Zero Repeat Forever

by G. S. Prendergast

  “No,” he says. “Topher’s putting together extra sentry teams and attack squads. Everyone was called up to the command level.”

  Dandelion takes a tentative step toward me, her hands outstretched.

  “August? Can I have the pistol?”

  My breathing makes a bubbly sound. There might be blood in my lungs. I’m trying to figure out what just happened. I think I killed two people. But they were . . .

  “August?”

  . . . hurting her.

  I flip the pistol and hold it out. She steps forward and takes it, tucking it into the back of her belt.

  “Xander is my friend, okay? Please don’t hurt him.”

  I shake my head. I pull arrows out of my wrist and knee. The blaze of pain is like lightning. Blood drips off my fingers as I drop the arrows and sign her name.

  Dandelion.

  “I don’t know what that one means, August.”

  Something about flying. Black flying night feathers feather never nevermore.

  Raven. I thought I’d see you nevermore.

  She touches my face, and I wrap my aching arms around her.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” she says, and lets me lift her up.

  RAVEN

  We stay like that, me lifted up, floating above the horror August wrought. His armor is almost too hot to touch, and yet I cling to him. Cradled in his arms, time stops for me; the world disappears and I don’t have to face what is next. It is Xander who eventually breaks the spell.

  “Rave? Liam is still breathing.”

  August moves. Lunging forward onto one knee, he somehow manages to tuck me protectively behind him while simultaneously shoving Liam’s limp form across the cell. One hand lashes out and grabs Xander’s crossbow from the floor.

  “No! August, no!”

  He stops and looks back at me, still coiled up like a snake preparing to pounce.

  “Give me the crossbow, too, please.” I make the “please” sign, pressing my fist into my breastbone. August glances in Xander’s direction. “Xander’s a friend. Right, Xander?”

  Xander shrugs, his black eyes wide with fear. But August tosses the crossbow down. I snatch it up and note the arrow loaded into the channel. Could I shoot August? I wonder as I stand and face up to our situation. Could I aim that arrow at the weak point in his neck and let fly? Hopefully, I won’t have to find out.

  “Come here, August. Xander’s going to check out . . . these two, okay? Everything is okay. Calm down.” August steps back toward me, reaching for my face. I flinch away and he lets his hand fall.

  Don’t be scared.

  “I am scared. You killed someone right in front of me!”

  Sorry sorry repeat sorry forever sorry four give. Four give . . .

  “Stop it!”

  His hands still. Then after a second or two, he drops slowly to his knees, sitting back on his heels. I wipe my eyes and watch as Xander hangs over Emily. The eye she has left is open and staring, her skin changing to the color of cooling ash.

  “She’s dead,” Xander says, unhelpfully. He takes Liam’s pulse and checks under his eyelids. “He’s still with us. Not sure if he’ll ever wake up again. I’ll go get a medic, I guess.”

  Xander stands, and as the three of us look at one another, a moment passes so full of possibility and disaster that I feel I could choke on it.

  “Xander, August and I are leaving.”

  Xander blinks. “Okay,” he says uncertainly.

  “We need you to help us get out of the base. Will you do that?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  August looks up at me, and I have the chilling realization that he would kill Xander where he stands if I wanted. That he would kill every human in the base if I asked him to. I’m still not sure what I did to have such power over him, or if that power is absolute. Maybe one day August will finally tire of me.

  “No,” I say to Xander. “You don’t have a choice. Bind Liam’s hands.”

  Xander pulls a cable tie from his pocket and fastens it tightly around Liam’s wrists. Liam moans softly, but does not quite come around.

  “Where are you going to go?” he asks as he finishes.

  “Away from here. West. Toward the coast. August, you can get me to the coast, right? To the human territory?”

  He looks up at me for a moment, then nods slowly, turning his face toward the floor. I have just asked him to deliver me out of his life again, I realize. I wonder how many times I will ask this of him. How many times he will do it. And whether we will ever truly be rid of each other. Somehow between here and the coast I’m going to have to make him understand that he doesn’t belong in my world.

  But August doesn’t belong in his own world either. He doesn’t belong anywhere.

  “You’re covered in his blood,” Xander says, frowning thoughtfully. I’ve seen this look from him before, before August captured me in Calgary. It’s a mixture of panic and practicality. As though he’s putting off a scream of terror while he figures out how to avoid what’s inciting it. “We can get out through the thermal vents, I guess. Down to the river and out via the walkways to the northwest exits. That’s my favorite sentry shift because it’s so warm.”

  “Will there be sentries there?”

  Xander bends over and closes Emily’s staring eye. “Maybe. Probably. Likely sleeping though, if they’re anything like me.” He straightens up and shakes his head. “This is fucked up.”

  Sorry. Repeat sorry.

  “What do those signs mean?” Xander asks.

  “He just apologized. He does that a lot.”

  “How very Canadian. Can you ask him not to kill the sentries at the northwest exits, if they’re awake?”

  “Ask him yourself.”

  Xander takes a tentative step toward August, who rises slowly to his feet. Next to this giant alien, Xander looks slight and small, almost childlike, though I’ve never thought of him like that before.

  “Well, August? Can you get out of here without killing anyone else?”

  August studies Xander for a moment, then nods.

  Promise.

  “He promises,” I say.

  “I see. And does he usually keep his promises?”

  If you only knew how much, I think.

  The low-ceilinged hallways outside the detention cells mean August has to stoop, which he does with one hand resting lightly on my shoulder. Xander leads us, and I make sure he knows I have the pistol in my hand. The crossbow hangs over my back.

  “Did you have a rifle, August?” I ask as Xander checks the entrance to the thermal generators. August shakes his head. “Do you need a weapon? Where’s your knife?” He shakes his head and shrugs. I suppose I could give him the crossbow if we get into a fight. I don’t know how good he would be with it. And I wonder how Liam and his team subdued him, if they took his weapons. I never had a chance to ask someone how it all went down. Maybe August can explain it to me when we get a moment.

  August’s boots clang against the metal catwalk above the humming generators, but apart from that, we walk in silence. As the minutes pass, August’s limp lessens until he walks just as easily as he ever did. Whatever he is, his resilience is extraordinary. He had three arrows in him not ten minutes ago. Now he’s walking along as though nothing happened.

  “Are you in pain?” I ask him.

  A little, he signs, holding his index finger and thumb an inch apart.

  “Will you be okay?”

  Don’t be scared, he signs, which I translate to “Don’t worry.”

  Sure. Nothing to worry about. Escaping a veritable fortress with an enemy killer. No big deal.

  As we begin the descent to the river, he starts to wheeze a bit, but repeats his Don’t worry when I turn back to scrutinize him. “If the Nahx do come, you should bring the civilians down here,” I say to Xander. “Nahx don’t like being underground, and this is getting low for them, I think. Isn’t that right, August?”

  He nods as Xander turns and walks
backward for a few steps.

  “Why do you walk like that?” Xander asks, pointing at the hand August rests on my shoulder.

  Push down. Danger, August signs, wheezing. I translate.

  “And it’s always a male and a female, right? Like you’re a bodyguard or something?”

  August nods.

  “Well, that’s very chivalrous, I guess. Kind of old-fashioned.”

  August takes his hand off my shoulder then and places it on his head, rubbing, as though he has a headache. We walk in silence for a minute, until my thoughts threaten to bubble up and leak out as hopeless tears again.

  “August, would it be okay if I told Xander some things about you? About the girl you traveled with?”

  He takes my hand, giving it a little squeeze. I take that as a yes.

  And so as we walk along the catwalk, now above the steaming river, our progress marked by the rhythmic clanging of August’s footsteps, I tell Xander the tale. What I know of it, anyway. How Tucker killed this girl that August was bound to. How August killed Tucker, then wandered lost and alone until fate put him outside that bathroom door in the trailer park. Until he let me live and lost his whole world.

  Xander sighs as he walks in front of us, and I think I see him wipe his eyes. We both know what it is to lose a whole world.

  “Does Topher know?” Xander asks. “That he’s the one who . . . ?”

  “No. And I don’t think you should tell him. It will only make it worse.”

  August’s response is a low grumble.

  We arrive at the northwest exit, which is remarkable only in its lack of pretension, a small metal door with a pitifully small lock. While Xander slips outside to locate the sentries, August taps me on the shoulder.

  You are my world, he signs. Then, because I’m sure he sees something in my eyes, I’m sorry.

  “You don’t need to apologize. I owe you my life.”

  No. Nothing give please.

  Ah, I don’t owe him anything? If only that were true. I let go of his hand and try to run my fingers through my sweaty, tangled hair. Xander returns toting an assault rifle and a pistol. He hands them calmly to August as he gives us the update.

  “The sentries are heading out to the perimeter gate to join the patrol. I told them I’d take this post.” He presses his eyes closed. “You should be able to hoof it up the mountain just west of here. It’s steep, but I’ve done it before. The path from the helipad will be crawling with patrols, and the helipad, too now, so you can’t go that way. No one will take the helicopter without Liam’s say-so, but someone will think of it. Then they’ll look for him. Then you’re fucked.” He takes a breath and sighs it out. “But failing that, you need to get to the service road south of the Yellowhead Highway and then into the rail tunnels. You still have a copy of the map?”

  I do, in my pocket. Half the people on the base do. Xander has been obsessively making copies of them and handing them out. We stare at each other.

  “What are you going to do?” I say. He pushes the door wide open and gazes up at the frost-covered mountains.

  “I could create a diversion, I guess. Or make sure I’m on whatever patrol manages to follow you. Someone will figure it out. I . . .” He looks hopeless suddenly, another expression I’ve rarely seen on Xander. He’s the eternal optimist. The one who believes all things can be overcome. “This is suicide, Rave. If Liam’s crew catch up to you, they will kill you both.”

  “They won’t catch up to us.” I turn to August, who is listening, still wheezing slightly, the rifle slung over his shoulder. “Will they?”

  Carry you.

  “Right. August can move scarily fast if he wants to. Even carrying me.”

  “You have no supplies. Barely any weapons. And the Nahx could still be out there.”

  “We’ll manage.”

  Xander shakes his head, looking forlorn again. “I never wanted to be a soldier,” he says finally, simply. This is how Xander has felt all along. As much as he enjoyed a spar in the dojo, he was never up for this war.

  “So why don’t you come with us?” I say. “To the coast?”

  August takes my hand and squeezes, a little impatiently, tugging me out the door. I take one step away from Xander, two steps, until I’m on the landing of a small set of stairs leading down to the muddy ground below.

  “I don’t think he could carry both of us,” Xander says. “You’ll send people back, right? A rescue mission? If you can?”

  “Of course!” I dive back inside and throw my arms around him, ignoring the little growl August emits. “Take care of Topher, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best.” He lets me go and leans out the door as I join August on the stairs. “Hey, August? Look after her.”

  Promise, August signs, then takes my hand again. As I take the last two steps out of the base, I’m overcome with the realization that I might be their last hope. I hope that August and I can get away without being killed. I hope that he can get me to the human cities on the coast. I hope those left at the base can somehow continue to survive, that Liam won’t regain consciousness all the more determined to lead them to a massacre in the snow. I hope they will wait to be rescued.

  So much hope hinging on me and August, disappearing in the fading afternoon light. We are the future of something unfinished and unformed, something powerful and important. I’m so scared and yet so certain that I’m doing the right thing. August squeezes my fingers and pulls me forward, away from the base, from my people, from Xander, from Topher, from Tucker’s memory, from everything I ever knew.

  He pulls me away from the human race, and I follow.

  Xander didn’t lie. The climb is steep and our progress slow. As August’s wheezing subsides, mine increases with every yard of elevation we gain. The cold isn’t helping; I’m not dressed for it, wearing my regular indoor uniform of cargo pants and a man’s hoodie over a long-sleeved T-shirt. And we have no water and no food. As far as escapes go, this one is poorly planned. Maybe because neither of us thinks we’ll actually get away. Maybe this is all some kind of last act of defiance. A final fuck-you to the species that failed to hold on to this planet.

  When we have to scale rocky outcrops, August calmly invites me to climb on his back, where I cling like a chimpanzee baby until we reach more manageable terrain. I’m not a bad climber, actually. It’s another adrenaline sport I pursued when my life lacked any real excitement. But I don’t have the right shoes or any gear. That’s only part of my excuse. Maybe I’m just tired. Or maybe I like being so close to him.

  Pausing on a plateau, I look back down at the base, now tiny and unthreatening in the distance. It doesn’t look like anything unusual is happening. We’ve been climbing, I estimate, for about two hours. If Liam has woken up, he’s not speaking. If Xander has run into Topher, he hasn’t betrayed us. Maybe they’ll let us just walk away. What would anyone gain by a pursuit? Maybe logic will prevail.

  After another hour of climbing, it begins to grow dark. For me each breath grows more and more difficult, while August seems to buzz with renewed energy. I’m beginning to see why the Nahx prefer the high ground. Although he’s always seemed strong and fast to me, up here he’s extraordinary, leaping up cliff faces with me clinging to him, or casually hoisting me over smaller obstacles with one hand. As night falls, we reach the snow line, and though the cold will be harsh, August seems to want to stop. He leads me under an overhang, which turns out to be a small cave. When August turns on his light, I see the remains of a fire.

  “Have you been here before?”

  He nods, pointing at the blackened rocks and ash and making a sign, along with the question hand.

  Want a fire?

  “Won’t it be smoky?”

  He shrugs. You cold?

  “I think I’ll be okay if we sit close.”

  He flicks his head back a few times like that’s funny. Which I guess it is. Then he puts his hand on his head and taps his helmet nervously, before sitting next to me, easing himse
lf down with a low hiss.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot that’s uncomfortable for you.” He merely shakes his head. “Do you know where we’re going?”

  Your human friends. Long walk.

  “Do you think we can make it?”

  He thinks for a moment before signing. Find clothes. Find food. Hide from my people. Yes.

  The more I speak to him, the more the nuances of his language translate easily in my head. I will make sure you are safe. I’ll get you there, back to your people. I promise.

  “I hope so.”

  He taps his head and makes a sign that looks like my name, but not quite.

  “I’m sorry I don’t . . . fly think? Fly dream? What does that mean?”

  You said it just before.

  “I . . . I hope so? Hope? That’s how you say hope? Flying dream?”

  He nods.

  “That’s a very pretty way of saying it. Hope is my middle name.”

  He tilts his head, raising a question hand.

  “I know. It’s kind of ironic. I’ve been called ‘hopeless’ enough times. A hopeless case.”

  Raven. Hope, he signs, but I see it as “Flying Black Dream.”

  I’ve never felt my name suited me less. It sounds like some kind of advanced stealth aircraft.

  “My mom thought Hope was a lucky name, I guess. She pictured a black-haired, clever, and hopeful daughter. And she got me.” I turn from him and blink away the thought of her panicked face, the thought of the silent car ride home from the police station, Mom and Jack in the front seat, me in the back, burning with shame. I’d tell August about it if I thought I could without losing my mind.

  “I really miss my parents,” I say instead. It seems like this is the first time I’ve ever admitted this, but that can’t be right. It feels good to say it anyway; the words keep me connected to them. And I’m starting to think Mom was right all along. It’s all inside me. The hope has kept me sane all this time. The raven has kept me alive. If only I had something that would let me keep . . . August.