The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2) by Ramona Finn (no david read aloud .txt) 📕

the communal area. Most of the camp seemed to be sleeping, but an old woman waved to us from her spot by the fire. I smiled back at her, distracted, as Ben steered us past the huts.

“Through here.” We headed down a tight corridor, through a curtain of beads to a cramped chamber beyond. Three beds stood along one wall, and a folding desk along another, groaning under the tools of Jasper’s trade. The Carillon stood on a shelf, spilling soft music through the night. Ben glanced at it, surprised.

“You get a signal up here?”

“No. That’s a tape.” Jasper bustled over, focused on Lock. “Get him on the far bed, the one by the ventilator. And get that mask off him.”

We lowered Lock’s stretcher to the ground, and I lifted him onto the bed. His hand found mine as I peeled off his mask. He held on for a moment, cold fingers tangling with mine, then his body went lax.

“We made it,” I told him. “You can sleep now. Save your strength. Jasper won’t let anything happen to you.”

“He’s unconscious,” said Jasper. His lips twitched downward. “And you shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Like what?”

“You shouldn’t make promises I can’t keep.” He unbuttoned Lock’s shirt and put his stethoscope to his chest. I watched his face as he did it, but his expression didn’t change. “How long has he been like this?”

“Just today. Since this afternoon. But it was last night she deactivated him.”

Jasper nodded. “Any vomiting? Seizures?”

“He was sick at the caves,” said Ben. “But no seizures, that I’ve seen.”

I shifted from foot to foot, my patience wearing thin. “Can you help him? Reactivate his nanobots? Or what about yours, the ones you were—”

“Slow down.” Jasper produced a cotton swab and soaked it with alcohol. He brushed it over Lock’s hand, and Ben turned away as the IV went in. Jasper taped it in place and let out a hissing breath. “I can support him with electrolytes, antibiotics to fight infection. But his organs are failing. He doesn’t have long.”

“So that’s it?” My heart sank. “You’re just giving up?”

“I didn’t say that.” Jasper fetched a wet cloth and began to bathe Lock’s face. “I learned a lot from your sister. I’ve developed a new line of nanobots, and these ones actually work. They won’t last ten years, or anywhere close, but if I could get them into him, we’d buy him some time.”

“So what are you waiting for?” I grabbed for his cloth. “Quit wiping and get to it.”

“It’s not as simple as that.” Jasper’s whole body drooped. “It’s a physically traumatic experience, installing new nanobots. The activation is... violent, for want of a better term. The shock to the system is brutal. A healthy body can withstand it, but one as damaged as his—he’d need support we can’t give.”

“Like what?” I rocked forward where I stood, bubbling over with energy. “Whatever you need, just tell me, and I’ll find it.”

Jasper let out a deep sigh. “Refined gretha, and lots of it. Medical grade, not fuel grade. I’d need a day’s worth, maybe more. It’s hard to say. Nobody’s tried this before.”

I felt the wind go out of my sails. Gretha that pure took roomfuls of equipment—first the huge cyclone tanks to suck out the dust, then a trip through the distillers to separate the gretha from the atmosphere. Then, the electrical filters finished the job. I pressed my palms to my forehead. “I don’t suppose you’re hiding a refinery somewhere out here?”

Jasper snorted. “That’d be the day.”

“Jasper.” Starkey pushed through the curtain, Jetha in tow. He glanced at Lock, eyes narrowed. “He stable?”

“For now.”

“Good. Tell our guests what you’ve learned about those blasters.” He sat on the bed next to Lock’s, kneading absently at his scars. He’d lost weight, I saw, and his hair had thinned. He caught me staring and folded his arms across his chest.

“Lazrad’s new blasters, yes. Quite innovative. Quite deadly.” Jasper went to his worktable. He opened a drawer and retrieved a snub glass canister. “Their power comes from nanobots, quick-acting processors that can predict a target’s movements with a high degree of accuracy. These are dead, but—”

“Nanobots.” I eyed the canister in his hand. “I could sense them before, like a buzzing in my head. Do you think that’s their nanobots? Signaling to mine?”

“It’s possible.” Jasper frowned. “They can communicate with each other—they’re set up for that. You can mount them for automatic discharge, hooked to a motion sensor. One sights the target and tells the others where to fire. They can calculate the timing and the angle, even in fog or low light.” His expression turned grim. “Your sister’s bots didn’t have that feature, that ability to communicate, but yours are an older model. Could be that’s a discontinued function, repurposed for—well, for murder. To kill us faster.” His voice rose, thin with fury, and I thought he might dash the canister at his feet.

“You found Lazrad’s arsenal,” said Starkey. His gaze bored into me, pale and steady. “Describe what you saw. How large a force could she mount?”

“I don’t know.” I closed my eyes, trying to picture what I’d seen. “She had racks and racks of blasters, a whole wall of them, two floors high. She had drones, cannons—I don’t know what else. A lot was in crates, and we didn’t have time to look inside.”

Starkey’s lip curled. “All that has to go.”

Jetha nodded. “We need to buy time. Time to find those other Domes, time to win them to our side.” She turned to me. “It’s a lot to put on you, but we’ll need your help again. You know where Lazrad keeps her weapons. You’ll get us inside, and we can destroy them.”

I felt my chest tighten. I couldn’t leave Lock, not like this. He lay motionless, scarcely breathing, and for all his size, he looked small. His skin had taken on a yellow cast, and his fingertips were purple.

“You can’t help him,” said Starkey. “But you can help us