An Unggoy stared at her from behind a bar of trees.
Evie screeched in panic and scrambled to her feet, slipping backward over the mud. She shoved her comm pad back in her pocket and fired off a round from her plasma pistol.
An echoing blast of energy, an explosion of wet leaves, a puff of smoke. The Unggoy squealed and darted forward, firing off rounds from its own plasma pistol. The bolts streaked overhead, steaming in the rain.
Evie fired from her pistol again. Once. Twice. Missed both times. All the lessons she had gotten from Victor and his sisters had vanished from her memory—all she could think of now was survival.
She turned and ran.
The Unggoy gave chase, although it stopped shooting; she could hear it crashing through the underbrush behind her. She ran wildly, splashing through the puddle, whipping herself around tree trunks. In the back of her mind, she knew she was losing herself in the forest. With all the flooding, she’d never find the path again.
Evie’s lungs were burning. Her vision was blurred with rainwater. The Unggoy shrieked behind her.
And then she came across a huge swath of flooding, water stretching off on either side. She whipped off to the left, arms pumping. A plasma bolt struck a tree in front of her, and she whirled around and fired at the Unggoy, which let out a wail of pain and stumbled backward. Her chest seized. I hit it. The realization wasn’t as comforting as she would have thought.
Still, she knew she had to get to the computer. Had to unleash the virus. Her feet pounded the mulchy ground, flinging up droplets of mud and old rainwater. The Unggoy shrieked behind her, but the shrieking grew softer the harder she ran.
She wove deeper into the woods, glancing over her shoulder, waiting for the blast from its plasma pistol. Nothing happened.
Eventually, she slowed, wheezing hard. She leaned up against a nearby tree and blinked out at the forest around her, dizzy with that sudden, inescapable feeling of being lost.
She pulled out her comm pad and drew up Dorian’s map. Splotches of green, a few crisscrossed paths. She had been on the main path earlier, when she came across the Unggoy. Then she had run left. She squinted down at the map. If she kept going straight forward, she should hit the clearing.
She started walking, glancing over her shoulder to see if the Unggoy was following her. It wasn’t. Still, she kept her pistol out.
Eventually, the trees started to thin, and the rain fell heavier, churning up the wet mulch. Evie’s heart fluttered, and with a burst of energy, she took up a light jog. Branches lashed at her face. Please be there, please be there, she thought, as if she could will the clearing into existence.
She spilled out of the woods.
For a moment, she was stricken, afraid she’d made it to the wrong clearing—she saw no sign of the computer. Everything was veiled by the rain. But then a green light flashed in the distance, and she found the lump of greenery that had grown over the computer. She whooped with excitement and raced across the clearing. She knelt in front of the computer and slid her bag off her shoulder. Then she took one last glance around—no sign of the Unggoy. No sign of the Covenant.
Evie entered in the code Dorian had told her. The computer’s holo flowered to life, shimmery with the rain.
“Salome,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”
An unbearable pause, and a million terrors flashed though Evie’s head: What if the Covenant had destroyed Salome somehow? What if the emergency power that ran the computer was down?
But then there was a flash of holo-light and Salome materialized in a hazy green outline. “Evelyn Rousseau,” she said, frowning deeply. “How many times have I told you? You need to leave the area.”
“I still have some work to do.” Evie pulled out her laptop. “I just wanted to check to see if you’re okay. I know the Covenant has been messing around in town.”
“This is why you need to leave.” Salome put her hands on her hips and pouted. “I have so much to worry about! Those aliens are destroying my infrastructure!”
Evie flipped open her computer, trying her best to shield it from the rain with her own body. She felt around on the town computer for the wire port and plugged in the connecting wire. No comm channels meant she had to do this the old-fashioned way.
“I know,” Evie said. “That’s what I’m here to work on.”
Salome’s projection arced around so a tiny Salome floated on Evie’s shoulder. “What are you doing?” she chirped. “It is my job to know. The city engineers always keep me informed.”
“It’s just a little update.” Evie brought up the file and tapped it open. Hit the Transfer icon.
“An update?” Salome sounded suddenly worried. “Am I not good enough anymore?”
Evie could kill whichever maladjusted nerd it was that had tried giving Salome more “natural” emotions. Clearly they had never spoken to a human being before.
“You’re fine.” Evie sighed, watching as the transfer bar slowly filled. “You probably won’t even notice it.”
“How did you even get the access to update me anyway?”
“My dad,” Evie said promptly.
“Mikal Rousseau?” Salome’s projection flitted around again. Now she hovered in the air above Evie’s computer. Evie could see the progress bar shining through Salome’s stomach. “But he doesn’t have access to my files! He’s a professor!”
“He must have gotten them from somewhere, then.” Evie was surprised by how calm she kept her voice. Inside she was rioting. The progress bar was still only about 75 percent. Finish, finish!
An explosion boomed from the direction of the town, louder than thunder. The ground trembled.
“What was that?” Salome head whipped around in a blur. “Oh, it’s those aliens again. I bet they’re digging up my town square this time.”
Black smoke billowed over the trees. Distantly Evie could make out the zip, zip, zip of plasma cannons.
“It’s not the aliens,” she said, and the scent of rain and the scent of fire mingled together over the town.
“Oh?” Salome said. “Then who is it? I can’t see anything over there, not since they blew up Old Brume. Can you believe it? The oldest neighborhood in town!”
Ninety percent.
“They’re monsters,” Evie said softly, thinking of the Unggoy she had left in the woods.
Another explosion tore the sky in half. Purple-red light flashed through the rain, staining everything like a bruise.
“Again!’” shrieked Salome, her projection flitting a meter away from Evie. “What are they doing out there? Oh, I wish they hadn’t destroyed my cameras.”
Ninety-nine percent.
Evie’s hand trembled. She held it up to the screen. Waiting—
One hundred percent.
Activate?
Evie hit the icon and held her breath. Salome’s hologram flickered twice. She was still looking out at the fire burning beyond the trees.
“My town,” she wailed.
“Salome,” Evie whispered, her voice hoarse in her throat. Your code’s perfect, Victor had told her. But he’d never been that good at coding.
“Yes, Evelyn Rousseau?” Salome turned back to her. She looked the same as always. But then, the virus wouldn’t affect her appearance.
“I need you to open up the shelter,” Evie said, in a rush. “Not all of the doors. Just number five. The one near Rue le Verre. It’s nowhere near the explosion.”
Salome blinked. Evie curled her hands into fists, breath trembling in her throat.
“Ah yes,” Salome said. “I can see Rue le Verre quite clearly! No damage there.”
Evie wanted to scream at her—just say yes, say yes, say yes.
“The threat level is acceptable,” Salome said. “I will open the doors immediately.”
Go, go, go!” Owen shouted, releasing a stream of blazing cover fire from his rifle. The mayor’s office burned with white flames, smoke and steam belching up into the misty sky. The same flying Covenant so
ldiers that Dorian had escaped the night of the invasion swarmed overhead, sending plasma fire into the rubble below, where Owen, Dorian, and Victor were hiding.
Dorian didn’t have to be told twice. He took off at a low crouch, plasma bolts zinging overhead. He doubted the soldiers—Owen called them Drones—could actually see him. Downtown had been shredded, the old brick buildings toppled into piles of stone and glass, meaning there was plenty of cover if you kept yourself low.
A green fireball erupted a few meters in front of him, and Dorian screamed, slammed against the wet ground. He craned his neck up—the Drone? Did they have some kind of grenade launcher?
No. He couldn’t be so lucky. A pair of round purple aircraft winged overhead, four streaks of light following behind them.
“Banshees!” Owen yelled—Dorian couldn’t see him. “Get the hell out of here now.”
“I’m trying!” Dorian shouted back. He crawled on his hands and knees around the flaming rubble—they’d hit the old Welcome to Brume-ser-Mer sign, of all things, the painted wood charring and smoking in the rain.
Dorian scrambled forward. He could hear the rat-tat-tat of Owen’s rifle. In the moment, it was as reassuring as a lullaby.
The rubble cleared up ahead. Dorian slowed, looked up into the rain. The Banshees were behind him, firing plasma cannons one after another. The Drones were headed his way. Four of them, plasma pistols at the ready.
He swung his head toward the edge of downtown. Rue le Coquillage was wide open. On the other side of the street was a residential area. Their rendezvous with Victor.
Dorian took a deep breath and flung himself around, firing his rifle up at the Drones. It kicked powerfully with each shot, the Covenant parts sizzling in the rain. One of the Drones exploded into pieces, bug bits spiraling down to the wreckage below. The others squawked as they looked for their comrade; Dorian took that moment to run as fast as he could across the street.
The Drones screamed. A plasma bolt scorched the air a few millimeters from Dorian’s face, and he drew its smoke into his lungs as he breathed. The smell reminded him, sharply and suddenly, of the smell on Tomas’s boat.
There had been plasma fire from the sky that night too.
Dorian bounded into the front yard of a ramshackle house, flinging himself under the leaves of a big, sprawling banana tree. Not much of a cover, especially since the Drones probably saw him dart under there, but it made him feel safe.
Plasma fire ripped through the leaves.
Dorian fired off his rifle in return. Then he ran toward the house, conjuring up all his speed, all his strength. The Drones shrieked and chattered behind him.
A meter from the house, he leapt, twisted his body, and slid feetfirst through the front window.
Glass shattered, and Dorian hit the floor hard, pain reverberating up from the soles of his feet. He moaned. Debris crunched underneath him. Hot wetness smeared across his back.
Plasma fire burned a line in the house’s carpet.
Dorian rolled onto his side, pushed himself up to his feet. The Drones were a few meters away. He hobbled sideways away from the window, then moved toward the back of the house. Into the dark hallway, down into the abandoned kitchen, which stank of rotten food.
A crash from the front of the house.
Dorian ducked into the dining room. Where the hell was the back door?
Skittering, inhuman footsteps. Chittering voices. Dorian glanced down and saw drops of his blood shining on the wooden floors.
“Damn,” he whispered. He dove through a door in the dining room, into a—thank god!—sunroom, a glass door leading out into the backyard. Dorian eased it open, slid out. Was he still dripping blood? Of course. Why even bother to be quiet?
The backyard smelled like smoke. But it was still raining, and Dorian stepped into the open. The rain stung when it hit the cuts on his skin, but at least it washed away the blood.
He jumped the fence into the neighbor’s yard. Did it again, into the next neighbor’s yard. Again. He half limped, half jogged his way through the backyards of the neighborhood, weaving closer and closer to the park at the center. The rendezvous.
The Covenant didn’t seem to follow.
Occasionally, he heard the whine of the Banshees screaming overhead, but he stayed close to the ground, sticking to fences and trees. The glass cuts still stung, but he kept on.
The rendezvous point was on Rue la Pieuvre, two blocks ahead. He kept to the yards. Easier to stay hidden, away from the steady glow of streetlamps. Through all this destruction, Salome had kept them burning. Uncle Max would certainly be impressed. Dorian couldn’t decide if he was. He needed all the darkness he could take right now.
He made it to Rue la Pieuvre safely and jumped fences until he was at the yellow house he had suggested for the rendezvous point. Easy for them to find, without worrying about street numbers.
Dorian slipped in through the back door. Unlocked. Victor must already be here. He stumbled through the dark hallway until he came to the kitchen. Victor was sitting at the table. Owen stood behind him. Neither was speaking.
“How’d you get here so fast?” Dorian asked Owen.
Owen lifted his head, his face hidden behind the visor. “Are you injured?”
Dorian glanced down at himself. Blood was starting to well up through his glass cuts again. “I jumped through a window to get away from the Drones. I’ll be fine. I thought you were behind me?”
“Looks like you took a detour,” Owen said. Dorian thought he might have heard a hint of humor in his voice. Maybe it was just the helmet.
“I guess.” Dorian slumped down into a chair. He hadn’t realized until then how exhausted he was, how much every muscle in his body burned. He leaned forward on the table and left blood smears on its surface.
“You think Salome’s opened the shelter door yet?” Victor said.
“Assuming Evie got there in time, yes.” Owen’s visor vanished. “Not sure how long it’ll take the Covenant to notice. You chose a good exit location.”
Dorian smiled, despite his exhaustion and pain. “I know my way around this cruddy town.”
Victor laughed. “You jumped through a window to protect this cruddy town.”
Dorian shrugged. He didn’t bother to correct him, though: It wasn’t the town he cared about—it was the people. His uncle. Remy. He had abandoned his bandmates back on Tomas’s boat, and he wasn’t doing that to anyone he cared about ever again.
“We need to move forward with the assumption the door is open,” Owen said, swapping his rifle for the larger and more imposing railgun. “Which means setting off the next distraction. Five minutes. Then we head out.”
Dorian leaned back in his chair and stared up at portraits hanging on the far wall. He thought he recognized the family, although he couldn’t quite place them. Probably he and Uncle Max had done work for them at some point. Back when things were normal.
He wondered if they had made it to the shelter in time. If he’d find them at the end of this, huddled and traumatized. If he’d remember them when he saw them in person.
Owen activated his visor. “Okay, rest’s over,” he said. “Let’s move out.”
“It’s been five minutes already?” Victor rubbed his face. “How?”
Dorian pulled himself to his feet, muscles aching in protest. He wiped half-heartedly at the blood on the table and succeeded only in making the smears worse.
Victor grabbed the bag of supplies and hoisted it over his shoulder, one of Saskia’s prototype rifles slung on his back. Silently, they followed Owen out of the house, into the black, smoking night. It had been so quiet in the house that Dorian had almost forgotten the war zone outside.
War zone. He’d managed to follow in his parents’ footsteps after all.
They moved single file through the neighborhood: Owen at the front looking down the railgun’s sight, Dorian at the back, Victor in the middle with the explosives. They snaked their way west, toward the beach and the edge of t
he energy shield. Away from the woods. Away from the survivors funneling out of one shelter door and toward safety.
There was another reason too for selecting the beach. It happened to be the place the Covenant had hid their shield generator, something Owen discovered on their last excursion. He had described it as a large Covenant platform embedded in the sand, with four upward-facing prongs that apparently generated, shaped, and projected the dome shield that kept the entire area locked down. Owen said that if they could get close enough with the explosives, it could be neutralized. Dorian wasn’t so sure, but their entire plan was riding on it.
The Covenant were still searching over the neighborhood, Banshees and Drones arcing around, their silhouettes illuminated by the fires burning up the mayor’s office. Dorian kept glancing backward, afraid they’d swoop close enough to see. But they were concentrating on the far edge, where he and Owen had run in.
Wouldn’t stay that way for long, he knew.
They pressed on, slipping out of the neighborhood and onto the quiet, dark road leading down to the beach. Owen stopped them. “Fan out,” he said. “Weapons ready.”
Dorian hoisted up his rifle, his hands sweaty against the barrel. Wind blew in from the ocean, spraying the rain sideways. It had relented a little, but in the wind, everything shimmered with a gray haze. Good cover.
“Keep alert,” Owen said, stalking forward. “Don’t forget that aerial surveillance either.”
“Don’t forget to look up,” Victor translated. “Got it.”
They glided down the street. Dorian jerked his gaze around, body tense. The wind gusted, and he caught the salty tang of the ocean, a scent he’d grown up with his entire life but which, after the invasion, after waking up on the beach, flung him backward in time. All those people on the boat. The Drones firing plasma bolts across the deck. Screaming at Xavier and Alex and Hugo to run backstage and then never seeing them again.
Focus, he told himself. Maybe you didn’t save them. Maybe you did. But here’s a chance to save the entire town.
Behind them, a siren rose up, long and wailing and definitely not human. Dorian whipped around.
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