by Sean Platt
“What do you mean?”
“We have our memories back. Sadeem located and read the scroll. We know what we’re supposed to do … and this time, we’ve got our wits about us enough to do it.”
Stranger looked up at Peers. “We?”
“I’m one. So is Sadeem.”
“Maybe we should have a reunion.”
“Sadeem thinks that Trevor Dempsey’s death created you and that Cameron’s sacrifice made you real.”
“He’s so clever.”
“And now a new death has made you human.”
“I suppose Sadeem knew that, too.”
Peers nodded. “But that’s a problem. If you rush into your new emotion, you’ll get yourself killed. You can’t fight a Reptar with your fists, Stranger.”
“I can try.”
“What’s more important? Your anger, or humanity?”
“My anger.”
From the right came a chattering. From the left came another. Stranger, with his ears on the deck, could hear their claws. Their many countless claws.
Piper stumbled into their space, looking down, questions in her eyes. But she let it drop, looked back over her shoulder with her breath coming hard, and spoke in a whisper.
“Reptars. They were … They’re in the containers.”
“They were here all along,” Peers said. “Hiding in the cargo, probably since the ship was beached.”
“Why?”
“Guarding something. Protecting whatever we’re trying to find.”
“And what is that, Peers?”
Peers didn’t answer. He didn’t know, and neither would Stranger — or Kindred, or Liza, wherever they were. He only knew that the dream had told him to come. Had told them all to come. And that whatever was here, it mattered enough for the aliens to stake out, risking discovery, for as long as it took.
But he said nothing because the chattering was coming faster. Harder. Louder.
“We’re surrounded,” Piper said, cowering, looking, listening. “And there’s no way to fight.”
CHAPTER 23
Kindred blinked. Then again — this time forcibly, harder, wrinkling his eyebrows.
The Reptar had been there, plain as day.
Then it was gone.
And then it was back.
He stayed low, creeping along the giant cargo containers on the ship’s deck. Twice now he’d seen Reptars, and almost constantly since he’d felt Lila die inside his mind, he’d heard them. But he had to keep his thoughts away from that. This wasn’t the time for grief. Or anger. Another part of himself would handle those things. Right now his only job was to get them away so they could all live to fight another day.
There’d been tracks of blood, but Kindred made sure to turn the other way. He couldn’t take finding her body now, assuming the beast had left any of it behind.
But now he wondered if his eyes were playing tricks. If his mind was deceiving him. Because Piper, clearly, had thought there was something wrong with him, before the sounds and screams had sent her running. He must have sounded like he was babbling, seeing and saying things that no one else could understand. And honestly, now that the hot moment had passed into a hotter one, Kindred could neither remember what had bothered him nor care. It only mattered that he’d been suddenly sure that danger was on the cusp, and he’d been right. Judging by what he’d seen and heard since Piper had left him, there were dozens of Reptars on the ship — maybe hundreds. He still had some of that connection to the mental collective, and got the feeling that they’d been protecting something. Their group, by coming here, had unwittingly stuck its fumbling hand into a wasp’s nest. Now the wasps had been roused and would sting the intruders.
They didn’t come here to find us. The Reptars were already here, hibernating in the boxes, waiting for someone to come looking for what they have and want to keep. We disturbed them.
But it didn’t matter. They’d kill them just the same.
This new phenomenon changed everything.
Kindred could run from Reptars he could locate, and maybe lure those Reptars away from the others. But if they kept blinking in and out of existence?
He had to be imagining it.
Kindred hunkered down. He’d heard at least some of his party a few rows down not long ago and was skirting around, trying to find them. Once, he’d seen Stranger, creeping along with Peers. He wanted to shout, but if he did, they might come closer. And that couldn’t be allowed, no matter what.
Or could it?
He felt confused, battered, punched in the face. Seeing the Reptar blink away and return hurt his head. He was already convincing himself he hadn’t seen it happen, when he knew damn well that he had. Kindred couldn’t trust his senses. Tall walls built over the years of not knowing himself were disintegrating like waves eroding a natural dam. He remembered being angry, but the feeling was distant. He remembered being jealous, but that was far away as well.
Now, there was more fear. Nervous anticipation. And with it more readiness: an increased desire, should the moment present itself, to fight.
And more fog.
And more uncertainty.
A Reptar moved in front of Kindred, at the end of his current row. Its mouth opened. And then it was gone.
Kindred spun. He’d heard something behind him, but now there was nothing. Too late, distracted, he heard another purr from where he’d been looking — now coming from behind. By the time he looked, the black, panther-like beast was already lunging, claws out, raking air so close that Kindred could swear it trimmed hairs from his arm. He ducked around the corner, panting, all-too-human heart slamming into his ribs. His back struck corrugated metal, arm raking the paint-flaked edge of a lock bar near the container’s door.
Open it. Hide inside the container.
But there wasn’t time, and Kindred could hear another Reptar inside, fumbling at an interior latch.
Claws.
Heavy, diseased breath, accompanied by a rattle of bones.
(!!Crowbar!!)
His hands reached almost of their own accord, grabbing and hefting the tool leaning against the door beside him, not thinking where to aim or when to swing but impelled by some urge deep, torso pivoting, a random thought screaming through his head (It was leaning against the door, and there’s a Reptar behind the door, and that means someone was here, working, doing his job, with that thing only inches away) before the crowbar connected with a satisfying crack, the hooked, beveled end breaking through carapace like a heavy stone through stubborn ice, the straight end yanked from Kindred’s hand as the Reptar lashed upward and away, gushing alien blood, screeching with tendon-snapping wails as it thrashed down the metal-walled corridor, finally stilling, finally dying, and Kindred ran forward without thinking and pulled the bar from the Reptar’s head, its end wet and dripping.
Then he heard a second thump. And another.
Hit one. The others fall.
But that didn’t make sense. He had to be imagining it, the way he’d imagined the first Reptar disappearing and reappearing. In a sane world, things existed or didn’t, and it was his own damned half-Astral brain’s fault if he (nothing has changed; you’re just seeing it different) was seeing things while his heart was pounding in his ears and driving him crazy.
But ahead was another dead Reptar, its head caved in as if by a crowbar.
And another.
You’re crazy. You’re losing your mind.
There was a tremendous roar, and Kindred saw that he’d entered the same aisle, all the way down, as Stranger, Peers and Piper. Each end and along the cross-aisles in between were thick with the black heads of countless Reptars. They were surrounded. The beasts, disturbed from their sleep, had been waiting for this moment — trained and bred, commanded to wait for someone to dispatch from this protected place. He met Stranger’s eyes, and a simple, nonsensical thought traveled like a carrier through an old pneumatic tube between them (we don’t need to be here)
then Kindred’
s eyes closed as the Reptar nearest him lunged, like the Reptar nearest Piper. Kindred thought of Lila, Heather, and Trevor.
And then there was nothing.
Kindred opened his eyes.
Perhaps fifty feet away, he saw Piper, Peers, and Stranger.
The air was calm and silent. The sun, almost directly overhead, was suffocating.
They were in the middle of an open stretch of desert, alone, the freighter nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER 24
Clara sat by the fire. She looked at Logan first, Sadeem second. She’d been fighting an itching, troublesome feeling since midday. A sense that in another place, something with someone she cared about had soured — and then in the same place, something else had gone catastrophically right.
After escaping the Astrals at the Mullah caves, they’d walked from one hiding place to another. Clara didn’t know if the Astrals still couldn’t see Lightborn — or, for that matter, if she and Logan, as adults, even still counted as Lightborn. If they’d stayed together, maybe they’d have had a child. And maybe that child would have been something like they were, only innocent. A new breed of chosen ones — perhaps all that were invisible now.
Her eyes went to Logan, whom she found staring back.
That’s why we didn’t stay together, she said to him with her mind, answering a question she’d seen in his eyes all day. Because who would curse a child at birth?
The curse she’d mentally proposed to Logan was the same one she’d been born with, and she’d managed fine. Although was hers a life worth envying?
She looked to the dirt, stirring it with a stick. Night, out here and away from her village, was everywhere.
During their journey to this place, the sun had been up. They’d left, unsure of their pursuit. But after an hour of still-empty sky, they’d settled into a copse of ratty trees to rest. Clara had fallen asleep and dreamed of her mother standing far in the distance, calling her home.
You’re fine, Clara. You’ve always been fine, even without me.
She’d come upright with Logan’s hand on her shoulder, her shirt sticking to her back despite the cool desert shade. There was a worry out there beyond arm’s reach, but as the dream dissolved, Clara couldn’t grab it. The thing vanished like a Forgetting in miniature. It felt like something worth worrying about that she could no longer recall.
So they’d walked.
And walked.
And eventually, after hours of what felt like aimless plodding, they’d arrived in a tiny village like a scale model of her own. It was closer to a cluster of bivouacs than a permanent settlement, though the tribe had called it home for years. As she watched the people move to their individual huts, Clara saw their confused, almost embarrassed expressions. They struck her like hungover people recalling a prior night’s debauchery. What had been so delightful in a haze now seemed stupid in the light of clarity.
She’d looked up to see Kamal looking at her. His expression said, This morning, the world mostly made sense, and this still felt like the only home we’d ever known. Now we remember, and all we’ve worked to build is a joke. A lifetime for some, amounting to sticks in the sand.
The evening had drawn into night. Clara had fought the pain in her gut, knowing it had nothing to do with soreness. It was a psychic pain, as if she’d lost something precious without realizing it was gone.
And now, as Sadeem and then Logan retired to leave her alone by the crackling fire, she gazed into the flames and thought of her dream. It wasn’t the persistent one she often had — of meeting friends by the freighter. Instead her thoughts were of the almost-there new dream, returning bit by bit. She could close her eyes and see her mother, standing beside her uncle and the grandmother she now barely recalled, waiting for Clara at the end of an impossibly long corridor.
“It sucks, you know,” said a voice.
Startled by the intrusion, Clara looked up to see Kamal standing above her holding two cups. He handed one to her, full of warm liquid that smelled like an approximation of coffee. The cup itself was metal, slightly banged up, and tall. On the side was a faded stamp that seemed to say, World’s Sassiest Aide.
“What sucks?”
“Forgetting how sassy I used to be.” He gestured to Clara’s cup. “I remember when I found that in my pack. A part of me understood that it was my cup, but a bigger part of me treated it like something I’d unearthed from the ground. I didn’t question what it was or how it could even exist. I’d found a goddamned metal-and-plastic travel mug at the dawn of man with World’s Sassiest Aide written on the side, and I simply accepted it. Like, no big deal. After a half hour or so, it felt like a logical thing for our tiny tribe of hunter-gatherers to have.”
Clara smiled at Kamal. She’d liked him back at Jabari’s palace and found that she liked him even better now.
“Did you at least act sassy once you started using it?”
“Sadly, I couldn’t read at the time and was hence oblivious to the sassy imperatives the mug implied.” He sipped, then sat. “Do you have written language in your village?”
Clara nodded and made a noise of agreement. The Lightborn had seen to literacy. The Rest of Humanity’s Existence was too long a wait without something to read, or at least the ability to leave notes and scribble to-dos.
“I’d think you could infer sassy from this font, even without the ability to read.”
“We also didn’t have typography. It’s been a tough era for graphic designers.” Kamal pointed at a thin-faced woman in her hut across the fire. “And the irony? Veronica is a graphic designer. Or was. You know.”
Clara took another look around the small clearing. “You’ve been here all along? In this same spot?”
“Yep.”
Clara looked into the dark and laughed without humor. “I doubt you’re ten miles from us. How have we never run into each other?”
“Maybe it was luck. Or something a lot like luck, but different.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Clara raised her cup, and Kamal clinked it with his.
“Did you come over on the vessel?” she said after a quiet moment. “The one Mara and I took with all the others? I didn’t see you on board. And Mara never mentioned seeing you. She felt terrible that she’d had to leave you behind.”
“That’s because I was so sassy.” He took a sip, shifting on his rock by the fire. “No, I missed the vessel. I tried like hell to get on it, believe me. But the crowds … Well, you saw the panic. I don’t think they’d have parted for my diplomatic credentials. Besides, I wasn’t in the lottery to get on board anyway. I’d already opted out so someone more vital to the future could take a spot.”
Clara thought that was selfless enough to cry over, but she shoved it away. “So how did you survive?”
“Boat,” Kamal said.
“I thought the Astrals blew all the other boats out of the water.” Except the monolith, her mind amended.
“Hey, I don’t understand it either. I know how this sounds, but I sort of feel like I was … guided.”
“Guided how?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Clara thought she’d believe him just fine. She even had ideas how it might have happened and who’d been behind the guiding. But she let that go as well, saying nothing.
“My mother died today.”
Kamal looked over. Clara kept her gaze straight ahead, offering only her profile.
“Was she in the caves? Where we found you?”
“No. She was somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“There’s a moored ship past our village. I think it happened there.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“But you were …” Kamal stopped, probably calculating travel times and realizing they didn’t jibe. Finally he seemed to let it go just as Clara had and said only, “I’m sorry.”
There was another long, quiet moment. Only the fire spoke. Then Clara turned, her eyes drier than the
y should be. “Kamal?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you believe in fate? That everything happens for a reason?”
He seemed to really think before finally saying, “I guess I have to.”
“I couldn’t tell you why, but I get this feeling that what happened with … with my mom?” She took an extra breath, then pushed on. “It hurts. It really hurts.” She put her hand on her chest, near her heart. “But at the same time, somehow it feels necessary. Like there’s a purpose to it, for the greater good.” After a half second she turned her head and said, “Jesus, that sounds awful.”
“No. I think I understand.”
Clara finally turned and met the man’s haunted expression. “What happened to you, Kamal?”
“I was ready to die back in Ember Flats. I really, truly was. When the network finally broke and I couldn’t reach Mara anymore? That happened before the floodwaters hit us. Quite a while before, really. There was only one way out of town, and I’d already surrendered my spot. I’d told her I’d watch the city, so I decided that was all I had left to do. I’d be safe until the end, locked in that bunker. It was even possible that the seals were good enough to keep the water out once the city flooded. I could live a while that way, if the water didn’t go high enough to cover the stack vents. I had supplies. It would be like living in an undersea habitat I could never leave.”
“That sounds horrible.”
“I figured I could stay busy until I ran out of air, water, or food — whichever came first. There was a charged Vellum loaded with books. I wasn’t sure how the generator worked or if it would vent right and not asphyxiate me, but I knew there was one, plus fuel enough for a while. There were TV shows and movies on the juke. I’d lost the city network, but the computers were filled with plenty of files.”
“You were just going to settle in? Just like that, for as long as you could?”
“I had a Plan B if things went south.” He touched the gun at his side — the first firearm Clara had seen since the New Beginning. She felt herself watching him with sympathy, unable to help it. He laughed.