Now I’m in trouble. Only the higher ranks, the First through Sixths, receive revised directives this far from a hub. When I hesitate to answer, the Third shoves me against the metal wall of the cargo bay, rattling my armor.
Rank! he signs violently, his fingers slicing inches from my face.
I press into the wall. Eighth, I sign. Eighth.
Offside? he signs, holding his left hand out at shoulder height. I close my eyes behind my visor.
Dead.
I feel him kick me hard in the shin, but by the time I open my eyes he’s in the cockpit, signing to the First. She turns back to me for an instant, the briefness of her glance expressing as much disdain as any signs or words or facial expression could. I’m irrelevant, and a burden, farther down in the ranks from them than I was from Sixth, even pretending to be a Sixth myself. And worst of all, I let my Offside die somehow. They would be justified in pushing me out the hatch. Even I couldn’t survive a fall that far. We’re not supposed to kill each other, but I know it happens. Sixth threatened it enough times.
I busy myself by reloading my rifle from the ammunition stock. Only a few darts are missing anyway. Out of habit I check the six backup darts concealed in my armor, but of course they’re all still there.
The transport banks suddenly and begins to shake. First and Third reach up and grab handholds in the cockpit. I have nothing specific to grab here in the hold, so I wedge myself in between the ammo stockpile and the curved metal wall. Out of sight of the others I press my left hand onto the top of a weapons locker, curling my fingers around it, imagining . . .
I have to stop thinking of her.
A word pops into my head. It’s familiar and unfamiliar. “Friend.” It squeezed under the door somehow, with all the rest of the emotional stuff that is not supposed to bother me. We don’t have friends; we don’t have feelings, apart from anger and efficiency. I think of the way the human girl defended her friend. Humans are like this, bound not by rules and order but something else, something chaotic and unpredictable. It’s familiar to me, too, and not, like so many things. But I’m defective. I tried to make Sixth my friend and she ridiculed me for it, laughed at me for being so pathetic.
Once when we were disconnected, I pointed out that laughter wasn’t permitted either, even if it was mean spirited. She hit me in the face so hard my jaw ached for days.
I suck down the shame of this, swallow it into the thick slime below, hoping that it will turn into the strength of hate toward the vermin on this world. But the person I hate right now is myself. I wish the First and Third would push me out the hatch. We’re quite high up. I could pretend I’m flying on the way down.
I sometimes dream I can fly.
RAVEN
The next day breaks brightly, but unexpectedly cold. The temperature drops further as we ascend to the resort on the mountain, and then, as though to mock us, just after midday, it clouds over and begins to snow. We hunch and shiver, tramping upward. The first thing we see is the trailer park outside the more affluent village. Rows of shabby trailers perch on terraces in the steep hillside. They seem pretty quiet, deserted.
“This doesn’t look good,” Xander says.
Instinctively, we all draw our weapons. All I have left are knives, which seem pathetically small against Topher’s crossbow and the rifles, but speed is what matters with the Nahx. So the videos tell us anyway.
Sawyer takes charge. “Pair up and search. Take note of any food or weapons. We’ll come back after we scope the village. Emily and I will stand watch.”
Felix and I pair up. Topher and Lochie form another team, while Xander pairs with Mandy.
We work our way down to the end of one of the rows of trailers. Felix holds his rifle loosely at his side. My knives are holstered again, but I’m unnaturally aware of where they are. We check behind every trailer and in between every car. There are no signs of recent habitation. Everything is quiet, neat almost, like it was left tidy for visitors or something. There is a noise behind us. Felix spins, rifle raised, dropping to one knee before I even manage to get my knife pointing in the right direction. But it’s only blobs of snow falling from a trailer roof. The day is warming up and snow is melting in the sun.
Finally, we reach the end of the row.
“We’ll start with this one and work our way backward,” Felix says. He tries the door of the last trailer. With a low click, it opens.
Inside looks as though someone might have been living here yesterday. Dishes litter the table, a magazine lies open on a bench. Behind a narrow open door near the small kitchen I can see a toilet.
The trailer appears to have two rooms. While Felix opens cupboards, finding a few cans and some dried food that look promising, I check out the door to the back room. It’s closed but not locked. Perversely, I feel like knocking. But instead I turn the handle and it clicks open.
A man and a woman lie dead in the wide bed. Each of them has a black dart embedded in their forehead. Steel-colored veins spread out from the hole, covering their faces with the weblike lines. The man’s dead fingers are still curled around a baseball bat.
I feel sick to my stomach. Felix comes up behind me.
“Oh,” he says.
“They killed them in their sleep.” I’m struck by how discreet that seems—I mean, for a species that blows up cities.
“Yes.” Felix bends to look closely at the woman’s gray face. “Recently? They haven’t decayed.”
“I don’t know. That’s weird, isn’t it?” I swallow something sour in the back of my mouth. In the corner of the small room is a cradle. A tiny cradle. In it is a tiny desiccated baby. Definitely not recent. The baby’s mouth is open, fixed in a permanent scream. I pull back the pink blanket and see that the diaper is soiled, the excrement as dried out as the rest of the body.
“These newer trailers are well sealed,” Felix says. “And hotter than hell with the sun shining on them.” He’s calm, as though we’re not talking about a baby being baked.
“There’s no dart,” I say. I take my gloves off and gently move the corpse, but find no sign of any wound or injury.
Felix pulls the blanket over the tiny mummified face. “The Nahx killed her parents in their sleep and left the baby to starve, I guess.”
Somehow it is this injustice, this small act of disdain that finally steels me, welding me to Topher’s mission. I close my eyes, a silly girl with a broken heart, and open them as a soldier who will never surrender. I know what kind of hope remains when the likelihood of getting out of this alive is gone. I hope I can take down a hundred Nahx with me, a thousand.
“Did you find much food?” I ask, turning from the dead. I feel as though I might never eat again.
“A bit,” Felix says. “Next trailer?” His calmness disturbs me, but I remind myself he served in the military. He’s seen all kinds of death before. Maybe a baked baby is nothing new to him.
Felix steps down from the trailer before me, collecting the pack he left by the door. He turns to look at me where I stand in the top of the doorway when I hear a loud whine and then a thunk. Felix’s eyes bug out and he staggers forward. His rifle clunks to the ground and tumbles down the stairs and outside the trailer.
“Sawyer!” he manages to yell before falling, splayed on the floor of the trailer at my feet. There’s a dart in the back of his head. He twitches painfully as I fall to my knees, pull the dart out, and throw it away. I try to turn him over, but he’s wedged in the doorway, and it’s too narrow for me to move him. Finally, I lie on the floor so I can see into his face. It is already filling with the dart toxin, the veins turning black, his eyes filling with dark blood.
“Hide,” he chokes out, clutching at my arm. “Hide . . .” Then oily blood bubbles from his mouth, his eyes fix on me, and he stops breathing. The light leaves his eyes as I watch him die.
Outside the trailer, I hear shouting and gunfire. I edge back inside, past the kitchen. My choice is the bedroom with the corpses or the tiny toilet. I can�
��t think. I hear Topher call Sawyer’s name. And gunfire. And someone screaming “No! NO!” I climb into the toilet closet and pull the door closed after me. It’s then I realize I’ve pissed myself.
Run. Run. Run, I think. I’m trapped, but the others can run. Above the toilet is a tiny window. In the sky outside I can see a hovering transport. Somehow this one is more menacing than the ones we faced yesterday. It looks like an awful organic machine. The sound of the engine is terrifying. Not loud so much as deep and throbbing. My teeth chatter uncontrollably. And I taste bile in the back of my throat again. The yelling outside stops for a moment. Are they all dead? Is Topher dead? I think of Felix outside on the floor and the tiny baby in the crib. They blur together. My hate is all that keeps me from fainting of fear.
Then I hear a voice. It’s Sawyer.
“RETREAT! Back down the hill!” he shouts. I don’t hear anyone looking for me. Someone says, “Help me carry him!” in a desperate voice, and I think they must mean Felix, but I don’t hear any movement in the trailer. Someone else got hit. A him.
Not Topher. Please, not Topher. I pull my other knife from its holster and try to focus on remaining silent while my thoughts scream at me. Not Topher. Not Topher. He’s all I have left of Tucker.
Seconds go past, minutes. Silence.
Have they left me? I look up through the small window and can still see the transport in the sky. It moves and dips out of sight. I hear its engines rumble low and the sound of metallic footsteps. Then it roars away.
I hold my breath, straining to hear anything. There are footsteps outside the trailer. No voices, just footsteps, heavy-sounding and a whining noise, then another thunk, very close by. The trailer vibrates a bit.
Have they shot Felix’s body? That means they’ve spotted him in the trailer doorway. This trailer. The one I’m in. I don’t dare open the bathroom door when I feel the trailer rock as someone comes up the stairs. I know it can’t be one of us. They’ve left me. They’ve left me here to die with a dart in my forehead. I prepare myself. There is no way I am going to die sitting on the toilet. I clench one knife in each fist and coil up, ready to attack whatever comes through the door.
I feel the trailer rock.
Oh please, oh please. I’m not sure if I want them to leave or to open the door so at least I have a chance to kill one before I die myself. The weakness under their chin, I think, tightening my grip on the knives. A minute goes past, then another. I’m still trembling when I feel the trailer rock once more and hear heavy footfalls. I haven’t locked the bathroom door! I look up at the latch hanging uselessly. I could reach up and attach it, but I would have to put down a knife. And move. And maybe breathe. I don’t dare. My last hope now is that the Nahx won’t open it.
A second later that hope fades, as I watch the door handle turn. I think of my parents, and Tucker, and Topher as I transfer that last dreg of hope to him. I hope he survives this, because I know I won’t.
The door opens. A Nahx stands there with a dart gun pointed right at me.
I leap at it, both knives aiming for the throat. The armor blurs as in one movement it drops the gun and grabs both my wrists, one in each hand, stopping my knives an inch from its neck. I try not to scream as it squeezes my wrists and lifts me up. An instant before I’m sure my bones will be crushed like dainty porcelain teacups, I let go of the knives and they clatter to the floor.
I hang for a moment, suspended by my wrists. I try kicking out, landing several good shots on its torso and at least one that would leave a human man writhing on the floor. It barely flinches. I bend my elbows and pull myself up until I’m level with its black glass eyes.
This is the closest I’m ever likely to get to a Nahx. The armor is a thick dull gray that seems to absorb the light around it. It is segmented, like a beetle or a spider, and has valves and wires and reinforced panels all over it. The plates over its face seem to move slightly, revealing sharp-looking spines in thin strips. Some kind of extra defense? Or is this anger, fear? Can it feel fear, as I do? I wonder if they are just machines or if there is something inside there. There’s a faint pulsating buzzing noise coming from the armor and a peculiar smell, almost like coal or burnt wood.
This Nahx is very tall, probably nearly two feet taller than me, and broad shouldered. It stands with knees slightly bent and feet apart. I hang there, biceps burning with the effort of holding myself up. Finally, with cramping muscles, I drop down. It doesn’t let go of my wrists, and pain shoots through them as I realize they are burning. Its hands are burning me.
Growling with fury, I swing my knees up and wrap one leg around the dart rifle, which hangs from a strap at its side. When I almost pull it away, it lets go of one wrist, yanking the gun away from my legs, but the effort makes it lose its grip on my other wrist, and I crash to the floor, my head hitting the toilet behind me. I roll forward and gather my knives where they dropped. I crash and slash into its armored legs, setting it off balance and staggering back into the kitchen. Dishes clatter to the ground. When I manage to get onto my knees, it has the rifle trained on me again. I have one knife raised above my head and one pointed forward. I haven’t got a chance. The best I can hope for is that I slice it before it kills me. I open my mouth to hurl more obscenities, but something else comes out.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say through chattering teeth. “You don’t have to kill me. We don’t have to be enemies.” The words are pointless. I’m sure it doesn’t understand. Maybe the tone of my voice will do something, make it feel something for me. Isn’t that what you are supposed to do with attackers or if you get abducted? That’s what they taught us in self-defense. “I’m no threat to you. Walk away. Just walk away.”
The Nahx reacts with a barely noticeable twitch of its head. It doesn’t lower its rifle though, or move.
We remain there, poised to kill each other for what seems like an hour, until I notice the Nahx’s shoulders and chest rising and falling in time with the pulsating buzz from the armor. It is breathing. The second I take to register my surprise is all it needs. With blinding speed it lunges forward, gun arm knocking one knife away, hot armored fingers closing on the other. I take a breath to cry for help. The last thing I see is the butt of the rifle flying toward my head.
EIGHTH
Ah no. What have I done?
Wake up.
The girl human lies unmoving on the floor at my feet, blood blossoming from a gash in her forehead. Her cheeks are wet with tears, her mouth slightly open. That last little cry never quite escaped.
Breathe.
Her chest rises and falls once. My own breath catches somewhere near the back of my mouth.
Breathe again, please.
I press my fist into my chest. Sixth used this sign with me. It’s an imperative. You must. Right now. Obey. It feels different when I do it. More polite.
Breathe, human. Obey. Please.
Her chest rises and falls again and begins a slow rhythm.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. That was so stupid. She’s tiny compared to me, like a bird that has fallen from its nest. She couldn’t hurt me with those pathetic knives. Think. Not anger. Not fear. Think.
I hate humans.
I don’t hate humans. Not this one, anyway.
I have directives.
I know the directives. I can’t . . . I can’t do it . . . not this one. This one is so . . . brave, so wild, the way she snarled at me, like a wolf mother. She’s so part of this chaotic world. So unlike me. My head spins. I was frightened, I think, truly frightened of her. That’s ridiculous.
You don’t have to do this, she said.
Her friends are gone. They ran down the hill. Will they come back for her? Humans do that. They come back for lost ones.
I look at her crumpled on the floor, her arms splayed at awkward angles, knees falling to either side. It seems, vaguely . . . improper to look at her. I look at the door instead, tempted to walk away, as she suggested.
If she woke up now, she woul
d scream and scream. I could not make her believe I wouldn’t hurt her again. No one could blame her for putting one of those knives in my throat.
But if she doesn’t wake up . . .
She’s still breathing. Keep breathing. Obey.
Her hair is so beautiful. Like a spiderweb or a dandelion halo around her face. Why do I even think about dandelions? That seems like the kind of thing that might be a waste of my diminished brain power. Dandelions, spiderwebs, setting suns. Why do I even notice such things?
Defective.
Would it be wrong to smell her hair? She would never know.
Ah. Her hair smells like the rushing river and pine needles, as though she grew from the earth like a tree. A pang of guilt quickly turns to fear, then anger. I hate these vulgar . . .
Stepping back, my rifle aims at her almost of its own accord. It would be so easy. The rush of fluid makes me dizzy. The humming directives in my head seem to pulse. Dart the vermin. . . . Leave them . . . leave them . . .
Pine needles. Think. I need to think.
I can’t leave her here. What if her friends don’t come back? It’s getting cold. She could freeze if she doesn’t wake up. Humans can freeze. And what if my people come back? They would dart her.
She breathes. Her eyes move behind her eyelids. Her thick black eyelashes are like a caterpillar’s feet, though . . . I’m not sure that caterpillars have feet.
Slinging my rifle over my back, I slide my hands under her legs and shoulders and lift her up. She sags, limp in my arms, but I hold her tightly, like . . . like . . . something I can’t quite remember, something behind the door. She is as light as a dandelion, or a spiderweb, or a snowflake, or a wisp of cloud. I can smell the tears on her face.
There is no sadder smell in this world than human tears.
Stupid defective Eighth, what have I done?
RAVEN
I dream, so I must not be dead. I dream I float through falling snowflakes. The dream changes. A bright star presses down on my forehead. It’s so cold and white it hurts, the pain shooting down all the way to my ears, my jaw, my neck, down my spine, making me shiver.
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