At this, Blane and the redheaded guy exchange smirks. If Nevada notices she chooses to ignore it. “How’s your mama these days?” she asks.
“Worn out.” Armonk nods wearily at the image in his head. “The sector, it’s not so good. The trial gardens didn’t really take. Could be all of the rock, or the iron in the soil, or …” He trails off.
“Sorry to hear that.” Nevada says in sympathy. “What brings you down our way? It’s not as if we have a superhighway to Skull’s Wrath. Must’ve taken you weeks to get here or … did you catch a ride? I hope you did!” Nevada giggles like a girl. She’s hard to get a grasp on. One moment she’s a sympathetic mom type, the next, she’s waifish, fashioned from mere air and dust.
“I got a ride, part way and then …” Armonk lowers his head and his black bangs fall over his eyes. “I’ve heard that Dr. Varik is headed here.” At this, Nevada draws a sharp breath. “I’ve heard he’s a doctor now, and wants to help people down around here.” Armonk lifts his head and stares at Nevada. “Have you heard any news?”
“I hear things here and there.” This answer seems cagey, and when I look at Thorn, he’s studying her the way he does when he’s trying to eke out a lie. “What do you need with Varik?” she asks Armonk. “Are you sick?”
Armonk taps on his fake leg. “This was amazing so many years ago when Dr. Varik sent it after his trip our way. He made it himself.” Armonk’s voice lowers. “But now, it’s battered, too small.”
Nevada lays a gentle hand on Armonk’s shoulder. “You must stay.”
“How soon did they say he’d be coming?” Armonk asks. “I heard he was building a facility. Has construction begun? I was going to wait just until I saw him and—”
“Nonsense, stay as long as you want. Study here.”
“Wait a minute!” Blane bursts out.
What about me? My brother? Nevada hasn’t even noticed us. Would I want to stay, if we even could? These boys frighten me, but something about Nevada is drawing me in. A school, a chance to learn! For Thorn too; maybe she could teach him how to really talk. I step up. “Do you think we can all stay? For a while?”
“Oh!” Nevada looks at me startled, as if she hasn’t ever seen me in the background all of this time with my brother. “Do you have family? Your brother is so young.”
“My brother’s eight,” I tell her. “He’s quite smart.” Behind me, I hear titters of barely suppressed laughter, but I don’t care. He’s surely smarter than all of them, if you count his inner sight.
“Eight.” She nods vaguely. “That would be third grade. I run a high school. Do you have family near here? Did you say?”
“Nowhere near here,” I lie.
“As for me,” Armonk says, “I’m not planning to stay. I need to get back. This is a school for, um, stranded kids and I have my mother back at home.” Is he rubbing in the fact that Blane, Radius and the others are all alone, or is he trying to be fair and acknowledge their more legitimate claim to the shelter of The Greening?
“Yeah, you already have a home,” pipes up the redheaded boy. “You must too, flyaway girl. Where’s yours? He stares at my frizzled, honey-hued hair with his steely blue eyes.
“Radius, I wasn’t discussing this with you,” Nevada warns.
I need to fight for this. We can’t exactly go back now, and on the way here we saw no other compounds. “I’m Ruby and this is Thorn,” I say as I fold my brother in close.
Unease shadows Nevada’s elfin face. “Well, Armonk, Ruby, Thorn, you’re—”
“Don’t bother applying. It’s a complicated process,” says the tall, nose-ringed guy as he lopes over. You have to be good at science, or something.” The heat of a new intense energy drips off him like oil as his eyes linger on my hair, and travel slowly down to my chest. I shudder. Does that mean favors like Stiles would have demanded back at home? Where are all the girls? Is this an all-boys school?
Nevada gives him a threatening look. “Jan, back off, that’s up to me—”
“What he’s saying is that you have to qualify,” Blane pipes up from where he stands. “You have to bring something to the equation.”
“What does he mean?” I ask Nevada.
Blane answers for her. “You have to take an academic test—test in. You also have to offer a payment. I had two fat stacks of old hundred dollar bills, from before the Border Wars,” he says proudly.
“And I had these clubs from a museum.” Jan thwacks one against his calloused palm.
“I had four cartons of dried food. I hauled that stuff hundreds of miles over frying sand dunes,” Radius brags.
I think about my Oblivion powder. It’s worth a lot. But I could never part with it. I need it too badly.
Armonk collects his bow and quiver. He dusts them off. “I’m an expert marksman. Not that I’m staying … just until Dr. Varik—”