Zero Repeat Forever

by G. S. Prendergast

  So much is remembered as I roam through the dark forest. The broken parts of my brain have finally repaired themselves. But the charge of the armor is wearing out. It no longer keeps me entirely awake. Sometimes I find myself dozing on my feet, my back resting against a tree. It no longer ties my thoughts up in knots. Images wriggle out and dance behind my eyes. I remember being on the big ship with the others. I remember being smaller, and eating, and injections that made me sleep without dreams. I remember waking up so full of hate for the humans, I attacked the one who woke me and squeezed their throat until others tore me off.

  I don’t remember being punished for this.

  A human woke me—this I remember distinctly. I don’t know how that can be. A human on the big ship? Maybe I’m remembering that wrong. The captured fragments of story in my head seem so implausible. We are preparing, but for what? There is a great battle coming, but with whom? Surely not the humans. They are all gone. And anyway, even with the living ones, it would not be much of a battle.

  I’m soaked in oily fluid, but its power is waning too, along with my strength. Once, when I kneel to look at a fallen bird’s nest, I forget momentarily how to stand up. Like a baby. I think Sixth might have warned me about this, too. If I stayed in the armor for too long, if I let the power cells run out, it would start to shut down my nonessential systems first. Speaking, walking, thinking. It is getting hard to think. I know I have an organic brain too, my own brain that can think for itself, but it has been so long contained and infiltrated by the sludge that I’m not sure it works.

  For the first time, I recognize this as something stolen from me, as a terrible violation. My mind was stolen, my history. I try to claw it back but can’t tell which parts are real and which are imagined.

  Sometimes I do the signs to myself.

  I feel very, very sad.

  When I remember to do it and it feels safe, I stand in the sun, if the clouds clear. But the solar is just a backup. I should recharge properly, disconnect, and recharge. But I’m scared.

  Scared.

  I’m scared I’ll forget her. Forget my promises. I hear the transports sometimes, and hide from them as they swoop in low, careful patterns. They are searching, but what could they be searching for? I feel like I should know.

  Recharge. Eat and sleep, Sixth would say. Eat and sleep, like a human.

  Eat. Sleep.

  I make the human girl’s names with my fingers. Raven. Dandelion. Again and again until my hands ache.

  Time has passed. The moon has bloated and shrunk. The Firsts, Seconds, Thirds, and Fourths have all begun their second year.

  If that boy . . . His name is gone, something about an arrow in the shoulder . . . If he were there waiting for Dandelion, she . . .

  She . . . Dandelion . . . she has another name, doesn’t she? A speck of black in the bright sky. Something about memory.

  A transport hums above the mountains. Searching.

  Someone should warn . . . her . . . the flower . . . and the bird.

  The rain drips off my face. I turn my body away from the setting sun and meander off into the dark.

  I need to disconnect, to take off this monstrous armor for a few hours. To recharge by eating and sleeping.

  Like a human.

  RAVEN

  Spring arrives at the base like a funeral cortege. The first point of order is the digging of graves for those who did not survive the winter. Now that the ground has thawed out, our dead friends can be laid to rest more gracefully than simply being stacked in the snow outside the north exit. A man with diabetes died, as he predicted, and the kid with leukemia. There were two suicides. A heart attack. And an old woman who died in her sleep, her great-grandson asleep beside her. Someone overdosed on homemade liquor. Maybe an accident, maybe not. And people died on two ill-fated raiding missions to nearby towns.

  Those not darted by the Nahx are buried first, because their remains will decay. I volunteer to dig since I have a strong back and a cold heart. I view these deaths not with resignation, but determination. Staying here is slow suicide; eventually the food will run out, and we’ll all succumb like sharks in a too-small tank. There is only one hope now. Over the months since my return I have daily negotiated with Liam about an exodus to the coast. Now that spring is here, it becomes a real idea, not just something to argue about in dim hallways. He prefers to wait, to arm ourselves, to scheme and plot against the Nahx who are as absent now as myths. Only the gray veins in Britney’s dead face stand to remind us. Her encounter with them was the last any of us have seen of them. We may wait forever for a chance at revenge.

  I had my chance, of course, and let it go, like snowflakes on the wind. Now I don’t want to waste everything he gave to me, everything he gave up for me, only to let myself starve in a cave. I owe him that. I owe it to everyone who never lost hope in me. Tucker, my parents, Topher even. Topher who saw me carried off by a Nahx and still never gave up.

  And August. He brought me back from certain death. My life is his life.

  Liam now commands the base, since Kim died two months ago on a raid for food and medicine. Liam, whose mental state is questionable at best; many of his friends died on the same mission. Kim we bury first because, for whatever reason, the Nahx who caught her chose to break her neck over darting her. Britney’s corpse is as pretty and delicate as she was in life. We bury her beside Kim, and leave Liam there sitting in the mud, his face a mask.

  Topher pulls me behind one of the trucks and we hold each other, breathing the sweat of digging all morning, the damp, rotting smell of spring, and pine needles, the trees stirring back to life around us. We do this sometimes. Fall into each other’s arms not quite like lovers, but more than like friends. The first time was the night I arrived back at the base, when Topher ran out into the snow in bare feet and carried me back inside, where we collapsed together on the floor, sobbing. Him with relief, me with something else entirely.

  Many times since then we have fallen together this way, when we can no longer stand the ruined world around us. We close ourselves in a private circle of comfort and regret. It never lasts very long. Sometimes we kiss, but mostly not.

  “I love you, Raven,” he lies, whispering into my ear. I press my lips onto his mouth because I don’t want him to say more, like he sometimes does. Keeps saying sweet things, increasingly desperate things, waiting for something to change between us. But it doesn’t. He can’t know why. My heart is elsewhere, left out in the snow at the top of the hidden path, now thawing and melting into the soft earth with everything else. Or maybe marching on other hiding humans, trying not to remember me. Or dead. Maybe dead.

  Probably. Hopefully dead.

  I have told no one about August. Everyone in the base considers my return a miracle. The story I told was that the Nahx who Topher saw grab me collapsed from the arrow wound a few minutes later. I crawled inside a small grocery store, treated my injuries, and recuperated alone until I was strong enough to walk back to the tunnel. I found the truck. I drove until the fuel ran out. I hiked from there. It’s implausible in the extreme, but no one questions it. Topher suspects, I’m sure, but maybe he doesn’t want to know.

  Four months have passed since my miraculous return. Four months since I’ve seen August, apart from nightly in my dreams.

  “I say it, and it’s like you don’t even hear me,” Topher says. But I’ve told him I love him back, many times. It’s Topher who can’t hear how complete that is. How that is all there will ever be.

  None of this is real. His idea of loving me is no more real than a memory. I know that. I know the difference. Sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn’t.

  “Tucker is not coming back. We can belong to each other,” he says, tucking a ringlet of my hair back under my sweaty bandanna.

  Sometimes I feel I’m having these conversations with a corpse. Because all that Topher says he feels for me is imaginary. He is as dead inside as his twin is in every way. Possibly, that doesn’t matter eit
her. His body pressed against mine makes my skin tingle, my heart thump against my ribs. I need this right now. And so does he. What’s the harm? I kiss him again.

  “Why don’t you have some respect, you assholes,” Liam says, appearing around the truck. “We just buried nine people.” Topher is actually chastened. In theory he’s Liam’s second-in-command, and I’m the last person Liam wants in his inner circle, so our relationship, such as it is, is a point of contention between them.

  “You’re right, sorry,” Topher says, stepping away from me. “Raven was upset and we . . .” I don’t contradict this plausible lie. “It won’t happen again.”

  Liam raises an eyebrow a bit too salaciously for my tastes. I consider, briefly, spitting in his face but think better of it.

  “I need to see you in command, Raven,” Liam says, turning. “You have five minutes.”

  “Me too?” Topher says.

  “No. Dig another grave. There was a suicide last night.”

  I take my time climbing up to the command center, much more than five minutes, more like twenty. I like to make Liam wait. And it gives me time to reassure myself about the suicide; I saw everyone here that I care about at breakfast.

  Liam is calm when I arrive though. He invites me to sit at one of the long tables and sits across from me. We’ve sat across this table many times, me advocating bugging out and following a route Xander has mapped out that will bring us out of the occupied high ground in as little as a week, Liam dismissing my argument. He recruits from the civilians every day, so that only a few elderly or very young are left unarmed. Raiding parties bring as many weapons as food and medicines back from raids on nearby cabins and farms. The raiding parties that come back, that is. Some come back in pieces, like Britney and Kim’s party. Some don’t come back at all. I quietly hope that they turned back into the mountains and followed Xander’s map, that they are on their way to freedom. But that’s probably a forlorn dream. The Nahx could dispense with a six-person raiding party in seconds, quietly, barely blowing up dust.

  “Who was the suicide?” I ask as I sit. I’ve never made any new friends here. The ones I arrived with are down to Topher, Xander, and Emily, but whatever friendship I had with her is long gone. A coldness settled on her during my absence. There are rumors of a miscarriage, but I’ve never asked for details. In a way, I admire the ice in her. It is hard, impenetrable. Like armor.

  As for Liam, he and I discuss strategy, argue mostly, and occasionally he sits with me at meals, trying to make small talk about the old days, books I read or music that I like. It’s awkward, but I tolerate it. As much as I hate to admit it, I need Liam as an ally. But everyone else is a stranger to me.

  “Jill. That girl whose boyfriend never came back from patrol. You know her?”

  I shake my head, though her face swims in front of my eyes. We never spoke, but I recognized her pain well enough. I know what it’s like when someone you care about disappears from your life. I don’t bother asking how she did it. Some details don’t really matter.

  “It’s time to consider retreat,” I say, because I know I’m expected to. “I mean really consider it. We could reach the coast by summer. Even if there’s nothing there, that would give us time to establish some sort of settlement before winter sets in.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Liam, we have a chance. A real chance. Xander’s map is rock solid. The route is well below two thousand feet for nearly ninety percent of the way. One of the videos even suggested there might be human patrols as close as Prince George. That’s not even two hundred miles from here. Two weeks at most and we could be rescued.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Liam says, and something about his tone makes me tense in my seat, as though I might need to make a quick exit. But then I think he’s probably mad about me and Topher. Mad that we have something together. Mad that Topher hasn’t surrendered the last vestiges of his humanity the way Liam wants us all to. I don’t really have the heart for Liam’s anger today. I stand up to leave.

  Liam slams both hands down on the table before I’ve even straightened my back.

  “Sit the fuck down!”

  I sit. This is more than Liam’s ordinary bad mood. I start searching my recent behaviors, trying to find something that might earn this kind of confrontation. But Liam’s demeanor calms. He rests his hands palm down on the table for a few seconds, breathing in and out, before reaching over to a large folder at the edge of the table. Extracting a slim book, he tosses it faceup in front of me.

  It’s “The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe. And I’ve seen this particular book before. I stare at it until my vision blurs, afraid to look back into Liam’s face. Afraid to show him mine.

  “Well?” he says.

  “Well what?”

  As Liam reaches for the book, I resist the urge to snatch it away and run. To where I don’t know. Nor why. If August gave up this treasure, he’s either lost any interest or memory of me, or he’s dead. Or worse, I suppose. There is a third option. I find I can’t stand dragging it out. But before I open my mouth, Liam has opened the book. He reads my inscription.

  “ ‘   To August, Take care, from Raven.’ Simple, really. Concise. Were you in a hurry when you wrote this? I don’t know who August is, but I’m sorry to tell you he’s probably dead. We found this on a Nahx.”

  “Dead?” I manage. I’m trying to piece it together in my head from Liam’s point of view. Of course he wouldn’t assume that August was the one I gave the book to. That August is the Nahx. But now I’m not sure what he’s so angry about.

  “Your friend August led a Nahx scout here somehow. I’m sure he’s dead out in the slush now, and he goddamn deserves it too, for being so stupid.”

  Right. A human boy. Who Liam thinks is August. Somehow followed by a Nahx. Who I think actually is August.

  August. Is. Here.

  “Is he . . . ? I mean is it . . . ? Did you kill the Nahx?”

  Liam sits back, a little smile on his face. “Raven. That’s cold. You’re not worried about whoever this August is? Some hapless yokel who escorted you at least part of the way here, I imagine. Did you make it worth his while? Is that why he came after you? So he could have another serving of what Topher’s enjoying so much?”

  He wants me to go for him. I know this. Liam goads me whenever he gets the chance, because what he wants more than anything is a reason to beat the living shit out of me in a knock-down, drag-out brawl. I’d love to give him the satisfaction, but there are more important things right now.

  “Is the Nahx dead?” I ask. “I mean, if he . . . if it got away, then we definitely need to bug out. It’ll bring a legion of them. We’ll be finished.” If only Liam knew how untrue this is. If only he knew how my heart is pounding in my chest, hanging on the faint hope that August, the real August, my Nahx, is alive.

  “We didn’t kill the Nahx,” Liam says with a smug grin. “We did one better. We took it prisoner.”

  AUGUST

  I reach for my knee. But my hand is tangled in something, some chain. I try the other hand, but that is tangled too. I pull on the chain to break it. I am good at breaking things.

  There’s a swish of movement and something thunks behind me. A wall? Am I inside?

  “Stop doing that,” a voice says. “I don’t want to keep hurting you.”

  “Don’t waste arrows. If it does it again, put one in the other shoulder.”

  I don’t think it’s nighttime, but I’m having trouble seeing. And though I should be fully recharged after the days I spent in the rocks and snow, pulling hibernating creatures out of dens and swallowing them practically whole, I feel weak. And the pain is disorienting. Blinding. Maybe that’s why I can’t see.

  “Take the hood off it, for God’s sake. At least let it see.”

  A black shadow slips off my head, like a cloud in the wind. And I smell blood. My blood. Lots of it. The bright light blinds me, but as my vision clears I look down.
I’m kneeling in it. Blood. There’s an arrow in my knee, another in my shoulder, another through my wrist. Blood pools beneath me. At the sight of it the tube in my throat constricts, and I gag until it relaxes back, unwinding down into my stomach, pulsing. The fluid of my armor torrents through me. I can feel it trying to close the wounds, trying to block the pain sensors sufficiently for me to move, to escape. But in the swirling maelstrom it’s hard to think. My thoughts keep getting sucked away before I can complete them.

  I’m inside. In a . . . something. There are humans with me.

  And injured. Badly. I need to rest, away from here. Away from these humans and their arrows.

  “Is that blood, do you think?” one of the humans says. “It looks like motor oil.”

  “Why don’t we take its armor off?”

  “Tried. Can’t. I’m not sure it is armor. And it’s boiling hot.”

  The other human trains his weapon on me, an arrow poised to pierce into me. As he takes a step forward, I growl with as much force as I can manage. His quick recoil satisfies me. Weak and stupid human. He’s still scared of me when I’m chained up and half dead.

  “DON’T do that again!” the human says.

  Or what, stupid human? You’ll poke another hole in me?

  My shoulder spasms with sharp pain. I look down to see the arrowhead sticking out. Shot in the back, I think, and this reminds me of something. A name. A tap on the shoulder over a star-shaped scar. Thick sludge gurgles in my brain. My hand makes the signs for “bird” and “black.”

  Ah, death, muddy death. I’m the stupidest creature who ever lived.

  Pretty. Wind. Flower.

  Dandelion.

  I came back for her, as if she even remembers me.

  RAVEN

  Topher finds me in my quarters, curled up on the bottom bunk, fists pressed into my eyes, trying to get my breathing to be normal.