She frowns. “I know.”
She’s about to turn away, more interested in getting to the location of the other ship and all that it could mean if I’m right. Except it’s not. I catch her hand and drop it as fast. I can’t be distracted by her soft heat and the way touching her shrinks my skin.
But the contact has the desired effect. She’s looking up at me, a faint crinkle of confusion in her brow.
“The rage is because of a growth, They’ve worked out how to target cancer. When the serum stops, it grows. It’s located to affect the centers of the brain controlling mood. An inbuilt self-destruct for us leaving the ship.”
I have to force the end of the explanation out of a dry mouth.
She tilts her head. Processing, I guess. I wait. It’s a lot to take in.
The corner of her mouth lifts. “Lucky I kept some of the vials then, in case something happens to Megs.”
“What?”
She repeats the flippant comment.
I’m not amused and I don’t try to hide the fact.
She frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“This is cancer. It’s not something to joke about. We could die.”
She shakes her head. “I’m pretty certain we will at some point. There’s something else going on.” Her hands go to the bandage around my head. Almost touch. Stop. “Tell me.”
I turn away, toward a wall scrawled with anatomically uncomfortable suggestions. She’s missing the point. The Company and the cancer. They’re the big things, not some head knock.
You’re scared.
My fears taunt me in Davyd’s voice.
Like when I was a child, I refused to give in to him. And refused to bow to them.
I make myself face the girl I’ve loved as long as I can remember. “I can’t hear you. I’ve been this way since the rock fall.” I don’t try to soften it or bother to explain the murky noise that sometimes breaks through. “The end game is I’m reading your beautiful lips and guessing the rest, and I don’t know if that’s going to change anytime soon.”
She opens her mouth but doesn’t speak. Then closes the distance between us. I taste her lips on mine, warm and giving, and close my eyes. Here and now with her mouth opening beneath mine, I don’t need to hear anything but my racing pulse.
She steps back and flashes a grin. “Let’s find this ship.”
***
I’m still trying to make sense of Asher’s reaction, or non-reaction to me telling her about the thing growing inside her head as we wind through the empty streets of the city on the bike. The wind against my face makes talking impossible, and I wouldn’t hear if she replied. I thought she’d be angry or desperate—feelings I still struggle with every time I think of it—but I might as well have been describing the weather.
Pain stabs through my skull, the usual ache amplified so that I must suck in air, and the bike wobbles in the second it takes for the agony to recede to a background throb. Sitting quietly behind me, Asher doesn’t question my lapse. What if her non-reaction is because I’m deaf? She thinks talking to me about it will be too hard so she’s not bothering?
No, she’s not like that.
I shove the negative thoughts aside and focus on the faint trail through the trees, going around a wide chasm as we climb toward the top. As we get higher, thoughts of Megs sneak into my brain, sitting uncomfortably beside my thoughts of Asher. They’re hard to ignore when I’m trying to recall the way we went when we rode together on a bike like this one to see New City all those weeks ago. There’s where she removed the blindfold that day when the green robes didn’t know if I could be trusted. There’s the bottomless chasm where we lost the Company girl.
That day we were so close to where I think there’s a second ship. Could we have been walking on dirt covering it without even realizing? It seems impossible, but if I’m right about its location, it must be true. Our proximity to the secret ship explains why we were chased by Company officers who seemingly came from nowhere. They didn’t want us stumbling on their experiment.
Asher shifts her weight behind me as fat drops of rain spatter onto our heads from the overhanging branches. The break in the bad weather we enjoyed when we left the gaming bar is gone. I glance above. It’s only going to get worse by the look of those heavy clouds.
“Almost there,” I shout but my words are caught by the gusting wind. I’m not sure she heard me, but then her arms tighten a fraction around my waist.
That simple touch is enough that when I stop the bike a minute later in the clearing of oaks and blackberry bushes at the top of the hill, I can ignore the doubts in my head, questioning whether my hearing loss will change things between us.
You should worry more about what she’ll do when she finds out about her brother.
The snide voice in my head sounding just like Davyd reminds me of the promise I made to myself when I thought I was going to die in the ravine. I can’t avoid the truth forever. If I try, there will always be distance between us. I have to hope that when she knows, she can understand.
I jerk at the touch of her hand on my arm.
She frowns and steps back.
Hating the flash of hurt in her eyes, I catch her hand and tug her close. “You surprised me that’s all,” I say. I press a kiss to her forehead, my shyness of earlier gone in the need to reassure her and to hide any guilt in my eyes.
She holds herself stiff for a moment, but then leans into my arms. I think I could hold her like this forever, her warmth seeping through her jacket and into my chest, both of us sheltered from the rain by the huge, white statue. Well, I could relax, if we weren’t only feet away from the possible location of a second ship.
She turns in my arms so she’s looking up at the once white cross. We don’t need to talk. Her stillness and wide eyes tell me she’s marveling the same way I did that this remains standing where so much of humanity crumbled in the Upheaval.
Goose flesh rises on my neck as she steps away and turns to face me. The light is dim so I have to stare at her mouth as she speaks. “Where now?”
I point toward the statue and the jagged rock behind. Trying to project confidence when it’s all a guess. My chest tightens with the knowledge I could be wrong. Kaih could be imprisoned and we’re here risking being caught by the Company for nothing. Some files with crimes, some activity on a map, and a feeling that it all makes sense. Are they enough? “The Company wouldn’t have been so careless as to have only one ship. Too much could go wrong.”
I don’t know if I’m trying to convince Asher or myself.
“What …” she begins. I don’t catch the rest of it because she’s turned away and I’m left looking at the back of her head.
But I don’t ask her to repeat herself. Instead, I guess she was asking what the hell we do next. “I expect the entrance will be like the Pelican. It has to be accessible yet concealed. Look for bends and folds in the rock face. And stay close.”
She faces me again. Her lips are parted in a surprised, “Oh.”
Heat flushes my cheeks, hopefully hidden by the shadows. “My answer made absolutely no sense, huh?”
She points toward a tree. “I guessed it was an oak.”
“You’re right.”
This time she ensures I can see her lips. “I’ll stay close.”
I make sure to keep her in sight. Just because we haven’t seen any signs of the Company doesn’t mean they aren’t nearby. And I’m not going to hear someone creeping up.
I strain to see in the shadows created by the uneven rock face and towering trees, using touch and even smell to make sure no likely crack or hollow goes unsearched. My other senses need to help because I won’t hear the tell-tale hum of the machines inside the ship.
Minutes pass. I look to Asher. She shakes her head.
What if I’m wrong?
I breathe deeply, willing the doubts to silence in my brain. And that’s how I catch it. I sniff the air again, and my gu
t threatens to revolt. It’s the unmistakable scent of something—or someone—rotting.
“Asher, over here,” I call, but I don’t wait to see if she’s following.
I round a bend in the rock, scanning ahead for the source of the smell. My foot catches on something soft. I fall in a cloud of rank fumes stirred up by the toe of my shoe. Crouched on the hard ground, I can’t help but see what caused me to stumble. A body. Parts of her are covered by Company gray, but the rest is more like barbequed meat than human flesh.
I taste acid. Then I remember the girl following me. The one I called to come without thinking what the smell would have to mean. “Wait,” I shout, climbing to my feet.
But Asher is already around the rock. She looks down at the dead officer. Color leaches from her cheeks. I step toward her, offering a steadying hand, but she doesn’t take it.
“We must be close,” she says simply.
I’m reminded she’s been through her own trials to get this far. She made it out of the Company stronghold with serum and a limp. I don’t need to shelter her from anything.
I scan the rock surface, recognizing a door similar to the one leading into the Pelican. For a second, time blurs and I’m Blank again, looking around in confusion as I see sky and trees for the first time when I expected the vacuum of space. I blink and I’m here on a mountain close to New City, at a door leading to a second ship.
I was right. Triumph battles dismay inside me. This means my suspicions about the green robes are right, too.
“This way.”
It’s only a few feet, but it seems to take forever to cross the bare dirt littered with gravel. There’s no lovely meadow with golden bush poppies here. I stop in front of the door, standing tall on trembling knees. “This is it,” I say.
Asher nods, impatient, but waiting for me to lead. Not as she would have once, out of servitude. But looking me in the eye. Choosing to give me the moment because this is what I came here for.
Love for her surges through me. I take her hand and squeeze it. Then I reach out and open the door.
It gives easily under my hand, opening inwards. There’s only black ahead. I stand there at the threshold and fight frustrated tears. My heart’s thudding in my throat like the rage I’d almost forgotten. It’s been waiting for this moment to try and get out.
“I can’t hear anything.” I have to force the truth out.
For all I know ahead is the throb of machines or the hum of people or the scrape of a Company officer’s foot on the floor. But I can’t hear a damn thing, and for the first time I see ahead a future where my hearing doesn’t come back and I don’t know if I can take another step.
Then I feel the brush of Asher’s hand on mine. We’ve been through so much to get here, I can’t stop now.
I push the door wide, to let what little light there is from outside in, and step over the threshold. I have to blink to adjust to the murky darkness. Inside are racks of pumps and machines like in the Pelican, only none of these vibrate beneath my hand when I reach out to touch their metal bodies. The darkness extends as far inside as I can see. My gut cramps and hands curl into fists.
I look to Asher, but I don’t need her carefully sounded out words to confirm what I already suspect.
“There’s nothing to hear. We’re too late.”
Chapter Twenty-One
[Asher]
I reach out to Samuai, but he shrugs my hand away, not ready for sympathy. “We need to make sure there’s no one left.”
Standing in the doorway of the dark and silent ship I know he’s right, but it’s hard to make myself step forward. The air is heavy with the smell of decay, and my belly churns at the thought of what we might find inside.
“We need light.” I’m not sure if he heard me so I pull up my sleeve again to reveal my wristband, ignoring Samuai’s question about where it came from. I play with the small screen, relieved when nothing I touch summons Davyd. Instead I manage to create a decent light source. “Light,” I repeat. “Let’s do this.”
We weave through silent machines like those in the Pelican and pass through empty Naut rooms. We stop in the control room. Carcasses of computers and other tech are left with wires hanging out like the place’s intestines.
Samuai’s hand on my shoulder stops me at the door to the rest of the ship. The shadows in his eyes are deeper than simple light and dark from my wristband.
“Tell me if you hear something,” he says. His hand tightens. “Promise.”
“I will.”
Strange scorch marks line the walls on what would have been the Fishie level. Lines of black at waist and head height that I trace with my fingers as we move side by side through the wide hallways. My hands are left black from the contact, but beyond the marks, there’s no sign of a battle or a fire here. Every step echoes with emptiness.
It’s like a ghost ship. Too silent, missing the hum and throb of the machines circulating air.
On the lower levels, in the Lifer quarters especially, the lack of air flow becomes a thick mustiness I can taste with every breath. I’m struggling to get enough oxygen with each inhalation.
I hold my wrist high, the pool of light showing row after row of empty beds where other Lifers once slept. It’s a twisted mirror of the Pelican but without the life that filled every level. I can’t help touching a blanket here, a pillow there, as though feeling for warmth of someone having been here recently. But it’s cold.
“There is no one here.” I say it carefully. We’re standing in the depths of the ship, in the middle of a still and silent wheat belt, pillaged of anything that might have once grown.
Samuai scans the space. He seemed to accept we were too late but it’s like he’s still hoping someone will come out from behind an empty catfish tank. His face is blank. Did he hear me?
I’m about to repeat myself when he exhales a long sigh and meets my gaze. “I know. They’re gone. They’re all gone.”
***
We’re outside the empty ship. Samuai is holding the vial I gave him. Passing it from hand to hand. There’s desperation in his eyes.
“You have some,” I say, sounding out the words carefully.
“What about you?”
“I haven’t bothered.” It doesn’t begin to explain the strange feeling I’ve had since I escaped Doctor. It’s like taking this gives him power over me and the thought makes my stomach heave. “I can control my anger. I don’t need anything from the Company.”
A pulse beats in his jaw. “This isn’t about keeping control of your temper. They’ve modified our brains.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know.” He steps closer. “There’s a growth. It will grow and grow without the serum. You will die.”
I think about my body fighting me at the edge of the Company compound, needing the blade of a knife to keep control, and I touch the worried lines in his brow. “Then I will die.”
“This is like back at the Pelican. You ran out after your mother, and you haven’t cared since whether you live or die.”
“That’s not true,” I say, but I can’t fill it with conviction. He doesn’t know how I fought against the Doctor’s control, the energy I needed just to keep going. I’m weary but I’m here. I’m alive.
He turns away. I don’t think this is the last I’ll hear of me taking the serum, but he’s not arguing anymore for now. He returns the vial to his pocket. His chest rises and falls in a heavy sigh. “I guess we head back to tell the others.”
I nod. “It’s time.”
But instead of moving to the bike, he sits on a patch of long grass, his chin resting on his knees. “I was so sure we’d find allies.”
“We will.”
He’s lost in thought.
I watch him. He’s so strong, despite the losses that keep trying to break him. Somehow despite everything, there remains so much of the kind boy I fell in love with years ago.
The boy Megs fell for
, too.
And she was quick to remind me of the fact back at the gaming bar.
“Are you greedy or just thoughtless?” she asked softly, not that she needed to lower her voice. On the other side of the room there was no way Samuai could have heard.
“I don’t understand,” I’d replied.
As she stared at me with her eyes narrowed, I realized this orphaned girl fighting for her future was not so different than me. In another time and place we might have been friends.
“You’re screwing with him.”
“I love him.”
“Love? You have Samuai twisted around your little finger but you can’t bring yourself to let go of his brother.”
“You have it all wrong, I can’t stand Davyd.” I’d shaken my head at the ridiculousness of it all.
But the denial that came so easily didn’t ring true.
I could see her knowledge of my lie in the press of her lips and the way she’d crossed to Samuai’s side. She made sure I saw her touch his arm and her hand linger, and I got the message. As long as this thing exists between me and Davyd, then as far as she’s concerned, Samuai is fair game.
And I can’t blame her.
“What about the future?” he says now, bringing me back to the present. “What if the green robes are no better than the Company?”
I shrug. “Then we’ll deal.”
“You’re not worried?”
“Once I thought about the future in terms of a planet and a sentence.” I speak slowly, making sure he follows the movement of my lips. It’s not so hard to make allowances for someone who matters enough. “Then, I believed my life would start when my sentence was complete and I was free.” I pause to make sure he understands. “Now, I know there’s no such thing.”
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