Cold Falling White

by G. S. Prendergast

  He falls silent for a moment, staring at the swirling water between us.

  “I left a note for you.”

  The pool is suddenly a bit too hot for me. I move over to sit on a rock so I’m out in the cold air from the waist up.

  “Do you know what I thought?” Topher asks. “I imagined maybe in years, after we had defeated”—he looks around; none of the Nahx appear very interested in us, but he lowers his voice anyway—“these guys, I thought you might come back to the base, almost like a historian or something, to see where it all happened, and you would find the note. And know that I didn’t forget about you.”

  “You didn’t think you could tell me this one day?”

  He shakes his head. “I was pretty sure I would die out here.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  His face twists. “Everybody else did, though. The kids, the girls. I was hunting, and when I got back to the shelter everyone was dead. Darted.”

  “That shelter where I found you?”

  He nods, rocking back and forth in the water, as though he’s trying to comfort himself.

  “It was over the summer.”

  “I didn’t see any graves. Did you—”

  “You don’t believe me? I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

  I decide silence is probably the best response to that. When I try to see our current situation from his point of view, I can’t make sense of it. It barely makes sense to me, but at least I’ve seen that the Nahx can be benevolent to humans sometimes.

  “The ground is too hard up there. I put them in cairns.” He looks away, and then continues so quietly, I barely hear him. “The Nahx came back and took them.”

  “The bodies?”

  He nods.

  “When?”

  He shrugs. “A few days ago… or weeks. I…” He trails off for a moment. “I hid in the creek. It was still running then. I heard the transports so I jumped down into the creek and hid in the water.”

  “That must have been cold,” I say, though I’m thinking more of the fact that Topher lived surrounded by his dead friends in cairns in the trees for months and what that would be like. No wonder he seems so haunted.

  I look down at the dark water as he climbs out of the pool and wraps himself in one of the blankets the Nahx left on the rocks. As he digs through the pile of clothes, pulling on a pair of way-too-big sweatpants, I glance up, struck by the way his rib and shoulder bones protrude from his papery skin. He has been dying of starvation. I take a breath to speak to him, to reason with him, but he turns on me.

  “That Nahx who took Raven—he timed it well, didn’t he? Kidnapped her just in time for the rest of us to get slaughtered by his friends.”

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “How do you know, Xander? How do you know?”

  “Because he helped me. After Liam killed her, he helped me get out of the Nahx-controlled zone. Through the web.”

  He’s in a frayed sweater now and mismatched socks. A silent Nahx approaches gingerly with our coats and boots, laying them carefully on the rocks as Topher glares. They steam there, as though they’ve just come out of the dryer. Topher pulls his boots on, frowning.

  “So it was a coincidence that the Nahx arrived just after Raven left? Only an idiot would believe that. And also there’s no way through the web.”

  “But…” I try.

  “We searched up and down for months. Hiked hundreds of miles. There’s no way through. So you’re either lying or you’ve lost the plot. Probably both.”

  I scramble out of the pool as he stomps away. The Nahx wander after him, stepping in his way as he approaches a gap in the trees, stopping him again as he tries to go back into the ice tunnel. I’m struggling into a pair of jeans as he shouts back at me.

  “If they’re so friendly, why won’t they just let me leave?”

  “Because you’d die of cold!”

  I pull my coat on, jamming my feet into my boots, and clomp over the snow to join him by the tunnel. Three Nahx watch from nearby, silent, almost deferential.

  “You’re starving, Topher. You’re covered in frostbite. You wouldn’t make it.”

  His demeanor hardens so fast, I can almost see it crack, and I start to worry he might literally fall apart, bones and skin and organs all tumbling into the trickling stream to be washed down the mountain and back to his camp in pieces.

  His voice is barely audible when he speaks again, barely a whisper. “How did you find me?”

  But before I can answer, his knees give out and he slumps forward. I catch him, and one of the Nahx grabs him under the arms from behind, holding him upright.

  “He’s starving,” I say. “I think I had some food left in my pack.” I lost track of what happened to my pack and weapons somewhere on the glacier.

  The Nahx drags Topher back to the pool, propping him up on the warm rocks. He mimes bending over the pool to drink. I cup some of the warm water in my hand and hold it up to Topher’s mouth. He coughs out the first sip but manages to swallow a few sips after that. The water is silty but probably safe to drink—spring water usually is.

  Then my pack appears, and I dig out some of the roasted squirrel I saved. Topher is weak suddenly—I think the soak in the pool drained him. I have to break pieces of meat off and feed him the first few bites like a baby. When he starts to eat by himself I look up and see that it’s Aurora who has brought me my pack. Her tall companion, who does appear to be female, stands with her arm around Aurora’s shoulders. They are both out of their armor, wearing gunmetal gray suits and looking like two very tall and intimidating motorcycle racers.

  The tall Nahx has dark skin, long dreadlocked silver hair, and large expressive eyes with irises the color and sheen of a copper pot. Her nose is pierced through the septum with a small padlock, which makes her look like an old-school punk. Without the Nahx armor, her shape is rounded and feminine, with a small waist and rather large boobs. I flick my eyes back to Aurora, who is grinning at me.

  Xander, she signs, pointing at me. Then she points to her lover. Night Sky Light. I don’t understand the fourth sign.

  “Star? Something?”

  Aurora mimes it, bunching both hands into fists and then flinging them open, fingers splayed out, hands flying apart.

  “Star exploding?”

  She points up to the sky, nodding.

  “Oh! Supernova! That’s your name? Nova?”

  The tall Nahx nods, but as I reach out to shake hands she simply steps forward and crushes me in a bear hug, lifting me up and shaking me until my teeth rattle.

  Thank you thank you thank you, she says as she sets me down.

  “You’re welcome, Nova,” I say, trying to subtly check that all my bones are still working. “This is Topher.” He doesn’t look up from his eating.

  Angry Boy strong walk? Aurora asks.

  “I…” I have to bite my lip again to keep from laughing at the name they’ve given Topher. Angry Boy. It’s so fitting.

  “Can you walk, Toph?”

  He grumbles but follows as Aurora and Nova lead us up to the trees and through a kind of fairyland gate created by the frosted branches. The new clothes are warm and dry, and we both discover mittens and knitted hats carefully tucked into the pockets. Everything is too big for me, though, and I have to keep hitching the insulated pants up. It makes me wonder why they had the clothes in the first place, where they got them, who died in them.

  The walk is steep, and I keep a close eye on Topher for any signs of flagging, but the meager meal seems to have restored some of his strength. At least his stubborn silence has returned. I try to reason with him as the trees begin to thin.

  “They want to help us. Why else would they have clothes? They don’t need clothes.”

  He ignores me, but I forge ahead. He needs to hear this.

  “Okay. So you asked how I found you. I think Aurora knew where you were. Where your camp is.”

  “How would she know?”
/>   “You said you were looking for a way through the web. She knew a way through. She was probably looking for a long time too before she found it. She probably saw you.”

  “If she saw me, why didn’t she dart me? Or maybe she was the one who darted everyone that day. Maybe that’s how she knew where I was.”

  That makes me pause, but only for a second. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”

  “You don’t think at all. What’s new?”

  I hitch up my pants again and hope Topher can’t see the heat rising in my face. After a minute goes by, I try a different tack.

  “They might be able to get us back through the web,” I say. “We can get out of here, Toph. Go out to the coast like Raven wanted us to.”

  He turns to look at me with such disdain in his eyes that it feels like being slapped across the face.

  “You’re insane if you think they’ll help us do that,” he says, and pointedly strides forward, overtaking me, making it clear this conversation is over.

  We emerge from the trees onto a plateau gently sloping up to a flat summit, the thick, fresh snow coating the surface like cake frosting. To the west of us, above the distant mountain peaks, I can see the drone web, just a faint outline against the bright sky. From the forest edge a wide path has been carved through the snow, tramped flat by Nahx boots, leading to a clearing at the far edge of the plateau. A Nahx transport is parked there.

  “What’s that?”

  Aurora takes my shoulder, signing with her other hand.

  Look. Listen.

  She beckons me to follow her.

  The transport looks as though it has been salvaged and cannibalized for parts. Its door is missing; thick cable conduits have been pulled from its innards and spread out across the plateau. Most perplexingly, the conduits seem to be connected to decidedly human technology—solar panels. Some of them are clearly emblazoned with company logos, companies that I’ve heard of—Alberta Clean Power and BC OffGrid Living. Apparently these Nahx have been pilfering solar panels from cabins and cottages across two provinces.

  I turn to Topher, who is frowning, looking around at the arrangement of wires and panels. Aurora takes us past the transport, following another bundle of conduits over some boulders until we are looking down onto a lower plateau. There are more solar panels there, dozens of them, and, in the center, another transport, this one even more pulled apart, its whole hull splayed open like a surgery patient. Its innards have been reconfigured somehow too, panels and shielding and conduits laid out in a circular shape like…

  “I think I know what this is!”

  Just then three Nahx emerge from the transport below us, signing to Nova and Aurora, who turn and relay the signs to more Nahx back at the first transport.

  Look. Listen, Aurora signs, tugging me back. I have to run to keep up with her long stride. Topher follows me silently as Aurora and Nova usher us up the ramp.

  The inside of the transport has been torn apart too—wires everywhere, discarded circuitry and valves in piles on the floor, wall panels missing. Cables spill out of display screens, both those that seem part of the original design and some that look like they’ve been rigged in after the fact.

  “Does your watch still work?”

  Topher looks at me like I’m crazy. “What?”

  “What time is it?”

  He glares but pulls back his coat sleeve and looks at his expensive watch. “Nearly noon,” he says.

  Just then the transport starts to hum, and the display screens light up one by one. Then the humming changes to a low-frequency rumble, soon getting so low that I feel it in my rib bones, and deeper, in my stomach. I stop being able to hear it as it seems to travel down my body until I can only feel it in my feet, as a vibration in the transport’s metal floor.

  The static on the screens coalesces into images.

  “What the hell?” Topher says.

  On one display screen is the familiar logo of the emergency broadcast system, appended with “Day 494” and the date. Another screen shows a list of refugee centers and information on how to get to them. Yet another shows a video I thought I’d never have to watch again: the chase through Garvin’s compound that culminated with Dylan’s hand being amputated.

  “Is that you?” Topher says, astonished.

  “Yeah. Long story.”

  We turn to another screen; this one has a soundtrack. A gray-haired and pinch-faced man is talking, a defeated tone in his voice, almost as though he’s reciting a prayer to a god he no longer believes in.

  “… revised count is now at just over eleven thousand. Stockpiles are low. We are burning wood salvaged from empty homes for heat. Gasoline is completely gone. With this snow we have ample water, which we will store more extensively in the… in case…” The man takes a breath and swallows painfully. “In the unlikely event that we survive another winter, we will need water to make it through the summer. If the Nahx continue to ignore us.” The screen crackles with static before resolving again. “… here in Edmonton. If anyone is hearing this, please send help. Please, please send help. We can’t—” The screen abruptly switches to another image, something violent, just for a few seconds, before returning to static.

  “Was that eleven thousand people?” Topher says. “In Edmonton? Eleven thousand survivors?”

  He turns in a circle to look more at the other screens, some of them showing Nahx killing stuff, some of them pleas for help from the looks of them; some of them are static, but over the low vibration and other noises I can hear murmuring human voices, like voices from the grave. These are survivors, wherever they are, desperately using any means they have to call for help.

  I feel a bizarre rush of pride that there are still human voices out there among the devastation. The Nahx surely were trying to eradicate us, in the high ground at least. But they couldn’t, not with their murderous soldiers, not with their advanced technology. It’s been eighteen months, and the humans here hung on through all that.

  “We’ve got to help them,” Topher says.

  “Yeah. Do you understand what this is?” I wave around at the wires and screens.

  Topher shakes his head.

  “Remember how Kim told us back at the base that they would only pick up radio or video signals at around midday? And more likely on sunny days? And how it was the same for us at camp?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Kim thought something, or someone, was jamming the microwave scrambler the Nahx were using to disrupt any communications. She was never able to figure out how.”

  “Right.” Topher frowns darkly as he looks around the transport again. Aurora, Nova, and another Nahx stand watching us patiently, as though waiting for Topher to figure it out. “So?”

  “So this is how the scrambler was being jammed. These Nahx were jamming it.”

  “Wait.” He turns to Aurora. “On purpose?”

  She nods.

  “Why?”

  Help you, Aurora signs. Help humans.

  “To help us,” I translate.

  “But…” He reaches out to steady himself on the back of a console. “Why? Why are they helping humans?”

  Aurora and Nova flick their heads back. I guess they think it’s funny.

  “Because they’re traitors, Topher,” I say. “They’re traitors and they’re on our side.”

  RAVEN

  Though the cold doesn’t bother me, Mandy brings a blanket, which she tucks around me in silence before leaving. I turn my eyes away from August for a moment and watch as she departs down the long hallway, bathed in the pink light of the rising sun, the second sunrise since I found August here. I’ve been sitting with him in the dark bedroom all this time, unsure of what to do, unable to make a decision one way or another.

  Tucker has disappeared. I heard him arguing with Mandy, and her, ever the peacemaker, pleading with him to not make a scene. But later Mandy told me that he figured out that August was the one who darted him, that she had to restrain him, to reason w
ith him.

  “I told him he couldn’t kill what was already dead,” she said simply.

  I find that I can’t stay mad at him. I even understand why he would feel betrayed. As far as his memories of the world go, I’m still his girlfriend. His devoted, clueless girlfriend.

  Blue drifted in not long after Tucker left, apparently mildly interested in August’s still form. They hovered at the back of his neck for a few seconds, their light flaring, before zipping away down the hall and, I think, over the balcony. God knows where they’ve gotten to now.

  I know I can’t stay here forever—the dark rift in my mind is expanding and solidifying so that I can almost see it now, even with my eyes open, its gravity tugging at me with increasing strength—but I also feel like my quest is complete, at least this part of it. I wouldn’t have been able to go on without knowing what became of August. Now I do.

  When Tenth found me on the dunes, we were surrounded by immobile Nahx soldiers, kneeling with their heads hanging just like August is now. And in the cold storage on the giant ship there were more, also seemingly dead, still, silent, so cold that they were dusted with frost. Some of them had obvious injuries, but the others? I think they just wore out.

  Did August know his end was near? Is that why he came back to this place? I suppose I’ll never know exactly what he did after my non-death. And he’ll never know…

  I run my memories again, like a video screen in my head. Did I ever really tell him how I felt? I screamed at him and spit on him, smashed a glass vase over his head and held a knife to his throat. Despite that, could he see what he meant to me? How his patience restored me? How his unfaltering forgiveness rebuilt me? How lost I was without him all those months?

  How lost I am now?

  “I don’t know what to do, August.” It feels good to say his name out loud. I keep my voice low because I don’t want Mandy to think I’ve lost my mind. “I know you didn’t mean it to turn out this way. I know you only did it to help me, but my plan, to go to the coast and try to find my parents, doesn’t work anymore. I’ve… we’re different now. I don’t think we would fit in with humans. I don’t think the Nahx are fans of ours, either.”