky was darkening and in the distance she could see bright, multi-colored specks beginning to float up from the squats in Ozek below. The hoverlight displays would begin soon, and she’d be stuck on this desolate path by herself with an obscured view of the sky.

It was clear to her now how much her father despised her and her illness. All he cared about was tinkering with his gadgets. She was only a nuisance. She doubted her carrier could make it back up the path, but she decided to try anyway…

The low thrum from inside the workshop froze her in place. The noise echoed off the mountainside, making the hairs on her arm stand straight. She’d heard that sound before, usually right before explosions, screams and fire filled the air. She unlocked the brake on her carrier and started to wheel herself up the path.

“Don’t move,” she heard her father’s voice. There was no anger this time, only calm. “It’s okay, Yutta.”

She looked down to see him slide open the sectional door of the workshop. Polj stood back and the blitz drone slowly floated out. Yutta stared at her father in shock, only to see him smile. He held up a reassuring hand as he maneuvered the drone toward her.

As it approached, Yutta could make out something attached to the lower hull – a harness with a seat. The drone glided upwards and stopped, the seat hanging right in front of her.

Yutta looked back at Polj again, not quite believing what was happening. Her father nodded and motioned for her to climb into the seat. So she did. He hustled up the path and strapped the harness around her. Yutta’s heart raced. She struggled to find the words to tell her father what this meant to her.

“Opah, I – I – “

Polj patted her cheek, silencing her. “Go watch the lights.”

The drone rose into the night sky, up past their squat, higher than the rooftop she loved. She kept rising until she could even see lights from Lasco, the district far beyond Ozek.

She gasped as a burst of red luminescence filled the night sky, then streaks of yellow and blue, as the hoverlight displays began. Yutta felt like she could reach out and touch them, like she had risen above the pain and the hurt of her life on the ground.

“Higher,” she shouted to her father below. “Higher!!!”

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