Above World by Jenn Reese

Author:Jenn Reese
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780763659585
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2012-01-18T22:00:00+00:00

STANDING INSIDE the ruins of what had once been a tall, shimmering Human building reminded Hoku of swimming through the bones of Big Blue on the ocean floor. When a whale died, all its adventures died with it. No one would ever know what treasures it had seen in the Great Ravine, or what strange melodies it had heard the night all the dolphins decided to sing at once. But a whale’s ancient bones quickly became a thriving colony of skittering crabs and shadowy eels, of bright sponges and schools of darting fish. Life went on, changed. New stories were written on top of the old.

The same was true of this building. Humans had lived here, some only a few decades ago. What food had they eaten? What games had they played? What tech had they used? No one would ever hear their stories now. But the dome was far from desolate. Up close, the signs of new life were everywhere. Birds darted back and forth, making their nests in the building’s framework and hunting for vermin in the garbage. Rats and strange patchwork mice scampered around the fringes of the building’s interior. To them, these ruins must seem like a vast banquet of opportunity. Once they had been chased and killed by the people who lived here. Now they were kings.

“Move your tail,” Aluna said, breaking his mood. She pulled at a pile of rocks and plastic barricading a hole in the building’s rim. “We should have had the Aviars drop us on the outside. Little good this place does us without wings.”

Hoku rushed to help her, and they had a small passage cleared within a few minutes. Aluna clambered through the opening, and he scrambled after her. He barely avoided twisting his ankle two separate times, and a jagged piece of glass gave him a shallow slash on his left forearm. By the time he climbed through to the other side, his skin had already stitched itself back together — thanks to the Kampii ancients and their gift of fast healing.

“Good thing we’re not in the ocean, or the sharks would be all over you,” she said. She’d meant it to be cheerful, but it made him miss the water.

Outside the building, he got a better sense of the city’s shape. The debris-filled valleys between the shattered buildings must have been roads. Scorch marks stained everything, big sooty smears marring what had once been shiny silver and glass. The Battle of the Dome had killed more than Aviars and Upgraders; it had killed the city itself.

“Hoku, look,” Aluna said quietly.

He followed her gaze. In the distance, he saw a Human-shaped creature climbing a pile of rubble on eight hairy spider legs. When it got to the top of the pile, it picked up a boulder with its two Human hands, and another with two of its spindly spider legs, then scampered out of sight.

“It could be a Dome Mek,” Hoku whispered, even though the creature seemed far away. “Niobe told me they were created to defend and maintain the dome.

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