1.09

“--and you, my use­less lug of a hus­band, you let them know we’ll be reim­burs­ing this month’s deliv­ery, under­stand? Thank the Sun no one got hurt, or else we’d nev­er--”

Car­nelia roused in the pas­sen­ger-side seat of an old pick-up truck to the sound of dis­tant hol­ler­ing. Through the win­dow, a mid­dle-aged woman was scold­ing a pair of young boys and a sheep­ish-look­ing old­er man. Their equal­ly bowed heads and sun-bit skin told her this was the fam­i­ly of pul­ley oper­a­tors that lived atop of the Chute. The Berros’s.

Mrs. Berros--the trad­er lady that she vague­ly remem­bered ask­ing after her--shift­ed her dead­ly blam­ing fin­ger from the father to the twins.

“And you two sand-for-brains! I want you work­ing on an apol­o­gy let­ter while I’m gone! You’d bet­ter make it good, too, ‘cause I’ll be read­ing it when I come back! I expect tears! Tears, y’hear?”

As Mrs. Berros made her way back to the truck, her flow­ing sun wear cut angry streaks into the arid sandy ground out­side. After mak­ing sure to shoot sev­er­al point­ed stares at her fam­i­ly, she final­ly crossed over to the driver’s side and dropped into the seat beside Car­nelia. Then she slammed the door closed, like a peri­od on a state­ment. She sighed, deeply.

Car­nelia was slight­ly con­cerned for her life, but the woman turned to her with noth­ing but remorse on her face. She tucked a few stray locks behind her ear and clasped her hands tight­ly in front of her chest.

“Again, Car­nelia, you have my deep­est apolo­gies for the fool­ish­ness my boys per­pe­trat­ed. My idiot hus­band was sup­posed to be watch­ing them, and I warned him they weren’t ready, but those no-good, dung-head­ed, sand-chew­ing dis­ap­point­ments must have con­vinced him--!” The woman cut her­self off with a breath. “No. These are all excus­es. I should’ve been there from the start. We have been priv­i­leged from the start to work for the fine peo­ple of Down­town and--”

“Mrs. Berros! It’s okay! I’m okay.”

Car­nelia thought the woman’s relent­less self-repu­di­a­tion was a bit exces­sive, since one, she had sur­vived, and two, what hap­pened was kin­da cool. An appro­pri­ate­ly bom­bas­tic start to the leg­end of Car­nelia Blaze­bright, Chal­lenger extra­or­di­naire. The fif­teen book series was back on!

She tried to wave it off, but the woman raised a halt­ing hand.

“No, no. It’s the prin­ci­ple of the mat­ter. I’ve been oper­a­tor and pro­pri­etor of this busi­ness with­out inci­dent for near­ly twen­ty years, but as soon as I turn my back for one sec­ond, a child near­ly dies. Pah! Why did I ever mar­ry that use­less man.”

The woman shook her head angri­ly, scat­ter­ing those recent­ly tucked locks again. Catch­ing her­self, she sud­den­ly took the back of her hand and pressed against Carnelia’s fore­head. She peered curi­ous­ly into her face, like a doc­tor look­ing for signs of a con­cus­sion.

“Are you sure you’re alright? You know, after a fright like that, most peo­ple would be cata­ton­ic.”

Car­nelia dou­ble-checked. Aside from it being swel­ter­ing­ly hot inside the truck, every­thing seemed to be in one piece. She shrugged.

“My gramps always says that I have more guts than sense,” she said mat­ter-of-fact­ly.

Mrs. Berros laughed. “I wish my boys were more like you! Attempt­ing the Chal­lenge at your age… all that my boys want to do is ‘take over the fam­i­ly busi­ness’! Pah! Pathet­ic!”

She thrust a thumb out the win­dow at her two sons who were receiv­ing a sec­ond scold­ing from the father and scoffed. Car­nelia cocked her head.

“You don’t want that?”

Not moments ago, the woman had been insist­ing that it was a priv­i­lege to help the Down­town com­mu­ni­ty. That same woman now shook her head furi­ous­ly.

“They shouldn’t be think­ing about bills or job secu­ri­ty at this age! And they cer­tain­ly shouldn’t want to spend their lives haul­ing pack­ages for a bunch of weirdo her­mits liv­ing in a hole in the mid­dle of nowhere. They should be think­ing big! Like you! And they ought to resent the oblig­a­tion of tak­ing over the busi­ness, only tak­ing it on because I make them promise to on my deathbed! That’s prop­er youth!”

“Er…”

“Tak­ing on the Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge and becom­ing a Chal­lenger?” Mrs. Berros rolled on, shak­ing her head in envy, “Now, that’s a prop­er tra­di­tion! You know, I still remem­ber when your moth­er left for her Chal­lenge.”

Now that made Car­nelia sit up with atten­tion. It had nev­er occurred to her that some­one so close to home would’ve met Diamme, though it made per­fect sense now that she thought about it. There was only one way in and out of Down­town, after all.

“You do? I mean… You met Diamme?”

Mrs. Berros nod­ded sage­ly. “Mm-hm. She was one of the first peo­ple I trans­port­ed out of Down­town after inher­it­ing the busi­ness from my father. I was there when she brought you here, too, by the way. A squalling lit­tle bun­dle of cloth, you were back then.”

“What about her?” Car­nelia asked. “What was she like?”

“Her? One look into those sharp eyes of hers and I knew that girl was going places. Even though she was a decade younger than me, I got chills. Then, when she came back with you in her arms, I saw that she was going many more places still. Ever meet any­one like that?”

When the woman looked at her, eyes crin­kled with nos­tal­gia, an image of Corun, her res­cuer from all those years ago, popped into Carnelia’s head. The fear­less­ness that had been in her eyes. The sure­ty in her step. ‘Here I go, on an adven­ture,’ her whole vibe had said. Car­nelia nod­ded deeply.

Mrs. Berros smiled in com­mis­er­a­tion. Then she caught the time on her wrist and clasped a hand over her mouth.

“Oh dear. I’m doing it again. Run­ning on and on with this mouth of mine. You men­tioned in your let­ters that you have a sched­ule to keep, cor­rect? So, where to? After today’s fias­co, you have me at your com­plete dis­pos­al. Just point and we’ll go!”

“Sure! Um…”

Final­ly remind­ed of her pur­pose, Car­nelia glanced around to ori­ent her­self. Of course, she could’ve just said ‘to the west, please’ and been on their way, but that would’ve been bor­ing. Now that she was under the sun’s warm umbrage, she want­ed to try using it to nav­i­gate. It rose in the east in the morn­ing so…

She grabbed the rearview mir­ror and swiveled it.

Huh. How weird. Despite the com­plete­ly open field of trav­el ahead of them, they were already fac­ing the right direc­tion. And Mrs. Berros was clear­ly watch­ing her out of the cor­ner of her eye.

Slow­ly, Car­nelia point­ed straight ahead through the dust-swept wind­shield.

“That-a-way please… but you already knew that, didn’t you?”

She cocked her head at the old­er woman. Mrs. Berros replied with a cool, side­long glance that broke into a grin.

“You got me. Just want­ed to check if you were seri­ous about this thing.”

“But how do you know where to go?”

Car­nelia was gen­uine­ly curi­ous. The loca­tion of the Chal­lenge was cov­et­ed infor­ma­tion. It had tak­en her almost half a year of sniff­ing around on the library com­put­er to fig­ure out. Her eyes widened as a pos­si­bil­i­ty struck her. “Unless… you’re try­ing to become a Chal­lenger too?”

The prospect of meet­ing a fel­low com­peti­tor excit­ed Car­nelia near­ly as much as find­ing out more about Diamme, but Mrs. Berros laughed and shook her head.

“Just heard it through the grapevine, is all. To be frank, I’d be quite the incom­pe­tent trad­er if I missed an event as big as the Chal­lenge being planned in my back­yard. Say­ing that--” Mrs. Berros winked play­ful­ly “--it’s not every day that the Chal­lenge hap­pens in this neck of the desert. Maybe I should try my hand at it.”

“Do it!” Car­nelia said, with an enthu­si­as­tic nod. “I think every­one should try to become a Chal­lenger if they have the chance!”

The trad­er laughed, slight­ly tak­en aback by her vehe­ment sup­port. She held a hand to her­self.

“Even an old lady like me?”

“Why not? Any­one can try, any­one can join; that’s the spir­it of the Chal­lenge! But…” Car­nelia hes­i­tat­ed. “You prob­a­bly won’t get very far if you haven’t pre­pared for it.”

“Haha! Aren’t you an hon­est one! I see more and more of Diamme in you by the sec­ond. Makes me feel sil­ly for even both­er­ing to test you. After all, do you know what feel­ing I get when I look at you?”

The trad­er grinned as she plucked her keys from the sun visor above her head and turned the igni­tion. The engine rum­bled to life.

“Déjà vu.”

---

In a plume of dirt and dust, Mrs. Berros’s truck peeled away from the Chute, Down­town, and every­thing that Car­nelia had ever known. Ahead was a wide-open world, as astound­ing­ly end­less as it was end­less­ly astound­ing. Car­nelia had nev­er real­ized how small her under­ground home had been until in three short min­utes, she trav­eled fur­ther from home than she had ever been before.

--and that was just where the dirt road end­ed. Once they merged them onto a high­way that cut across the desert like a black asphalt slash, Mrs. Berros real­ly stepped on the gas. They blast­ed along the coun­try­side, the dry, fea­ture­less land­scape out­side their win­dows slow­ly turn­ing into rolling hills topped with yel­low-green brush, and the stol­id desert heat into a nice balmy breeze. Not a sin­gle vehi­cle blocked their way.

How­ev­er, though their path was free of obstruc­tion, they were hard­ly alone in their trav­els. Just as Car­nelia was tak­ing flight from her nest, all around the world, peo­ple of all shapes and back­grounds were leav­ing their homes to jour­ney abroad. Some took ships that blast­ed their horns as they sailed into har­bor. Oth­ers rode trains that screeched as they pulled into their stops. A few took air­ships that buzzed with deaf­en­ing noise as they touched down on airstrips. They were con­verg­ing on the same loca­tion, mak­ing their way in what­ev­er way they could, honk­ing, push­ing, and shout­ing.

Like moths to a flame, human­i­ty was gath­er­ing, con­gre­gat­ing, to begin a great rite of pas­sage; the great and infa­mous Can­di­date’s Chal­lenge.

And in this gath­er­ing of motes…

…Car­nelia was but one light.