Refuge

by Robert Stanek

  “I’m talking about more than that and you know it.” He’s pointing at her, shouting. “She’s one of them. One of them, I tell you. Leave her or we’re going to die.”

  “No, Luke, no,” I say. “You don’t know Sierra like I do. She’s my sister. She would never do anything to hurt us.”

  Matthew breaks away, starts running down the stairs. Luke shakes his head and mutters something under his breath. He’s almost gentle when he puts his hands on me. The intensity and darkness haven’t fallen away, however. “We have to get out of here. We have to.”

  I see fear in his eyes. The way he talks—it’s as if he feels trapped. “This isn’t a cage, Luke. We’re going to get out of this. Don’t let them take away what makes us who we are.”

  Behind us, Sierra is crying softly, saying over and over, “I am like Matthew. I am.”

  Luke grabs her by the throat, lifts her off the ground. “You’re going to die now.”

  “Luke, please, no,” I shout, trying frantically to break his grip. “You’re not yourself.”

  “I am what I’ve been made to become. This is what they’ve made me into. This—” He drops Sierra and throws his fists into the wall. “—killer is me.”

  I put my arms around him, press myself into him so he knows he’s not alone. “Sierra’s one of us, kill her and you’ll have to kill me too.”

  Luke spits out his words. He’s so angry. “She’s one of them. Give her the chance and she’ll turn on us.”

  I hear a blaster pistol charge up. At first, I think it’s Luke or Matthew returning with a weapon, but it’s Sierra readying the pistol I gave her. “Don’t,” I say putting myself between her and him. “Don’t.”

  Sierra rubs the red handprints on her neck with her free hand. “His turn,” she says. The intensity of her focus makes me believe she intends to shoot him. I can’t let her do that, I can’t.

  I look from her to Luke, from Luke to her. “I don’t want to be in the middle, but you put me here. Don’t you see? They want us to turn on each other. They want us to be thoughtless, heartless, soulless. It’s why they had Matthew and his go after you instead of going after you themselves.”

  “Go ahead, shoot,” Luke shouts, goading Sierra on. I watch helplessly as Sierra squeezes the trigger. There’s nothing I can do to stop her except to put myself in the place she’s targeting.

  Chapter 3

  Node: 010

  My body slams into Luke, and then the wall as I jump into the shot. I go down with a groan and lie there moaning. Everything hurts.

  Sierra screams like she herself has been shot, dropping pistol as she gets down beside me. “Cedes, no, no,” she says, “I didn’t mean… Not you... Never you.”

  Luke, on the opposite side, sits, his hand clasping mine. “Cedes, I’m not myself,” he says. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  “Get out of here,” I say. “Go after Matthew.” A yelp escapes my lips as I try to sit up. “Your pack.”

  “Cedes, I—” Luke starts to say.

  His streamlined, black backpack is a match to mine. “That,” I say, grabbing a roll of black gauze. I lean forward and turn so my right shoulder is exposed. “Unzip me.”

  Luke complies. I pull down on the fabric and slip my shoulder out of the jumper. Sierra gasps at the sight of blood and the wound. I grab her arm before she pulls away from me.

  “You didn’t do this. I did this,” I say.

  Sierra’s eyes speak volumes. She’s scared, shaking. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to.”

  “This wasn’t you,” I say more firmly. “This is from before. I opened the wound just now. You didn’t hit me. You missed. You missed.”

  I tear off a section of gauze for Luke. Luke applies it. I can’t see it bind to my flesh, but I feel it. I slip my shoulder back into the jumper. Luke zips and helps me up. Before Luke or Sierra can step back or start again, I wrap my arms around them both.

  “We only have each other. We can’t let them come between us,” I say. “It’s us against them, not us against each other.”

  “I know, I know,” Sierra says. She’s still shaking. Her face pressed against me is wet with tears.

  Luke doesn’t say anything. His eyes are fixed on Sierra, on the angry red marks on her neck.

  “Don’t,” I say, touching a hand to his cheek. “What’s done is done. We can’t change it, can’t go back. We’ve all done things we never thought we were capable of.”

  Luke reaches out to Sierra. She backs away. “Fair enough,” he says. “You didn’t deserve… I’m sorry. I can’t control…”

  The pinch of Sierra’s eyes tells me she feels everything Luke’s feeling. “They’ve made us into something we’re not,” she says, her voice cracking, “We’ve all killed, all of us, and we have to carry that with us forever. I feel so…”

  Luke’s not one to come to tears easily, but I see why he turns away, even if he acts like it is to retrieve his gear.

  “Go after Matthew,” I say to Luke. “Don’t let him escape. We need him.” He hesitates, then rushes away. To Sierra, I say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think, didn’t know any of this would happen when I left.”

  A sob racks her body again, and I wrap my arms tightly around her. I feel her try to hold in her tears, but her weeping gives way to fits that know no limits. It’s ugly, her mouth is open, her face is contorted, and deep guttural rasps as pain and grief-stricken as Matthew’s earlier come from her throat. I know if this continues she will break apart, and I don’t know if that would better or if there’s anything I can do to stop her from shattering before my eyes.

  I don’t know why I rock her gently, but that’s what I do. As I move back and forth and try to comfort her, I realize I don’t know the person I’m holding. I mean, it’s Sierra, but not the Sierra I left behind. So much has happened to her, to me, and neither of us is the person we were before.

  I don’t say anything for a long time, until she quiets.

  “We’re going to be okay, you know,” I say. “You and me, I mean. Like sisters, like before. It’s going to take time, but we will be.”

  She doesn’t reply. I stand and offer her my hand. Then I grab my rifle and head down the stairs, Sierra at my side.

  When One steps toward me seemingly out of nowhere, I know I’ve entered the place between places—the place of thoughts. Nanospace.

  “No, no,” I say, my voice breaking. “Not now, why now?”

  “That, you already know the answer to,” One says, speaking with Relic’s voice. “I would not be here if you did not activate me. You must stay connected to Luke. Don’t let him slip away. You won’t be able to control—he won’t be able to control—what happens if you don’t.”

  Both hands gripped tightly in fists, I say, “Send me back. Luke and Sierra need me.”

  “We need you,” One says. “We need you to live. Give us control, so we can identify a new threat we perceive.”

  As I step toward her, her translucence dissipates. “Control of what?” I say.

  “Control of you,” she says. “You’re in danger. There’s more happening than you understand, so much more than the ceaseless war between the Cogents and the Ardents.”

  I exhale, letting go of the breath I’ve been holding. “Tell me. Why do I feel like I lose parts of myself every time I see you?”

  One doesn’t like that I’m walking toward her. For every step I take, she takes one step back. “I’ve explained this. You know. The answer is deep within you.”

  Too much has happened, too much. For a moment, all I can think is, No it’s not, it’s really not. But something about this thought seems false. “Tell me again,” I shout, “I want to hear you say it.”

  “I was implanted to counter the Cogent implant in Luke. You don’t remember our conversations because I must erase our interactions from your memory. You remember only what you must.”

  I’m close enough to see the quicksilver behind One’s irises. “How? Why? What do you want from m
e?”

  “Your short-term memory is what’s open to the collective. We can’t risk any hint of us leaking through. We do these things to protect you. We know, sense, and see things you cannot.”

  I shake my head. I don’t want to hear this. How is anything that’s happened helping me? Why should I listen to anything she has to say?

  “Trust when I say you are in danger. Luke may not be wrong about Sierra, but I must see for myself to know for certain. If she’s connected to a collective, I must disconnect her or none of you are safe.”

  I snicker. “I want you out, gone. I never want to see you again. Do you understand me?”

  One looks confused. “It’s you who brings us together. You. I answer your call. I’m here only to help guide you as I’ve tried to explain before. You think it’s only the Cogents and the Ardents, but it isn’t. It’s so much more. The others. The Nascents. The Docents. The Erodents. The Regents.”

  “And the Lucents. Don’t forget the Lucents,” I say, grabbing her wrists. Her skin is cold, thin. “Get. Out. Of. My. Head.”

  One looks at me as if she can’t believe what I’ve just done or said. “Stop,” she says, her voice full of urgency. “Don’t do this. If you deactivate me, I won’t be able to come back. I won’t be able to help or protect you.”

  Deactivating her isn’t something I even knew I could do. “Go, get out! Leave me alone!” I shout, squeezing her hand as hard as I can.

  “Listen. Whatever is here in the city is the key to everything. We believe it is the Origin cell. It’s the only thing that explains the furor. If so, we can’t let it fall to any collective. We must find it first. If you force us, we will take control. Don’t make us.”

  “We?” I spit back, finally letting go. “You mean the Lucents.”

  “I mean the few among many. I mean us, us who are you.” With a turn of her hand, One fills the void with light. “You are Lucent and you’re not listening. No one can have Origin. Not us, not them. We gave you what you required to build, but that was before we knew.”

  Suddenly, I see Linc, Austin, Dakota, Celeste, and the others. They’re not here with us, just fleeting images in my mind. “My brothers, sisters and I are going to run. We’re going to run so far and so fast no machine will ever find us,” I say.

  One frowns. I don’t know if it’s an attempt to seem human or simply a nonverbal response to what I’ve said. She’s quiet for a moment, then she says, “Don’t you understand? There’s nowhere to run to. Your forgotten island is surrounded by wastelands and would have been resourced long ago if it wasn’t in a disputed zone.”

  “Hardly forgotten,” I say.

  “The factory ships follow the receding oceans,” she says. “If there wasn’t a base ship nearby handling their output, there’d never have been a presence here. No trucks or other mechanicals, nothing. It was the perfect place for a beginning. It still can be.”

  I shake my head a few times. I don’t have to listen to this anymore. I don’t. “You’re wrong about us, wrong about Sierra, wrong about everything.”

  The past was. The present is. I am nothing. I am a grain of sand cast to the heavens by the wind.

  Chapter 4

  Node: 010

  I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. The faded numbers on the wall say 1 and 5. I know that can’t be right because we’ve only started down, but the next landing is painted with the numbers 1 and 4. Suddenly, I’m terrified something has happened to Luke or Sierra. I don’t know why, I just am.

  I see Sierra, descending beside me. Glancing over my shoulder, I look for Luke, but Luke isn’t to be found. “Luke,” I say, “where’s Luke?”

  Sierra bunches her brows. “Luke went ahead when we stopped to rest on 27.”

  That’s not right, that can’t be right. “Sierra,” I say, turning around in front of her and stopping, “did Luke catch Matthew?”

  Sierra glares at me. “You know he didn’t.”

  Panting, I try to get my breathing under control. My legs ache, my back aches. Sweat runs into my eyes. “What happened? How is that possible?”

  “I’m not like I was before,” she says in a low voice. “I know you see this. So why do you keep treating me like I am?”

  I take Sierra’s hands in mine. There’s so much I want to say, so much I want to tell her. “I’m the one who needs help understanding. Something happened to me, to Luke. I wish I could explain everything, but there’s no time. Believe me when I say I will tell you. For now, I need you to tell me everything that’s happened since we started down. Tell it to me as if I wasn’t there.”

  “But…” Sierra stops, arches an eyebrow like she’s wondering if I’ve lost my mind. “Are you really okay? You said you hit your head when you fell.”

  “When I fell?”

  “When you tripped,” Sierra says. “It’s why we stopped.”

  “Of course it is,” I say with a smile to ease her concern.

  “Quickly,” Luke says from behind me. “We need to get down to one and scope the street.”

  With that, I turn and start down. Soon I am beside Luke, rushing down the stairs, and Sierra’s words are echoing in my mind: You said you hit your head. What happened to make me forget that?

  Luke’s concern shows in the pinch of his eyebrows.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” I say, “but I—”

  He shakes his head subtly, and glances back. “You had a pretty good fall. Let’s focus on what’s ahead.”

  I run my hand over the back of my neck.

  “I don’t like the look of the street. No sign of Matthew, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t out there somewhere waiting for us. It’s raining, solid sheets, should help give us cover.”

  I don’t reply, not long afterward I’m staring out into those sheets of rain. Sierra stands behind me, her chin on my shoulder. It’s not something she’s done before, but somehow it feels so familiar. “You ready for this?” I say.

  “I wish I knew—”

  “Rest up, not long mind you. It’s going to be a swift pace out there,” Luke cuts in, his eyes turning to us and away from the gloom outside. “How far to the others?”

  “South from here,” Sierra says.

  “Into the trees?”

  Sierra nods. Then she steps to the door, her eyes searching the shadows beyond. All I can think is that it sure doesn’t look like morning out there, even though I know should be. The sound of the heavy rain lulls me. I rest my head against the wall.

  Luke’s hands slip around me and squeeze. “Cedes, you okay?”

  I lean back into him and turn my head, my lips hovering next to his ear. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”

  His eyes dart to the door where Sierra is gathering rain with her cupped hands. She’s far enough away that I don’t think she can hear our whispers. Still, his voice is very quiet when he speaks. “The slip-glow in your eyes tells me, you know. I knew it wasn’t you.”

  “Wasn’t me?” He’s not making any sense—or is he. “What happened, tell me?”

  I feel Luke’s breath on my neck. “I slip too, but never anything like this—at least I don’t think so. You’re not connected to the collective, so how is it even possible?”

  “We don’t know that,” I say. “We don’t know anything really, only what we think we know. You and I are connected, perhaps others can connect to or through us as well.”

  “After your fall, she tried to get me to scout ahead to make sure it was safe. I pretended to but crept back quietly and watched. Do you know Sierra has a governor?”

  I shake my head. I don’t want to think about it.

  “Well, she does,” he says, almost not able to get the words out. “She, I mean, you, did something to it.”

  I turn to face him, putting my hands on his shoulders as I press my lower body into his. “How did Matthew get away?”

  “That, I don’t know. He shouldn’t have. I went down right after. I kept thinking I’d catch him at the next landing or the ne
xt, but he just wasn’t there.”

  I search Luke’s face for what he isn’t telling me. His expression says he’s hiding something, but I can’t discern what. I pull away and join Sierra by the door. We reach out and gather rain our cupped hands as our eyes probe the gloom.

  The water is cool, refreshing, and tickles my throat as it goes down. I didn’t realize how parched I was.

  When I let the rain water cleanse me, I see it. Wind in the trees. Sunshine through an open window. Sand cast at the heavens. I know I am nothing. Nothing in this moment—nothing in any moment.

  Chapter 5

  Node: 010

  Luke is the first to dart out, his rifle ready in his hands. He’s only in the open until he crosses to the adjacent building and tucks himself into the shadows at its base. Sierra and I rush out at his signal. I carry my blaster rifle, in a ready position. Sierra, a pistol.

  Sierra turns in beside Luke, her back to the wall. I slide in next to her, studying the street. The road to the south is overgrown in places and disappears as it turns west.

  “Not the road,” Sierra says, pointing. “The game trails, we’ll follow them to the water.”

  “Lead the way,” Luke says.

  Sierra is about to step away from the wall when Luke’s arm flashes out and stops her. I don’t see what he sees until a moment later. Something coming from the east, running on metal legs but with a human torso.

  I’ve never seen anything like it or anything on two legs run so fast. Its curved metal feet are as long as my forearm.

  “We call them blades,” Sierra says to my unspoken question. She doesn’t have to tell me why. I know why—it’s the feet. “Shouldn’t be here. Never seen one this far north before. Never seen any machine in this part of the city until today.”

  A chill runs up my spine. “It’s like they took the best parts of us and made…”

  “A machine,” Luke finishes for me. “What does it do? Will there be others on patrol with it?”