Niko Read online

  Chapter 22

  She was in the tank again but this time she knew the blue stuff surrounding her wasn’t good. She tried to thrash her legs, to reach the top before her lungs ran out of air. But her legs wouldn’t move.

  She looked down, something hard and grey had grown over her feet and was slowly climbing upward. When she tried to rip off the crust it only cut her hands leaving ribbons of blood to float off in the water.

  There were people beyond the blue, going about their business and completely oblivious even as she banged on the glass.

  The crust crept up her calves then over her knees further limiting her movements. Her lungs burned and in a single desperate attempt she opened her mouth, water rushed in, gagging her.

  Niko gasped.

  Her stomach was wet, her shirt soaked and the liquid trickled downward, rolling past her racing heart and sliding along the length of her neck before dripping into her ear. It made each breath sound loud and unnaturally hoarse.

  A ceiling of branches were spread out above her and some of the bags were caught in its limbs. With a groan the helicopter shifted and Niko shut her eyes as more glass rained down.

  Ben had set the helicopter down in a tree and they were lodged amongst the branches at a steep slant. The seat belt was the only thing keeping her in place.

  Water dripped steadily from a broken container leaving her shirt saturated. She did a quick body check marveling at how she managed to survive the crash with only minor cuts and bruises. But when she tried to lift her legs she found she was unable to move them.

  The aircraft shifted a little more metal groaning and branches snapping from the strain, littering her face and clothes with their debris. The weight of the helicopter would probably bring it to the ground, she doubted she’d survive a second crash.

  She gave a little scream of frustration. A bag had settled on her legs pinning her to the seat. She yanked at it but it was tucked in tight between her legs and a thick branch. She yanked harder; she was not going to die in a freak accident just as she made it out of the city.

  She yanked again and the strap came away in her hand. She slammed the back of her head against something hard. Fighting off a wave of dizziness Niko slipped her hands under her thigh and put all her effort into pulling her leg free. Her motions sent an occasional shower of glass and other wreckage raining down on her as she tugged her leg out inch by inch the metal on the backpack scraping and digging into her skin.

  “Ben?” She called out but received no answer. Was he there? Was he conscious? Was he alive?

  She continued her efforts and with one last yell finally managed to yank it free. She pulled it to her chest and wrapped her arms around it in a hug, laughing and crying in relief.

  It turned into a scream as the helicopter shifted again. Newly dislodged the bag tumbled toward her. She ducked and it sailed over her head, bouncing against something behind her before it punched through the window. There was a plop, a splash and then the distinctive hiss of acid eating through permeable material.

  Great, now she had a rain puddle to worry about.

  Both legs free she pulled the leaking backpack away from the branches and strapped it onto her front. No matter how long it took to escape clean water was a must.

  She tried to maneuver herself so that she was no longer hanging upside down. Then gripping one of the sturdier looking branches she undid her seat belt. Bap, bap, her boots hit the window lightly as she dangled from the branches. She spread her legs positioning her feet as far away from the hole as possible. The window was stronger near the edges.

  She stood several meters above a large acid puddle. It was a beautiful brilliant blue that shimmered in the sunlight. The bag that had fell into it was nowhere to be seen.

  Keeping her grip on the branches she took a step quickly transferring her hand to a new tree limb at the same time. The glass cracked but held.

  Niko shuffled forward another step keeping her eyes on the branches ahead of her, not the agonizing death that greeted her from below. The water dripping from the backpack began to soak her pants leg and water slid down the inside of her boot until she was carrying a small lake in her right foot, water sloshing between her toes.

  She gripped the next branch. Ben and the cockpit felt like they were thousands of miles away instead of little more than a meter. She tried to ignore the doubts that harassed her like gnats, saying that she’d grown too soft at the hotel, that she wasn’t going to make it so why bother trying. Each step she took only seemed to make them buzz louder.

  She took another step and the glass cracked loudly before a large piece tumbled away, taking her leg with it.

  Niko stumbled. Her leg dangled out of the helicopter almost to mid-thigh. Her tight grip on the branches was the only thing that prevented her from completing her dive into the abyss. Her boot wasn’t touching the water but she swore she could feel the fumes rising up to nibble at her foot.

  The helicopter shuddered around her, shifting yet again. She couldn’t wait to be back on solid ground, she was never going flying again.

  She waited till the helicopter was still once more before she slowly hauled herself upright and pulled her leg free from the hole. She trembled at the thought of her close escape, her whole body one tremulous heartbeat. She had to get out of there.

  Niko moved faster putting more of her weight on the branches she stepped lightly across the window. A curtain of tree limbs stood as a barrier between her and the cockpit. There was a space between the branches just big enough to contort her body through but only if she ditched the bag.

  She lifted her leg wrapping one then the other around a tree branch. She hesitated a moment before she shimmied out of the straps, clutching the backpack between her knees. She lay on her back and scooted through the hole. She hoped the helicopter wouldn’t decide that this would be a great moment to shift even more toward the acid puddle.

  Her head broke free inches from Ben’s. He was still and there was blood on his face. He dangled limply from the seat. Niko waited a heartbeat, then two and was immensely relieved when she caught the slight rise and fall of his chest. She wiggled the rest of the way out branches digging into her stomach and side.

  She sat on the side of the passenger seat, which because of the helicopter’s new canted position was now the floor. The acid puddle was still below her feet the pretty colored water begging her to come in for just one short dip. How big was it anyway? She wondered.

  Niko glanced out of the window ahead of her. Branches mostly marred the view though she could see some crumbling building beyond it. She looked at Ben, the wound on his head was superficial but like most head wounds it bled profusely. There was also a wound on his leg that wasn’t superficial, a piece of metal about as large as her hand was stuck deep in his calf. She didn’t dare touch it.

  Her bat was also lodged in the cockpit and it gave her an idea. She tugged Ben’s shirt over his head, exposing some of his stomach. She grabbed the bat then pulled her own shirt over her head, protecting her eyes. She thrust the bat upward bashing at the window until it broke. Glass showered down upon them drumming against cloth and exposed skin alike. She waited for the deluge to pass before she pulled her shirt from her face.

  She tugged the backpack free from the branches behind her and pushed it through the new hole she’d just created.

  Now it was time for the hard part. She scooted around until she had wedged her body between the seat and the helicopter controls then unstrapped Ben’s seat belt. She uttered a soft grunt as a hundred and eighty-five pounds of unconscious deadweight landed on her. Her legs trembled as she strained to keep her position.

  Carefully, she removed his belt and wrapped it around the both of them. Reaching her arms above her head she grabbed a branch outside of the downed aircraft and began the excruciating process of hauling both their bodies out of the helicopter wincing internally as Ben’s injured leg seemed to bump against every possible surface.

  Her shirt tore
as pieces of glass dug into her skin, however much she shifted she couldn’t seem to avoid them. Her arm muscles felt like they were burning from the strain of carrying their combined weight but eventually her hips cleared the helicopter’s interior.

  She sat on a branch taking a moment to rest. Her back stung. Ben’s head lolled against her breasts, despite all the jostling he had received he was still unconscious something he’d probably regret later when he learned about the position he’d been in. Niko smiled slightly at a thought.

  She slipped the backpack over her shoulder wincing as the fabric kissed her newly opened cuts. She pulled Ben and herself the rest of the way out and stood up.

  They stood somewhere in the middle of the tree with the downed helicopter peering at them like an injured insect. She looked down, the acid puddle they’d landed near wasn’t so much an acid puddle as it was a small lake and the tree they were in stood less than a meter away from the shore. If they had just a smidgen more bad luck they would have been added to the noxious blue soup.

  She looked around; the landscape was more desolate than usual most of the buildings weren’t even standing just a low crumbling wall here and there standing out like nubs in a fetid mouth.

  It seemed like a place no one would live but even so she thought she could see two figures off in the distance.

  Beside her a branch snapped showing off the white meat inside and the helicopter shuddered even closer to the acid puddle. If the helicopter fell in at that moment it wouldn’t matter that they were no longer inside, the backsplash would kill them. And much more slowly than simply falling into the muck would.

  “Hey!” She screamed but the couple kept walking. Soon they’d be too far away to even see and she needed help getting Ben down to the ground. She sucked in a deep breath.

  “HELP!”

  One of them stopped and glanced around but not in the direction Niko was. She shook it off and began to hurry to catch up to her friend when Niko yelled again. This time they both turned around and looked in the right direction. She wanted to wave to get their attention but didn’t want to jostle the tree even more.

  “I’m over here!” She cried out.

  The couple came running though they stopped well away from the edge of the acid lake. They both stared up at her amazement filling their eyes. One of the girls had her black hair cut raggedly near her chin, she wore a thick fur lined hoodie that was guaranteed to keep her warm in the winter if someone didn’t’ steal it first. She had smooth pale skin unmarred by disease or acid burns. The other girl was slightly taller with longer hair and unusual blue and white markings on her cheeks.

  “Can you help me get down?” Niko asked after a moment.

  Hoodie tilted her head to the side. “Are you with those people giving out water and medicine and stuff?”

  Niko nodded vigorously. “Yes!” When Ben woke up he was getting a hug and a big kiss. She was so glad they’d decided to do what they could to help.

  Hoodie looked less than impressed. “You guys never come here. People live here too you know.”

  Dammit. If they ever got out of the tree and didn’t die from acid burns she was going to kill Ben when he woke up, a slow torturous death. She thought he said they didn’t play favorites.

  The other girl touched Hoodie’s shoulder and leaned in to whisper something in her ear her long hair forming a curtain leaving Niko unable to read her expression.

  When she broke away Hoodie pointed her chin in Niko’s direction. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Water.” Niko said understanding that if she wanted to get out of the tree she was going to have to bargain her way down. She could be seconds away from tumbling into the acid but she was no longer nestled in the comforts of the city and outside its walls smart people did what they could to get ahead.

  “Is it clean?” Hoodie asked.

  “Cleaner than the soup under me,” Niko responded. The tree groaned again but the helicopter didn’t slide any further. Still, her heart pounded, she needed to get to solid ground.

  “Give us the bag and we’ll help you down.”

  So they could take the water and run off? She didn’t think so. “Us first, then the backpack.”

  “You don’t trust us?” Asked the other girl sounding genuinely surprised.

  Niko laughed.

  Hoodie folded her arms across her chest. “We could just leave you up there.”

  Ben murmured something under his breath. Niko wasn’t sure if he was beginning to wake up but she didn’t want to be stuck in a tree when he did.

  “Then you’ll lose all of the supplies in the helicopter.” She let out an aggravated huff of air. “Look, we crashed here that means we won’t be bringing by anymore stuff.” She wracked her brain for one last thing to bargain with.

  Ben slumped a little further over the belt. “And one of us is a doctor.”

  The helicopter shifted a little more. It hovered so close to the water that Niko’s skin crawled just looking at it. The two girls eyed the aircraft, probably imagining how long they’d be able to survive off of the supplies inside.

  Hoodie broke into a small smile. “Alright, pass him down first.”

  Niko contained her immense relief and unhooked the belt from around both of them. Slowly, carefully she lowered Ben down to them reminding them to be watchful of his injured leg.

  Once he was down on the ground with the two girls struggling to keep him upright between them Niko followed suit, dancing a few yards away from the tree once she was on solid ground. She never wanted to fly again.

  The ground was saturated with acid rain and her footsteps left shallow puddles slowly being filled with murky water.

  “Thank you.” She told the couple. If the two of them hadn’t been there she doubt things would have ended as well.

  “No problem.” Hoodie said. She glanced at the helicopter and frowned at its precarious position. “How much stuff you say was in there?”

  “Lots.” Niko told her. “You won’t need to visit a treatment plant for months.” Though if they were smart they’d still go there and supplement their extra water.

  “We could always come back later, Lo.” The one with the longer hair said. Niko saw that the markings on her cheeks weren’t blue and white but blue tattoos slashed with white scars.

  Hoodie--- Lo looked down at Ben cradled in their arms as if mentally debating if they could carry him to safety fast enough and come back before the aircraft was picked clean by others.

  Nature decided to answer for them. With one last groan the branches holding the helicopter snapped.