“Aurora,” I say. “They’re called aurora borealis in English. In French too, more or less. I could call you Aurora. Would that be okay? Since I’m sure I mangled the sign?”
Yes. Aurora.
“I’m Xander.” I hold my hand out. “Xander Liu.”
She tilts her head, reaching forward a little warily, and we shake like comrades.
“It’s nice to meet you, Aurora. I’m sorry it wasn’t… under better circumstances.”
She pulls her hand back, resting it on top of her head and tapping her helmet nervously. I busy myself with relacing my boots to diffuse the awkward silence. After a few seconds she reaches over and touches my knee to get my attention.
You are broken. I am broken. Together we are unbroken.
I can only nod, looking down at my boots again, as my vision blurs.
RAVEN
The night is already profound when we reach the deserted helipad above the path down to the base, at the end of the third day.
“Should there be a guard here?” Tucker asks.
“No,” Mandy says. “We always left it unguarded to draw less attention to the base.”
“We might encounter sentries, though,” I point out. “Tenth, you should take the rear. Leave your lights off. Mandy, you have the best night vision. You lead us. Me first after you, then Tucker. Blue, can you stay with us and out of sight?”
Yes. They disappear somewhere in Tenth’s armor.
“All right. Everyone stay together.”
The steep canyon path has always been quiet, but tonight it seems too quiet. The farther we descend, the more nervous I get. Liam’s policy was to not post guards on the top of the path or the helipad because that would draw attention to the hidden base. But by the time we get to the bottom of the path and halfway across the canyon to the main entrance, we should have been challenged by someone. Or heard someone. Even if they are sneaking around planning to ambush us, there’s no way the five of us with our preternatural hearing wouldn’t detect them, but there’s nothing.
“This isn’t right,” Mandy says.
I turn to Tucker but he’s just frowning, silent and thoughtful. None of this would be familiar to him anyway. He got darted before the rest of us set foot in this place.
Behind Tucker, Tenth stumbles, steadying himself on the rock face to the side of the path. I let Tucker pass me and slow to talk to Tenth. His wheezing has gotten worse still.
“Do you want to wait for us on the helipad? It’s higher up.”
Don’t worry, he signs.
“I am worried, Tenth. You don’t sound good.”
He lets out a low growl as we walk a few more paces, taking care to not slip off the narrow path.
Raven, he signs when we reach an easier section. You are my Offsides, my team. I will stay with you. If sign language can have a scolding tone, Tenth manages it. He’s annoyed at me for even suggesting he stay behind, even though it’s clear he’s struggling to breathe, and God only knows what dangers await him when we reach the base. If there are humans still alive there, the most likely scenario is that they will try to kill him, maybe all of us.
When we get to the main entrance my anxiety only increases. Inside the entrance, which is carefully camouflaged to look like an abandoned mine, there’s a wide storage bay. It lights up as we enter and trigger the motion sensors. But there are no guards to greet us. Mandy and I lock eyes.
“Hello?” I yell out. There’s no answer. The heavy, blast-proof door is a few inches ajar, the corridor behind it dark.
“Would they leave it open? Unguarded?” I ask Mandy. “If they were having a meeting or something that everyone needed to attend?”
“No. No way.”
Tenth lingers in the entranceway, a shadow outlined by the night sky.
“You should wait here,” I tell him. “If you see or hear anything, run. Don’t worry about us. Nahx won’t hurt us, and humans can’t hurt us. You understand? Don’t try to be a hero.”
He nods solemnly.
“Blue, can you come with me?” They might be useful as a light in the dark. And I’ve gotten used to their company.
Tenth disappears into the shadows outside the entrance as we cross the bay, passing one of the Humvees as well as some piles of weapons and supplies. Now I’m really worried. Before going any farther, we open a few of the crates, Mandy and I helping ourselves to two rifles we find in there, as well as some ammo. Tucker makes do with a loaded pistol he pulls out of the Humvee.
More automatic lights activate as we squeeze past the heavy blast door, entering the long main corridor, which is empty and silent. We close ranks, Blue leading us as I tell them where to go, Tucker and I following, with Mandy walking backward behind us.
The first place we check is the dining hall and common room, and there’s enough evidence in there to get a good idea of what happened. Tables are overturned, dishes broken and scattered with food still crusted on them. Blue hovers above a broken chair until I bend to inspect it. There’s a Nahx dart embedded in the plastic seat. Instinctively we raise our weapons, but only silence greets us.
“They got attacked,” Mandy says.
My eyes start to burn. This is everything I was fighting to avoid for everyone here, and most of the reason I wanted to come back. But I’m too late.
“When, though?” I have a faint hope that it might have just been some holdouts, that Topher and the rest had already gone, maybe inspired by my attempt. It’s pretty fanciful. Topher knew better than anyone that I was dead less than a day after I left.
Well, he likely thought I was dead.
We head into another corridor. This one remains dark as we pass, guided only by Blue’s light, until we reach the apex of the residential wings. The men’s wing is also dark, but the lights in the women’s flick on when we enter.
“Hello?”
There’s no answer. When we check, we find the quarters empty, some of them with belongings strewn around, as though people tried to grab things in a hurry.
“Do you think they got away?” Mandy says.
Tucker speaks up so assertively that for a moment it feels like he’s been replaced by his twin.
“Of course they got away,” he says. “Wouldn’t their bodies be here if they didn’t? The Nahx just leave the bodies where they fall, remember?”
Mandy and I look at each other.
“But Tucker,” I start, “they would have gotten up, like us. That’s where we come from. We got darted, and we got up.”
He looks confused for a second, but it doesn’t last.
Mandy looks around. “So the Nahx came, darted everyone whenever, then came back to revive them? Is that how it works?”
“Or they moved them. You woke up on the dunes, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
We check the men’s wing but find that deserted too.
“There’s no one here,” Mandy says as we head back to the common room. “Unless they’re hiding down in the lower levels or in the thermal vents. That’s what I would have done if the Nahx came.”
“Let’s split up. You and Tucker check down below. I want to go up to the command level and see what’s there. Blue can come with me.”
Mandy and Tucker head down to the lower levels while I start the long climb up to the command level, Blue lighting my way, my apprehension increasing with every step. Before I even reach the top, I stop in my tracks when I spot something in Blue’s dim circle of light on the landing above me.
“Stop.” They pause, hovering at eye level on the landing. I take the remaining stairs three at a time.
There on the floor is a body, facedown, so bundled in winter clothes, I can’t even tell if it’s a boy or a girl. There are papers and files strewn around them.
I have to stop and give myself a little pep talk then. This person is dead, properly dead, for whatever reason. Sometimes the Nahx broke necks or crushed skulls instead of darting people.
“Blue, come down here. I need more light.”
They drift down, and sure enough, the extra light reveals a pool of dried blood under the person’s face. A boy, I’m thinking now, from the shape of his shoulders and his size. And if it’s Topher…
I don’t know what I’ll do.
I take a breath and flip the body over.
His face is desiccated, skin dried so tight over his bones that his lips are pulled into a sneer. I think his eyes were closed when he died, apparently from the obvious and brutal skull fracture just below his hairline, but death and time have opened them slightly into narrow slits, as though he doesn’t trust me. Even with the decay of death and the sunken, distorted skull, one thing is certain: It’s not Topher.
It’s one of his friends, a boy called Chris that I didn’t know well, though I recognize him from his distinctive black ear gauges. He was one of Liam’s favored inner circle. I’m sorry he’s dead, but my relief that it’s not Topher is so powerful that I almost laugh.
Blue drifts down and floats over some of the spilled files on the floor.
“They must have been important, huh? He came back up here to get them, to take them somewhere?”
Yes. Blue’s light dances up and down on the walls.
The red LED emergency lights are still on in the command center, but the bitter cold tells me a bit more about what transpired here. The observation windows are smashed inward, and snow has gathered in thick drifts over the computers. On the floor a sheet of ice nearly makes me slip. There are ruined papers and maps strewn everywhere here too. I leaf through them quickly, folding the ones that look important and stuffing them into my pockets.
“The Nahx busted in here, from the plateau. But they must have come in through the blast door at the main entrance too. Why else would that be left open?”
Blue flies in a circle. It occurs to me how much simpler it is to communicate with someone who only ever says “yes,” “no,” and “I don’t know.”
“Pretty efficient raid. I only hope some people got out via the lower exits.”
On the way back down the stairs I stop to gather the files Chris dropped when he died, rolling them up and tucking them into my jacket with the rest.
I meet Mandy back down on the main level as she emerges from the lower stairwell.
“Where’s Tucker?”
“You better come down,” she says.
The lighting is fully functional in the lower level, where we find Tucker standing silently in the open doorway of one of the detention cells. He seems to be frozen in place. When I reach his side and turn to look at what he’s staring at, I see why.
Emily. Emily’s body is right where it was the day I left, now as withered as the boy on the stairs. Her one-eyed death grimace is even more macabre; the dry, cold air has twisted her mouth into an open, silent scream.
I don’t know how long I stand there next to Tucker—it seems like only seconds—but Mandy comes back with a sheet, which she throws over Emily’s body. Only then does Tucker seem to stir, turning to me, his eyes wild.
“Did you kill her?” he says.
“What? No!”
“Who did, then?”
“Why would I kill Emily?!”
Tucker looks like he’s a microsecond away from answering truthfully. Maybe whatever they did to his brain has made him less able to spit out lies like they are cherry pits. Maybe he’ll just admit that he cheated on me with her. It hardly makes a difference anymore, but for some reason I want him to, at least so I can have the satisfaction of being the injured party. But he just presses his lips together, and everything I’d shoved away while occupied with trying to rescue him from the Nahx ship comes rushing back. Why did I do it? I should have left him there to get sliced up.
Tucker grabs my arm and pulls me out of the cell.
“You’re still not going to tell me, are you?” I say as he continues to glare at me. “I risked my life for you.”
Mandy joins us, closing the door behind her, sealing Emily’s tomb.
“We are not doing this now,” she says.
Tucker lets go of my arm and stomps down the hallway.
“Blue, go after him,” I say. Blue drifts away, leaving a streak of light behind them.
I turn on Mandy. “You knew too, didn’t you?”
Mandy rolls her eyes. “Yes, of course I knew. Everybody did.”
“I didn’t know! You could have told me.”
“We don’t have time to argue about this.”
“But—”
“Raven.” Mandy takes me by the shoulders. “According to what’s left of Tucker’s memory, Emily died basically yesterday. And he just found out. I’m sorry that it hurts you to know that he cared about her, but we don’t have time to turn that into some kind of crisis. Do you understand? You have to set it aside. Save it for peacetime.”
I allow myself about three seconds of fuming. But Mandy’s right. Now is not the time. I gaze past her to where Tucker disappeared around a corner.
“Here’s the thing,” I say, lowering my voice. “Emily died the day I left with August. She died right there in that room.”
“How… who?”
“It’s a long story. It wasn’t me, though, okay? But her still being there means that the Nahx must have attacked that same day. Because otherwise someone would have moved her. Even buried her. It was spring. We’d actually been digging graves that morning.”
“Does that mean that your friend August brought the Nahx with him?” Mandy asks.
I close my eyes. “It’s complicated,” I say. “But no, I don’t think August brought the Nahx. I think he knew they were coming and came to warn us, to get me away.”
Mandy crosses her arms, not even trying to conceal her skepticism.
“Look, it doesn’t matter right now,” I say, because I have an inkling of doubt too. August’s affection for me was indisputable, but he cared very little for other humans. I push that thought aside and find that it easily slots away, as though it’s been filed in a “deal with later” folder. “Let’s check the lower walkways to the northwest exits. If they got out, it would have been that way.”
Before we even get down to the walkways, Tucker’s voice rings out.
“You guys! Down here!”
We find him staring at the door to the walkways, and a message scrawled in red pen. The desperation and trembling hand of its writer is evident in the shaky handwriting:
The Nahx are here.
We’re going to run for it.
Xander, I hope you made it out.
—Toph
“Topher,” Tucker says. “So he didn’t get darted? He’s not like me?”
I can’t tell whether Tucker is happy about this or disappointed.
We find the hatch door firmly jammed, and rather than waste time trying to force it open, I send Blue through the narrow crack around the door frame.
“Check both the walkways to the exits. See if there is anyone down there.”
They disappear into the crack while Mandy and Tucker check the rest of the level. A few minutes later, Blue pops back out from behind the door and traces a big zero in the air.
“Nothing?”
Yes.
“Were the exits closed?”
Yes.
“That’s good news. Thanks. Mandy! Tuck! Time to go!”
They join me at the bottom of the stairs. Blue leads us up through the dark.
“Where would Topher go, do you think?” Mandy asks.
“Calgary,” Tucker says. “We said… after the… we said if we got separated, we would meet back in Calgary.”
“But Topher thinks you’re dead, Tuck. He wouldn’t go looking for you.”
As we cross the deserted dining hall I can’t help but picture the scene right after the Nahx raid—inert darted bodies everywhere. And the scene months later, when they all got collected or stood up and walked out on their own or whatever happened. It’s like something out of a zombie movie.
“He would look for our parents, then,” Tucker says.
“But—” Mandy touches my arm to stop me.
“It can’t hurt,” Mandy says. “I’m not sure about going into the human territory, even if we could get through the web. Wouldn’t they shoot at us? So where else can we go? Everyone is gone.”
“We could take a Humvee,” Tucker suggests. “I saw fuel in the entrance bay.”
We decide not to activate the bolts on the blast door but close it to keep scavengers out. Maybe one day Emily and Chris can have a proper burial. They might even have family alive somewhere. It seems the least we can do. And the most. I don’t think it’s wise to linger long enough to bury them.
When we emerge from the main exit onto the dark canyon floor, Tenth is not in sight. We hear him before we see him; his wheezing, rattling breath is audible even over the wind. We find him kneeling in the shadows behind one of the old mining carts.
“Tenth! Are you all right?”
Good. Yes.
Tucker has to help him to his feet, supporting him under one arm.
“You’re not all right. It’s still too low for him here.” I slide under his other arm. “We need to get him back to higher ground. Quickly.”
Tenth tries to sign so weakly that it’s as though his words are slurred.
Find and friend are the only two words I can discern.
“Don’t worry about that. Just try to hang on.”
But it’s pointless. In the moonlight reflecting off the fresh snow I can see he’s dripping with dark gray blood from the grill around his mouth and nose, from his ears, even from under his arms. His breathing is labored and wet, as though he’s drowning.
“What happened?” Mandy asks, tugging us awkwardly up the narrow path.
“He spent too much time at low elevations. The air pressure damages their lungs or something. Just hurry. He’ll feel better higher up.”
Blue floats up and leads us, while Mandy helps hold Tenth upright.
After an eternity of climbing in silence but for Tenth’s labored breathing, we finally reach the plateau and the helicopter pad. He shakes us off.
I can walk, he signs.
But before we’ve taken two steps he starts to cough, bending at the waist and gasping, in between heaving wet coughs, each one pushing streams of gray blood onto the snow.
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