Renegade Children

by J. N. Chaney

  I pictured Mako’s face, beaten and broken. He was one of the many I’d yet to meet in person. The Eternals hadn’t been here long enough for that. All the same, his face was familiar, not much different from Lex’s. He had the same blue eyes, the same button nose. A nervous flush ran down my cheeks as I imagined Lex in the same pod, blood on her face like his, a broken nose and a cracked jaw.

  “Jace,” said Abigail. Her voice snapped me out of my head. She eyed me with concern, almost like she could see the anger rising in my throat.

  I settled my calm and drew a deep breath. As I exhaled, I gave Abby a nod. “I’m good,” I said, and she seemed to think it was enough.

  “I think we should place him in holding for a week,” she suggested.

  “Works for me,” I said, promptly.

  “You’re sure?” she asked.

  “You take the lead on punishment. I need to go see about the boy.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “About what?”

  She paused. “If it turns out they really are behind the attack, what will you do?”

  “That’s a question I’ve been asking myself since yesterday, and truth be told, Abby, I still ain’t got the answer,” I explained.

  “I hate to say this, but—” She paused. “—it might be time to think about that outcome.”

  I leaned closer to Abigail, taking her hand in mine and kissed her. I pulled away, but not by much, and stared at her passionate, gentle eyes. “Whatever trouble finds us, we’ll give it cause for regret. That much I can promise you.”

  “I know that,” she said, squeezing my hand.

  I left her in the hall and made my way out into the street, walking quickly to the medical ward.

  Ten

  I didn’t stay long at the medical ward. Just enough to see that Mako had recovered most of his injuries, thanks to both his Eternal physiology and the pod. According to Athena, he’d be back to normal within a few hours. Relief swelled within me when I heard the news.

  I walked through the children’s wing of the medical ward, eying the different pods—some open, some closed. That was when I saw her again.

  Lex sat beside a familiar pod—the one belonging to the boy with the missing hand. Little Dixon was with her, sitting with a grin on his face as she read from her pad. Fumi, the boy in the med-pod, looked to be half awake, his eyes barely open.

  “Mr. Hughes?” asked Lex, noticing me as I stood near the doorway. “What are you doing here? Did you come to see Fumi, too?”

  I sighed and walked closer to her, placing my hand on her shoulder. “Hey, kid. No, I’m here for someone else. Why aren’t you with Hitchens? Isn’t he supposed to be looking after you?”

  “He’s in the next room with Ms. Octavia. I asked if we could come here and read. We wanted to. Didn’t we, Dixon?”

  Dixon nodded.

  “Still reading the same book?” I asked, overlooking Fumi’s pod. The boy blinked sleepily at me. I had to assume he was barely aware that I was even here. All the regeneration must be taking a lot out of him. I couldn’t imagine it was easy to regrow a hand.

  “We’re at the part with the fox now,” said Dixon, smiling. “I wish he could be real.”

  “What’s a fox?” I asked, raising my eye as I tried to view the pad.

  To my surprise, there were pictures to match the text. I wagered that made sense for a children’s book. There was a boy on a hill with a tiny orange thing with ears and a bushy tail.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  Lex nodded. “Yes, and he asked the Prince to tame him, so he did, and now the Fox has all kinds of things to say.”

  “Well, let’s hear a few,” I said.

  “You want to? Really?” she asked.

  I leaned against the nearby wall and crossed my feet. “Go on, kid. You seem to like this story, so it must be pretty good.”

  She giggled at that, then looked at the pad and cleared her throat. “Goodbye, said the fox. And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

  “What’s that mean?” asked Dixon.

  “Abby said it means you can’t always trust what you see. Sometimes you have to trust how you feel,” explained Lex.

  Dixon’s eyes widened as he nodded along.

  Lex smiled and continued. “Men have forgotten this truth, said the fox. But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you tame.”

  I stared at the boy in the pod as Lex read the rest to me. He’d fallen asleep during the story, off to dream of better things. Could both this child and Mako really be part of a terrorist group? Could Dixon and his brother? Why risk each of their lives after we did everything we could to save them?

  None of it made any sense, no matter how the evidence stacked. I needed a way to fix this, especially before the whole thing got out of hand.

  Before another Gilian took fists to another Mako.

  Before it went too far.

  I said goodbye to Lex and Dixon and decided to head back to my office and finish my talk with Leif. Maybe I was a fool, but I hoped I could trust him. I hoped we could find a way to fix this.

  * * *

  As the door opened and I entered my office, I was surprised to see a figure standing beside my desk.

  Two of them, actually, but only one happened to be glowing.

  “Sir,” greeted Sigmond.

  “We’ve been waiting on you,” said Alphonse, giving me a coy smile. “There’s something here you’ll want to see.”

  “Oh?” I asked, stepping inside and shutting the door.

  Sigmond stood in his usual spot, a meter away from the hard-light emitter in the corner. As I approached the desk, he flicked his wrist, and a holo appeared at the center, showing the Earth’s Core.

  “We’ve made some headway on that transmission,” explained Alphonse.

  “The one neither of you could explain before?” I asked, crossing my arms.

  “The very same,” remarked Alphonse.

  “We triangulated the source of the signal, using multiple drones,” explained Sigmond. “It took some time, admittedly.”

  “Once we had the right signal pattern, the rest was simple enough,” continued Alphonse.

  “And what did you find?” I asked.

  The two looked at one another. “Well,” said Alphonse, glancing at the nearby desk.

  The holo display appeared, showing what seemed to be high altitude, high-velocity footage. “Is that—”

  “A drone,” finished Alphonse. “Headed to the source as we speak.”

  I took a step closer to the feed, watching as the drone passed over a wide, brown field between two hills. A mountain range broke through the edge of the horizon, growing taller by the second. Aside from the blue of the seas and lakes of this world, the mountains’ snow-covered tips were a pleasant and rare change to the otherwise brown planet.

  The drone entered the cliffs at a quarter its speed, sliding between rock and snow without pause. The feed grew so close to the cliffs that I could hardly tell which direction the drone was headed in.

  But then it slowed, focusing on a single mountainside, following the rocky surface towards its peak. Brown transformed into white as we ascended higher into the sky. As the drone pulled around, it was clear this was the tallest mountain in the entire range, towering over the rest.

  Here, the drone decelerated into a full stop, breaking just before the highest point of the highest cliff. The camera panned the white ground until we finally caught sight of a break in the snow—a sign of movement, perhaps.

  That was when we saw it, planted there in the ground—a device with three legs and a smooth metal body, which twisted and turned in a full 360-degree sweep.

  “Interesting,” muttered Alphonse.

  “Analyzing object,” said Sigmond.

  “Is that the source of the transmission?” I asked, looking at Alphonse, b
ut the Constable was too deep in thought to respond. His eyes were transfixed on the holo, trying to understand what he was seeing.

  The object had three steadily glowing red lights along its body. The rotating top could be anything but resembled the head of a Sarkonian torpedo.

  Not that I believe for a second that the Sarkonians had anything to do with this. They hardly had the resources to slip through our defense network, let alone plant a bomb on the planet without Sigmond or Athena finding out. This had to be something else.

  “I’m afraid this is not the source, but rather a relay device,” said Sigmond.

  Alphonse leaned closer to the display. “Similar to a signal repeater?”

  “Exactly so,” confirmed Sigmond. “The transmission itself is being sent from somewhere else, likely nearby.”

  “The only reason you’d need a repeater is if your ship is immobilized,” said Alphonse.

  “So, we’re dealing with a downed ship,” I said.

  “It could,” muttered Alphonse, staring at the holo. “I wonder. Sigmond, are you able to follow the primary signal from this point?”

  “Yes, Constable.”

  Alphonse looked to me for confirmation. I gave him a quick nod, which he returned. “Very good. Let’s see what lies at the end of this, then. Shall we?”

  “As you wish,” said Sigmond.

  The drone pulled away from the cliffside, rising up and into the blue sky. It turned towards the eastern horizon to reveal a wide and empty valley, flat as a piece of stained wood in an old home.

  “We are nearly there,” informed Sigmond.

  I grew closer to the display, hoping for an answer to the plague of questions I’d been asking myself since all of this began.

  There, amid the barren earth of this desolate place, I spotted something gray and disfigured. A broken shell of metal, pieces torn from its body like the wilted skin of an insect.

  The drone moved swiftly through the air, until it was close enough to magnify the object, and then it finally slowed to a full stop. It hovered near the clouds, maintaining a safe distance.

  “Is that a ship?” I asked, staring at the debris.

  “Might be,” said Alphonse, but he had no certainty in his voice.

  “Do you think it belongs to the Eternals? Siggy, bring up one of their escape pods. Let’s see if they’re the same.”

  “Very well,” said the Cognitive, and in an instant, I had one of the escape pods floating beside the live feed.

  The Eternals’ pod had rigid sides and squared edges, lines of blue and white accenting the vessel’s gray exterior. This was a stark contrast to the sleek metallic design of whatever lay in the field, its smooth and round body reflecting sunlight like a jewel.

  “They’re nothing alike,” I muttered.

  “So, it would seem,” replied Alphonse.

  I searched for any similarities I could find but came up short. The patterns, the designs, even the hatch placement was different.

  “My analysis agrees that your assessments are correct,” said Sigmond.

  “That doesn’t mean the Eternals didn’t build it, though,” I added.

  Alphonse nodded. “We can’t rule anything out, but it might be wise to bring in Mr. Solesdar to hear what he has to say on the matter. This ship is still transmitting. For what reason, we can’t be certain, but that is what makes it so dangerous.”

  “You want to ask Leif about this?” I asked.

  “I do,” he admitted. “If this really is one of theirs, then we need to know what it is and how to shut it down.”

  “If he refuses to talk, we can always bomb it with a handful of suicidal drones,” I remarked, glancing at Sigmond. “Isn’t that right, pal?”

  “I shall rain true destruction upon it, sir,” said Sigmond.

  “Shall I call our man in for questioning?” asked Alphonse.

  “Is he still in the building?” I asked.

  “Four doors down the hall on the left,” explained Alphonse. “Along with Bresna. We have Lucia to thank for looking after them.”

  A sudden, distant scream erupted from outside. Alphonse and I both jerked our heads up.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked, quickly.

  Another scream followed. It sounded painful, terrified.

  Without a second thought, I ran out the door and into the hallway, sprinting to the exit and reaching for my pistol.

  As the outer door swung open, I saw a woman running down the street in my direction. She was crying out for help, eyes full of terror. “Somebody, help!” she begged, a powdered white chalk all over her skin and face. “It hurts! Somebody help! It burns!”

  She fell to the ground, tears in her eyes, and I rushed down the steps with my hand outstretched.

  As I neared her, I caught a thick whiff of something sweet and spicy, like onions and flowers, followed by—

  I cringed, a hard burn rising in my nose and along my skin. “Gods!” I shouted, trying to back away.

  “Help!” the woman begged as she tried to wipe her face. The powder was in her hair and on her skin. No matter what she did right now, it wouldn’t be enough.

  “What happened? Try to talk to me!” I told her.

  But it was no good. She was screaming, rolling on the ground in agony, and it only seemed to be getting worse. I tried to get closer, but the smell—gods the smell. I gagged, clutching my stomach as it burned my nostrils like sulfur, and my eyes filled with tears, and my nose with snot.

  I wiped my face with both sleeves, but it accomplished little more than clearing the blur long enough to see the woman had stopped moving.

  “Captain!” shouted Alphonse, who stood near the stairs behind us. His eyes had settled in the direction the woman came from, towards the western half of the city. There, near the centermost building—what we called the Factory—a white cloud had filled the area like a growing fog.

  Before I could say another word, several people came running out of the thick of it, each of them covered in the same white powder.

  Every one of them screaming.

  Eleven

  Alphonse ran to get three breathing masks and two pairs of gloves, returning in less than two minutes. We slipped them on, but he refrained from giving one to the woman. “We need to get her to a decontamination point immediately,” he explained.

  Athena cut in through the comm the second he finished talking. “Excuse me, but the medical station inside is capable of cleaning any contaminants from the patient.”

  “Lucky day,” I said, helping Alphonse lift the woman.

  We hurried our way indoors to bring the girl to the old medical room.

  We set her inside the pod. We’d yet to transfer to this one to new medical ward, thanks to an overstuffed to-do list, and right now I was thankful for that.

  I closed the lid, and Athena manifested beside it. “Greetings,” she said.

  “Does anyone know what the hell is going on out there?” I asked, holding the wall with my hand.

  “A gas attack,” said Alphonse, his voice muffled by the mask. “If I had to guess.”

  I followed his example and slid my own mask onto my face, covering my nose, mouth, and eyes. It was a snug fit, gripping my skin like a vacuum, but I supposed that was the whole point.

  “Athena, is she okay?” I asked, looking at the unconscious woman.

  “She’s alive,” said Athena. “I shall run an analysis on the material immediately, while the pod cleanses her skin and lungs of the substance.”

  I licked my lips. “We need to find out what’s going on,” I muttered. “Sigmond?”

  The Cognitive appeared beside Alphonse. “Yes, sir.”

  “Open a channel to Abby and Octavia. Hitchens, too.” I paused. “Better make it the whole team. Freddie, Bolin, Lucia, Karin, and anyone else we’ve got who can help get a grip on things.”

  “Opening comm line now,” said Sigmond. “Speak when ready.”

  “Everyone, this is Hughes. We have some kind of
chemical outbreak in the center of town. Keep everyone inside. If you’re not indoors, go to the nearest shelter immediately. Everyone affected by the—whatever it is—get inside and wait for the medical team.”

  “Jace, what’s going on?” asked Abigail.

  “Are we under attack?” asked Octavia.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, quickly. “I’m working on it. Just get the hospital ready. You’re about to be flooded.”

  “Understood,” said Abigail.

  “The children and I are in our classroom. We shall await your orders from here,” said Hitchens.

  “Captain, I can have my team armed and ready in five minutes,” offered Bolin.

  I looked at Alphonse, who gave a quick nod. “Do it,” I ordered. “Have them meet us in front of the Factory, but make sure you’re protected. We need to get inside that fog and see what we’re dealing with. Have everyone do a safety check before you head out.”

  “Understood,” said Bolin.

  “Alphonse and I will meet you there. Everyone else, focus on safety and keeping your people alive. Get them inside and secure your exits. Whatever you do, don’t expose yourselves. Trust me,” I said, glancing at the woman in the pod. “You don’t want that kind of pain.”

  * * *

  I twisted my helmet into place, sealing the suit with a hard snap.

  “Ready?” I asked, looking at Alphonse. The Constable stood directly across from me in a tiny storage room not far from where we left the woman in her pod.

  Alphonse slipped on his gloves and let the suit tighten the seals automatically. “As ready as I can be,” he said.

  I took a long breath as the visor on my helmet came to life, pulling up the map of the city. It was, for the most part, outlined in shades of blue with our target—the Factory—highlighted in bright red. “Sure. This ain’t exactly how I pictured my day going when I woke up this morning, either. Still better than getting chased down by a swarm of trilobites, though, wouldn’t you say?”