Chapter Seventeen: The Feel of Sunlight

With the way I’d been conditioned to avoid sunlight for most of my life, I almost expected to burst into flames the second I drove out into the light. I didn’t. The car didn’t either. I could see the strange haze in the air that always rose when something was cooking but to my great surprise, I barely even felt the heat through the windshield.

My car was rated for morning and evening sunlight, up to an hour past dawn, and twenty minutes before dusk, but hardly any vehicles could handle direct sunlight. I chuckled idly as I recalled the fine print under those particular ratings. “These products are rated for dawn, dustk, and night driving ‘assuming changes to the sun do not adversely affect ambient temperature or intensity levels’ Warranties are voided if any use of this vehicle is determined to have occurred outside these times.”

I guess it’s time to void a warranty.

It wasn’t usually the car itself that broke down in the sunlight, but the tires. Once the tires popped, the person trapped inside could not service them until nightfall. Getting out of the car was literally a death sentence. Double-tired vehicles became quite popular as a result for added redundancy, and my car did have eight tires. Then again, the sunlight a few hours past dawn was hot enough to cook a driver through the windshield so no one even dared to try.

Driving through the late afternoon sunlight now felt pleasant. Downright comfortable, in fact. I would’ve at least thought I’d be sweating, or burning up but it was as if the hot sun didn’t even affect me. How the hell could that even work? I could tell that it was hot, and yet at the same time, I didn’t feel hot.

“Sunsoul is weird,” I commented. I could see the sunlight on my skin and it made goosebumps rise. I couldn’t make my brain accept the fact that the sun just… wasn’t hurting me. It was like letting someone stab me. I kept noticing it and flinching, expecting to need to dive for cover.

“Feel good?” Clara asked. “Being in the sun I mean. I… figure you’re probably disappointed the tower didn’t activate, but at least you still get to experience it.”

I honestly hadn’t even thought about that, but now that she mentioned it, I was. I contented myself, knowing that I wasn’t anywhere close to as disappointed as the thousands of people who had come here expecting to be able to move into the newly safe area. I was disappointed though. Everyone had such high expectations, and all of us had just been shafted. That scientist girl had even died, attacking the tower, though I didn’t think she’d expected to.

And for what? Tax dollars?

“My Mom is probably devastated,” I said softly. “She works at Tellroan. She was one of the people holding up the barrier.”

“Doesn’t sound like you were really all that invested in it,” she said.

“I guess not. I always wanted to touch Sunsoul, and you know… the towers were always cool, but I was always more interested in the Array. The towers… they kinda just felt like bigger Hubs. Sure, we’d get to stand outside, but it would be like being in this car. Always behind a glass screen. Making the screen bigger doesn’t make it any less of a screen.”

“Heh. That sounds like something Violette said before she fell of the map. I’m probably pretty biased. I’ve spent my whole life living near the towers. I hardly remember anything from before them. They found out just how much Sunsoul I could use when I was eight and…” she trailed off.

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so we lapsed into awkward silence. April’s breathing in the back actually got a little creepy after a minute or two, so I turned on the radio.

“Ughhh. Change it, please!” Clara cried, as one of the older country singers sang about how the Crimson Tide would never roll again. “I hate this song. Actually, pretty much all of the songs about the south suck.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her, but nodded, changing it to a pop station. If she was tied to Telilro in the same way April was tied to Tellroan, I supposed it made sense that she would dislike songs mourning the lost southern states.

Clara beamed at the radio station change and began bopping her head along, dancing with her shoulders as best she could in the passenger seat.

The events at the tower began to feel surreal as I hummed along to the tune. In light of just driving along, the happy girl next to me dancing, I could almost forget it all. The gunshot. The nails of sunsoul. The blood. Then I noticed the sunlight on my bare skin and shivered. It had all happened. I was really immune to the heat of the sun. And I had to go south, trusting that Clara’s nebulous gift would protect me.

Shit. Maybe I should just drive April home and try to forget about all of this?

I glanced at April, lying peacefully across the backseat. Even if Scarlatte was full of shit and April would be just fine, I couldn’t trust that no one would come after her. Two people already had, and now that she was Tellroan’s conduit, I didn’t think they would be the last. Not if we stayed here, anyway. In the Scorched Lands though, in the sunlight, no one could reach us. We’d be safe. If Scarlatte and Clara were trustworthy anyway.

We’d been driving for almost ten minutes, circling around to the south side of the hub. I breathed a sigh of relief as the Raceway came into view. I pulled into the overhang alongside a bunch of semi-trucks. They looked more like tanks, especially when comparedto my sleek car. The truckstop’s rooms would be full of sleeping truckers, but I was certain the doors would be locked. Fortunately, I had a key, because I opened the place most nights. We also didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing us driving up. The blast doors had been lowered over the windows, and would stay lowered until the sun went down.

“You work here?” Clara asked, looking at the building. Other than the overhang, it was hard to tell the Raceway apart from any other area outside the hub. Seeing it all burning hot with the sun all over it looked strange. Like seeing my own room, but changing all the lightbulbs colors, the place looked foreign and a little creepy. Uncanny valley, but for a building. I’d never seen the signs outside not lit up.

“Yeah? It’s a part time job after school,” I replied.

“Shit. I think I saw this place on TV. Didn’t some girl get hurt by one of the giant animals here? Oh shit! There’s a bloodstain right there!” She cried, pointing out what clearly appeared to be a dried blood stain.

I parked the car, hoping that the relatively minor heat under the overhangs would keep any lasting damage from hurting my tires. Mentally I was preparing a list of all the things we would need.

Clothes for April and me, shoes, food. Loads of food, anything we can get that might last for a while. Shit how are we going to eat on this trip? Beef Jerky? Water. Probably going to need to fill the entire trunk with water. Dammit! What did Scarlatte expect us to do? Hunt for our food?

Clara opened the door and got out of the car. I gaped at her when she closed it behind her. She wasn’t standing in direct sunlight but it must be at least two hundred degrees fahrenheit, even in the shade! The girl managed to get a few paces towards the door before she realized I wasn’t following.

“You coming? I’m pretty sure I can’t open these doors,” she shouted through the glass as she walked over to my side of the car.

“I… uh. Y-yeah. I…”

My hand wouldn’t move. I put it on the door handle and began to shake.

Clara seemed to understand the source of my hesitation. Rather than the sarcasm I’d come to expect from her, she leaned down, pressing her face into the window. “It’s fine, Brandon. See? I’m out here, and you’re just like me. See? You’re hair’s turning white, just like mine. The heat isn’t dangerous for you anymore. Okay?”

I took a deep breath before nodding. I pulled the door handle.

“Warning! Daylight detected. Are you sure you want to get out of the vehicle?”

“Gaaah!” I jumped at the loud siren esque voice of the vehicles on board A.I. and slammed my head against the roof of the car.

Clara roared with laughter. I glared at her and opened the door. I stepped out, rubbing my aching head while glaring at her. The girl seemed to get control of herself before stumbling out of the shade of the overhang, banging her hand on the side of the Hub in genuine amusement.

“Oh god. Oh god I needed that. Hah!” she cried. It hadn’t been all that funny, but I kind of got the feeling that Clara needed any sort of laugh she could get.

“It’s wasn’t all that funny,” I said, marvelling at being outside while the sun was up. I blinked as my eyes fell back on her, seeing the light reflected off of her skin. She seemed to shine. Her short fuzz of white hair almost glowed. She was… beautiful.

I shook that thought off, wondering where the heck it had come from. It was hotter than hell outside. I should be dead. Yet here I was, gawking at Clara, like I’d never seen a pretty girl before. Ridiculous.

But… if she can do it. Can I really?

Tentatively at first, I put my arm into the beam of light outside the shadow of the overhang. When nothing happened, I stepped out and immediately found myself grinning. The hot sun failed to burn me, or even hurt me. Refined Sunsoul running through my veins seemed to make me immune to the heat, but it went further than that. I wasn’t sweating. I honestly didn’t even feel the need for more deodorant.

“Amazing,” I murmured, staring at the light on my hand. I’d never felt sunlight before. It was pleasant and warm in a way I had never experienced, and I suddenly did feel disappointed in the tower’s failure. I also thought, just for a moment, that I understood why old folks were so desperate to return the sun to how it was before.

“This is sort of how it always used to be, or so they tell me,” Clara said. “Apparently it got sweaty and gross after a while for normal people, but it didn’t ever really hurt, unless you stayed in it too long.”

“It’s hard to believe…” I replied, awed.

“Yeah. Even the old crones I’ve given my gift too before… its always fun to watch someone step into the sunlight for the first time. Do you like it?”

“I… yeah,” I said beaming at her.

I didn’t know how to describe it. It was as if something that had I’d never known I was missing was being poured over me. Just like everyone I knew, I’d been taking vitamin D pills for my entire life to make up for the loss of this, and now I didn’t think I’d ever be able to make myself take one again. My body felt like it was drinking in the light like a starving man might drink water.

“I know,” Clara said understandingly. “We’ve got to go though. Sunset’s only a few hours away, after all. If… we’re really doing this. Really going to Telilro, I mean, we’ll probably have plenty of time to get sick of this.”

I looked up into the sky, away from the burning bright sun that hurt my eyes to look at, drinking in the gorgeous blue sky for one more moment before I turned back to her and nodded.

I approached the door, fiddling with my keys for a moment, before finding the right one and inserting it into the lock. It clicked like it always did, and I opened the door into the gloomy darkness of normality.