by Amie Kaufman
“We’re self-serving?” Jules’s face darkens a few shades, and I have to stifle the urge to grab his arm in case he swings. “You’re trying to destroy our world.”
Atlanta’s expression doesn’t flicker. “Destroy it? We’re saving it.”
“Why would we let you out?” Jules nudges me behind him a little more, and for a moment I think he’s responding to my rather cowardly attempt to use him as a shield—until I realize he’s nudging me back from the door. Perhaps he thinks he can kick Dex’s foot free, slam it shut.
“If you don’t,” Atlanta counters, “I pledge we’ll set up such a fuss and hassle to wake every proto on the base.”
Shit.
“Why do you keep calling us that?” I snap, my temper unravel-ling. I had no idea they could hear our plans so clearly.
“Protos?” Atlanta’s lips twist. “Proto-human.”
The hairs on my neck lift, the chill in her voice making me want to shiver. “We are human. This is our planet. We belong here.”
“We are human—the new humans, the new masters of Earth. You’re just what came before.”
“You’re Undying,” I spit.
“I’m sure Neanderthal hunters thought they were the rulers of their world—but would you entrust this planet to them now?” Atlanta smiles her chilly smile. “We are beyond you. We are the future of this world.”
Fury and fear together rise up like bile, and I hiss, “They’re going to see you. A few shuttles, sure, you can hide as space junk. But enough of you to invade our whole planet? They’re going to see you, and stop you.”
Atlanta just continues smiling that metallic, not-quite-right smile. “We won’t need more than a few,” she says, her voice as sharp and threatening as a knife. She doesn’t elaborate, but the smugness on her face suggests there’s far more to their plan than just sneaking a few operatives onto Earth’s surface.
While I’m fumbling for a response, Jules straightens at my side. “Fine. You can come.”
My voice bursts out of me before I can stop it. “What? Jules—”
“Trust me.” Jules murmurs the words—though the Undying can no doubt overhear, his tone is still intimate and soft, like a whisper. When I look at him, his eyes aren’t on Atlanta and her fierce gaze and clenched fists, but rather on Dex’s face, unreadable and calm.
I seize Jules’s wrist and turn it. We’ve lost four minutes. Glancing up, I spot cameras at regular intervals along our path. “I really hope Mink’s on our side,” I whisper, and turn to lead the others down the corridor.
ALL THE LONG, BLANK HALLS IN THIS PLACE LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME. I have no sense of where we are, and worse, no sense of where the exit is.
It’s like this whole facility was built to disorient the visitor, and perhaps it was. Each hallway shares the same smooth floor, the same featureless walls. There’s not so much as a number on a doorway, let alone a helpful location map with a cheery little You Are Here! indicator.
We have to swipe Mink’s card twice more in the first two minutes to make our way through security checkpoints, heavy sliding doors that would’ve been impassable otherwise.
There are only two things on our side. First, it’s a little after three in the morning, and though in a place like this there are certainly people still on duty, nobody is roaming the corridors. And secondly, the cameras are down, thanks to Mink. They must be, or someone would have raised the alarm by now.
I know from Mia’s grim expression that she’s worried—the cameras aren’t our only concern. Surely in a situation like this, protocol dictates that somebody should check the prisoners are where they’re supposed to be.
With a swift intake of breath, Mia halts, gazing down a branching corridor. At first I can’t tell what’s grabbed her attention, but when she whispers a quick “Give me one second,” and slips down the hallway, I recognize the interview room where we witnessed Mink and De Luca’s showdown. When she returns, she’s tucking something into her waistband and sidling up to me. Only once Atlanta and Dex have returned their attention to the issue of escape do I glance sidelong at her—she slips something to me wordlessly. I can tell by feel that it’s my journal. I shove it down into a cargo pocket and raise an eyebrow at her.
She lifts the edge of her shirt a little, just enough to show me the handle of her multi-tool. “I modified this myself,” she whispers, voice half defensive, half triumphant. “It’s been to the other side of the universe and back. I’m not leaving it behind now.”
Before I can reply, a noise echoes down the corridor, stopping us dead in our tracks. It’s Director De Luca shouting at the top of his voice. I catch a snatch of a few words—don’t want to hear a goddamn—and then the rest of it is lost, just noise again.
I guess he knows something’s wrong.
The door to the room where he must be opens with a smooth hiss, and Mia collides with my chest as she backs abruptly around the corner. Wordlessly, the four of us—a team at least in this—duck back down the way we came. Which looks exactly the same as every other corridor. This is hopeless.
But we haven’t made it much farther when Atlanta abruptly stops, pointing at a fire extinguisher next to a doorway.
“We saw that when we were shifting inward,” she says, completely confident.
Mia lifts her brows, and I share her skepticism.
“I expect they have more than one fire extinguisher,” I offer.
Atlanta shakes her head firmly. “No, was that one. Got a scratch.” She points to a minute little half-moon chip in the cylinder’s smooth red paint.
My own brows shoot up. How could she possibly have spotted that while being hustled in? But Dex is nodding when I glance across at him.
“She says it, she’s right, I pledge,” he tells us in a low, urgent whisper.
I know we have no choice but to trust her, but I don’t.
Dex, on the other hand …
Slowly, the evidence is beginning to add up. The tattoo. I’m sure his finger traced the spiral of it, pausing as he pulled his shirt off to exercise. The way he looked at us on the shuttle, before we launched. The moment in which he could have said something to his partner about the stowaways on board, and didn’t.
And when he handed over the piece of paper from his tray—300CS—he squeezed my hand a moment longer than he needed to. Caught my gaze with a stare more urgent than the gesture required. I have an inkling this is what he wanted to convey: Trust me.
I know what Mia would say. And her healthy skepticism of literally everyone and everything around her is what kept us alive on Gaia. But Dex is the only hope I have left now, and if I lose that … No. No, there’s something deeper going on here, I have to believe it.
I choose to believe it.
I squeeze Mia’s hand, and together we turn to follow the Undying.
Atlanta seems to have her bearings now, and she leads confidently. It’s slow going—we duck into doorways and back around corners over and over, because in these clothes nobody’s mistaking us for anything but what we are, if we come face-to-face with the soldiers hurrying along the hallways. Once, we pile into an empty meeting room, standing together in the darkened corner of it, so close I can hear the Undying’s breath—while several pairs of boots pound past us, purposeful. Is that purpose to do with us?
But as soon as we’re out and moving again, there’s another checkpoint ahead. And this one I do recognize. So does Mia. Her hand flies out to grab my forearm and squeeze, at the sight of it. This door is different, thicker and heavier. The way out.
“Let’s hope Mink’s pass is still working,” Mia mutters, gripping it tightly as she jogs toward the door.
It will still be night outside. If they don’t realize we had the means to leave, we could make some distance, even on foot, before they—
The door slides open, a fraction of a second before Mia reaches it. A trio of soldiers stands just on the other side, returning from some patrol. For a moment, everything stops.
Mia is fro
zen just a few steps from the uniformed soldiers. I’m a few paces behind her, with Dex and Atlanta to one side. The first two soldiers, a man and a woman, stop at the sight of us, and the third only halts when he bumps into his comrade’s back—the phone he was staring at falls from his hand and clatters to the floor.
Before I can do more than register the trouble we’re in, Atlanta’s moving, barely more than a blur in my peripheral vision. In an instant, she closes the distance between her and the soldiers, taking one of them down in one swift sweep of her leg. Dex is with her half a second later, and as the first soldier’s partner reaches for the rifle at her side, Dex grabs it and slams the butt of the rifle into her face. She staggers back and falls, clutching at her nose.
All I can see after that is a flash of surprised terror in the face of the man who dropped his phone, and then both Atlanta and Dex are on top of him. They move so quickly I can’t even see what they do to him—but he’s down within the space of a single breath. Dex retrieves the rifle he’d grabbed from one of the soldiers and slings its strap over his chest, while Atlanta returns to the still-conscious form of its wielder, considers her state speculatively, and then gives her a swift kick to knock her out.
Mia, who flung herself to one side when the Undying team rushed the soldiers, is still pressed against the wall, her eyes wide, her face white. I’m not doing much better, my vision blurring with the impossibility of what I’ve just witnessed.
They’re not human.
Even though I knew that before—even though I’d seen them bleed blue, impossibly alien—I’m not sure I entirely believed it, deep down on a subconscious level, until now.
Catching Mia’s gaze as it swings toward me, I find myself wishing I could summon even an ounce of bravery to reassure her. But all I feel is terror sweeping through me. All I want to do is run.
“Stop!” The shout is hoarse, and it comes from behind us. “Stop, I’ll shoot!”
We all freeze. Instinctively I lift my hands, and glance over my shoulder.
There’s a uniformed guard behind us in the corridor, pointing his sidearm straight at us. Summoned by the commotion, no doubt. His hands are shaking a little, the barrel jigging up and down as he swings it in a slow arc, as though to demonstrate he has complete coverage. Nearby, Mia’s got her hands up too, and slowly Dex and Atlanta comply as well. Dex has the rifle, but it’s dangling just out of easy reach, too far away when there’s a gun pointed at his face.
“Please,” I say, but I don’t know how that sentence finishes. Let us go? Shoot them? I’d take either, right now.
The guard takes two steps forward, and I realize who it is. It’s the same guy who’s been bringing us our meals. The same one who’s been watching us nervously since we arrived. He’s had time to study us. And maybe that can help us, now.
“You have to let us go,” I try, soft.
“I can’t,” he says, still hoarse. He’s gripping his gun so tightly, I’m scared his trigger finger will tighten as well. His eyes flick down to the crumpled forms of his fellow soldiers on the floor at our feet, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he registers the sight of blood.
Mia speaks beside me. “You have to.” She doesn’t sound nervous, though a second ago there was utter horror in her expression. There’s no shake to her voice. She sounds as calm as if she were issuing an order she has every right to give.
The guard’s eyes are so wide I can see their whites. He has to clear his throat before he speaks, his gun swinging around to point at her. It takes everything I have not to do something stupid. Not to grab her and yank her behind me, as if I could protect her from a weapon like that.
But she’s not focusing on me right now. She’s staring at the man holding her at gunpoint. “You saw the shuttle,” she says, quiet and calm. “That’s not space junk. You know something’s not right here.” She tilts her head at Dex and Atlanta, keeping her hands still. “You know something’s not right with them.”
The gun drifts across toward Dex and Atlanta. He’s listening to her, but he’s certainly not ready to lower it.
“The cameras are off,” she says, still calm. “That’s because we’re meant to leave. Not officially, they can’t do that—but someone up there wants us to get out and stop what’s about to happen. It also means nobody’s going to see, when you lower your gun and let us go.”
“The stuff they’re saying online about all this … it’s insane.” He shakes his head, but it doesn’t seem to put her off.
“You need to let us go now,” she says quietly. “This is what’s meant to happen.”
He gazes at her then, and I don’t know what passes between them. She doesn’t blink, doesn’t waver, but instead lets him see every ounce of her conviction. She knows that some part of him, deep inside, a part that operates on instinct, is deciding whether to trust her.
I don’t know how she projects such calm, such purpose, in a moment like this. I do know that all the years I spent growing up—in classrooms, at black tie college dinners, in the damn water polo pool—she spent on the streets, learning how to bluff, how to keep herself intact. All of it practice for this one moment in which she has to talk our way out of here.
Because if she can—no exaggeration—perhaps she’ll save the world. At the very least, she’ll keep a glimmer of hope alive. And right now, that glimmer, that spark, is everything.
Suddenly the air goes out of him, and he lowers his gun.
She nods, as though he’s pleased her, then turns away to swipe Mink’s card across the security pad again. The door slides back open and the four of us turn to run through it. The skin between my shoulder blades is twitching, waiting for a bullet, but ten seconds later the door hums closed.
We’re outside, alone, in the night air.
My gaze sweeps the compound we find ourselves in. It’s dimly lit—still not observed by cameras, I hope—and surrounded by a chain-link fence. This place really is in the middle of nowhere. To get here, we followed a rough trail that wound its way along the length of the valley, not another building in sight.
The whole of the compound is inside that fence. Beyond the lights I know all we’ll find is a swath of grassland, mountains rising on either side. No easy way to escape, but in the darkness … maybe there’s some way we can lose Atlanta and Dex. Replays of the way they took out three armed soldiers between one breath and another flash in front of my eyes like afterimages burned into my retinas.
We’ve got to get away from them.
Atlanta draws a breath as if to speak, then goes quiet. She lifts a hand, and when I follow where she points, I can make out what must be the vehicle pool. There are rows of cars and trucks under a sheltering roof, which is supported by a thick column at each corner.
But it’s not the vehicle pool that’s caught her attention. It’s the truck near the front of it. A huge flatbed, with our shuttle strapped onto the back of it, a tangle of cords flung over it like a nest of overgrown vines. The truck’s engine is still running, a low, bass rumble that rolls across the compound. And when it shuts off, the silence is keen.
As my eyes adjust to the dark, they tell me there are three or four IA personnel over there, doing some kind of shuffle with the cars, moving this one forward and that one backward, presumably trying to access one they need that isn’t in the front row.
Mia’s voice is barely more than a breath. “Those cars—” she begins.
But she gets no further. An urgent siren starts up, blasting its wail across the yard, and one by one, the floodlights begin to turn on with a soft boom, boom, boom. They’re mounted along the roof of the buildings and the edge of the fence.
We press ourselves back into the sliver of shadow at the edge of the building, as the vehicle personnel go running past us to report for duty.
This time, Mia has to shout to be heard over the sirens. “The keys must still be in those cars,” she yells.
I blink at her, then remember our discussion earlier. That we could be in Prague in a couple
of days, if we could … “We can’t drive it,” I shout back.
But she’s already grabbing my hand and tugging me away from the shelter of the building. “We’ll have to ram the fence to get out. Hitting things is kinda the goal there. It’s not like I learned to drive, but I know where the gas pedal is.”
“Let’s shift,” Dex shouts, and he and Atlanta are running past us, straight out into the light.
Mia hauls on my hand, and then we’re just a step behind them. Part of me wants to veer off, to let Dex and Atlanta escape without us, because I don’t want to spend a second longer in their company than we have to. But if we do that, we’ll almost certainly be caught again and put back in that cell, and this time they’ll make sure we don’t escape.
Dex runs straight past the first row of cars and into the shadows, but Atlanta pulls up short, thumping the hood of one of the jeeps the officers were moving when the alarms sounded.
“This one,” she barks. “You, proto-girl, drive it, compren?”
I doubt Mia’s in the mood to take orders from Atlanta, but she doesn’t waste time stopping to argue. Instead, she leaps into the driver’s seat, finds the keys still in the ignition, and starts up its engine. I grab the huge bull bar bolted onto the front, using it to swing myself around toward the passenger side.
But Atlanta doesn’t move as I throw myself into the passenger seat, just standing there with her hands resting on the hood to stop us from driving away.
“Get out of the way!” Mia screams.
For a moment, I think this could be our chance. We could drive away and leave Dex and Atlanta behind—to be caught and imprisoned again by the IA, or to destroy the entire base with their superhuman combat abilities, I don’t much care in this moment.
But Atlanta still doesn’t move, standing in the path of the jeep. She’s staring back into the dark, to where Dex disappeared.
“I swear, I will run you down,” Mia shouts, her fingers wrapping around the hand brake. Her fingers are shaking, though, and her eyes are wild, and I know her too well to believe her. Despite everything we’ve witnessed, I don’t think she could actually run Atlanta over in cold blood. She wouldn’t be Mia if she could.