Hatch

by Kenneth Oppel

  She got not words in return, but a renewed sense of that earthy smell, so pungent it almost had a taste, enveloped in amber light. Was this the cryptogen’s version of a name?

  In the same instant, Anaya saw, in her mind, a pair of large, dark eyes. They had no whites to them, only a beautiful, rich amber with irises of streaked gold. The pupils weren’t circles, but horizontal rectangles. Long black lashes fringed the eyelids. The surrounding skin was furred.

  —Where are you? Anaya asked.

  —Vessel.

  Anaya understood she meant the vast gray-petaled spacecraft. So the cryptogen was still aboard. And suddenly Anaya was being shown inside the ship, inside a seemingly endless chamber. Row after row of dark sacs floated weightless. Not all were the same shape. Some were long and thin, others round. They looked eerily similar to pit plants, but their exterior wasn’t quite as fleshy. Instinctively she knew that inside each one slumbered a living creature. Like a baby in a womb.

  —Soldiers, the cryptogen told her.

  Anaya remembered all those runners and swimmers being marched onto the ship by the flyers. They’d spent their entire voyage asleep inside these sacs, somehow being kept alive and nourished.

  —When will they wake? Anaya asked.

  —Soon.

  —But you are awake now?

  Surely not everyone could be asleep on that enormous ship. Even if it was automated, there had to be cryptogens managing those rains of seeds and eggs, and protecting the ship from the nuclear missile. Deciding when to invade Earth.

  —I am awake, came the reply. Preparing.

  Words seemed to be passing between them a bit more easily now, like they were slowly learning each other’s language.

  —What are you preparing? she asked.

  —The Resistance.

  In her half sleep, Anaya felt her heart begin to pump harder. It was what she’d suspected back in the bunker. The runners and swimmers had been conquered and were being forced to fight.

  —The flyers. You want to fight the flyers.

  —Yes. There is not much time. Help.

  She realized she was being asked a question.

  —Yes. Yes! I’ll help! Tell me how!

  She was trembling all over and realized there was a hand shaking her shoulder.

  “Seat belt on,” a soldier said as she opened her eyes. Beyond the windows was the pale light of dawn. “We’re coming in to land on Deadman’s Island.”

  AS THE TRAIN ROCKED and tilted through the night, Seth flew for the first time in almost two weeks.

  In his dream, he looked for Petra and Anaya. When he couldn’t see them, he felt a deep stab of longing. But then he was soaring higher, and beside him were Vincent and Siena. And Esta. Her eyes met his, and he felt an instant connection. Somewhere in his conscious mind, he realized she was seeing him, too.

  “We’re special,” she told him.

  He grinned, giddy with the sheer delight of flying and being close to her. Over the years he’d had so many dreams where he was flying toward something and someone, never knowing what or who it was. Maybe all along he’d been waiting for Esta.

  When he woke, he was looking right into her eyes, like a continuation of his dream. He hadn’t realized they’d fallen asleep with their shoulders practically touching. The train must have jostled them closer together. He wondered how long she’d been awake, watching him. He liked the idea of her watching him.

  “We got out,” she whispered, smiling. “We did it!”

  He smiled back. Maybe it was the morning light filtering through the seams of the boxcar, but things felt different. He felt exultant.

  “It was crazy,” he said. “I can’t believe we made it!”

  They talked silently about the escape, because the others were still asleep and he didn’t want to wake them. Also, he felt even closer to her when they used telepathy. He wanted it to stay like this, him and Esta, alone and safe in the sunlight, for a little longer. Maybe forever. Forever seemed like a pretty good idea.

  —You rescued me, he told her.

  —Well, you were on the way. Her grin faded, and she touched his hand. I would never have left without you.

  Unlike Dr. Weber, he thought. Or Anaya and Petra. He chewed at his lower lip. Was he being fair? The other two had helped save him, too.

  —Do you think we killed him? he asked her. Ritter?

  —I don’t know. Do you care?

  He thought about it a moment and nodded.

  —He wouldn’t have thought twice about killing us, she said.

  —I know.

  It was too uncomfortable to dwell on, and he was almost grateful when he heard Charles stir. Vincent groaned as he uncurled and pushed himself upright.

  Darren sat and beat a drumroll on the floor. “It is good to wake up a free man!”

  “Good to wake up alive,” muttered Siena. “That place was insane.”

  “I am starving!” said Darren, who seemed intent on speaking in exclamation points. “You think there’s any food in these?”

  He walked over to the cardboard cartons stacked behind netting.

  “The one thing I didn’t mind about that place was the food,” said Charles.

  “Are you serious?” asked Siena, wiping sleep from her eyes.

  “Breakfasts, anyway,” Charles said, a bit defensively. “Breakfasts were good.”

  “The eggs were powdered,” said Siena.

  “I liked those potato things,” Vincent said, yawning.

  “The Tater Tots?” Siena said witheringly.

  “Is that what they’re called?” Vincent asked. “I never had them before.”

  “They’re just hash browns, only ball-shaped!”

  “But fluffier,” said Charles. “A lot fluffier.”

  Seth was watching Darren rip into a couple of boxes. “Anything good in there?”

  “Like something to eat or drink?” added Esta.

  “Nope,” said Darren. “But it’s something we do need. Clothes.” He glanced at Seth. “Especially you, dude. You look like you’ve escaped from a horror movie.”

  Seth examined his blood-spattered hospital gown and had to admit Darren was right. He needed to ditch it, and everyone else needed to lose their jumpsuits.

  He went over with Esta and dragged aside the safety netting so they could pull down more cartons. The others joined in.

  “Not super fashionable,” said Siena, pulling out a pair of heavy khaki work pants.

  “But oh so practical,” Vincent said, holding up a jacket bulky with protective padding.

  “Is that Kevlar?” Seth said, tapping it. “It’s the same stuff they had us slashing apart in the bunker.”

  “This must be armor for cops and soldiers,” Esta said.

  “It’s perfect,” said Charles. “It’ll hide us. Feathers, tail—”

  “What about those claws and hairy face?” Darren said to him.

  “This’ll work,” said Esta, tossing Charles a pair of gloves and a helmet from another open carton. It had a protective visor that flipped down. “Until you find a razor.”

  “We wear this stuff, we’re invisible,” Seth said, realizing how lucky they were. “People think we’re emergency workers, no one hassles us.”

  Esta and Siena took their new clothes to one end of the car to change. Seth turned his back to them and, with the other guys, stripped down to his bunker-issued tank top and boxers.

  “Yours are coming in, too,” he said to Vincent, nodding at the quills ready to poke through the skin of his bare legs.

  “Yeah, they hurt.”

  A few of Seth’s feathers must’ve broken through while he slept; there were spots of dried blood around the new quills. They couldn’t come fast enough for his liking.

  “You still think you’re gonna fly?” Darren asked.

  “These’ll help,” Seth said.

  He caught Darren sneaking a backward peek at the girls changing, then wince suddenly and grab his head.

  “Okay
, okay, sorry!” Darren said.

  “Next time I’ll make it hurt, Darren!” Esta called out.

  “Geez,” Darren muttered, rolling his eyes. “Lighten up.”

  As Darren stepped into his baggy work pants, Seth studied his tail. Esta had already told him how the swimmers had stung and paralyzed guards during the cafeteria escape.

  “Don’t look so freaked out,” Darren said with a smirk. His tail lifted itself straight up, its barbed tip swaying snakelike. “This is a good thing. It’s another weapon for us.”

  The tip feinted at Seth and he stumbled back.

  “Sorry, dumb joke,” Darren said.

  Seth said nothing. He didn’t like Darren being this powerful. He was relieved when the tail disappeared down a pant leg.

  —We should stun him, Esta said inside his head, and dump him off the train.

  Seth fastened his own pants and pulled on an armored jacket.

  —Not yet, he replied. There were only six of them, and Darren was right. They could use another weapon. He just hoped Darren wasn’t stupid enough to use it on any of them.

  —We can’t trust him, Esta said.

  “Some boots here.” Vincent pushed over a couple of cartons, then went to check out more near the wall.

  Seth was rooting around for his size when he heard Vincent say, “Whoa.”

  He looked up. Vincent was backing away from a low stack of cartons, his face pale.

  “What’s wrong?” Seth asked.

  From behind the cartons came a sloshy sound that did not belong to the train. Seth met eyes with Esta.

  —Hear that?

  —Yes.

  Together they removed their jackets so their arms were bare. Seth flared his feathers a bit and heard their reassuring metallic rustle. Warily he moved closer to the drippy sound, kicking some cartons out of the way.

  Against the boxcar wall were three translucent eggs. One was as big as an ostrich egg, the others slightly smaller. All of them were surrounded by clothes and torn plastic wrap and cardboard, like some kind of makeshift nest. Seth realized that the eggs all leaned against each other and had somehow fused. Cloudy liquid oozed from the spots where they touched and dripped into the cardboard.

  “Holy crap!” said Charles, leaning in for a look along with Esta and the others.

  “Are these worm eggs or the bird things?” Charles asked.

  “I don’t get it,” Seth said. “The eggs that fell in the rain were tiny. These are something different.”

  “If the eggs are this big,” said Esta, “how big’s Mama?”

  “And where is she?” Siena asked, looking around.

  Cold spiraled down Seth’s back as he scanned the boxcar ceiling. There was nothing to see, and nowhere to hide up there, especially for something big.

  He looked back at the eggs. They seemed to be melding into one. Through their semitranslucent shells, he saw their quick, shadowy contents pour together and swirl violently. The sides of the single new egg trembled and bulged, then were still.

  “Did something just eat something else?” Charles asked weakly.

  “On Deadman’s Island,” Seth said, “in the lab, there was one thing that hatched and ate everything else, then swelled up.”

  “What did it turn into?”

  “I don’t know. It turned itself back into an egg.”

  “Just get it off the friggin’ train!” Siena said.

  Esta slid the boxcar door open. Light crashed in, along with the wild clatter of the tracks.

  “Don’t kick it!” Seth yelled as Charles pulled back his leg. “It might hatch! We’ve got to lift it out.”

  “I’m not touching that thing,” Vincent said.

  It was the last thing Seth wanted to do either. He looked at Esta.

  “Together?” she said.

  “Yeah. Take a side.”

  He crouched and put his hands against the egg. It was soft, rubbery, like a cheap beach ball. Inside, something punched against his hand, and he gave a shout.

  “Lift,” Esta said.

  He was afraid to squeeze too hard, in case it burst.

  “It won’t budge,” he said.

  “It’s stuck,” Esta said.

  When Seth took a closer look, he realized the bottom of the egg was puddled in a gluey substance on the boxcar floor. Wincing in disgust, he plunged his hands into the goo and started to scoop and peel it away. There was a sticky, tearing sound as Esta pushed the egg.

  “It’s free!” Seth shouted as it made a schloppy roll toward the open door. Something long and pointy poked out from inside the egg, narrowly missing his face.

  “Watch out!” he cried to Esta, jumping to his feet and dragging her back.

  A second needle, sharp as a sea urchin’s, jutted out. The egg churned like it contained three brawling chimps. It was only a few feet from the door.

  “Kick it!” he yelled to Charles.

  Charles booted it. The egg made a few sluggish rolls and teetered on the brink of the door.

  “Again!” Seth shouted, and as one, they belted the egg and sent it sailing off the train.

  He stuck his head out to see the egg bouncing alongside the tracks. There was a sudden spray of liquid, like a water balloon bursting, and for a second he couldn’t see anything.

  Then he beheld something pale and gawky and with many legs running after the train. It seemed to be growing—and not just because it was getting closer, but because it was actually growing. Or at least unfolding itself in some terrifying way.

  “It’s coming back!” Seth whipped himself inside the boxcar and grabbed the door.

  “What d’you mean?” Siena croaked.

  “It hatched!”

  Esta threw herself against the door to help him push. It slammed shut. Seth fell back, staring at it, waiting.

  “What is it?” Vincent asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s big. Lots of legs.”

  “Why would it come back for us?” asked Charles.

  There was a thump outside the door.

  “Get ready,” Seth said, his words clicking in his dry mouth. “You two might want your wings.”

  Vincent and Siena both shrugged off their armored jackets and flared their feathers.

  The boxcar door flew open and crashed deafeningly at the end of its track. A rectangle of trees and sky blurred past. Seth stared. One second, two, three, and nothing but air entered the boxcar. Then Charles gave a shout as something popped up into the doorway.

  Head on a stick, Seth thought. Atop a very long neck was a triangular head, about the size of a football, with bulbous eyes and two mandibles. The head swiveled left and right, then yanked itself back down out of sight.

  “It’s underneath us,” Seth said. “It’s holding on underneath!”

  “Close the door!” Vincent yelled, rushing toward it.

  A skinny leg darted over the edge, tapping along the floor. Even though it was thin, it looked dense and strangely muscular. Vincent slashed at it. Instantly the leg pulled out of sight.

  Seth ran to help Vincent with the door, but before they could get it rolling, two jointed legs slammed into the boxcar. They were so long they reached the far wall. They flexed and the rest of the creature surged inside.

  Stiltlike legs lifted the narrow body to the ceiling. Its long spindly neck snapped down at Seth, and when he took a swing at it, the head pulled back out of range.

  “Go for the legs!” Esta cried.

  There were six legs, and when Seth struck, he felt his feathers bite, but not deeply. Charles delivered a kick to another leg, and Seth heard a satisfying crack. From the corner of his eye, he saw the creature flick a long limb and send Siena spinning against the wall, hard. She didn’t get up.

  Seth struck again and opened an oozing split in the leg. Two more quick slashes and the severed limb fell away. The creature staggered, then quickly rebalanced itself, and the head came plunging down on him.

  The mandibles closed around his upper arm and squeezed ha
rd. With a cry of pain, he was lifted off his feet. His free arm struck the head, and his feathers slit one of the bulbous eyes. Rearing back, the creature released its mandibles, and he hit the floor, dazed.

  All the frenzied activity was suddenly slow and soundless. He saw Darren’s tail make a jab at the bug’s underbelly, but it was out of range. Vincent slashed at a leg and got kicked. He sailed out of the boxcar door and disappeared. Charles drove his clawed hand into the joint of a skinny leg. The bug staggered and knocked Esta onto her stomach. As she struggled to rise, the bug’s mandibles came down for the back of her neck.

  —No! Seth cried, but he was silent, because all his energy was in his head now, where that glowing string beckoned. He plucked it hard.

  The giant insect veered away from Esta, its long neck twisting in agony. The legs stamped. Seth tasted blood in his mouth as he blasted out more sound. Its long neck sagged like a piece of broken hose, and its head hit the floor beside Esta.

  “You okay?” he asked, going to her.

  “You killed it with sound, didn’t you?”

  If only he’d done it sooner, he might’ve saved Vincent. He staggered to the boxcar door, shaking. His arm throbbed and his entire body felt spent. He looked down the tracks but couldn’t see Vincent. With his mind he tried to reach him, but he got no reply. Out of range, maybe?

  “He’s probably okay,” Seth said, wanting it to be true. Would a fall from a moving train kill you? Break your legs?

  “Not like we can do anything about it now,” said Darren.

  It sounded harsh, but Seth knew he was right. No one was going to jump off the train to search for him.

  Charles knelt beside Siena, who was sitting up against the wall, holding her right arm.

  “I can’t lift it,” she said, her eyes scared. “It just hangs there.”

  “I think your collarbone’s busted,” Charles told her. “Mine broke when I was little. We’ll put it in a sling. It heals on its own.”

  “How long’s that take?” Siena wanted to know.

  Charles took a breath. “A month?”

  Seth caught Esta’s worried glance.

  —She’s helpless now, she said.

  —She has sound, Seth reminded her.

  “Let’s get this thing off,” said Darren, kicking at the dead bug.