The transports are gone.
I stand and move into the front of the store, walking in turning circles, two guns cocked and drawn in front of me. Behind a bench near the window we came through, I find Mandy. She has a dart protruding from one eye. Her face is a maze of dark lines. Oily silver blood drips from her nose. Her helmet camera is smashed on the floor.
Topher, I think. Please don’t be dead. I’m not ready. I’m not ready to lose him, too.
I move along to the other side of the store, where Topher and Xander started their search. There are large open bins full of rotting and dried-out fruits and vegetables. Stacks of boxes and piles of empty buckets provide some cover. I edge behind a stack of croutons.
Silence. Looking around I take note of the details of this side of the store. The windows are out of sight. The swing doors to the back are at the other end. If Topher and Xander were here when the Nahx arrived, they might not have been seen. I slide along the floor, low and stooped, checking behind each bin and stack of boxes. I don’t dare call out. There might still be Nahx somewhere. I reach the back of the section, where large high refrigerators line the walls. They are full of milk cartons. One section of the cupboard is empty. I glance at it and move on, but something stops me. I take another look. There is a clear but grimy plastic curtain at the back of the fridge. A hidey-hole.
I carefully open the fridge. When I’ve gotten it open, I crouch down and strain to see through the plastic curtain. Behind it seems to be a small room, stacked high with boxes and boxes of milk. Or what used to be milk, I think. Probably yogurt by now.
I take one last look behind me, checking for Nahx. The last thing I want to do is lead them into Topher and Xander’s hiding place, if they’re in here. When I’m satisfied that no one is watching, I tuck away my guns and crawl into the cupboard and through the plastic curtain, easing the door closed behind me.
The room is very dark. I take a moment for my eyes to adjust. I can’t see any movement, but there are half a dozen places to hide. Would a Nahx hide in here? I wonder. I doubt it.
“Topher?” I finally whisper.
“Raven?” It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.
I find them behind a stack of whipping cream.
Xander is curled up in a corner, a pistol propped on each knee. Topher is wedged in beside him, with his crossbow loaded.
“Hide or run, huh?” he says.
I’ve never wanted to hug two boys more. Impulsively, I grab Topher and kiss him on the top of the head. Xander leans his head over obligingly, and I plant one on him, too.
“Did you have a gun?” I say, eyeing Topher’s crossbow. He shakes his head. I dig Sawyer’s pistol out and hand it to him.
“Mandy and Sawyer?” Topher says, tucking the pistol into his waistband.
“Dead,” I say. Topher hangs his head between his legs and sighs heavily. Xander just looks stunned. He turns and looks at the wall.
“Are the transports gone?” Topher says, looking up.
“The ones out the front are, but there was one in the back, too, and a bunch of Nahx guarding the back door.”
I look at the two boys, taking in the terror and hopelessness in their faces. What are we doing here? This scouting foray was all Liam’s idea. By rights he should be dead under a counter with a dart in his eye. He should be lying in a pile of broken pickle jars.
“I’m going to murder Liam when we get back,” Xander says.
“Yes, me too.” I say, and don’t bother reminding him Topher and I were the ones who cooked up the suicidal plan to come back to Calgary. “Where’s the other door to this room?”
Topher points over to a wall, where in the dark I can just make out the outline of a door. It has a small window, too.
“Have you checked?”
“Not recently,” Topher says. “Last time there were still four Nahx wandering around in there.”
As quietly as I can, I get up and move to the door. The round window is so high that I have to overturn a plastic crate and stand on top to see out. I poke my eyes above for a microsecond, but don’t see any movement in the storeroom on the other side.
“It’s clear,” I say.
“Are you sure?” Topher says.
I’m not sure. And I indicate this with a casual shrug that seems out of keeping with the deadly game we’re playing.
“How long can we stay in here, do you think?” Xander asks.
“Until they find the door,” Topher says.
I step down from the crate and rejoin the boys on the floor behind the whipping cream.
“You can get out the front,” I say.
“What if they hear or see? They’re only about a hundred feet away.”
“They’re going to be distracted.”
Topher grabs my wrist. “No! No way! We can wait them out.”
“I don’t think so.” I pull my wrist away. “They are searching the area. They are settling in. I’m sure they know very well that we are a recon group. They’re waiting for the rest to arrive.” Topher starts to protest, but I stop him. “Which they will,” I continue, “if we don’t get back with word. That was the arrangement, remember? The others come through after an hour. We’ve been here for forty minutes already. You have to get back to the tunnel before more people walk into a trap.”
Topher’s face hardens. “Raven, no. You can get back to the tunnel. Get past them somehow.”
He’s grasping for some more acceptable outcome than the one Sawyer gave to me. An extra twenty minutes of my life seems like a lot to die for. But I guess if that left me to help Xander and Topher get away, it was worth it.
“I’m not letting you go,” Topher says.
“I’ll go,” Xander says.
“No!” Topher and I say in unison.
“No, it’s okay,” Xander says. “I don’t have to go back out through the storeroom. If I go back out into the store through the milk and get to the front exit, I can make enough racket to draw them forward from the back room. I can outrun them if I get out into the parking lot and stay low. They won’t get me. You can get out the back. Meet up at the tunnel. Then we all bug out of here.”
Topher and I are silent for a moment.
“That’s a terrible plan,” Topher says.
“It’s better than her plan.”
“We haven’t checked the door,” I point out. “Maybe this door doesn’t open from the inside.”
Topher looks daggers. He gets up and steps over to the door, trying the handle. It turns and clicks, surprisingly loud. We all cringe at the noise. Topher looks through the round window and sighs.
“Nothing,” he says. “They might not even still be at the back. How do we know the last transport hasn’t taken off?”
“We don’t,” I say. “Listen, out this door and down the other end of the storeroom is a door to the main store. We can slip out of here without being heard. There’s a chance we can all make it to that door, out into the store, and through the front window without them knowing about it. We just need to be quiet. They probably don’t even know we’re here. We can all leave together.”
“I prefer that, I have to admit,” Xander says.
Topher thinks for a moment. “Okay, better plan. We stick together. Everyone ready?”
“No,” Xander and I say in unison. But we stand up anyway, drawing our weapons, and Topher slowly, silently, opens the door.
We emerge into the storeroom. Topher eases the door closed behind us and leads us down one wall, behind a shelf piled with brightly colored boxes of cookies. Xander grabs one and shoves it under his jacket.
We slowly make our way along the wall. I can still hear the buzzing of the transport outside the loading bay, but so far we have seen no sign of Nahx. They might have already boarded, ready to leave. Or, they might be waiting for us outside the swinging doors.
We turn, and Topher holds his hand up to stop us. He pokes his head past the shelf and ducks back, making a face. He holds up three fingers.
Three Nahx, I think. Three dart guns. If we run, we’re moving targets, and much harder to hit. Maybe one of us will get back to the others to warn them. Then again, maybe the Nahx have already found them in the tunnel and inserted a dart neatly into each and every forehead.
Topher edges forward again. The swinging door is a few feet away, but to reach it we have to move from behind one shelf to another, then cross to the door, risking being seen. In fact, it’s not a risk. It’s almost certain; we will be seen.
Topher turns to us. One look at his face and I know what he’s thinking. I’ve seen that look before, on Sawyer’s face.
No, I mouth. No, no, no, I think. There has to be some other way out of this. All three of us need to have some chance at getting out of here. I’ve already forgotten what Xander’s plan was and what my plan was. All I want to do is grab Topher and Xander by the wrist and drag them to safety. These are the people I have left in my life. Left in the world, maybe. This is it.
I have a feeling like I’m going to start laughing, and pinch my lips together to suppress it. Topher peeks out from behind the shelf again, and before I can stop him, he dives across the opening and behind the other shelf. He holds there for a good minute, but nothing happens. It starts to become real to me that the Nahx by the loading dock don’t know that we’re here. If they did, they’d be looking for us. We might have a chance to get out of this alive.
Topher stands behind the shelf and beckons to us both. I shove Xander forward. He pokes his head out from behind the shelf, takes a breath, and dives across to the other shelf.
Topher pulls him back, and they both cower there for a moment. There still isn’t any reaction from the Nahx in the dock. Topher beckons to me silently. I look at him. He is white-faced and wild-eyed. Behind him Xander is trembling, scared as a child in the dark. Topher beckons me again. I shake my head.
Topher gives me a look, telling me silently, with his eyes, that he knows my plan and he doesn’t approve.
Go, I mouth. His face crumples. He shakes his head. Sorry, I mouth. Then with a heave, I push my shelf over.
Boxes and cans come crashing down. I give Topher and Xander a final look that says, If you don’t run, this has all been for nothing. Xander grabs Topher’s arm and they run. I watch them smash through the swinging doors just as the Nahx appear inside the loading bay. I turn and bolt back into the refrigerator, slamming the door behind me. My hope is that the Nahx don’t know about the plastic curtain, and I can make my escape that way. It’s my only hope, slim as it is.
I push over as many stacks of whipping cream and milk as I can. Sour smells so terrible that I nearly vomit waft up, but I manage to keep myself together until I can dive back through the plastic curtain. Soon I’m wedged into the small milk cupboard once more, dripping sour-smelling goo. I reach up and try to push the glass door open. It doesn’t move. Behind me I see the large door pushing against the piles of milk and cream and the muzzle of a dart gun. I pull my pistol from my jacket, cock it, and fire directly through the glass. It shatters around me.
Ears ringing, I roll forward through the broken glass and jump to my feet among the ruined food.
Run or hide? Run or hide? I could find somewhere to hide among the fruit and vegetable displays. Maybe bury myself in rotten bananas. Or I could run for my life, back outside and through the parking lot, past the stadium and down the ramp into the tunnel. I have half a second to decide. In that second I hear the roar of the transport engines firing up to full power outside. They have stopped hiding. And so have I.
I choose run.
EIGHTH
Eventually, I think I will die. Seeing the other Eighth burn made me think it’s possible, at least. That thought is something of a comfort, because I can’t think of any other way for this to end. I could wait or try to figure out how to hasten it. Or I could go back up to the mountains, back to the pine needles where the air is thin enough for me to take my armor off. I could think more clearly then, make a decision, one way or another. In the meantime, I stand swaying on my feet a bit and reach out to rest my left hand on the wall.
I can hear transports nearby. They fly silently sometimes, but without the sound dampeners, the noise is distinctive, aggressive, like a slice through the quiet sky. They fly like that only if they’ve been seen, if they are in pursuit of humans who know they are being chased.
The transport howls overhead. I could join the chase, catch the human maybe. That’s what I have been instructed to do, right? But the silence in my head confuses me. I have no directives. I have no weapon. We store our weapons before being locked up. And I escaped. I’m free. Or defective. My brain doesn’t seem to be working very well.
I wonder if I can string five thoughts together.
One, I turn in the direction of the noise. There is a slight buzzing in my mind, like something not quite strapped down properly, or a door blowing open in the wind. It’s more like a memory of buzzing, something recorded from my missing transponder. Dart the humans, it tells me. But I don’t want to.
Two, my rank is Eighth. It’s a low rank, but I still tried to do as I was told. I creep out of the alley and onto the empty street.
Three, I should have someone with me, an Offside. She flew away. Died. Stopped. The thought of her makes my jawbone ache. I follow the sounds of the transports. They are not far away. Maybe that’s a better choice than being alone.
Four, spiderwebs and sunsets. What does that have to do with anything? I need a weapon. I need to find a weapon. A large, round building rises ahead of me. I see the transports hovering above it.
Five, my mission is . . . something about a human girl. I catch a glimpse of her.
Running.
RAVEN
I dive through the broken front window, get completely airborne, and crash down on the pavement about ten feet outside the store. I don’t slow down to look behind me. The parking lot and the cover of the cars is right across the street. My mind is working nearly as fast as my legs. The rest of the mission is in the tunnel, underground. If these Nahx are anything like I hope they are, they won’t follow us underground. If I can just make it back to the tunnel.
I hear a loud noise behind me but don’t look back. A shadow darkens the sky—a transport. It swoops over me. I dive down and roll under a car and keep rolling until I’m three cars away. The first car explodes in a cloud of flame and smoke. I lie there for a second, taking account of all my limbs and bones. Nothing appears to be broken, yet. I can still make it. The shadow of the transport skims over the pavement next to me, then moves away. I take a deep breath, roll out from under the car, and leap to my feet, running before I’m even fully standing.
A wild wind rises up, blowing snow and debris everywhere. I’m thankful for it, even though it turns my exposed skin to ice. The cloud of snow might do much to conceal me from the transports or even the Nahx on the ground. I risk a glance behind me. It doesn’t look like any of them followed me on foot. That transport was probably the one from the loading dock.
As I run, I scan the sky. The stadium looms up ahead of me. If I can reach that I’m almost safe. Staying close to the wall will protect me somewhat from the transport. Where are Topher and Xander? Did they come this way? I don’t see any sign of them. The image of Sawyer and Mandy, poisoned by darts, flares in my mind, and I can’t separate it from Topher’s and Xander’s faces, the last time I saw them, before I pushed the shelf over. It was only a few minutes ago, but it feels distant already. My mind is playing tricks with time. I feel like I’ve been running forever.
I reach the wall of the stadium and stop for a moment, my breaths coming fast, each one freezing my lungs a little more. I take in my surroundings. The parking lot is clear, apart from the smoke still rising out from the exploded car. The wind has died down a bit. I can’t see the Nahx transport.
I turn and begin to run down along the side of the stadium, keeping as close to the wall as possible. It curves around and away from the tunnel entrance slightly
, but I follow it regardless. I need to get right to where I can sprint down into the tunnel in a straight line without having to dodge parked cars. That means I need to get past the parking lot.
I jump over a dark shape by one of the doors, realizing afterward that it is a corpse in a tattered snowsuit. I move into a doorway for a second, taking another look around. Clear to the tunnel, I think, all clear. I can see the tunnel entrance beckoning me. It’s dark and deep and safe-looking. I coil up my energy to make the fastest sprint of my life. I check to the left, to the right, above me.
When I look down, there are two Nahx emerging from the tunnel entrance.
No, no, no, I think. I’m seeing things. I blink a few times. When I look again, I see it’s not Nahx after all; it’s Topher and Xander. They see me and wave. I wave them away. Then they look up. A transport looms overhead.
“Go!” I scream. Xander grabs Topher’s arm and tugs him back into the tunnel. I count on the fact that Nahx can’t hear outside their transports. I have no way of knowing if this is in fact the case—I just hope. So much hope, I don’t know where it all came from.
I edge back to where I don’t think the transport hovering above can see me and try to think. It’s not far to the entrance of the tunnel. I know I could weave back and forth, and this might prevent them from hitting me with a dart, but whatever they hit that car with was no dart; and I don’t imagine one would have to get all that close to kill me.
I pull out my pistol. Of course I know that a bullet can’t penetrate the transport, but it makes me feel better nonetheless. I take a quick glance upward and see the transport still hovering.
“Damn it.” Up until that moment I had been pretty confident I would make it back to the tunnel. Well, except for the car exploding; that was a bit of a low point. Curling back into the doorway, I try to think. As I lean back on the glass door, it moves. I turn and push it. It’s unlocked.
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