by Jay Kristoff
The boy hopped out of the truck, fetched a field stretcher from where it lay beside Miss O’s hatchway. Lemon realized her grandpa must have known they were returning with a body. He must have seen it.
She wondered what else he’d seen.
Together, they loaded Fix onto the stretcher and strapped him in. Diesel remained in the truck, staring toward the horizon.
“Diesel, are you okay?” Lemon asked.
The girl shook her head.
“No,” was all she said.
The trio lifted Fix up, hauled him down through the hatch. The boy weighed almost nothing at all—his cheeks hollowed, his big body gaunt. Diesel climbed out of the truck slowly, the black paint around her eyes smudged down her cheeks. Walking behind them like a ghost. What must she be thinking, knowing he was gone forever? What must she be feeling, knowing he’d given his life for hers?
“I think BioMaas might have followed us,” Lemon murmured.
“They did.” Her grandpa’s face was grim as they stumbled into Section B, working their way down the stairs to the greenhouse. “That agent they set on you was sniffing your trail the minute you left the Clefts. They’re mobilizing a bigger assault force from CityHive. Lumberers. Behemoths. Slakedogs and Burners.”
“You dreamed them?” she asked.
The old man nodded. “And as soon as their tracker zeroes your position here, they’ll unleash hell all over us.”
She was shaky at the notion. More of those clawbeasties. Whatever other horrors the BioMaas war machine could let loose. Against the four of them?
They placed Fix’s body on the floor of the greenhouse, among the trees and shrubs he’d grown with his own hands. Lemon could see the beds of good dark earth he’d tilled. The trimmings he’d never get to plant, sitting in small pots, smudged with his dirty fingerprints. Diesel slumped down beside him, hands on his hollow chest. Grimm pawed at his eyes, sniffed hard and looked to the Major.
“What do we do now, sir?”
“You wait here,” the old man answered. “Lemon, come with me.”
The girl looked to Diesel, then to Grimm.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ll sit with Deez awhile.”
Lemon glanced one last time at the distraught girl before following her grandfather upstairs to the hydrostation level. Her heart was beating heavy, a lump of guilt lodged in her chest. She hadn’t meant for it to get this far. She only wanted to find Cricket. To protect her friends. To…
The Major stopped outside the Section C hatchway. Lemon’s eyes roamed the large red warning sign painted on its skin.
SECTION C
NO LONE ZONE
TWO PERSON POLICY MANDATORY
“I need you to open this door,” he said. “Gently.”
Lemon just blinked. It was an odd request for a time like this, true cert. She glanced at the digital control pad, the panels ripped off the wall, the scorch marks in the metal. It was obvious the Miss O crew had tried to get through this hatch before. It was even more obvious that they’d failed.
“What’s in there?” she asked.
“An equalizer,” he replied.
“I don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head.
“This facility was built before the Fall, Lemon. Before all of this went to hell.” His stare was as intense as she’d ever seen, his voice iron. “This facility is a weapons emplacement. And its weapons are just through here.”
He bumped his fist against the Section C door. Lemon stared at the radiation symbol daubed on the metal. Thinking about the hatchway on the surface above, the paint long faded, a few letters still etched in white on the rust.
MISS O
“Missile silo…,” she realized.
She blinked up at him, her belly running cold with fear. All the images she’d seen on the virtch as a kid. The fires that burned the skies, melted the deserts to black glass, left a poison in the earth that’d take ten thousand years to disappear.
“This place has…”
“It has the weapons we need to defend ourselves.” The old man knelt on the deck in front of her. “BioMaas is coming for you, Lemon. I’m not going to let them take you away, or destroy all I’ve built here. We’re the future of the human race.”
She shook her head, stomach sinking. “…There’s gotta be another way.”
“Tell me, then,” he replied. “There’s an army of BioMaas constructs headed here. They’ll peel this place open like a tin can. They’ll kill us. And they’ll take you.”
Her temples were pounding, her gut full of greasy ice. “But, Grandpa…”
“Tell me, Lemon,” he insisted. “Tell me the other way.”
She looked at the doorway into Section C. Imagining the horrors that lay beyond. The weapons that caused humanity’s fall. That brought everything they’d done to a screaming, burning halt. The end of civilization. The end of almost everything.
Could she really unlock the door to that again?
“I don’t intend to fire them,” the old man assured her. “I was a soldier long before you were born. I’ve no desire to start another war. The threat of detonation alone will be enough to stop BioMaas in their tracks.” He squeezed her small hand with his big, callused one. “And we’ll finally have a seat at the table, Lemon. Daedalus, BioMaas, they’ve ruled the ruins of this country for decades. Sister Dee and her animals run rampant, killing us with impunity. With these weapons, we have a voice. We have a stake in the game. Remember your Darwin.”
“Survival of the fittest,” she whispered.
The old man nodded. “And now, we’ll be the fittest.”
Her legs were shaking. Her pulse thumping loud in her ears.
“I want you to know I don’t blame you for what happened to Fix,” he said, squeezing her hand. “This isn’t your fault. We’re family, you and me.”
Lemon’s belly rolled, tears burning in her eyes. It was her fault. If she’d listened to him, stayed put when he told her to, built her strength and learned to use her power properly…none of this would’ve happened.
The old man looked her in the eyes, his voice as heavy as lead.
“Do you trust me?”
Lemon bit her bottom lip to stop it quivering.
She wanted to. All her life, she’d never dreamed of having a place like this. A family of real flesh and blood. She wanted this to be real so badly.
Too badly?
But finally, ever so slowly, she nodded.
“I trust you,” she whispered.
“That’s my girl,” he smiled. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
He took her by the shoulders, turned her to face the Section C hatch.
“We need you to be gentle,” he said. “You can’t just fry the lock. The computer systems behind this door are critical to the weapons’ operations. If you cook those, they’ll be useless to me. To us. You’re a scalpel now, not a sledgehammer.”
“But what if I ca—”
“I believe in you,” he said, squeezing her shoulders.
Lemon breathed deep. Trying to shush the guilt and hurt in her head. He’d never steered her wrong, had he? He’d given her a place to belong. Something to be part of, bigger and more important than herself. He’d warned her against going off after Cricket. He’d not gotten angry when she’d disobeyed. He wanted what was best for her. For them. For his family and his people.
“I believe in you,” he repeated.
And so, she reached out. Into the gray static behind her eyes. Swimming in the rivers of cool current all around her. The arcs of it—quick and vibrant through the generators at her back; slow and pulsing through the door ahead, the digital keypad, the KEEP OUT sign etched in shimmering voltage.
Beyond the hatch, she could feel sleeping computers. There was only a meter or so between them and the doorway. So litt
le room to work. If she slipped, she’d fry them, fry the hydrostation, fry the generators, fry their chances. Consigning them all to the tender mercies of BioMaas.
So you better not slip, Lemon Fresh.
She lowered her head, glaring at the digital keypad through her bangs. Muscles corded. Fingers curled. Stepping into the wash of gray, the ocean she swam in, taking the stones of anger and guilt and shame and fear and pressing herself against them, sharpening herself to a sliver, a razor, a blade. And raising her hands, she twisted her fingers and sliced the tiniest tear she could.
The digital keypad hissed and popped. Over her shoulder, her grandpa caught his breath. For a terrible moment, she thought she’d caught him in the surge, like she’d caught those clawbeasts. But then he rose to his feet, eyes wide as the keypad flickered and died, the locks clunked, heavy and deep, and with a groan of metal and old, dry hinges, the hatchway to Section C yawned open.
Red lights came to life, spinning in the room beyond.
An alert claxon sounded over the PA.
And Lemon just stood and stared, wondering what she’d done.
Section C was cylindrical, split over three levels. The ground floor was stacked with computer equipment, decorated with a multitude of strange acronyms—CRUISE TERCOM, ASAT, DSMAC, GLONASS, TRANS. Heavy sealed hatchways lined the walls, seven in all. These hatches were stenciled with symbols for radioactivity and large warning messages in bright yellow paint.
DANGER: HIGH PRESSURE
WARNING: M-1 SAFETY GEAR REQUIRED BEYOND THIS POINT
CAUTION: STAND CLEAR OF BLAST DOOR
SILO NO. 1
SILO NO. 2
SILO NO. 3
SILO NO. 4
SILO NO. 5
SILO NO. 6
SILO NO. 7
“And the seventh angel sounded his trumpet…,” the Major whispered.
A dead body leaned against one wall, wearing an old, rotten version of the uniform Lemon and the other freaks all wore. It was just a desiccated husk now, barely recognizable as male. Its jaw hung loose, eye sockets empty. A pistol sat on the ground near its hand, old blood spatters on the wall behind it. Glittering around its neck was a long chain, hung with a set of dog tags and a heavy red passkey.
“Hello, Lieutenant Rodrigo,” the Major murmured. “I told you we’d meet again.”
Lemon hovered on the threshold, but the old man limped slowly into the room, bathed red in the glow of the emergency lights. He ran his fingers along an old, dusty computer terminal, rewarded with a burst of electronic chatter as the system began waking. He knelt beside the corpse, gently lifted the key from around its neck. Still down on one knee, he held out his arms and looked skyward.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
He turned and smiled at Lemon, eyes shining.
“Thank you,” he repeated.
Butterflies were flitting in Lemon’s belly, and she didn’t quite know why. She looked at that blood-red passkey in his palm. Hand drifting to the five-leafed clover around her throat. Her fingertips brushed the metal, cold and heavy.
“I knew it,” he said, grinning all the way to the eyeteeth. “I knew it the moment I first saw you, the moment Grimm told me you were one of us.” He turned back to the room, shaking his head. “I knew the Lord brought you to me for a reason.”
The butterflies in Lemon’s stomach died one by one.
Her fingers closed on her clover so tight the metal dug into her skin.
“I’m gonna go check on Diesel,” she heard herself say.
The Major wasn’t listening, limping farther into Section C. Lemon backed away slow, watching as the old man ran his fingers along the door to SILO NO. 1. He was looking about him in wonder, like a little boy whose dreams had suddenly all come true. Lemon shuffled over to the stairwell leading down into the greenhouse. And with one last glance to make sure his back was turned, she climbed upward.
“The moment I first saw you.”
Onto the landing, up to the Major’s office door. She looked over her shoulder to make sure he hadn’t followed her, pressed her palm against the digital lock. A burst of sparks, the smell of melted plastic. She twisted the handle, stepped inside, sickness swelling in her gut, pulse hammering like a V-8 engine.
“The moment Grimm told me you were one of us.”
Every inch of wall was plastered with photographs of the desert outside the facility. Those old blue skies. But her eyes were focused on the sealed doorway behind the Major’s desk. She could sense the power behind it, the computers she’d felt her first time in here. Staring at the label on the hatch, the collage of photographs covering the lettering. Hoping, begging, praying she was wrong. She had to be.
She had to be.
“I realize how odd it sounds. But I’ve been seeing you for a few years now. Off and on. Last time I saw you, would’ve been…maybe four days back?”
She reached out with shaking hands.
“The moment I first saw you, the moment Grimm told me…”
She tore the photographs away, exposing the label beneath.
Two words. One ton apiece.
SATELLITE IMAGING
“Oh god,” she whispered.
She fried the digital keypad, stepped inside. Her chest was so tight she could barely breathe, dragging shuddering breaths over trembling lips and wondering how she could have been so stupid.
The room was full of computer equipment. Monitor screens. Dozens upon dozens, each with a different label. SAT-10. SAT-35. SAT-118. The monitors showed pictures from across the country, high-def, close up, shot from overhead. She saw the bustling streets of Megopolis, the squalid dogleg alleys of Los Diablos, the crowded laneways of New Bethlehem.
But the monitors also showed shots from inside Miss O’s.
Cameras in the common room.
Cameras in the dormitories.
Cameras in the gym.
“I see things. Faces. Places. It only happens when I’m deep asleep.”
Lemon pressed her fingers to her lips, shaking her head.
An alarm sounded, ringing through the facility, echoing on the concrete. But Lemon could barely hear it. She was staring at the walls, eyes wide, lip trembling. Every inch was plastered with photographs, just like the office outside. But instead of big blue skies, these photographs were all of the same woman. Always shot from above. Lemon could see the Major in the shape of her chin, the line of her brow. She had a beautiful smile, dark eyes. Long dark hair. Her face was painted like a skull. She was often accompanied by a boy, wearing a pair of high-tech goggles.
“Sister Dee,” she whispered.
On the wall, in the center of the collage, was the same photo the Major kept on his desk. It showed the same woman, younger, pregnant, in a pretty summer dress. Faint freckles were spattered on her cheeks. A combat knife had been driven through the picture, right in the middle of her stomach, pinning her to the wall.
“Lillian,” she whispered.
Sister Dee is his…
“I’m sorry,” said a voice behind her.
Lemon spun on her heel, saw the Major standing behind her. He had a pistol in hand, pointed right at her chest. He raised his voice over the screaming alarms.
“Step away from the computers.”
“She’s your daughter,” Lemon realized. “Lillian is Sister Dee.”
“Step away.”
Lemon glanced at the photo with the knife through it. Her mind was racing, her thoughts all ablur as she looked back at the old man. If Sister Dee was his daughter, and Lemon was his granddaughter…
Is she my…?
Lemon blinked hard, shook her head. The horror of it, the grief, threatening to rise up and overwhelm her. But she reached inside, past the churn of her belly and thunder of her pulse, and she found it waiting for her. Her streetface. Her braveface. Pulling it on lik
e an old familiar glove. Breathing deep. She’d known it was too good to be true. Deep down, a part of her had always known. And there, as the alarms screamed and her temples pounded and her gut turned to cold, leaden ice, she saw it. Through the wash of despair, of betrayal, a moment of perfect clarity.
The picture on the wall was identical to the framed picture on the Major’s desk outside. The same smile, the same dress, the same freckles.
Everything, except…
“Where’s her five-leafed clover?” she demanded. “Where’s the present you gave her for her sixteenth birthday?”
The old man shrugged, a small smile curling his lip. He looked to the photos on the walls of the outer office. The skies were every shade of blue—dark and pale and everything between, or rippling in new shades of gold and orange and red.
“You’d be surprised what a little photo editing can do,” he said.
“You’re not a deviate at all,” Lemon breathed, all the pieces coming together in her head. “You don’t see when you dream, you see through these screens. That’s why you make Grimm and the others operate at night. So you can sit up here and watch the world during the day.” Her stomach dropped into her boots. “You never saw me before a few days ago. Everything you know about me, you just learned listening to me talk to the others. By watching me.”
“And old footage,” the Major said. “The system keeps records of the satellite visuals for three months. Your battle outside Babel made interesting viewing.”
Lemon looked to the photo stabbed to the wall. The pretty smile, the freckled skin. The truth was there, plain in front of her eyes. But it still hurt to speak it.
“She’s not my mother.”
“No.”
“…You’re not my grandfather.”
The old man’s lip curled. “Hardly.”
Tears shone in Lemon’s eyes as she whispered, “Why’d you lie to me?”
“I needed you to stay,” he said. “Long enough to unlock Section C, at least. The grandfather nonsense was the best I could think of on short notice.”