The World Without Rain

Chapter 5: The Sneak Apprentice

The blinding, white-hot magnesium glare of the homemade flashbomb burned straight through Jevan’s closed eyelids. He let out a strangled yelp, his vision instantly dissolving into a chaotic sea of dancing purple spots and screaming static. 

But years of dodging snapping drive-belts and exploding steam lines had trained his body to react before his brain could catch up. Hearing the frantic, heavy rustle of a stiff canvas trench coat rushing toward the exit, Jevan threw himself forward in a blind, desperate tackle.

"I got her!" he roared, his hands locking onto a bundle of crackling plastic and thick fabric. 

They collided with a heavy, air-leaving oof. The impact sent them both skidding across the dusty concrete floor, initiating a spectacular, highly wet catastrophe. Dozens of plastic intravenous saline bags, shoved hastily into the thief’s oversized pockets, surrendered to the pressure. They burst one after another in a rapid-fire chorus of wet pops, spraying cold, sterile saltwater all over Jevan’s face, chest, and boots.

"My saline!" Dr. Tisya’s agonized scream echoed through the dark ward. "You absolute baboons! That was our entire reserve!"

"Get off me, you giant, mud-crusted grease monkey!" a sharp, fiercely nasal voice shrieked from beneath Jevan. 

He blinked through the stinging salt water, his vision slowly returning. He was pinning a teenage girl who couldn't have been more than eighty pounds soaking wet. She had a mop of messy, ink-black hair cut into a jagged bob, and her face was smeared with dark engine grease. She was thrashing like a cornered badger, her small, dirt-caked fingers clawing at his wrists. 

"Careful, Jevan! She might be highly trained in the lethal arts of close-quarters assassination!" Elangga shouted, his voice echoing from somewhere near the floor. He was still flat on his stomach, holding a metal kidney dish over his head like a helmet. 

"She’s fifteen, Elangga," Svara sighed, stepping forward and shaking her head. She reached down, offering Jevan a hand. 

Jevan took it, letting her haul him up. For a brief second, as their palms pressed together, Svara’s fingers lingered against his. Her skin was warm, a steadying anchor in the middle of the absolute chaos. She gave his hand a gentle, reassuring squeeze before letting go, her eyes searching his face for any injuries. Jevan felt a sudden, ridiculous warmth bloom in his chest, completely ignoring the fact that his shirt was currently dripping with lukewarm medical fluids. 

The teenage girl scrambled backward until her spine hit the leg of a heavy iron gurney. She glared at them, baring her teeth. "I am a professional, okay? A shadow of the dunes! I was executing a flawless, low-profile extraction before you ruined it with your giant, clunky-ass boots!"

"A professional?" Jevan wiped a stream of saline from his nose. "You threw a surgical tray at a guy who was already trying to eat the floorboards. That's not stealth, kid. That's a temper tantrum."

"And you ruined my coat!" she snapped, tugging at the dripping sleeves of her oversized trench coat, which was now leaking a steady stream of water onto her boots. "Do you know how hard it is to find a coat with this many pockets? It’s a tactical masterpiece!"

Elangga slowly rose from the floor, brushing the dust off his knees with an air of profound, wounded dignity. He stepped toward the girl, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes into what he clearly believed was a terrifying, battle-hardened glare. "Silence, captive! You are now under the custody of the Vanguard of Survival. Prepare yourself for a level-four military interrogation." He reached into his pocket and whipped out a wooden tongue depressor, pointing it at her like a dagger. "Where did you get that flash device? Who is your handler?"

The girl stared at the tongue depressor, then slowly looked up at Elangga’s face, her gaze lingering on the squashed cardboard box residue still clinging to his tactical vest. 

"Are you the guy who just bounced off a rubber band in the courtyard?" she asked, her voice dripping with flat, unimpressed sarcasm. "Because I watched that from the roof. Honestly, a solid two out of ten for the landing, but a ten for comedy. My favorite part was when your legs did the little scissor thing in the air."

Elangga’s jaw dropped. His stoic facade shattered instantly. "That was a highly calculated kinetic-dampening maneuver!" he hissed, his cheeks turning a bright, embarrassing red. "It is a classified survival technique!"

"Sure it was, cardboard boy," she snorted. 

"Enough," Tisya snapped, stepping into the center of the room. She looked down at the ruined, dripping saline bags scattered across the floor, her expression a mix of grief and pure, unadulterated fury. "Who are you, and why are you stealing from my clinic? I don't care about your 'professional shadow' nonsense. People are dying here."

The girl’s sassy demeanor faltered for a fraction of a second. She looked at the sick patients resting on the cots across the room, her shoulders dropping slightly. "I'm Niskala," she muttered, her voice losing some of its sharp edge. "And I wasn't going to keep all of it. I have a crew. We... we trade medical supplies to the merchants in Sector 3 for food. The drought is hitting us too."

"By stealing from a charity clinic?" Svara asked, her voice gentle but firm. "Niskala, these people won't survive the week without these fluids."

"And we won't survive the week without food!" Niskala fired back, her eyes flashing with a defensive, desperate anger. "You think you're the only ones struggling? The Steel-Grip Warlord has shut off the eastern well. He's hoarding everything. If you don't pay his water tax, you dry up and blow away."

Jevan’s ears perked up. He stepped closer, his boots squelching on the wet floor. "You know the Steel-Grip’s compound?"

Niskala let out a short, mocking laugh. "Know it? I practically live in his vents. I've stolen three toolkits, a crate of preserved peaches, and his favorite pair of silk underwear right out of his personal quarters."

Elangga blinked. "He has silk underwear?"

"With little golden anchors on them," Niskala confirmed with a smirk. "But that's not the point. The point is, I know every single crack in that fortress. I know when the guards take their smoke breaks. I know which ones are blind in their left eye, and I know exactly where he keeps his treasure vault."

Jevan looked at Svara. Her wide, dark eyes met his, and he could see the same realization dawning on her. 

"The blueprints," Jevan whispered. "She can get us to the safe."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute," Niskala said, raising her hands defensively. "I'm a solo act. Well, a solo act with a crew. I don't do joint operations, and I definitely don't do suicide runs with a guy who fights with a pipe wrench and a dude who wears garbage as armor."

"We don't have a choice," Tisya said, her voice deadpan. "You destroyed my remaining medical reserves, Niskala. You owe this clinic. And more importantly, if you help them get those deep-bore blueprints, we'll have enough clean water for the entire valley. No more water tax. No more starving."

Niskala looked from Tisya to Jevan, then finally to Svara. She bit her lower lip, her bravaded teenager routine cracking under the weight of the proposal. "The Steel-Grip’s guards don't play around. If they catch us, they don't just lock you up. They tie you to the front of their buggies and drag you through the salt flats."

Jevan felt a sharp pang of guilt in his chest. He looked at Niskala’s small, grease-stained face. She's just a kid, he thought, his protective instincts kicking in. We're really going to drag a teenager into a warlord's nest?

Svara must have read the conflict on his face. She stepped up beside him, her shoulder pressing gently against his arm. The contact was brief, but it filled him with a quiet strength. 

"We’ll protect her, Jevan," Svara murmured, her voice meant for his ears alone. "We’re not letting anything happen to her. Or to you."

Jevan looked down at her, his heart doing a slow, heavy roll. "I'm more worried about keeping you safe," he said softly, his voice thick with a sudden, intense emotion. 

Svara’s breath hitched. A faint, beautiful flush crept up her neck, dusting her cheeks with a soft pink. "I can take care of myself, water boy," she whispered, though she didn't step away. 

Before Jevan could respond, a low, vibrating rumble shook the concrete walls of the hospital. It wasn't the steam pump this time. It was a high-pitched, mechanical wail that echoed through the desolate streets outside. 

WUUUU-UUUU-UUUU!

"Patrol sirens," Tisya whispered, her face draining of color. "The Steel-Grip’s scouts. The explosion of your scooter must have tipped them off. They're scanning the sector."

"They'll search the hospital," Elangga warned, his silly demeanor instantly vanishing into a sharp, militaristic focus. "If they find us here—or worse, if they find Niskala with stolen goods—they'll raze this clinic to the ground."

"We have to leave. Now," Jevan said, his mind racing. "But how do we get past the street blockades? They'll have the main intersections locked down."

Svara’s eyes lit up with a sudden, brilliant spark of inspiration. "Tisya, do you still have those yellow biohazard bags in the basement? The ones from the old quarantine ward?"

Tisya blinked. "Yes, but what does—"

"The scouts are terrified of the Red Rot," Svara said, a clever, mischievous grin spreading across her face. "If they think we're transporting highly contaminated, infectious medical waste to the burn pits, they won't come within ten feet of us."

"You want to disguise your dead scooter as a plague cart?" Jevan asked, a slow grin spreading across his own face. "Svara, you are a genius."

"I know," she said, winking at him. "Now go help Elangga patch up that motorized trash can of yours. We have a delivery to make."

Ten minutes of frantic, adrenaline-fueled engineering later, the Steam-Scythe 3000 was alive—barely. Jevan had wrapped the ruptured pressure cylinder in three layers of high-grade copper wire and sealed the leak with a heavy-duty rubber gasket from a broken anesthesia machine. It sputtered and chugged like a dying lawnmower, but it ran.

Following Svara’s instructions, they had piled the back of the scooter with bulging, bright yellow plastic bags marked with the universal biohazard symbol. They had even smeared some of the smelly, sulfurous gray ointment from the clinic’s shelves over the sides of the vehicle to give it a truly repulsive, chemical odor. 

As they rolled out of the hospital courtyard, Jevan and Svara rode up front, both wearing thick, menacing-looking respirator masks they had scavenged from the operating room. Elangga and Niskala were squeezed onto the makeshift rear rack, buried under a pile of the yellow bags.

"If one of these bags pops and it's actually trash, I'm going to throw up," Niskala’s muffled voice complained from beneath a biohazard label. 

"Silence, civilian!" Elangga whispered dramatically. "You are currently disguised as a highly toxic biological hazard. Maintain your structural integrity!"

They rounded the corner onto the main sector road, and Jevan’s heart leaped into his throat. 

Blocking the dusty intersection ahead was a heavily modified armored buggy, its front grille welded with sharp steel teeth. Two of the Steel-Grip's patrol scouts stood beside it, clutching assault rifles and looking thoroughly bored. 

As the sputtering, smoking, incredibly foul-smelling scooter approached, the lead scout squinted, raising his rifle. "Hey! Halt! State your business!"

Svara didn't slow down. Instead, she let out a loud, theatrical, wet cough through her respirator mask, leaning over the handlebars as if she was barely holding onto consciousness. 

"Medical transport!" Jevan yelled through his own mask, his voice sounding muffled and distorted. "Highly infectious quarantine waste! We're heading to the northern salt flats for immediate chemical incineration! Do not approach! The rot is active!"

The scout took a step forward, but as the scooter rolled closer, a wave of the sulfurous, foul-smelling ointment hit his nose. He gagged, his eyes watering. He looked at the bulging yellow bags, then at Svara, who let out another chest-racking, miserable cough. 

"Whoa, whoa, keep going! Don't stop!" the scout yelled, taking three frantic steps backward and waving his rifle frantically. "Get that bio-garbage out of here! Go! Go!"

The second scout didn't even speak; he had already climbed onto the hood of the buggy, pulling his shirt collar up over his nose and staring at them with absolute, wide-eyed terror. 

Jevan twisted the throttle, and the Steam-Scythe 3000 sputtered past the blockade, leaving a trail of gray, smelly smoke in its wake. 

Once they were two blocks away, Niskala poked her head out from under the yellow bags, letting out a loud gasp of air. "Oh my god, that actually worked. You guys are completely insane."

"It’s called tactical psychology, kid," Jevan said, letting out a breath he didn't realize he’d been holding. 

They rode in tense, quiet anticipation as the crumbling shanties of Sector 4 slowly gave way to the barren, baking expanse of the outer dunes. The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in angry, bruised shades of purple and deep orange. 

After twenty minutes of navigating the winding, rocky desert paths, Niskala tapped Jevan on the shoulder. "Stop here. Behind this ridge. If we go any closer on this loud-ass machine, they'll spot us."

Jevan killed the engine, and the scooter died with a final, rattling gasp. 

They scrambled up the sandy incline of the ridge, keeping low to the ground. Jevan pulled his binoculars from his belt, adjusting the focus as he peered over the crest. 

His stomach did a slow, cold flip. 

Nestled in the center of a natural rock basin was the Steel-Grip Warlord's compound. It was a massive, terrifyingly imposing fortress, built entirely around the concrete remains of a dry, prehistoric public swimming pool. 

The perimeter was a nightmare of spiked, high concrete walls, topped with coils of rusted barbed wire. Towering searchlights swept the surrounding sands with harsh, white beams of light. Heavily armed guards, clad in dark leather and carrying automatic rifles, patrolled the concrete lip of the pool, their shadows long and menacing in the fading light. 

"Well," Elangga whispered, crawling up beside them and adjusting his red bandana. "That is a lot of guns. A highly target-rich environment."

Jevan slowly lowered his binoculars, looking at Svara. Her face was pale, her eyes wide as she took in the sheer scale of the fortress. 

"We're going in there?" she whispered.

Jevan reached out, his hand finding hers in the cool desert sand. He squeezed her fingers, his voice dropping to a quiet, fierce whisper. "We're going in. And we're coming back."