Hatch

by Kenneth Oppel

  —How long was I out?

  It was much easier to talk silently than to try to use his clumsy mouth.

  —Almost two hours.

  Whatever venom was in Darren’s tail was something else.

  —Where is he? he asked.

  Esta’s expression was unapologetic.

  —I made him jump off.

  He remembered the splash he’d heard before collapsing.

  —I thought he’d killed you! Esta said. I was scared he’d sting me, too. I hurt him until he jumped. Then I gunned the boat as far away as I could.

  Seth had no kind feelings for Darren, but he felt a pang. He was one of them, a hybrid, and now they were one less.

  —Was he conscious? Seth asked. When he hit the water?

  Esta nodded, and Seth let out a deep breath. If Darren was conscious, he could swim and survive.

  Something bumped against their boat, and Esta jumped.

  —Just a log, she said, and leaned over to shove it away.

  The boat was drifting. He could barely see past the bow, and only a few feet off either side. He liked it. It made him feel hidden and safe. It was very quiet. He bent his knees and wiggled his toes, relieved his body worked again.

  Esta sat close beside him.

  —I was so worried, she said.

  He had never seen her look so vulnerable, or tender. He thought of how terrible those two hours must have been for her, staring down at him, waiting.

  —I’m sorry, he said.

  She threw her arms around him, and he felt the heat of her cheeks and her tears and her body trembling against him. He hugged her back. Such a good, warm thing to hold.

  —I thought I was going to be all alone, she said.

  She kissed him.

  No one had ever kissed him like this. He felt like she’d given him something amazing. He touched her lips with his fingertips, her wet cheeks, her eyebrows. He looked into her eyes.

  —Will you stay with me? she asked.

  The exact same question had welled up in his head.

  —Yes.

  —Promise, she said.

  Aloud he said, “Yes, I promise.” His voice sounded normal now.

  “It’s just the two of us.” Her words carried loneliness but also a sense of purpose, even pride. “For the best.”

  Seth wanted to believe her. He let his head rest on her shoulder. He felt like he was setting down a huge burden. For a long time they held each other.

  —We’re going to be fine, he told her. We’ll be safe and we’ll be together no matter what happens next.

  —Yes. We won’t get pushed around anymore, or put places we don’t want to be. He wondered if she was talking about the bunker or even further back, to her aunt and uncle. More than anything, he wanted a home, a place where he could feel he’d finally arrived and didn’t need to do anything else. A place he could share with Esta.

  He felt the strength returning to his arms and legs. They could go find a safe place. They would be careful and live in secret and no one would find them and try to hurt them. Esta was strong and he trusted her, and things were possible again.

  Something knocked against the boat. This time it wasn’t a log.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “THEY WANT TO SURRENDER to you,” Anaya told the colonel in his office.

  As soon as she’d finished her conversation with Terra, she’d told her parents and, after that, Dr. Weber. All three of them had accompanied her to tell Pearson.

  Doubt was etched across the colonel’s face. “Surrender,” he said.

  Anaya wasn’t entirely sure this was the perfect translation, but it was the closest meaning she got.

  “They’re coming, three of them,” she said. “They’re coming because they need our help, and we need theirs. To learn and teach—that’s how Terra put it.”

  “When?”

  “In two days, at noon.”

  “Did the cryptogen—”

  “Terra,” Anaya insisted. It was important that he use her name, even if it was one she’d invented. In the bunker Ritter had given all the hybrids numbers, and she knew it was a way of turning people into things. She wanted everyone to think of Terra as a person.

  “Did she answer any of my questions?” Pearson asked.

  “No. But she said she would after they’ve landed. After they’re safe.”

  She saw the colonel’s eyebrows rise, but he gave a little nod, as if he respected the decision. It was Terra’s insurance. Information in exchange for a safe landing on Earth.

  “They have some requests,” Anaya added.

  “Ah, I see.”

  Anaya waited for him to ask what they were, but he didn’t, so she continued.

  “They need us to build them some kind of enclosure with their own atmosphere. They can breathe ours, but it’s still a bit toxic to them. And they want your assurance they won’t be attacked when they come to land. The ship they’re arriving in has no weapons.”

  Colonel Pearson actually laughed, but it came out more as a bark.

  “Anything else we can do to make them more comfortable? Any dietary restrictions we should know about?”

  “I think they already have what they need to eat down here,” said Dr. Weber. “They’ve sent their crops and food ahead of them.”

  “I’m amazed,” Pearson said, “that this cryptogen thinks we’d trust anything she says, after the attack on my base.”

  Anaya had been expecting this. “She had nothing to do with it!”

  “I find that extremely hard to believe,” the colonel retorted.

  “They were bugs!”

  “Explain to me how bugs mass together in an attack on a military installation when there are easier, undefended targets all over this city.”

  Anaya had no answer to this. Pearson had a very good point. “Even if the cryptogens can somehow control the bugs, Terra’s not in charge! She’s a rebel. She wants all of this to stop as much as we do.”

  “So she says.”

  “She gave us a cure—”

  “And right afterward, we’re swarmed by giant bugs. Every time you two talk, they pinpoint you here at my base. Has it never occurred to you that you’re being used as crosshairs?”

  Anaya looked desperately at Dr. Weber and her parents. She’d already tried to explain, as best she could, how much she trusted Terra. Clearly she’d failed.

  “She’s promising us a weapon,” Anaya said. “Something that might help us win the war!”

  “I’d rather rely on Dr. Weber and our own scientists to develop it. So far we’ve managed an herbicide. A pesticide may be next.”

  Anaya sighed, wishing Petra were here. She was always better at convincing people of things.

  “If they have some magic bullet, why don’t they simply send us the recipe?” Pearson asked.

  “Terra said there was a code in me, in all the hybrids, that they hid. And now they need it back.”

  “Your trust in Terra is starting to concern me.”

  Anaya felt her pulse quicken. Was Pearson suggesting she might be a spy?

  “Don’t even think of locking my daughter up again,” said Dad.

  “I’m also worried about her welfare,” Pearson said, “and whether she’s being manipulated and used as a mouthpiece by our enemy.”

  “No one’s manipulating me!” Anaya insisted. “If Terra only wanted me for my blood, she knows where I am. She could swoop down anytime and take me and blast everything else to pieces. She’s coming because the rebels need our help, and they want to help us, too.” She took a breath. “Anyway, they’re coming, whether you like it or not. What’re you going to do? Blow the ship up?”

  Pearson nodded. “That is an option, yes.”

  “We couldn’t even touch the ship in orbit!” Dr. Weber pointed out. “What makes you think you could hurt one of their other ships?”

  “Strike as they come in to land,” Pearson said. “It might be our only chance.”

  “You do that,�
� Anaya said, “they’ll think we’re hostile, and we lose an ally—and a weapon.”

  Pearson studied his hands a moment. “It doesn’t seem there’s any stopping their arrival. Where do they plan to land? Did she give you coordinates?”

  “I’m the coordinates.”

  Saying it, she felt a shiver ripple beneath her skin. They were coming right to her. Mom’s arm slid around her shoulders.

  “They must have requirements for a landing site, though,” Pearson said.

  “A clearing.” Anaya remembered the image Terra had shown her. “At least two hundred feet long, fifty feet wide.”

  “That’s all?”

  “It’s a small ship.”

  “Hang on,” Mom said to Pearson. “Suddenly you’re agreeing to this?”

  “It doesn’t seem my agreement is necessary,” Pearson replied. “We’ll do it in Stanley Park. It’s been sprayed, and it’s close to the base, in case we need support.”

  Anaya knew support meant weapons. “You won’t need support,” she said firmly.

  “We also don’t know anything about what kind of radiation or energy the ship might produce,” Dr. Weber said. “Or biohazards.”

  “You need to prep a team,” Pearson told her.

  “You’ll need me,” Anaya said.

  “No,” said Pearson. “The moment the cryptogens touch down, you’re out. Military personnel only.”

  She’d feared this would happen. “Terra wants me there. And you need me there. I’m the only one who can talk to them.”

  Triumphantly she looked around at all of them, Mom and Dad, Dr. Weber, the colonel.

  “She’s right,” said Dr. Weber with a sigh. “We have no way of communicating with the cryptogens without her present.”

  “Anaya, are you sure?” Dad asked, taking her hand.

  Despite her fears, she wanted to be there. To meet Terra. To finally see her, this creature in whose image she was partly made. The urge was primitive and strong.

  “I’m sure,” she said. “There’s no way around it. I’m your translator.”

  THE OTHER BOAT WAS much bigger than theirs, and the impact sent Seth sprawling across the deck.

  He made out the words POLICE MARINE UNIT on the boat’s hull. Poised at the edge of the deck were three officers wearing armor and gas masks.

  Twin Taser wires snagged Esta in the chest. She dropped to the deck, flinching as the voltage coursed through her. Instinctively, Seth crouched and shielded himself with his feathered arms. He felt the Taser barbs hit his feathers and saw sparks crackling along their tips. With a swipe he cut himself free of the wires.

  Two officers had jumped aboard and pulled a hood over Esta’s head. They dragged her limp body onto the police boat.

  “Let her go!” Seth roared.

  He looked one officer in the eyes and struck hard with sound. When he collapsed, one of his fellows grabbed him under the arms so he didn’t fall overboard.

  “Go, go!” someone cried, and the police boat veered away into the mist, taking Esta with it.

  —Esta! Seth shouted, and waited for her returning cry. Esta!

  Then he remembered the hood—it had to be the same kind Ritter had used on him. Or why wasn’t Esta blasting everyone on that boat right now? Why wasn’t she calling out to him?

  —Esta!

  Nothing.

  He threw himself into the driver’s seat and followed the wake of the police boat, but it dissolved before long, and he couldn’t hear the sound of its engine above his own. He shut down, listened, aimed, and gunned it, not caring what he might hit.

  —Esta!

  No reply.

  The mist pressed in on him, and he could barely see in front of him now. He killed the engine again, listened. Heard nothing. He cried and swore and banged his hand against the steering wheel, until he couldn’t feel the pain anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  PETRA’S MOM WAS BURIED in the makeshift graveyard at the far end of the army base, along with all the soldiers who’d died during the battle. A bugle was played at the funeral service. Guns were shot off. Then the bodies were lowered into the earth of Deadman’s Island.

  Petra didn’t like to think of Mom down there. Terrible things lived in the ground. Pit plants. Giant worms. Dad held her close, whispered, “It’s all right,” but it wasn’t all right. Mom had wanted to be cremated and have her ashes sprinkled in the ocean. But there was nowhere to cremate her right now. Her body would have to stay here. Petra couldn’t cry. There must be something wrong with her. Maybe she had changed so much, she didn’t have normal human feelings anymore.

  She stared at the graves and wondered about all the other mothers and fathers and children around the world. Hundreds of thousands of them by now. Where would they find space for them all?

  She felt immensely tired. She didn’t want it anymore. None of it. The cryptogens and their plants and bugs and rebels and her own mutant DNA. All she wanted was to crawl into bed and never come out. She wanted oblivion. She didn’t care what happened anymore.

  The funeral was over. Colonel Pearson was already giving orders. Officers and soldiers dispersed. Her father hugged her and told her he had to get back to the hospital. Numbly she nodded. Mrs. Riggs came over to give her another hug and a kiss on the forehead.

  “I’m piloting a medical supply flight to Vancouver Island,” she told her daughter.

  “Are you well enough?” Anaya asked worriedly.

  Mrs. Riggs nodded. “They need a pilot. I’ll be back later this afternoon.”

  Petra gave her friend’s shoulder a squeeze as she watched her mother walking away.

  “Do you want to go back to the apartment?” Anaya asked.

  She was about to nod, but surprised herself by shaking her head. Did she really think she’d be able to sleep? Make everything magically disappear? She wanted to do something.

  She saw Dr. Weber turn away from Colonel Pearson and Mr. Riggs and approach them.

  “We’re ready to do a trial of the pesticide,” Dr. Weber said.

  Petra hadn’t known they were so close. “It’s ready?”

  “It’s a prototype,” Dr. Weber said cautiously. “Likely it will fail. We’re going to do a test in the biodome. Petra, I’ll understand if you don’t want to—”

  “I want to see,” Petra said.

  It was her blood that had helped make the pesticide. Her blood and Anaya’s and all the other hybrid kids’. And if some tiny part of her could kill these cryptogenic bugs, she wanted to watch.

  The jeep took them into Stanley Park. Inside the biodome, Petra looked through the observation window and was surprised to see a new resident. Her throat tightened. A water strider, pressed flat against the surface of the pond.

  “We managed to capture an injured one,” said Dr. Weber, catching her look. “With its proboscis severed, it probably won’t live long,” she added, like she was trying to make her feel better.

  At one end of the observation room, lab technicians were connecting a canister by a hose to the ventilation system.

  “Is that the pesticide?” Petra asked, and Dr. Weber nodded.

  She looked back into the strange alien zoo, hating everything she saw: the black grass, the stilt bug lurking among the stalks, and the mosquito birds flitting through the air. On the ceiling of the dome, the armadillo bug with the long yellow tongue snapped up a bird.

  “We’re ready,” said the lab technician.

  “Let’s start with a single unit,” said Dr. Weber.

  There was a faint hiss, and Petra expected colored mist to fill the biodome, but there was nothing to see until she noticed dew on the other side of the observation window.

  The stilt bug took a few steps in the grass. On the ceiling, a vine tried to snare the leg of the armadillo thing, but it scuttled nimbly away.

  “Nothing’s happening,” Petra said.

  “It might take some time to work,” said Mr. Riggs, glancing at the stopwatch on his phone.


  Everyone waited in silence until Dr. Weber said, “Release another unit.”

  Once more a fine dew settled over the observation window, clouding Petra’s view until the windshield wipers cleared it.

  Mosquito birds flitted across the biodome, and one fell, as though its wings were glued to its sides. It landed in the water and was quickly swarmed by lilies.

  “Look, there’s more!” Anaya cried out, pointing.

  Petra’s gaze whipped up to the mosquito birds as they plummeted to the ground.

  One species down, she thought with grim satisfaction.

  The stilt bug emerged fully from the grass, tilted because of its two missing legs. Its body glistened with pesticide dew. It opened its mandibles to snatch up a dead bird and then keeled over, its legs pulling up against its thorax.

  Two down.

  “It’s working!” Anaya said, squeezing her arm.

  The armadillo thing on the ceiling fell and shot out its tongue, as if to save itself. The tongue stuck to the ceiling of the biodome, and the creature swung back and forth lifelessly.

  That’s three.

  Petra looked over at the water strider, snuggled down against the water. With its middle legs it rowed across the pond.

  “Why isn’t it dying?” she demanded, looking at Dr. Weber.

  “Maybe the water’s diluting the pesticide,” she said.

  “No,” said Anaya, “look!”

  The water strider’s legs churned and the creature hurtled to shore, as if trying to escape something. On land it kept running, straight for the window. Petra took a step back as it crashed against the glass. It rammed the glass again, then staggered back. Its legs curled up, and it flipped over on the ground and stopped moving.

  “All of them,” Petra said. “It works on all of them!”

  “I call that a success,” said Colonel Pearson, turning to Dr. Weber and shaking her hand. “We can kill these things.”

  Mr. Riggs was smiling, too, and hugging Anaya.

  Petra hadn’t been able to cry at the funeral, but for some reason she was crying now. It was like she’d been holding her breath and could finally gasp air. She cried out of relief and hope—and wishing they’d had this a little bit sooner so maybe Mom would still be alive.