Whatever protective systems my body now has go into full crisis mode. My vision becomes so enhanced that even the dim light from the machinery behind the boys looks bright; my muscles tense, my heart rate shoots up, and my whole body tingles with energy as that strange shimmer resonates through my cells again. It’s like being adjusted or reoriented to some new objective still unclear to me. If we find Tucker here, sliced apart like this, I don’t know what I’ll do.
“What are they doing?” I ask. I’ve figured it out too, but I don’t want to say it out loud.
“They’ve… bisected each one. And somehow, splitting them into two sets, they are regrowing the missing tissue. Turning one human, or whatever these are, into two complete beings—each of them half of the original.”
Repeat, Tenth says. He taps my shoulder to get my full attention. Repeat twelve times.
“Twelve times? Like the Nahx?” I stare back into the rows and rows of bodies. “This is how they made you, Tenth? How they made all the Nahx?”
“If they did this twelve times, then the twelfth one would be barely human. Just around two ten-thousandths.”
Repeat me, Tenth says. Tenth is a tiny bit human.
“But it would turn one soldier into twelve soldiers,” Mandy says ruefully. “Pretty good way of making an army.”
These are not Nahx, Tenth says. I’ve never seen a Nahx make this sign before, but he does it in the most obvious way: Walk Night.
Not Walk Night, he repeats. Snowflakes.
“These ones were taken from the crowd upstairs?” I ask. “From the arena?”
“But it’s the same process that made the Nahx, right?” Mandy asks.
Different, Tenth says. Nahx are copied first, then changed. He waves his hands up and down his armor. These Snowflakes have been changed already. Now they are trying to copy them. I’ve never seen that before. I translate for Mandy.
“So this is a new technique? An experiment?”
Tenth nods, and Blue bobs up and down.
“We need to find Tucker,” I say. “Now.”
Blue zips off into the rows as Mandy, Tenth, and I check along the length of the corridor.
“He’s not here!” Mandy shouts back from one end of the row.
When we reach the other end of the row, my relief at not having found Tucker all sliced up turns the panic in my body down a single notch. Still raging panic, but slightly more manageable.
Blue suddenly pops out of the rows, bouncing manically, their light reflecting off the machinery and its victims.
“Did you find him?”
They bob up and down. Yes.
“Alive?”
Yes.
“Show us.”
As Blue leads us into the dense machinery, it becomes clear that whatever is happening here is not as extensive a project as it could be. Most of the machinery, most of the framework scaffolding, is empty. Eventually we reach a clear passage though the machines and follow Blue into an open chamber. Lining the walls of the chamber, laid out on slabs like bodies in a morgue, are several dozen humans—Snowflakes, from the metallic sheen of their skin. I’m slightly mortified to see that they are all completely naked. And, as is embarrassingly obvious, all male.
I push every thought about that aside as Blue leads us through the chamber. We find Tucker on the second-to-last slab before the wall. As we get closer I see the small smattering of blood on the slab under his head, his brown hair matted in it.
Mandy must sense my panic flaring.
“He’s alive,” she says, taking his wrist. “He’s breathing; his pulse is steady.” She shakes him gently and gives his face a couple of light slaps. “Wake up, Tucker.”
He doesn’t move or react.
“Help me roll him over,” Mandy says. I stand back as Tenth helps her roll Tucker onto his front. The source of the blood under his head becomes apparent. Imbedded in the base of his skull, just above where his head meets his neck, is a small device, almost like a headphone jack.
“God. Is that where they plug them in?”
Don’t worry, Tenth says. I have one too. He taps the back of his head. It’s for repeat mind rules.
Before I can ask him to elaborate, part of the wall in front of us suddenly dissolves like smoke, revealing a blinding glare behind it. A First is silhouetted there, flanked by two huge Nahx. They raise their weapons.
“Run and you will be discarded,” the First calmly says.
When he steps forward, I recognize him. His face is distorted—a misshapen nose, one eye socket seems off-kilter, silver scars bisect his upper and lower lips. This is the boy the Nahx beat to a pulp up in the arena. Not a copy, or a tall, armorless Nahx like the First I met in the cell with Tucker. His clothes are still stained with gray blood. This is that boy. And not. He has the same vacant look as the other First and a cloud of lights operating him like a marionette.
While I try to think of something to do, something hits me hard on the back of the head, making me see stars. As my vision clears I see Mandy has gone down too, and Tenth is clutching us by our necks, pressing us into the floor.
“Shackle them,” First says.
I’m still too dazed to resist as Tenth obeys, shackling me and Mandy together again, face-to-face.
“Well done, Tenth.”
Lying, treacherous little shit. I glare up at him, but he is pointedly looking away. Blue is nowhere to be found, but strangely, on the table next to Tucker’s sleeping form, is Tenth’s knife. I dart my eyes away quickly, not wanting to draw any attention. Something is going on; I’m just not sure what. Or who is in on it. Or who to trust.
The First steps closer to me, staring down with bruised and bloodshot eyes.
“What did you do to him?” I ask. “This human being you’re wearing like a suit?”
The First tilts his head to the side until his neck cracks, fixing his eyes on me.
“Human curiosity is certainly tenacious,” he says. “Here you are with no guarantee of living for another minute, and what you ask for is answers.”
I bite my tongue, because suddenly the idea of spending my last moments being surly is unappealing.
“This boy asked questions at the end too,” the First says, waving his hands vaguely down in front of his chest and abdomen. “What’s happening? Am I dying? What are you doing to m—”
The First twitches suddenly, and before my eyes, the floating cloud around his head changes color, from pale yellow to a kind of soft pink. As I watch, I realize the lights haven’t changed color so much as position. Pink ones have taken the outer positions in the cloud, becoming more visible.
“Forgive us,” the First says unexpectedly. “That was cruel.”
“God…” Mandy whispers. While I try to plot a way out of this, I can’t help filing away this new observation of the First. Do the color changes signify a change of mood? That knowledge might prove useful if I live past the next minute. If not for the still unnoticed knife on the slab, it wouldn’t be looking good.
“Unfortunately this snezjinka was being disruptive,” the First says. “The ones you call the Nahx have been instructed to cast out disruptors, but… they…” He looks disappointed suddenly, almost ashamed. “They are unpredictable. What are you—” The cloud changes again, shimmering back to yellow. “This one is incompletely processed. She should be discarded.”
The First steps back, as though he’s been startled by his own change of heart. I watch in astonishment as the cloud then changes again. Not back to pink, but to a shade of Creamsicle orange, an optical illusion caused by the yellow and pink lights mingling together. Finally he releases a theatrical sigh.
“Being among humans for so many years has made consensus impossible for us.” The First shakes his head in what is maybe the most sincerely human gesture I’ve see it make. It’s disappointed—with us, with itself. “Your ways are so… juvenile. So petty and selfish. It’s no wonder, really, that…” The cloud shimmers again, splitting into two colors before remerging.
“What? What is no wonder? What does ‘incomplete’ mean?”
The First takes another step toward us. Mandy clutches my hand, but before I have the chance to choke out some choice last words, one of the First’s Nahx guards suddenly collapses in a clattering heap, as though dead.
“What—” the First says. Then I have to hyper-focus my visual processing to even see what happens next. In a blur Tenth lunges forward, grabbing the remaining guard by the neck, and they go crashing down together. At the same time Tucker springs up from the table with a wild growl, landing on the First and slicing his throat open with the knife as they both crash to the floor.
Well. That explains that.
Tucker leaps up, naked and bloody, as the First writhes, his life pouring out of a gaping wound in his neck.
“Raven,” Tucker says. “Raven, what the fuck?” His eyes dash around wildly. “Where are we?”
He lurches back as Tenth steps over the chaos and clicks the shackles open. Mandy and I clamber to our feet.
“What now?” Mandy says.
“Where are we?!” Tucker repeats.
“It’s okay, Tuck,” I say, trying to stay calm. “Let’s get you out of here and I’ll explain.” I have no idea how much of the last few days he remembers. He seems completely lost, which is only about 10 percent more lost than I am.
Blue reappears, drifting out from under the Nahx who collapsed. They fly in a rolling motion as though urging us to follow.
“Did you see where the First’s cloud of lights went?”
Don’t worry, Tenth signs.
We have to run to keep up with Blue as they sail along another dark corridor. Finally a wall slides back, revealing a platform like the one we descended on.
“Back up?”
Blue bobs. Yes.
We jostle together as the platform begins to rise.
“Tucker needs clothes,” I say, my voice coming out smaller than I intended.
“You think?” Mandy laughs. She begins to strip. “He can have my khakis. I’ve got leggings underneath.”
As Tucker dresses in Mandy’s khakis and one of her sweaters, I notice how he’s breathing—hard and fast, as though panicked. He turns to me, and I feel like time has finally slowed down enough for me to get a good look at him. I’m shocked by his expression. He looks dazed, haunted.
“Raven,” he says, his voice breaking. “What happened? Where’s Topher?”
Mandy spins around. “Oh… shit.”
His memories are back, Tenth says, pointing to Blue. The Firefly did it. Here. He taps the back of his head again.
Something about the thing they implanted in Tucker’s skull? I don’t know what to do with this new information, but my brain files it away along with a million other things. Who knows what facts might be useful anymore?
The platform crunches to a stop and the doors hiss open, revealing another wide cargo bay. This one is dimmer than the one I know, and less populated, with only a few scrappy-looking Nahx, and there don’t appear to be any guards. The Nahx are working silently, pulling bits off half-assembled transports and installing them on others, carrying tools and equipment around. It has the air of a large auto repair shop, only alien.
Blue floats down into the bay and accosts one of the Nahx, pinging into its forehead. It snaps to attention as Blue flickers at it. The Nahx points to a transport near the bright cargo bay door. Blue rolls again, beckoning us to follow.
The working Nahx step back deferentially as we pass. I wonder if they think we are Tenth’s prisoners or if they’ve got some other idea of what is going on. It’s clear they don’t want trouble with Blue, though. One Nahx literally jumps out of the way as we approach the transport. There is no ramp, but the hatch is open so we hop up, finding the transport’s hold to be nearly empty and in a state of disrepair.
“What’s going on? Someone tell me,” Tucker says, staring down at his forearms. “What’s wrong with my skin?”
I take his hands and tug him down into a corner, sitting across from him as Mandy, Blue, and Tenth head into the cockpit. We hang on to each other as the transport lifts off. It rumbles and shakes, and I can barely hear Mandy yelp with fear as we suddenly bank hard, one flank apparently not quite clearing the bay doors.
I go rolling away before Tucker gets a hand around my wrist. He clings to one of the handholds.
“Veer right!” Mandy screams. “Hard right!”
I slide back into Tucker, and he wraps his free arm around my waist. “Hold on to me,” he says.
I pull myself into his chest, breathing in his still strangely human smell, his warmth, feeling the familiar landscape of his athletic body.
“Climb!” Mandy yells. “Take us up!”
My ears pop as the transport shoots up, the wall of the ship blurring outside the hatch until it’s swallowed by night sky. As soon as we’re over the wall, Tenth slams us into reverse, wedging the transport against the ship, and then, yanking some levers, he jerks us sideways and suddenly we’re flat against the exterior wall, cowering like a bug on a leaf.
“What—” I start.
“Quiet!” Mandy says.
Tucker tightens his grip on me, and we watch through the hatch, now above our heads, as three Nahx transports fly right by us. After another tense minute goes past, and then Tenth releases something and the transport drifts down, straightening out. We coast away from the giant ship, flying only meters above the ice until we reach the edge of the lake. Tenth takes us up then, my ears popping again as we breach the clouds and Tenth finally closes the hatch.
We made it, somehow. We’re free.
I pull back from Tucker’s arms, looking into his frantic eyes. He lifts one hand up to touch my face, his eyes desperate, as though he’s searching.
Then he leans forward and kisses me.
XANDER
I pack carefully for my next journey up to the transmitter, discreetly raiding the stores for a miniature electric lantern, a few extra batteries, matches, and a thin tarp, which I roll up as tightly as I can inside my sleeping bag. In my cabin I grab only those personal items I can’t live without. I need to find a balance between looking like I’m packing for a few days and actually packing for the rest of my life, which is challenging. I check and double-check my pocket for the key pieces of equipment I spent all night searching for—a handful of paper clips, finally found in the bottom drawer of an old desk someone had dumped in the recycling depot.
Garvin’s pistol, which I’ve been hiding from the others, I conceal in a slit I’ve made in the lining of my coat.
Mobbs and Logan have been assigned to relieve whoever is at the transmitter. They grumble about the cold and mostly ignore me, letting me trail behind as we skirt the town and head up the mountain track. Logan smokes again, this time long, thin, minty-smelling cigarettes that Mobbs calls “girl smokes.”
“Offer Xander one,” he says.
“I don’t smoke.”
“Not even girl smokes?”
They guffaw until Logan has a coughing fit so bad he nearly falls over. I just keep walking, ignoring them.
When we reach the camp the two sentries Logan and Mobbs are relieving have little to report about the Nahx.
“She was quiet. I heard her moving around just after sunrise.”
I have to shrug off my pack to get through the narrow entrance to the cave, and drag it along the damp ground behind me. Inside I flick on my flashlight.
The Nahx girl looks up at me, straightening her back and shuffling a bit on her knees. I dig the lantern out of my pack and light it on its lowest setting, flicking my flashlight off. The cave dims around us and I wait for my eyes to adjust, wondering how she has sat alone in the dark up here for more than three weeks without going mad. The Nahx aren’t solitary; they almost never travel alone, and I got the feeling from August that he didn’t like being alone. It was always a struggle for him whether he would crawl into a shelter with me or linger outside. Claustrophobia versus loneliness.
Some choice.
“I’m supposed to ask you some questions,” I say. She doesn’t react, instead watching me as I set the lantern down out of her reach. “You do understand me, don’t you?”
After a few seconds go past, she nods.
I could get a lot of information out of her with just yes/no answers, and Garvin has given me a list of questions to get me started, but I hesitate. I haven’t made a final decision about going along with this. As much as I’d like answers too, I don’t want to be part of how this is going to end. The Nahx girl seems to sense my conflict. She huffs a sigh and rests back on her heels as though she’s waiting.
Digging in my backpack, I come up with my harmonica.
“Do you like music?” I ask. She tilts her head to the side. I blow a few notes, which seem to flutter around in the cave like happy butterflies. The Nahx girl rises up onto her knees.
“Yes? You like music?”
She nods slowly.
I sit cross-legged, starting with some improvised blues that for whatever reason morphs into “Amazing Grace,” a sad melody at the best of times. In here it feels like encroaching doom, inevitable and dire. As I play, the girl sits back again, looking at me for the first verse, but as I start the second, she looks away. I keep playing because the music loosens the knots in my brain, letting me think about what I’m going to do next. When the song finishes, I start another, “Moon River.” I had a booklet of songs that came with my harmonica, and it was sort of typical for me that I learned them all, even though they were so old-fashioned and sad. But I’m glad of it now. I work my way through that repertoire, taking breaks between each song to sit and think while the silence settles in around us. After four songs, the girl breaks the silence with a little hiss. I look up at her.
Please, she signs. It’s a very distinctive sign, and although she can’t quite do it properly because of her chains, it’s unmistakable.
“Please what? More music?”
Yes. Please.
This goes on for over an hour, until sunset is not far off. Finally after a particularly sad song I announce I’m going to leave the cave to get some boiling water for tea. The girl merely nods.
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