Glyph

by T. M. Catron

  “I didn’t want to respond right then—too many ears. Hybrids can hear from great distances. Remember that. Don’t say anything you don’t want to be overheard.”

  Lincoln looked uncomfortable. Probably he was thinking about their conversation in the bunk room.

  Mina gathered her thoughts and sent them to Doyle. What can I tell them? Why me?

  Convince them the humans want to get rid of Condar. That we need their help. Show them you’re willing to volunteer to make more hybrids—

  Volunteer! Just what does that entail?

  —because you know it’s the only way to defeat their enemy, he continued. They wouldn’t have marked you if they weren’t willing to listen.

  How, Doyle?

  Doyle shot her a look. Blood samples. Don’t get worked up.

  Mina suppressed an exasperated sigh, the ones she usually reserved just for him. How was I supposed to know? And I’m not sure I’m willing to volunteer.

  “Anyone hungry?” Doyle asked the group, stopping the conversation.

  They all nodded. Mina thought she heard Lincoln’s stomach rumble again. She followed behind Doyle as they went to get the others. He was all business again. For a moment in the chamber, he’d been subdued, even in awe. But then, that’s how the adarria made Mina feel too. And since coming to the Factory, she’d been increasingly aware of their presence. Is this how Doyle had grown up? With only the adarria for company?

  No, he had a million other hybrids alongside him. Some of them were friends. How many of them had died? For the first time, Mina wondered what kinds of losses Doyle had experienced. How had they shaped him? He’d told her of one friend, a traitor named Morse whom he’d failed to help. Were there others?

  They returned to the bunk room. Li showed up right behind with packets of hybrid rations for each of them. Then he stood at the door, watching the group. He still hadn’t said a word to any of the humans. His presence forced them into an awkward silence. Even Doyle didn’t say anything.

  The hybrid food tasted like chalk. Mina had eaten it before, so she was prepared for its bitter starchiness. The others made faces as they bit off small bites.

  “And I thought the Army food was bad,” Nelson said. He grimaced as he tried to swallow it quickly.

  Doyle laughed. “It’s all we have up here.”

  “Did you grow up on this stuff?”

  “Yep. And it has all the nutrients and calories you need. Enjoy.”

  “Great.”

  Lincoln tried breaking his off into pieces small enough to swallow whole. Mina thought he had the right idea. He eased his right leg up on the bunk beside him.

  “What happened to your leg?” Mina asked him. She’d noticed he was limping when she found him a day ago but hadn’t asked. So much had happened, and he hadn’t complained about it.

  Lincoln frowned. “Captain Baker.”

  “What’d she do?” Mina glanced at Doyle, whose smile had vanished.

  “She didn’t like that I wouldn’t help them get the drawings.”

  “We’ll take a look at it,” Doyle said. He nodded to Li, who left.

  “That’s okay, thanks.”

  “Lincoln,” Mina said. He was so stubborn sometimes.

  “No, Mina, I’d rather they just left me alone.”

  “If you don’t let us check it,” Doyle said, “you could end up with permanent damage.”

  “He also has poison ivy on his arm,” Mina said. “Do you have anything for that too?”

  Doyle nodded. Lincoln scoffed.

  Everyone looked up from their food, watching the exchange. Lincoln glared at Mina a moment. But when he didn’t protest further, they all went back to their silent meal. He must have been in pretty bad shape to accept help from Doyle. She was sorry she hadn’t asked sooner.

  As they finished eating, Li returned with Nicholas. Both were dressed in black, guns and knives strapped to them as before. Nicholas looked Mina’s way. Her hand automatically went to her chest. Did he know? Then she tried to hide the gesture by scratching her collarbone. Stupid—you’re going to draw attention to yourself.

  Li addressed Lincoln. “Come with us. We’ll take you to the medical bay.”

  Lincoln eyed their weapons, then looked at Doyle.

  “There’s no point in suffering when you don’t have to,” he said.

  “He’s right, Lincoln,” Mina added.

  Alvarez stood. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No,” Lincoln said. “Stay here.”

  A hurt look crossed Alvarez’s face, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she looked at Carter, who’d been severely injured a few weeks before and was still on the mend.

  “Guess it wouldn’t hurt me to go too,” Carter said.

  Once they left, Doyle said, “The Nomad is ready for another trip to Earth. Who’s going, and who’s staying?”

  “I’m going,” Alvarez said. “I’m not going to help create a bigger army than you already have.”

  Doyle nodded. “Anywhere you want to be dropped off?”

  “I have a choice?”

  “Of course.”

  “Sacramento.”

  Doyle ran a hand through his hair and looked at Mina.

  “She has family there,” she told him.

  Doyle sighed. “I hope you really don’t think you’re going to find them.”

  Alvarez’s face turned red. Mina shook her head at him. You’re not helping anything.

  He ignored her.

  “What about Boston?” Nelson asked. “Anything left of it?”

  “The entire region was reduced to rubble.”

  “Thanks to you!” Alvarez spat. “Do you hear him, Nelson? Are you really going to stay here and help this… this… Thing?”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Nelson asked. “He’s a rebel, Alvarez. And he thinks he can make a difference. There’s nothing for me down there!”

  “What about your father? He could have got out!”

  Nelson scuffed his foot on the floor. “Nah. He probably sat and watched the whole thing on TV. And when that went out, he took a nap in his chair. He wouldn’t have tried to get out. The man never tried to do much of anything. Always just sat in that ugly chair…”

  No one said anything in response. The tension stretched out like a rubber band, waiting to snap.

  “What’s Carter going to do?” Doyle asked finally.

  “I don’t know,” Alvarez said. She was looking at Nelson.

  Nelson shrugged.

  “I’ll send you with supplies and weapons.”

  Mina looked at Alvarez. Already the woman seemed relieved to have the situation settled. I would be too if I hadn’t known what happened to Lincoln. But that doesn’t justify her behavior.

  “When do we leave?” Mina asked.

  “An hour.”

  “Why are you going?” Alvarez asked, narrowing her eyes.

  “I stay with Doyle.” Mina wasn’t going to explain her actions to Alvarez even if she could. It wouldn’t matter what she said anyway. The woman had decided to hate her.

  “One hour,” Nelson repeated.

  “No reason to delay,” Doyle said. “The trip will be fast, so you better say your goodbyes here. I won’t have the Nomad exposed any longer than necessary.”

  A somber mood descended on the group. Realizing Nelson and Alvarez might want to say goodbye in private, Mina motioned Doyle out the door.

  “Better leave them alone,” she said when they left the room. “They’ve known each other a long time.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “He’s not going to be happy, but he’ll want a chance to say goodbye too.”

  They walked to the training room. “You expect me to talk to the adarria in here?”

  “Yes, when we get back.”

  “How long will it take us to get a Glyph? What’s the plan?”

  “Us?”

  “I am going with you.”

  “But you’re staying on the Nomad. Li and
Nick will go with me.”

  “I’m not staying on the Nomad.”

  Doyle sighed in exasperation. “I could just lock you up, you know.”

  “I stay with you, remember? And I don’t trust Li and Nick.”

  “Oh, Mina! What would you do against them, anyway?”

  “I’m not leaving you!” Her breathing was more ragged than she realized, her words more fierce than she intended. To hide her fear, Mina wrapped her arms around Doyle’s waist, burying her face in his chest.

  “I can’t lose anyone else,” she said.

  Then she squeezed him tighter. After the last two days, with Doyle fighting Calla and the Condarri, wielding the aether, and openly defying his masters, he was in more danger than ever. And now, with his plan to capture an invader—he didn’t need to tell her how dangerous it really was.

  “You’re not going to lose me,” he whispered.

  “No! No way are you going down there with him.”

  Lincoln lay on a stone table in the med bay. The room contained fifty tables. Each one had a metal arm attached to the wall overhead. A long row of storage units covered the wall opposite the tables. He knew they were refrigerated because Nick had opened one just after they arrived and cold air had hissed out.

  One of the arms had just finished scanning his entire body, and a life-size hologram of it hovered off to the left. It showed his whole body, which Lincoln felt to be very unnecessary. His right leg was glowing brighter than the rest of him. Unsurprisingly, it was inflamed.

  Carter lay on his own table a few rows down where a robotic arm was closing the wound in his side with a laser. He watched it in fascination.

  “What about you, Carter?” Doyle called. Mina stood beside him, Alvarez and Nelson behind.

  Carter looked at Alvarez, who walked over to his table. She said something Lincoln couldn’t quite hear. Carter answered, and she hugged him.

  Carter looked at the rest of them. “I’m too old to be running around down there.” He looked at Alvarez. “I’d just slow you down. I think we’ve proven that.”

  “She needs to stay here too!” Lincoln wasn’t going to give up on this subject without a fight. What was Alvarez thinking? “You can’t be out there alone! How will you survive?”

  “Lincoln,” Mina said, “you don’t have a say in this.”

  “I do have a say in this. I just found you, Mina. Now you’re leaving again. With Alvarez.”

  In less than an hour.

  And Alvarez… After all they’d been through, she was finally leaving. Lincoln blamed Doyle. If they’d been on Earth, this wouldn’t even be an issue.

  Alvarez moved to the side of his bed. “I’m sorry.”

  He sat up. “Well, I’m going too. At least to see you off.”

  She shook her head. “You need to be here. Let them fix your leg.”

  Doyle was looking at the scan. “Really, Surrey. You need to keep off of it.”

  “How bad is it?” Mina asked.

  Doyle pointed to the scan of Lincoln’s thigh. “The muscle keeps spasming. It’s putting pressure on the tendons and the femur. Baker sure did a good job.”

  “I know,” Lincoln said. “I was there, remember?”

  “You need a consistent dose of muscle relaxers. And once we inject you with them, your leg will be like jelly for a few days.”

  “Then I’ll wait until we get back to get it treated.”

  “You’re no use to me injured.” Doyle’s voice left no room for argument.

  A dangerous tone had never stopped Lincoln before. “Then wait for me to get better. What’s the hurry?”

  Mina looked at Doyle. Not for the first time, Lincoln felt like they had some silent communication going on between them. That like the hybrids, they could communicate via the adarre.

  Like the hybrids.

  Of course, he thought, the adarria marked the hybrid offspring. Had they marked Mina too?

  Rage boiled through Lincoln. This man and his kind had brought them all nothing but pain. And if Lincoln were right, Doyle was corrupting Mina too. He wanted to grab the hybrid by the shirt and slam his head against the wall. He had already swung both legs off the table before he realized what he was doing.

  Mina gave him a strange look. “Lincoln, lie down.”

  Doyle grabbed his shoulder to stop him from getting up, but Lincoln shoved him away. “You can’t make me stay here!”

  Lincoln looked at his sister, the question on his tongue.

  “Surrey,” Doyle said, “if you don’t cooperate, I swear I’ll put you in a coma until we return.”

  “No, he won’t,” Mina said.

  “Watch me,” Doyle hissed. “I don’t have time for this! Say your goodbyes.”

  He motioned for Nicholas and Li to follow him out of the room.

  “He won’t, Lincoln,” she said. “But please stay here and take care of yourself. We’ll be back soon.”

  With anger still coursing through him, Lincoln gripped Mina’s shoulder. “What has he done to you?”

  Mina’s eyes widened, and she glanced at the others. “Nothing,” she whispered and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon. Doyle’s going to seal off the room for your safety.”

  “There’s no talking you out of this?”

  She shook her head and moved aside.

  Alvarez cried when she hugged Lincoln’s neck. “I wish you were coming too, but I understand.”

  “I guess this is it,” he said. It was weird, saying goodbye. He’d never thought it would happen. The world had ended, and he was saying goodbye to the last bit of his old life, clinging to it like a child clings to his mother. “Good luck,” was all he could manage to choke out.

  “You too.”

  “Why did you want to stay, Nelson?” he asked.

  Nelson grinned. “I like rebels. Always thought of myself as one.”

  “And that’s your reason. You want to join the cause.”

  He shrugged. “That, and I want to stay alive. This seems like my best shot.”

  “Brave guy.”

  Nelson rolled his eyes. “Of course I want to help. What kind of man do you think I am?”

  Alvarez was already out of the room. “But I am going to see her off,” Nelson said, going after her.

  Mina cast Lincoln a lingering look, sighed, and then followed them out.

  A female hybrid walked in after they left. She was tall with blonde hair. “I’m Grace. Doyle’s put me in charge of you two. You’ll cooperate with me, or I have permission to knock you out for a few days.”

  Lincoln let her lean him back onto the table, thinking maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to be unconscious while they were away. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about Mina and the others. He’d never see Alvarez again—that much was clear. And Mina—what had Doyle done to her? Or was Lincoln just imagining everybody was a hybrid now? But now, technically, everyone around him was a hybrid.

  Except for Carter. He looked over at the older man, who lay down and closed his eyes.

  The thought of Mina being turned into a hybrid made Lincoln sick. But she couldn’t be one, could she? She wasn’t half-alien. That wasn’t something that just happened. Doyle had shown Lincoln the process, and Mina hadn’t gone through that. Had she?

  Grace moved to his side and rubbed something cold and soothing onto his rash. The itching stopped. Lincoln exhaled in relief.

  “Doyle didn’t tell me there were hybrids like you, Grace.”

  Grace smiled. “That’s the spirit, Lincoln.”

  Chapter Six

  Calla looked up through a fog of pain. Her left eye was swollen shut, her right, blurry. Through the beatings that had followed her surrender, she kept one thought in mind—they wouldn’t break her. She’d endured worse. But the longer she sat by herself in the cold mine shaft, the more she wondered if they were trying to break her or just trying to kill her.

  The thought made Calla feel colder. Starvation was a favorite method of torture for the Condarr
i. Maybe the rogues had decided to leave her to waste away. It took months for a hybrid to starve to death.

  Or maybe the Condarri would find her. Not too long ago, Calla wouldn’t have been afraid of that possibility. Now—

  Death had never scared her before. Calla had grown up accepting it. Hybrids were created to serve their masters. Any ambitions other than servitude would be viewed as treason. She’d prepared for death and cheated it too many times already.

  Now she was getting used to the idea of living.

  “Hey!” she called into the void. “You need me! I’m the only one who can stop him.”

  What had Doyle always told her? As a team, the hybrids could accomplish many things.

  “But I need your help. I can’t do it alone.”

  No one responded.

  Calla couldn’t lean back. They had tied her wrists behind her, putting unbearable strain on her broken arm. They’d removed the splint, and the bones had separated again—it wouldn’t heal correctly if they didn’t release her soon. She lay down on her side and rested her head on the cold, coal-dust covered ground.

  Sometime later, she heard boots crunching on the stone floor. She struggled to sit up, but her weariness was overtaking her. He’d reached her by the time she was sitting, her back straight in defiance.

  In the darkness, he looked like a shadow. Calla squinted through her blurry vision to make out his brown hair and medium build.

  “We’ve never met,” he said. “But it looks like everything I’ve heard about you is true.”

  “And what have you heard?”

  “That you’re strong, stubborn, and loyal. And you’ve been hunting us.”

  “It’s all true—or it was.”

  “What happened to you?”

  Calla hissed, “Doyle.”

  “Doyle has been a friend.”

  “Doyle is no one’s friend. He’s betrayed everyone—rogues, loyals, Condar. And he’s more dangerous than you’ve ever dreamed.”

  The unknown hybrid crouched down to look her in the face. “I guess that’s why you came here. To warn us? How thoughtful, Calla.”

  “I am here to warn you. Doyle has more power than any hybrid has a right to possess. And unless you put me in charge, he will wipe out all of you.”