Hatch

by Kenneth Oppel

  Seth brought himself up short, not knowing which way to run.

  He glanced back to see the other two motorbikes idling at a distance. There was a muffled pop, and a metal canister clattered against the asphalt and came spinning toward them, spraying out thick smoke. A second spewing canister hit the ground even closer.

  “Run!” Darren cried, and bolted for the far end of the bridge.

  Charles bounded after Darren, outpacing him almost at once with his huge leaping strides. Seth ran, too, Esta and Siena close behind.

  Smoke boiled up around them, and almost immediately his eyes were streaming. He coughed so hard, he retched. He felt Esta grab hold of him and glimpsed Siena off to his right, her eyes scrunched shut.

  —Jump! he shouted silently at both of them.

  He pulled them close to the guardrail.

  “Lie down on the ground, arms out!” a voice boomed nearby. “We have live rounds and will use them.”

  —Jackets off! Seth yelled, shrugging off his own.

  When he tried to help Siena off with hers, she shook her head.

  —Can’t, she said. Broken wing.

  —Hold on to me, Seth told her, not even knowing if it would work. If he could bear her load.

  But she shook her head and started lying down on the road.

  —Leave her, Esta said.

  As he climbed onto the bridge’s railing, he heard people yelling at him to stop. Saw helmeted shadows moving through the smoke toward him. He jumped.

  He spread his feathered arms. Falling too fast. He angled his arms, tried to keep his body straight, not let his legs drag. He wished he’d had time to shed his pants so his small leg feathers could catch air.

  Clear of the smoke, he saw Esta gliding beside him, her own arms and feathers magnificently spread. He felt the air pushing against his wings—yes, they were finally wings—and he actually lifted.

  Off to the west, beyond the trees, he saw water, stippled in the sunlight. And along the shoreline, not so far away, a spidery webwork of docks. The marina disappeared from sight as he glided down. He was tempted to flap, but his guts told him no. He didn’t think his arms were strong enough yet, and he didn’t want to send himself into a fatal plunge.

  The deserted highway was coming up fast. His landing was a clumsy thing. He dropped his legs too soon and tumbled hard on his side. He felt one of his feathers crack, and cursed.

  —Hurry!

  Esta was already crouched over, running for the tall black grass on the west side of the highway. They slashed their way into it until they were among trees. A snaky slither of vines, the sickly whiff of their perfume.

  He didn’t stop. With Esta, he rushed through the woods, slicing through the vines that tried to snare them.

  —There’s a marina this way! he said.

  —I saw it, too!

  A crashing sound in the undergrowth made Seth duck. Beside him, Esta took quick whistling breaths through her nostrils. Then, in his head, a desperate calling out:

  —Seth? Esta? Siena?

  —It’s Darren, Esta said inside his head.

  He’d made it over the bridge somehow. Not Charles, too?

  —Let him go, Esta said.

  Seth felt the grip of indecision. He could say nothing and let Darren careen past. He didn’t trust him. But he felt sick at the thought of Charles and Siena left behind. He’d left them behind, just like he’d been left at the bunker.

  —Darren, we’re here, he said, standing up.

  “Oh man,” said Darren, staggering toward them.

  —Silent talking, Seth told him. Charles?

  —I don’t know. He got away, though. He did this amazing jump. Man, is he super fast.

  —Siena?

  He pictured her lying on the asphalt, defeated, and knew it was too much to hope for. Darren shook his head.

  —We need to move, Esta said. They’ll come for us.

  They reached a narrow road near the water and listened for the sound of motorbikes before crossing. The marina was fenced and locked. Seth slashed the chain link and they squeezed through.

  The dock dipped as he stepped onto it. There were still several boats tied up, most of them very small. From out on the water he heard a familiar creaking sound that sent a shiver down his neck. He saw the slow swirl of water lilies, clustered near the shore.

  —We need to be very quiet, he said. The water lilies spit acid.

  —Aren’t we immune? Esta asked.

  —Yeah, but the seeds can take out your eye. Darren, which boat can you drive?

  —That one. He pointed to a larger boat with a windshield and a driver’s seat. It had a steering wheel, same as a car. Wouldn’t they need keys?

  Darren stepped aboard first and gave a strangled shout. Sprawled on the bottom of the boat was a man’s body that had become a garden. Bat-shaped leaves grew from his chest and face. Seth’s nostrils wrinkled at the sickly smell of rot. A thick stem lifted with amazing speed, and its flowered head angled itself at Darren.

  With a quick slash of his arm, Seth decapitated the plant. Wilting, the severed stem pulsed clear fluid.

  “Bad plant,” Darren muttered.

  Seth heard the velvet plash of rippling water as more lilies drifted closer.

  Near the body was a key on a foam bob. Seth snatched it up and tossed it to Darren. The other boy sat in the driver’s seat. When he turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. Not even a weak whine.

  —Battery, he said.

  —Dead? Seth asked in alarm.

  From the distance came the sound of motorcycles. Seth listened long enough to know they were coming closer.

  Darren hurried to the rear of the boat and yanked up a long, narrow cover. He reached inside, turned something, then sprinted back to the driver’s seat. He didn’t bother sitting down.

  Seth heard the promising sound of a fan somewhere inside the boat, but no roar of an engine.

  —Why isn’t it starting? Esta demanded.

  The motorcycles were getting closer.

  —Gotta ventilate the gas fumes first! Darren said. Four minutes.

  Seeds clattered against the boat’s hull. Seth felt one bite into his shoulder and tore it out. He pushed Esta into the shelter of the windshield. Through the trees flickered motorcycle headlamps. Almost here.

  —We don’t have four minutes!

  —Just go! Esta yelled.

  The engine burst into a triumphant roar.

  —Cut the lines! Darren said.

  There was one at either end of the boat. Seth did the one at the bow; Esta took the stern, shielding her eyes from the seeds.

  Outside the marina fence, two motorbikes pulled up. Cops in helmets and protective gear jumped off and took aim. The sound of gunfire drowned out the hail of seeds against the boat.

  Darren turned the wheel over hard and opened up the throttle. The boat lurched away from the dock, and Seth crouched to avoid falling overboard. The boat straightened out, narrowly missing another dock, then shot into open water.

  Chapter Twenty

  WHEN ANAYA CAME BACK to the sick bay after a few hours’ sleep, Mom’s bed was empty. In a nearby chair Dr. Weber sat with her hands clasped in her lap, lost in thought.

  Panic squeezed so hard at Anaya’s throat she could barely speak. “What’s happened? Where’s Mom?”

  Dr. Weber smiled and nodded across the room, where Mom was returning from the washroom, Dad at her side, pushing along the IV stand. There were bruised shadows under her eyes, and she shuffled, but her face had lost its awful waxy sheen, and she was walking all by herself!

  “Mom!” Anaya rushed to her and threw her arms around her. Ear pressed against her mother’s chest, she heard her steady heartbeat—and no wheezy rattle when she breathed.

  “You’re better!”

  “I sure feel a lot better.”

  Anaya turned to Dr. Weber. “So it worked?”

  “No one’s ever documented such a dramatic improvement. Oxygen saturation
is normal, blood pressure great, no fever. We’ll do a chest X-ray to make sure her lungs are clear, but they sound very good to me.”

  “So it’s a cure, then!”

  Dr. Weber nodded. She looked pretty wiped herself. “I think it’s safe to call this a cure.”

  Such a swelling relief Anaya felt. And triumph, too. Terra hadn’t lied to her. Far from it. She’d sent her a medicine that was going to help the entire planet—and Anaya had had a small part in relaying it. She wished she could thank Terra right now, but she had no idea how to initiate contact.

  Colonel Pearson walked into the infirmary and actually smiled when he saw Mom sitting up, sipping water.

  “This is good news,” the colonel said.

  “I’ve sent the formula to every public health agency worldwide,” Dr. Weber told him. “The biggest challenge, as always, will be producing it fast enough.”

  “Well done,” the colonel said, and he turned to include Anaya in this.

  “Terra was telling the truth,” she said. “We can trust her.”

  “I still need more,” he said.

  “She gave us the cure to a plague!”

  “A plague they sent. And why didn’t Terra send this cure earlier, if she wanted to be so helpful?”

  That was a fair question, and she didn’t know how to answer it.

  “Have you been contacted again?” Pearson asked.

  “No.”

  “This meeting she wants with you. If we were to agree to this—”

  Anaya’s eyebrows lifted hopefully.

  “—and it’s a very big if,” Pearson cautioned, “I would need to know when and where, in advance. And not only that. I need details of the ultimate invasion force. The ships. How many soldiers. Landing sites. Weaponry.”

  “This is a lot to put on a kid, Colonel,” Dad said.

  “It’s a lot to put on anyone,” he agreed, “but your daughter’s the only person they’re talking to, so it has to be her. Then we’ll see if this Terra is someone we can truly trust. I hope she is.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Anaya said. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to get answers to all of Pearson’s questions—or even if Terra knew the answers.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know, sweetie,” Mom said with a pained expression. “You don’t have to talk with them, or meet with them.”

  “I know.”

  “We have no idea what it might be like.”

  She’d avoided thinking about it. About actually having Terra and the other cryptogens in front of her. She still wasn’t sure how they looked up close, or how big they were, or how they smelled—or how exactly they intended to take her blood, and how much.

  But she didn’t believe for a second Terra would harm her. And she couldn’t stop her cautious flight of happiness and optimism. Dr. Weber and Dad had already made a herbicide that killed the cryptogenic plants. And with luck now they’d be able to make a pesticide. Mom was going to be fine. And Anaya was together with her family and Petra.

  It felt like they all had a chance.

  Like Earth had a chance.

  UNTIL TODAY, PETRA HADN’T given much thought to summer. It was like something happening far away, without her.

  But this afternoon, outside on the army base’s field, the warm air tinged with the scent of freshly mown grass—real green grass!—it was finally summer. Stretched out on her back beside Anaya, she closed her eyes and enjoyed the heat of the sun on her cheeks. It was very bright behind her eyelids. She tried to figure out what color the light was and decided maybe yellow. It dimmed slightly as a cloud crossed the sun, then came back an intense white. She felt some of her guilt lift: Mrs. Riggs was going to be okay.

  There was a shout, and she cracked open her eyes to see Adam and Letitia and a bunch of the other hybrids playing Frisbee. After so long in the bunker, everyone was pretty eager to be outside as much as possible. At first glance they all looked like normal kids. But look a second longer and you’d notice the excessively hairy legs and arms. And you’d definitely notice the tails, and the skin patterning, and a few kids whose necks and faces were starting to scale over.

  So, yeah, apart from all that, and the guard towers, and the mesh tenting, and the soldiers who sometimes gave them dirty looks and called them cryptos—apart from that, Petra could imagine it was recess in June, back when there was a thing called school. And you would slump on the grass with a backpack behind your head, and someone would be playing the new songs on their phone, and you’d talk about how insane your latest homework was, and gossip, and make fun of the teachers’ clothing choices.

  “You want to play Frisbee?” Anaya asked.

  “Nah. I just want to bask a little longer.”

  Like a lizard sunning itself after a long, cold night. Lizard. She winced. If only she were one of those lizards that could drop their tails.

  Her eyes tracked a dark clot of mosquito birds deflecting off the base’s protective tenting. The sight of them still made her skin crawl, but they didn’t seem half as terrifying now that there was a cure for the virus.

  She tried to clear her mind and find Seth. She spoke his name into the void and listened, but there was nothing. She’d always been lousy at silent talking. But several times each day she searched for him.

  “You ever try to talk to Seth?” she asked Anaya.

  “Yep.”

  Sometimes she wondered if he even wanted to be found. The thought of him and Esta together made her insides clench.

  When the alarm sounded, Petra’s gaze flew to the guard tower nearest the harbor. The soldier held binoculars to his eyes, then tilted his head to speak into his shoulder mic.

  Petra scrambled up and hurried closer to the shoreline with Anaya and some of the other hybrids. What was out there?

  “Inside!” the soldier shouted down at them. The alarm’s grating metallic pulse filled the air. “Get inside now!”

  Near the shore, she scanned Vancouver’s gap-toothed skyline, but her gaze was pulled quickly down to the harbor.

  In the distance, a big raft of water lilies crested, and a large creature broke the surface. Its narrow, tapered shape made Petra think of an alligator, until it sprang clear of the water on six long legs. Two of them, the ones in the middle, began to row, skimming the creature over the surface with horrific speed.

  “Holy crap!” she said.

  All across the harbor, more of these things leapt up and rowed toward the base. If these were the things she’d seen hatch underwater, they’d grown a thousand times bigger.

  “They’re like giant water strider bugs,” Anaya said.

  Petra’s whole body shook, but it wasn’t only fear. It was rage, too. Rage at herself for releasing these things; rage at the cryptogens for ravaging the planet.

  From the buildings and barracks poured soldiers, armored and masked. A tank rumbled onto the field. A helicopter lifted off and skidded over the harbor, gunfire flashing from the open doors.

  “Get inside!” soldiers were yelling at them, but when Petra looked around, she saw most of the other kids still on the field.

  After being locked up and helpless for so long, they wanted to do something. They wanted to fight.

  And so did she.

  “You in?” she asked Anaya, swishing her tail back and forth.

  “I’m in!” answered her friend, checking her still-sharp fingernails.

  “Fight!” Petra shouted, and heard her call echoed across the field by the other hybrid kids, all of them now freeing their tails, baring their claws, getting ready.

  “Our blood’s poison to them, right?” a swimmer called Kai said.

  “Yeah,” Anaya said. “But they don’t know that yet. They’ll go for us.”

  The first water strider reached the rocky shoreline and leapt high onto the base’s protective netting. One after another, more of them landed, scuttling over the mesh.

  “Can they get in?” Petra wondered.

  She couldn’t tell if these bugs even had ja
ws. Their heads narrowed into a very long, sharp nose. Her breath caught as a water strider plunged its nose through the netting and, with a whipping motion, sawed through it. A flap drooped down above the guard tower.

  A bug plunged down on top of it. The soldier inside opened fire through the roof, but the bullets seemed to pass through the bug without harming it. Like wasps descending on a piece of meat, eight more water striders piled atop the tower, and inside it, until Petra couldn’t see the soldier anymore.

  From new gashes cut in the netting, bugs dropped down everywhere. Each stood ten feet tall, on legs that looked like they were made of wire cable.

  “Use your tails!” Petra shouted to the other swimmers. “Sting them!”

  “Go for the legs!” Anaya called to the runners.

  Petra saw a water strider kick over a soldier, then scoop him up with both front legs. It was a weirdly tender gesture, until the bug drove its needle-like nose into his chest. Petra gasped as the soldier’s belly swelled, like it was being pumped full of something. Even as the other soldiers barraged the bug with bullets, its syringe nose vibrated furiously, as if inhaling, then turned red. The impaled soldier collapsed, like his very insides were being vacuumed up.

  Petra felt her own insides quake. They were all going to die.

  “Look out!” Anaya shouted at her.

  She barely had time to move. Inches from her foot, something long and skinny planted itself in the soil. She thought it was one of the water striders’ wiry legs until she realized it was actually the thing’s needle-like nose. It whistled back up into the air.

  Petra threw herself out of the way. She saw Anaya aim a kick at the bug’s middle leg and heard a very satisfying snap. The bug listed over. Petra scrambled up, her tail lashing out, but the bug’s body was out of range. She struck its rear leg instead. With a jarring pain, her stinger deflected off steely flesh.

  When Anaya kicked and broke another of its legs, the water strider’s rear end sagged. Petra saw her chance and struck. This time the tip of her tail sank deep, and with a surge of satisfaction she felt the venom pumping in.

  Instantly the bug went rigid, its limbs frozen midstride. It keeled over.

  “Wicked,” Anaya panted, looking at her tail admiringly.