Departure
Page 3
“Let’s make sure we stay alive to remember them.” Mara stood and helped her up. “Come on.” She wrapped Kari’s arm around her shoulders and held on to Kari’s waist. “The launch must have woken up every Auent in the area—and that’s without every alarm that must have blared. They’ll be all over this place in a heartbeat.”
The buildings towered over them in much the same way as the ones in the Zone had done. These had intact windows, though, and they reflected the light of Radan’s three moons as they passed.
Everything was silent behind the glass.
Not a single mechbot or Auent came their way.
Not a single light went on.
Now Kari realized what had struck her when she’d glimpsed at the city beyond the Wall while she had been up the strut: it had been shrouded in darkness.
“Mara?” She was having trouble keeping her voice calm and her breathing steady in the wake of the realization that was slowly coming together.
“Hm?”
“I think they’re dead.”
“What? No, you saw the ship go up, they’re fi—”
Kari shook her head. “No, not us, them. The Auent. Look around you. We just sent a spaceship up in the middle of a residential area and literally no one is out.” She stopped in the middle of the street. “Not a single mechbot came to check out the disturbance, except the three you took down, and they might just have been in the area.”
Bewilderment befell Mara’s eyes. She looked around with renewed interest. “That…that doesn’t make sense.” Determination replaced confusion on her features. “Let’s find out.” She spun the both of them toward the nearest house.
It was a triple story one, which meant it towered over them almost as impressively as the Aurora, in whose shadow they had both grown up.
“Mind yourself.” Mara let her go after making sure her ankle would hold Kari’s weight.
“Got it.” Kari balanced herself and watched Mara stride toward the door. She tested the handle, then raised her arm up to what was most likely the lock and engaged the plasma burner.
The magnesium flare burned a hole through it in seconds.
The door swung wide with a high-pitched whine that triggered Kari’s fight or flight reflexes. She took both sides of the street in, but nothing moved. No alien came to detain them, no mechbot rushed out with the intent to kill.
“Come on.” Mara slipped inside. Her boots left imprints in a thick layer of dust in the entry hall. They stuck to a thick layer of something brown and gooey that seemed to originate from the tap of a machine in the kitchen unit.
The scent of decay and mold that blanketed the space that was achingly familiar—Kari had spent most of her life in a house much the same as this one—and yet so foreign. All furniture of her house had been stripped and repurposed by the time Kari had been old enough to take it in. She stood in the living room of a completely furbished Auent house, and the only thing “alive” appeared to be the automated processes that regulated the machines.
“Kari!”
The panic in her voice caused Kari to retract her hand from the Auent equivalent of a couch at the speed of light. “What is it? Where are you?”
“Upstairs! Come and see this!” Mara’s tone had gone from shocked to one of eager amazement.
Kari hauled herself up the jumbo steps by holding on to the railing parallel to her head. The upper floor was divided into rooms. In one of them, Mara stood with her back to her at the edge of a raised platform.
“Look.” Mara stepped aside to let her pass. She looked pale, but that could have been the moonlight.
When she walked up to the platform and pushed up on her tip-toes, she could look inside.
Buried in the hardened gel were two Auent skeletons. They laid on their sides, a little away from each other, not touching. Kari had never seen an Auent in the flesh, just the mechbots based on their physiology, and the skeletons were less impressive than the bots. For such large, armored creatures with boney ridge spines and thickened breastbones and skulls, they looked very brittle.
What blew her mind was that they were there, in bed, at all. No one had collected them when they died. That could indicate that there hadn’t been anyone left to collect them.
Her hunch was panning out, and her mind spiraled.
“How is this possible?” Mara’s tone was flat. Her complexion was ashen. “We get airdrops—food every other day, supplies every fourth.”
“Automated? They had the mechbots, they could have automated more processes.” Kari’s tried to put the pieces together. “Everything could be automated—the whole process from field to factory and then to us. Every factory could have been run by machines. They would have repeated their orders over and over again until one of the chains in the link broke. And the Auent are—were—amazing builders.” It felt like her mind expanded right then and there, just so she could take in the possibility that for however many years, the sole thing standing between humanity and freedom was the collective memory of once having been guarded. “Even the mechbots could have been on some kind of containment program with a default setting of extermination.”
“This is insane.” Mara turned away from the bed and took in the room. “How? When?” She caught Kari’s gaze. “How could we have missed it?”
Kari shook her head. “I don’t have answers.” She turned her head so she could look out the window.
The sky colored bruise-purple as a herald to the new day. Soon, the world would be baking in this system’s young sun’s light and they would have to find shelter for the day. A giddy kind of elation bubbled up inside of her and she turned back. “But if you’re up for it, we have an hour or two left to see what we can find out?”
Mara watched her for several seconds, then a smile settled on her lips. Soon, it turned into a grin. She held out her hand. “Why not? If we’re alone on this planet, we have a lot to explore.”
Kari took her hand and pressed a kiss to it. “Are you up for that?”
“Almost.” Mara eased her hand free and reached up to her shoulder, where her Command patch had been stretched to the Kevlar of her armor. She got her nails under the edge and ripped it off as she held Kari’s gaze. “Now I am.”
Kari surged forward and kissed her. It was so liberating not to have to worry about Command finding out or fearing Mara’s rejection. Mara made her choice, and her choice was a life with Kari.
She placed another gentle kiss on Mara’s lips and took her hand again.
Mara laced their fingers.
“Then let’s live.” She pulled her back toward the stairs and out into the street. For once, she didn’t feel the need to stick to the shadows. “Let’s finally live!”
###
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