Horizon by Jenn Reese Page B

the distance now. After months of hiking through the desert and the forest and the treetops, maybe the weakling he used to be was gone for good.
    After a few kilometers, Hoku started to dodge debris. Plastic, tree branches, metal casings held aloft by their foam interiors. He surfaced and saw the HydroTek dome in the distance, just as Calli described it: broken. Smoking. He couldn’t see any Upgraders from this far away, but he trusted Calli that they were there.
    Hoku swam on until he found Aluna and Calli searching the beach and the threshold of the forest for signs of survivors. They’d both gotten there long before him. He stood in the surf, shook the water from his ears, and spit the ocean from his mouth. “Anything?”
    “If there were footprints, they’ve long since washed away in the tide,” Calli said. “Or they were carefully erased.”
    Hoku walked out of the water and scanned the beach. “It looks like the Upgraders came through the forest over there,” he said, pointing. “See the snapped branches and the opening in the underbrush? They probably had rhinebras pulling their boats, or whatever it was that they used to get to the dome.”
    A twig snapped. Hoku turned just in time to see a small gray creature emerge from the tree line and race across the sand, directly at him.
    “Zorro!”
    The raccoon squealed and leaped into Hoku’s arms. Hoku tried to brace for the impact, but it was no good. Zorro barreled into him with all the power of Big Blue. Hoku tumbled backward onto the sand. Zorro, obviously unconcerned, stood on Hoku’s chest and licked his nose.
    “Zorro, did you miss me?” Hoku asked. The raccoon’s eyes glowed green. Hoku scruffled his ears and laughed. Zorro was a mess — dirt and dried blood matted his fur, his normally puffy tail was missing large tufts, and the tip of his left ear had been sliced off. Hoku examined the little guy’s wounds and was relieved to find them all healing. Well, everything except his ear.
    Hoku thought Zorro’s front leg had been damaged, but the missing patch of fur turned out to be a small scrap of paper wrapped around the raccoon’s leg and tied with cord.
    “What’s this, boy?” He unknotted the cord and smoothed out the wrinkled, muddy paper. Only one word was written on it, in hasty black letters: PLAY .
    “What does it say?” Aluna asked. “Who is it from?”
    “Come over here,” Hoku said. “I think Zorro’s about to tell us something.” He sat up and waited for Aluna and Calli to join him. Zorro circled three times and then settled into his lap.
    “Here we go,” Hoku said. “Zorro, play.”
    The raccoon’s eyes glowed green again, but only for a flash. They quickly changed into small projectors, emitting a cone of pale-green light. A familiar face took shape: Liu the crab-girl, the Dome Mek who helped him and Dash win the battle of HydroTek.
    “This message is for Aluna and Hoku,” Liu said. “If you’ve found this raccoon and managed to play this message, find my friends and give it to them, or else.”
    Liu looked behind her, then back at the camera. Her pale head was still bald, but the bundle of wires sticking out the back bobbed like hair as she talked. “Don’t have much time, so I’ll make this quick. HydroTek has been overrun. Karl Strand’s forces came to get Fathom, and they destroyed everything else in their path . . . including the Kampii generators. We tried to save them, but we couldn’t. I’m really sorry, Hoku.
    “A few of the Meks escaped into the dome’s tendrils and flooded the passageways to stop Strand’s armies,” Liu said. “I’m joining them as soon as we’re done here. We’ll start rebuilding as soon as we can, but the repairs will take a long time. Several generations for your people, at least, and that’s assuming the Upgraders leave and we can fabricate all the parts we need from the salvaged metal and —”
    Liu stopped herself. “Never mind that now. What’s important is that