Hothouse

by Stephanie Mylchreest

  It doesn’t take long for the group to make it through the oak thicket. The rain is heavy and our visibility is poor, but the anticipation is palpable. We are almost upon them. Water seeps into my eyes, down my neck, into my boots but I’m barely conscious of it. We reach the edge of the thicket of oaks and I jump off the horse and help the young woman down.

  “Stay with me,” I say. She nods.

  We run to a large oak near a small clearing. The rest of our group has assumed a firing position alongside us. Through the unrelenting rain I see large metal pods, bigger than my house back in Martha’s Vineyard, littering the forest. I start to count them. There are ten pods, a strange alien sight, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. We pause, scanning the pods and the area for any movement.

  After a few moments, Yanx walks beyond the oaks towards the pods. I hear someone, maybe Lincoln, yell for her to stop. But she doesn’t stop. She walks into the storm and right up to one of the pods. She walks around it and then returns to us.

  She stands in the pouring rain, her mouth twisted into a sneer. I can just make out her words over the thrum of the rain: “It’s empty. They’re gone!”

  Chapter Three

  Slowly and cautiously we break cover and follow Yanx into the forest. The rain is falling harder now and muddy rivulets run over my feet and continue unrelentingly downhill. I wipe the water from my eyes with the back of my arm so I can get a better look at the incredible vessels before me.

  I reach the pod closest to me and run my hand over its surface. It’s hard and metallic and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. “It’s incredible,” I say to myself. The young woman from the camp is next to me and she raises her hand, holding it next to the pod without touching it.

  When I survey the area, others have cautiously approached the pods. Someone yells over the incessant pounding of the rain that this might be a trap, but I don’t care. I’m completely mesmerized. The young woman finally lowers her hand next to mine. We both rest there for a moment, our hands placed against the metal of the pod, the heavy rain washing over us.

  “What is it?” she asks. She turns to me, her wet hair plastered flat against her head and her eyes alight with curiosity. For a moment, she lifts her face to the downpour and welcomes the water as it runs over her.

  “It’s a spacecraft,” I reply. It’s one thing to hear about these wonders. It’s another thing entirely to be standing beside a vessel that’s been part of something orbiting the planet for hundreds of years.

  I walk around the pod, trailing my hand against the surface as I make my way around. On the other side, I find what looks like a door. While I’m feeling all around the edges, trying to get it open, Rich, Delphine and Abigail arrive next to me.

  “Can you get it open?” asks Rich.

  “It’s shut tight,” I reply.

  We peer through the small round window in the door. It’s dark inside the pod but through the thick glass I can make out a long raised table in the center. On top of the table is a wide screen and a panel with numerous buttons and controls.

  “Around the inside wall there are seats with straps,” says Abigail. “I bet that’s where the people sat when the pod left the station. It must have been terrifying.”

  She moves over so Delphine can peer inside too. I take another quick look and then make room for Rich. There are other things we can’t identify. I wish we could get inside.

  “These pods are amazing,” comments Rich.

  It’s as though we’ve all forgotten we are supposed to be at war. Everyone in the forest is momentarily awestruck by the pods. The young woman joins us, and Abigail asks her if she would like to look inside too. She nods shyly and we make space for her at the window.

  Suddenly there’s the boom of a gun being discharged and a strangled cry, which is barely audible over the storm. We draw our weapons hurriedly and race around the pod, looking for the source of the gunfire.

  “Over there!” shouts Rich. He’s pointing to a body lying on the ground by one of the pods. No one seems worried about an attack so we lower our weapons and run over to him.

  The man is bleeding profusely from a gaping wound in his abdomen. The rain washes the blood away immediately, so it’s difficult to determine how much he has lost. I kneel and feel for a pulse. It’s weak, and the man is deathly pale. Someone passes me a blanket which I press to the wound, but I know there’s no hope.

  “What happened?” I ask Michelle, who has crouched down next to me.

  “He tried to shoot his way in. The bullet rebounded off the side of the pod. That’s natural selection for you.”

  I don’t understand what she’s talking about but nod, anyway. I gesture to two men watching us from a few cubits away and ask them to take the injured man back to camp and make him comfortable. They pick him up without ceremony and I wonder briefly if they are going to do as I asked, or simply dump him somewhere to die alone. Life is cheap on the mainland.

  When the injured man has been taken away, I ask Michelle, “So how do you get in to the pods?” If anyone knows the answer to that question, it’s the Washingtonians.

  “We’ve got the entry codes,” she says. I raise an eyebrow and she shrugs. “We built these things all those centuries ago.”

  Michelle walks over to the closest pod and stands in front of the door, next to the round portal. She depresses a small button—it’s practically invisible; we didn’t notice it when we were examining the door earlier—and a panel with a keypad is exposed. She enters the code quickly and the door to the pod springs open.

  My heartbeat quickens. This moment feels life changing. We both pause for a short moment, peering into the space inside. For all of her bravado, Michelle seems as awed as I am. Michelle steps in first and I follow. When I look back, Yanx is ducking under the doorway behind me. There is a crowd of bodies behind her, all yelling and pressing forward trying to see inside.

  “Stay there,” orders Yanx to those outside. “And be quiet!”

  At Yanx’s words, the yelling ceases and is replaced with a soft murmur. The thrumming of the rain is dulled and the background noise lends a further surreal quality to the moment. No one else crosses the threshold into the pod. It’s just the three of us in here.

  I’m suddenly conscious of the water pooling around my boots on the floor. Michelle walks up to the center table and presses a button that turns on the screens. It flashes dark blue with a small blinking line on the top right-hand corner. She types a series of commands, growing increasingly frustrated.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her.

  “They’ve wiped the persistent memory. It looks as though everything is gone.”

  “What does that mean?” asks Yanx. The two women stand shoulder-to-shoulder appraising the screen in front of them.

  “All the information they were safeguarding in the station was held digitally on the mass transit pods. But now it is gone. They’ve wiped it all. Presumably they’ve got it backed up on a portable system and taken it with them.”

  “You’ve got all the information back in Washington, right?” asks Yanx.

  Michelle sighs loudly. “Yes, but now we have no control over what they do with it or who they share it with. Unless we stop them and find the data files.”

  “What about all the books they had up there?” I ask Michelle. She narrows her eyes at me.

  “The books?”

  “Yes, they had actual books up there. They had thousands of them. Paintings too, as well as other things. Ada told me all about it.”

  “They’ll be destroyed when the station plunges into the upper atmosphere. It will destroy the entire station.” Michelle says this like it’s nothing. She must see the surprise on my face. “Think about it, Chris. They only brought back digital copies of everything. There would have been no space to bring all the physical books and artwork back to Earth in these pods. We are supposed to go up and bring everything back to Earth. But, well… things changed.”

  “Digital?” I ask.r />
  Michelle has turned back to the screen and is tapping quickly on the panel of buttons. She speaks rapidly without looking at me. “They converted everything into electronic files. You can fit every book ever written into a portable system the size of my fist.”

  What she’s saying is incredible, but the idea of all those things up there—things that have been maintained for centuries—just disappearing, is a sobering thought. “So you’re just going to leave everything up there?” I ask her.

  “We have no capacity to recover any items from the station.”

  A voice behind me alerts me to the fact that Lincoln has arrived inside the pod.

  “The computer system is wiped,” Michelle says to him. She rubs the back of her head with her hand, her face creased in anxious lines. “The information is out there now. It could go anywhere.”

  Lincoln looks as though he might punch something. I step backwards, melting into the wall behind me.

  “We checked the other pods, they’ve taken all the weapons including biological.”

  They stare at each other for a moment. I can tell this is terrible news.

  “Let’s call this our base for now,” says Michelle finally. “At least it’s out of the infernal rain. I need to call the president and give him a mission update and we need to mobilize as soon as possible. We can’t let them get away.”

  Lincoln and Yanx both nod. Yanx purses her lips and says, “I’ll send some of my people back to camp to wait for the first wave of gang members. They are coming from north of New York City and should be here soon. We’ll find them.”

  “You know this is on you, Yanx,” says Lincoln. His eyes are cold. “You let that girl into Washington.”

  Yanx stiffens at his words. She stares at him wordlessly before turning around and walking out into the rain.

  Michelle’s eyes flick to me. “Chris, I’ll open another pod for you and your friends,” she says wearily. “We’ll need this pod for now.”

  “Thank you,” I reply. I follow her outside and see the Rich and the others seeking shelter under a linden tree. I wave to them and we walk through the forest to a nearby pod.

  “Try to dry off, I’ll arrange for someone to bring you some food. You won’t be bothered in here. I’ll make sure Yanx tells her people to leave you alone.”

  Michelle’s eyes are resting on the young woman we took from the camp. “Here,” she says, taking off her jacket. “Put this on.” She passes it to the woman who takes it wordlessly.

  “Do we just wait here for you?” I ask her.

  “Yes. We will mobilize shortly. Be ready.” Michelle looks at the young woman again, who is shivering. “Tell Yanx to get her some warmer clothes. Tell her I ordered it,” says Michelle over her shoulder.

  I stand at the pod door and watch Michelle walk into the wet, gray forest. Her head is down, and she weaves her way quickly through the trees until she disappears in the downpour. I linger in the doorway, watching the activity in the surrounding forest.

  With the disappearance of the people from the station, the energy in the camp has ratcheted down significantly. A pair of divinity walks past and peer inside, their mouths set in hard lines, but they don’t linger. Other pods are being opened and groups of divinity and Washingtonians are gathering inside, seeking shelter from the storm. It continues to rain unrelentingly.

  “Wow. This is really something,” says Abigail. I turn back inside and my eyes follow her as she paces the interior of our pod, touching everything she sees.

  “It’s identical to the pod I was just in,” I say. “Michelle turned on that screen and said that the people from the station have already taken the Collection, as well as all the weapons.”

  Delphine takes a seat at the central desk and presses buttons at random until the screen comes to life. She taps the panel of buttons and the screen starts to flash.

  “I’m not sure you should be doing that,” I say. “Anything could happen. This machine was inside the station, up in space, not so long ago.”

  “The station?” asks a voice. We all stare. It’s the young woman. She’s wrapped Michelle’s jacket over her shoulders to warm up and she’s sitting on one of the seats against the wall. The straps hang limply either side of her small frame. She blushes under our gaze, her cheeks coloring a pale pink.

  “Do you know about the station?” I ask.

  “Only through our ancestral stories. Before Yanx’s people captured me, I also heard rumors of the station returning to Earth.” She speaks warily.

  “The people on the station aren’t who you think they are. Are you connected to the forest people?” I ask.

  The young woman laughs sweetly. “We don’t call them the forest people. But yes, we are loosely related.”

  Delphine sits next to her on one of the wall seats and takes the young woman’s hand. The woman looks at Delphine's severed finger joint and then grips her hand more tightly.

  “What’s your name?” I ask her, taking a seat beside her on her other side.

  “Birch,” she whispers.

  “Hi, Birch,” I say to her, smiling.

  “Thank you for taking me from that place, from those people.”

  “We could never have left you there,” I say, and the others murmur their agreement. “Is your home close to here?”

  “It’s several days hike from here, up in the mountains. I was hunting when they captured my sister and me.”

  “Where is your sister now?” asks Abigail gently. She sits down cross-legged on the floor in front of Birch.

  Birch doesn’t answer. She wipes her eyes and looks at her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” says Abigail. “Those people are animals.”

  “We’ll help you get home Birch, I promise. But we need to find the people that came down in these pods first. They are dangerous. Worse than the men who captured you. Unfortunately, there will be no golden age at their return.”

  Birch stares at me with wide eyes. Finally she says, “I can make it home myself.”

  “There are hundreds more gang members descending on this area,” says Rich. “They won’t hurt you while you are with us—”

  “And while we are with Yanx,” interrupts Abigail.

  “But if they find you alone, we may not be able to help you again,” I add. The pod plunges into silence.

  Birch nods slowly. “All right, I will stay with you for now. And then you’ll help me get away from here.” It’s a statement, not a question, but I feel compelled to bolster her belief in us.

  “You have my word,” I say to her. “And Birch,”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell no one you are related to the forest people. The Washingtonians may well consider you one of their enemies. We’ll get you out of here, but you must keep your head down.” I go to put my hand on her shoulder in a reassuring gesture but she shrinks away.

  Delphine looks at me and shakes her head softly. She squeezes Birch’s hand.

  Thankfully, Rich interrupts us from the other side of the pod. “Everyone, I found food. At least, I think it’s food.” He holds a shiny silver package up for us to see.

  “Open it,” urges Abigail.

  Rich pulls the silver package open and takes a pale, hard chip out and sniffs it. I can’t identify what it is by sight alone.

  “It smells like an apple,” he tells us. “I’m going to try it.” He pops the chip in his mouth at the same time Abigail and I shout for him to stop.

  He chews and then swallows. “It’s okay guys, it's some kind of crispy dried apple. Try one.”

  He offers the bag to Abigail, who declines. “Rich, you’re such an idiot. You have no idea what that is. It may not even be food.”

  I’m ramping up to give him a lecture about the dangers of eating things we find on the pod, when Birch stands up and walks over to Rich. She takes the package from him and shakes some chips into her cupped hand. Rich smiles at her encouragingly. She pops them into her mouth and crunches loudly. Then she shakes another handful o
ut of the package and returns to her seat by Delphine.

  “There’s more here,” says Rich.

  I walk over to the cupboard he’s opened. There are racks holding hundreds of silver packages. There is also a tap over a small sink. I press a button next to the tap and water runs out in a thin stream. I take one package and turn it over in my hand before ripping it open. It smells like dried meat. I scrunch up my nose in distaste and put the package back in the cupboard.

  “Why do you think they left all of this here?” I ask Rich.

  “I guess they left in a hurry. Maybe they knew we would be coming after them.”

  “Mother took Ada’s pack,” I reply. “She might have warned them.”

  “Do you think she’s on her way here with the others?” he asks.

  “I have no doubt.”

  “I can’t fight her. I hope you know that.”

  “I know, brother. I can’t either.”

  “If we see her again…” his voice falters.

  “We will, of course we will,” I blurt out. “Washington and Yanx only want to stop the people from the station. I will speak to Michelle once more to make sure no one from Martha’s Vineyard is harmed. They won’t need us after this. They will let us go.”

  “How can you be so sure?” asks Abigail.

  Before I can answer her, we can hear a thundering noise outside the pod. I move quickly to the door and peer out cautiously. The rain is easing off. I can’t see anything unusual in the forest around the nearby pods, which rise like metallic fungi from the ground.

  I step outside with my pistol, which feels woefully inadequate. The rain continues to drizzle and the thundering noise is much louder out here. I can hear a continuous, unbroken cacophony of shouting voices and horses neighing, their hooves pounding the muddy ground. Abigail and Rich are behind me, their weapons also drawn. We side step around the curved edge of the pod towards the noise.

  Suddenly, the first wave of gang members comes into view.

  There are over one hundred tattooed, savage people atop horses gathering in the forest. The horses churn and stamp the wet ground, whinnying and rearing up at one another. There are Runners with the distinct swirled head tattoo, Yanx’s own branded army all bearing the bird tattoo, as well as a motley assortment of twisted freaks who have evidently pledged allegiance to Yanx in her hunt for the people from the station.