Cold Falling White

by G. S. Prendergast

  “Tucker says you guys don’t feel cold,” Topher says.

  “We feel it, but it doesn’t hurt us. Like, we can’t get frostbite or anything,” I say.

  “Must be nice.”

  This is the longest conversation I’ve had with Topher since we were reunited. Whatever there was between us, before my almost death on the mountain above the base, is so absent now, it’s like something from a dream. Or a nightmare.

  I pick August out easily from the group of Rogues on the other side of the fence. Not just by the scars on his chest; his posture is different from theirs—both more formal and more human, if that makes sense. When my eyes aren’t being drawn to the northeastern sky, they are drawn to him, and I remember the feeling I had when I knew he had come back for me; he was there to rescue me from Topher, and the ice and lies that were growing inside us both like cancer.

  Half the changes in my brain aren’t from the Nahx venom but from time and wisdom. Tucker and Topher were nothing but trouble for me from the start. I see that now.

  When we’re inside the fence we split into the teams we set up when our plans were finalized. Topher, Mandy, Ash, and I are going to breach the dam facility via the lower portal and disable the turbines at the head of the tailrace. This all means something to Topher, who was always a bit of an engineering nerd—a quality I used to find annoying, but annoying qualities so often turn out to be useful; that’s another thing I’ve learned. The lower portal and tailrace tunnel are outside the web—that’s what matters—and once the turbines are disabled, the web should lose power.

  August and some of the other Rogues are going to commandeer a transport so we can make a hasty exit when the shit hits the fan.

  And that proverbial shit hitting that proverbial fan is going to be Tucker, Xander, and the rest of the Rogues planting Topher’s grenades in the transformers of the power station. The Nahx could repair the turbines fairly easily, but rebuilding an entire power station would take time. And in that time, we’re hoping the outside world can launch a rescue mission for the humans left inside the occupation zone.

  I don’t like to hang anything on hope anymore, but at least Topher and Xander could get out.

  When the power station goes up in smoke, we’ll have mere minutes before the Nahx around the dam get very, very mad.

  Sky has explained that it would be some time before any reinforcements arrive, if at all. Nahx are trained to be self-reliant, whether singly, in the pairs, or in platoons like the one guarding the dam. There is very little communication with a centralized command beyond what she called “repeat mind rules.” Xander translated that as “mission directives,” and that seemed to fit. Apparently they are fed into Nahx consciousness via a transponder in their armor. All the Rogues, including August, disabled their transponders long ago. But the Nahx on the dam will be operating on mission directives to protect the dam, along with the directives all Nahx have, which is to dart humans on sight.

  Sky has made protecting Topher and Xander a top priority. She reiterates this in sharp signs as she does one last check of everyone’s weapons. I notice that August stands completely still, staring at the human pistol in each of his hands, before Sky chooses for him, taking one pistol away so he can holster the remaining one.

  She promised me she would stay with him and keep him safe, but part of me wants to grab his hand and drag him away from here, away from this. How many more times will we two have to endure finding each other only to face losing each other? Will it ever end? Maybe that’s why August has been ignoring me. I hope that’s why.

  His team heads off first, and as I watch them disappearing into the trees, August does turn back to me, signing quickly.

  Stay safe, Dandelion.

  Repeat you, I sign. Safe repeat forever.

  I don’t know how three words can change a whole outlook, but they do.

  “What are you smiling about?” Mandy asks.

  “Nothing.”

  I turn away. I’ve never liked watching people leave, and with August… well… his leaving me usually presages catastrophe, so I’m reluctant to bear witness to it. Under a snow-drooping tree, Topher and Xander are talking in low tones. I try not to listen, but with my improved hearing it’s hard not to.

  “I can’t go through that again,” Topher says.

  “He’s practically indestructible, Toph. It’ll be fine.”

  “I know, but you know how he is. So… reckless.”

  I flick my eyes around to try to locate their subject, and sure enough, Tucker is halfway up a nearby tree, scanning the dam through binoculars.

  When I turn back, Topher and Xander are kissing.

  Kissing. Like, really kissing. Topher tugs one glove off and tenderly lays his hand on Xander’s face as they part, and I barely believe I’m looking at the Topher I know and not some hero of a swoony romantic novel. Every time he ever touched my face like that, it was about as tender as being slapped by a frozen fish fillet. They press their foreheads together and he whispers something I can’t hear through the blood rushing in my ears.

  When Tucker jumps down from the tree, Xander follows him back up into the dense forest with Aurora, Sol, and Luna behind them. I know their packs are sagging with Topher’s grenades. They’ll lie in wait until the web surrounding the power transformers comes down, and then they’ll blow them up.

  Easy, right?

  Topher’s cheeks are bright red when he joins Mandy and me by the river.

  “Well. That certainly explains a few things,” I say.

  Topher becomes officious again, like he’s flicked a switch. “Can we talk about it later?”

  “Or never, maybe.”

  “Play nice, children,” Mandy says.

  Ash, who chose not to replace his damaged helmet, rolls his one visible eye at me. Easy for him; he’s only in a love triangle. I’ve lost track of what shape we’re up to in my life now. Is it a pentagram?

  We clamber down the riverbank to the winding path up to the dam’s lower portal. Ash takes the lead. Mandy and Topher walk side by side. I walk behind them and look at Topher’s feet and think about Tucker and think about August and wonder if I shouldn’t just throw myself into the river to make things simpler.

  It’s not that complicated in the end. I have to go back to the dunes with Tucker and Mandy, and August can’t follow me because the low elevation would kill him. Topher and Xander will head out to the coast if things go as we planned.

  Ash calls us to a halt with a raised fist, taking two steps backward until he’s pressed us against the rocky face of the riverbank.

  One guard, he says.

  Let us go, I answer in signs, indicating myself and Mandy. Nahx aren’t permitted to harm Snowflakes.

  Topher remains silent but nods his agreement.

  Mandy and I draw our weapons and march down the path to where it curves. There are three steps up to a long concrete platform and, down at the end, one Nahx standing guard by a very unassuming metal door. As we approach, the Nahx doesn’t move, and I wonder if he’s even awake. Maybe he’s dormant, like August was. There’s even some snow accumulation on his shoulders. But when we’re about ten yards away he suddenly springs to life, sweeping his rifle from his back and firing it. I watch the Nahx dart sailing toward me with mild interest, as though it’s traveling in slow motion, and easily pluck it out of the air before tossing it into the river.

  The Nahx fires another, which we both dodge, letting it lodge in the stone retaining wall behind us.

  “Those darts don’t do anything to us,” Mandy says. “Stand down.”

  The Nahx lets his rifle fall and, in the same motion, unholsters his knife. Mandy and I have rifles, but bullets sometimes don’t even slow Nahx down, and though he probably couldn’t kill either of us, we don’t have time to recover from any possible injuries either. I take a step toward him, speaking as firmly as I can, trying not to be distracted by a squirrel or something scrabbling in the trees above us.

  “Stand down.
You have orders not to harm us.”

  Human, he says, then changes the sign slightly. Vermin.

  “He doesn’t know what we are,” Mandy says.

  “We are not humans. We are sentinels. Snowflakes. Snezjinka.”

  He hesitates, his head tilting slightly, but that’s enough time for the source of the noise in the trees to make itself known. In a flash of metal and snow, Ash falls on the Nahx guard, sending him crashing to the concrete. The knife flies out of his hand and slides down the riverbank.

  “Ash, no!” Mandy yells as Ash pins the guard down, twisting his head with both hands and one knee. There’s a sickening crack, and the guard falls limp. Ash leaps to his feet and shoves the body over the edge of the platform and into the river below. I watch, struck dumb, as it sinks like a stone in the frosty water. There’s a gleam in Ash’s eye when he looks back at us.

  Topher slides down out of the forest a few seconds later.

  “That was noisy,” he says. “We should get moving.”

  Noisy? My mind is screaming at me, wondering why these boys find killing so unremarkable.

  Ash kicks the door in before I can stop him; the tear and crash of metal rings across the river loud enough to make the trees shake. Inside the door we enter a narrow, dark corridor, but the noise of the tailrace is easy enough to follow. It rushes and rumbles evenly in a low thrum, like a bath being filled. After a few twists and turns the corridor opens onto the brightly lit tailrace chamber, an endlessly long concrete-and-steel tunnel with a river channel churning with water in its center. The air is full of cool spray, the walls slick with condensation.

  “There could be more guards in here,” Mandy says. “So keep an eye out.”

  It doesn’t take long for Mandy’s prediction to come true. Another Nahx appears, approaching from the far end of the tunnel and on the other side of the river’s flow. This one is a female, and she’s mad as hell. She barrels toward us, her boots clanging on the hard floor.

  “Stay on this side!” I say. There’s a catwalk across the river, but I don’t relish the idea of being stuck on the other side with a furious Nahx. But catwalk or no, she’s out to get us. With a graceful leap she’s over the rushing water, landing hard a hundred feet ahead of us, making the whole tunnel vibrate. Her rifle whines, and I have to dive to pluck another dart out of the air before it hits Topher.

  “Cover him!” I shout. Ash is already charging at the female. I follow him as Mandy rolls on top of Topher, shoving him against the tunnel wall. The female turns and runs to the catwalk, slinging her rifle back as she grabs the metal railings and pulls.

  “No!” The catwalk is the only way across the water, the only way to reach the turbine assembly at the end of the tunnel. I raise my rifle and fire round after round as I rush the Nahx. The bullets bounce off her armor plates and ping around the tunnel, ricocheting off concrete and steel. With an animalistic growl she tears the catwalk from its moorings and flings it down into the river, where it is borne away by the current. Ash dives for her before she can raise her dart rifle again. They slide along the concrete, flailing at each other, until finally they tumble down over the edge of the tailrace trench and into the water.

  “Ash!” All I can see are limbs occasionally surfacing in the froth as I chase them back down the tunnel. “Ash!”

  Where the water exits the tunnel into the river is a large grate, probably used to catch any debris. The remains of the catwalk are mashed up against it, water churning over the bent metal. There’s a loud clang and the mangled catwalk rattles, and suddenly Ash and the female Nahx surface, her hands tightly wrapped around Ash’s throat. Before I can raise my rifle there’s a loud pop by my right ear, and the female’s head flicks back, black fluid spraying out of her neck.

  POP. POP. POP.

  Topher holds his pistol out straight and steady, pulling on the trigger over and over, until finally the female loosens her grip and goes slack. Ash shoves her body away and, hoisting himself out of the water by a railing above the grate, kicks at it until part of it gives way. The mangled catwalk and the dead Nahx slip through the gap and are washed out into the river.

  “Are you okay?” I ask as Ash clambers across the grate.

  Cross here, he signs with one hand. On this rail.

  We clamber across in silence, trying to stay clear of the burbling water.

  Topher checks the clip on his pistol as we hurry up the other platform to the turbine.

  “Are you all right?” I ask him. His face is as white as the foam on the river.

  “Fine,” he says through clenched teeth.

  Ash and Mandy have reached the turbine assembly chamber. Ash gets to work on the bolted gate as Topher and I catch up with them.

  “I’m not bothered about you and Xander,” I try. “I was just a bit surprised.”

  He reholsters his gun, tossing the empty clip into the water. “I don’t care if you’re bothered,” he says, his voice cold.

  I have to keep reminding myself that half my friends have lived a virtual lifetime since I saw them last. For me it’s only been a week or so, but Topher has been hiding and starving and freezing for months. And he sees me as one of the Nahx now, I suppose. And probably still blames me for everything too, including turning his brother into a monster.

  Ash deals with the locks on the gate to the machinery surprisingly delicately. Three padlocks clink to the floor and we’re inside, with the turbines roaring around us.

  “We need to be fast!” Mandy shouts over the noise.

  Topher examines the complicated tangle of cables and valves, shining his flashlight into the machinery. “Ideally we would destroy the turbines!”

  “Why don’t we?”

  “That could cause the dam itself to fail! And if we block the flow, the reservoir could breach! If there are any survivors downstream, they’d be washed away!”

  “So what do we do, then?” My ears are picking out individual noises in the thunderous rumble—the whine of the turbines, the clanking of pistons, the whoosh of the rushing river, even the hum of electricity. It’s perfectly parsed in my mind, almost musical, and hearing it in such detail gives me insight into how the dam works and what we need to do.

  “Cut the cables to the power inverter!” I say. Topher turns back, looking as surprised as I feel. He even smiles a little.

  “And?” he says.

  “And the turbines will keep generating power, but it won’t go anywhere. Once the backup battery wears out, the power station will shut down.”

  A grade-nine science unit on electricity and hydropower. I remember it in precise detail, including the fact that I got a C on the quiz because I barely slept the night before.

  Topher shines his flashlight up the wall and to the ceiling of the tunnel, where a huge bundle of cables disappears up a dark shaft. Following the cables back, we can see that they originated at the top of the assembly above the turbines.

  “Ash, can you get up there and pull them out?”

  He doesn’t bother answering before leaping easily up to the top of the machinery and across it until he reaches the cables. They pop out with a bit of force, each one connected to the machine by a heavy, multipronged plug. There are dozens of them in the bundle, though, and Ash has to tug them out one by one. After the tenth cable comes out, the tunnel is suddenly plunged into darkness.

  “Fuck,” Topher says. “That one must be a direct circuit.”

  “What does that mean?” Mandy asks.

  “It means other things in the station might be powered directly from the turbines,” I say. “Which means that the Nahx might know we’re here.”

  Topher nervously shines his flashlight back down the tunnel.

  “Ash!” I shout over the machinery. “Hurry up!”

  He swings down from the ceiling just as I spot some movement at the other end of the tunnel.

  “Shit!” Topher says.

  Four Nahx barrel up the tunnel.

  Quick, Ash signs. Up there. Up the cables
.

  He hoists Topher up to the access ladder before he can protest. We clamber up behind him, diving over the rumbling turbines to the cable outlet by the back of the tunnel wall. Above us in the ceiling is a narrow shaft, and another access ladder snakes up into the dark along with the now dead cables.

  Up, Ash says. I will stop them.

  “Stop” in Nahx signs is very similar to “kill,” but I suppose right now it doesn’t really matter which it is.

  We don’t have time to argue. Mandy scrambles up the ladder first.

  “Topher, you follow me. Raven, if he can’t keep up—carry him!” She leaps up the ladder, taking the rungs two at a time. The flashlight clenched in Topher’s teeth is our only light apart from Ash’s lights, which swing across the shaft entrance below us. I can’t hear anything over the rumble of the turbines, but now there are multiple lights flashing in the tunnel, and faintly I can feel things vibrating. Then something happens to the steady noise of the rushing water. It changes briefly, as though…

  “Ash!” I yell back down the shaft. “ASH!”

  The flashing lights have stopped. The rushing water has returned to normal.

  “Ash?!”

  We wait there in the shaft, frozen, the darkness pressing down on us, but nothing happens. The Nahx appear to be gone.

  But Ash is gone too.

  XANDER

  So. You and Topher are an item,” Tucker says. He’s perched halfway up a tree, a pair of Nahx binoculars slung around his neck.

  “Keep your voice down,” I whisper.

  He licks his lips and lifts the binoculars, gazing out at the dam.

  “That wasn’t an answer,” he says after a moment.

  I don’t know how to answer him. I could tell him a long story or a short story or only part of the story, but whichever way I choose, it will be hard to gloss over the part where Topher and Raven were involved when they thought Tucker was dead. That’s incredibly awkward.

  “I figured he had a thing for you,” he says unexpectedly.

  “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I prefer to keep the attention on myself.” I can never tell if Tucker is being ironic. If he’s not, this is about the most self-reflective thing he’s ever said.