This Shattered World

by Amie Kaufman

  I lever myself up again in time to see the mouth of the harbor retreating away from us, half lost in the spray of our wake, and the cluster of boats attempting to navigate through the new maze of boulders trapping them.

  I glance down, and Flynn’s eyes flick up from mapping our route to meet mine for a split second. We’re out.

  We don’t speak. There’s nothing to say anymore, even if we had the strength to shout over the roar of the motor. I look back at him once and see a jumble of white face, red-rimmed eyes, tears mingling with the spray from our bow wave—and look away with a jerk. I don’t try to look at him again.

  The sky’s just beginning to shift from ink to charcoal by the time the distant lights of the base rise, mirage-like, from the horizon. Flynn shifts the motor down, its roar muted to a purr. We weave our way through the corridors of water until the bow of the boat slides up onto mud with a sickening lurch. The motor cuts out.

  The silence rings in my ears, like afterimages hovering after being dropped into sudden darkness. There are no frogs, no insects on Avon, nothing to color the quiet. I stare at the lights of the far-off base until my vision blurs.

  “Where will you go?” I ask in a whisper that splits the silence.

  “I don’t know.” His voice is rough. From disuse. From cold. From grief. I can’t tell which. “I’ll find somewhere.”

  I reach for my jacket, abandoned in the bottom of the boat, and press it into his hands. He’ll need it more than me, out here with no shelter and no heat. “Molly, the barman. He can get a message to me if you—” My voice tangles and sticks in my throat. If you need me.

  He nods, but I’m not sure he really heard me. I can feel shock trying to grab hold of me again, cold fingers sliding up my spine and seizing my muscles. My training didn’t prepare me for this. Nothing prepared me for this.

  If it were only me, I could just lie here until the boat rotted through and sank and the muck claimed my bones. But I can’t. I swallow hard, pushing it away with every ounce of strength I have left. Flynn was right—I’m the only one who can get onto our base and try to find out more about what’s happening to Avon.

  I force my stiff muscles to move and carry me over the edge of the boat, to land in hip-deep water. I grab the gunwale to steady myself as my knees threaten to buckle in the cold.

  “Flynn.” It ought to feel strange to say his name. I avoided it for so long, striving to keep a distance between us. But instead I find I’m absorbed by the way it affects him. He’s less guarded, though the sadness in his eyes doesn’t recede; he looks back at me again, jaw tight.

  “Flynn—I want you to know I never would have done that. To your people.” I keep my voice low, too afraid to say these things loudly. It comes out tight, fierce. “I would never. I’d die myself first.”

  He watches me in silence while my heart pounds in my chest, painful, too large. When he does speak, his voice is low to match mine. “I know that, Jubilee.” He levers himself up onto his knees so we’re eye to eye. “I know who you are.”

  He knows. He knows, I believe that. But he can’t even bring himself to look at me for more than a few seconds.

  And I can’t look away. “Don’t give up.” The words are as much for me as for him. “All you need is one true thing to hold on to. Something real in all of this.”

  He’s looking at my hands on the gunwale—hands still sticky with blood, too congealed for the water to have rinsed clean. I start to pull back and hide them in the shadows, but he reaches out first, taking one of them gently in his. He scoops water over my skin and starts wiping the crusted, vile mess away.

  My arms feel limp and heavy, like a doll’s limbs, like they don’t belong to me anymore. My eyes burn, vision clouding and blurring. All I can feel is Flynn’s touch, rubbing at first one hand, then the other, slowly working the life back into them. Washing away every last trace of the blood claiming me for the Fury.

  When he’s done, he halts, looking down at my hand resting in his. The moment stretches long and thin, until it snaps and he lets go, pulling back, his grief-stained face turning away from mine.

  My breath catches, responding to an unfamiliar pull in my chest, an ache in my soul. I shouldn’t miss him, but I do; this boy who had every right to pull that trigger, and instead threw himself between me and death. This boy, the only one who believes I’m not what they say I am, what I believed I was: a soldier without a soul, a girl with no heart to break. He’s the only one who’s proved me wrong.

  There’s a desperate want somewhere inside me, a longing for his touch, for the quiet he finds in the midst of this chaos, for healing. For him.

  But instead I just stand there, the meter of space between us as vast as any canyon. I wish the dawn had come, bringing light enough to see his features as more than shadow. Despite my words, I know he won’t send for me through Molly. I know he won’t come back. In my heart I know I’ll never see him again.

  “Good-bye, Flynn Cormac.”

  She’s playing with the boy, no longer puzzled by the way her mind has stitched him into her dreams as though he’s always been there. She’s stalking him in the alleyway, her heart jumping gleefully at every noise. When she reaches the garbage incinerator, he jumps out from behind it, shouting, “Pshew, pshew! You’re dead!”

  The girl shrieks and obediently falls to the ground.

  The green-eyed boy laughs and crouches down to lean over her. “Okay, you be the bad guy this time.”

  But when the girl sits up, the boy is gone. She’s alone in the alley, and all around her, November has been destroyed.

  I CLOSE MY EYES. I can’t bring myself to watch her go because she’s destroyed me. And because I’ll never see her again. And because the fire in my chest is for vengeance, and it’s for her, and I can’t tell which desire will win.

  When I can see again, dawn is too close. Jubilee is gone, and with her all my hopes that she can stop this chaos. It was an impossible enough battle to face before, but the idea that LaRoux Industries’ presence on Avon is connected to the Fury has left me shaken and struggling for my next step. What does it mean, that the Fury felt the same to Jubilee—the shakes, the taste of blood—as whatever took her when she found that LaRoux ident chip? We’re the only ones who know about LaRoux Industries’ involvement, the only ones who have any idea the Fury could be something not done by Avon, but something done to it.

  There’s only one other person I can think of who might hear me. Who’s had to watch someone trusted, someone safe, turn into a monster. Maybe Davin Quinn’s daughter hasn’t heard of my betrayal of the Fianna. Maybe she’d wait to hear my side before turning me in. In a few days, when things are calmer, I might be able to risk showing my face in town to look for her.

  Straightening from where I’m slumped on my bench, I shrug into her jacket, a little too tight on me, but warm. I try not to imagine Jubilee, her commanders, the relief of the other soldiers to have her returned to them. I try not to see her back at the bar, surrounded by her platoon, safe in a world where what she’s done doesn’t exist. But I see it all anyway. I watch her, in my mind, being reabsorbed into her world once more, the way I’ll never be with mine again.

  I reach slowly for the boat’s oars and point the bow back out into the swamp. Away from the base, away from my home. Away from everything except the empty expanse of Avon’s wilderness.

  The girl is on Patron with her old captain, running patrols, when they get the call that shots have been fired in the next sector over. The rebellion on Patron has been over for a decade, but pockets of insurgents still hide here and there, simmering with hatred and boiling over at random intervals.

  They’re not geared for full-on combat, but her captain doesn’t hesitate. It’s a quick march back to the skimmer, and then he gives orders to head for the next sector, to back up the platoon pinned down at the edge of the forest.

  The girl has never been in combat before, not front-line combat. She glances at her captain, and her fear is all ove
r her face. Her captain looks back at her and winks, and she takes a breath. He has warm eyes, and she holds on to that detail.

  “It won’t be like your drills,” he says, and though his voice is pitched for the whole platoon, he watches her while he speaks. “Anyone says it is, they’re lying.”

  The girl swallows hard, shifting her grip on her Gleidel and wishing she had a rifle instead. When she looks back again at her captain, they’re the only two soldiers in the skimmer.

  “You’re quick on your feet, Lee, and you learn fast. All you have to do is pay attention. Keep your eyes open. You’ll see what no one else does.”

  THE SPOTLIGHTS ILLUMINATING THE BASE perimeter are blinding, and as I make for a weak spot in the fence that Flynn told me about, the adrenaline’s starting to recede. In its wake I’m left numb, stumbling; my fingers struggle to unwind the parts of the fence enough to slip through. Entering through the checkpoints will raise more questions than I can answer. If they discover what I’ve done, I’ll be transferred off-world and there’ll be no one left to piece together what’s happening to Avon.

  I should try to sleep, or eat something to stop shaking, but I can barely remember which direction my bunk is. I find myself retracing the path Flynn took when he abducted me, ending up in the alley next to Molly’s. It’s full of graffiti, some half scrubbed away, some fresher. One is written half in Spanish, half in Irish—I can only recognize the word trodaire. The bright red paint was sprayed on so thickly that it dripped in long skinny rivulets before drying, and my eyes fix on them.

  I can’t escape the images burned into my mind of blood and scorched flesh and crimson-stained stone and…I wrench my gaze away from the red graffiti, shivering. He didn’t save you so you could fall apart.

  Before I can gather my strength to move again, the back door of the bar bursts open and out stumble three soldiers. Molly’s close on their heels. “Go home,” he’s saying. Though his voice is firm, he doesn’t sound angry. It’s easy to see that the three rookies have had more to drink than they should, but they’re all upright. None of them are from my platoon.

  Molly spots me standing in the shadows and straightens. “Lee?” He flips on the light over the door, flooding the alleyway with a blast of illumination. Dimly I hear the soldiers speaking, calling to me, saying words I can’t process. I take a step back, head spinning as my heart starts pounding so hard I can barely breathe. I reach out in the same instant I realize there’s nothing nearby to grab on to, and I’m about to fall.

  A strong hand grabs my shoulder, grounding me, supporting me. I blink to see Molly’s face not far from mine, his eyes worried. “Think I’ve got that special order somewhere in the back, babe,” he rumbles in that gentle, booming voice of his. The words are for the benefit of the trio now making their way back toward the barracks.

  “Great,” I say weakly as he starts marching me toward the back door.

  As soon as he’s gotten me inside the dimly lit, dusty storeroom, Molly guides me to an old packing crate and sits me down on top, so my quivering legs can relax. When I finally lift my head, he’s waiting for me with concern and apprehension.

  Even Molly can’t see Captain Chase half ready to faint without wondering if the world’s about to end.

  “You look awful,” he says in a low voice. “Something happen on patrol?”

  I look down, noticing with surprise that my clothes are stained with mud, still wet in places. A few of the stains are different. Reddish brown. I open my mouth, but instead of a reply comes a half-hysterical gulp.

  “I’ll make you a drink,” he says, fretting and starting to turn for the door.

  I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “I don’t need a drink right now. Molly—I need your help.”

  He rubs one hand over his shaven scalp, the tattoos winding around his fingers seeming to shift in the low light of the back room. Not for the first time I wish I could read the characters tattooed up and down both arms—but while I remember how to speak a little of the Mandarin my mother made me learn as a kid, the written characters have long since slipped away. Molly told me once that on one arm he’d gotten passages from The Art of War and The Prince, and on the other, quotes from wise men from every corner of ancient Earth, like Confucius, Dr. King, and Gandhi. War and peace, he’d explained, when I told him he was a lunatic. Light and dark. Yin and yang.

  Rebel and soldier.

  Molly was big into trying to find himself in his cultural past and bought into every stereotype he could find in ancient movies and books. Probably why he liked me right away—I’m one of the few people on the base who can even pronounce his real name. He was a terra-trash orphan when he was a baby—parents brought him to a new world, died in the rough conditions, and he ended up adopted by a family on Babel. I’ve got no idea how he ended up here, in a colony largely dominated by Irish folks. He’s got no link to our shared Chinese heritage except by blood, but it never ceases to fascinate him. Whereas I couldn’t get far enough away from my mother’s teachings.

  But that was before she died, and I lost that connection forever.

  Molly’s still hesitating, as though he suspects a drink will fix my problems despite my protests. “What’s goin’ on?” he asks finally.

  “I need you to watch for a message.” Some part of me knows it’s pointless, that there’s no message Flynn Cormac could possibly need to send me now—but the rest of me refuses to sever this last thread between us. “It’s important. I don’t know who will bring it or when, but you have to bring it to me—don’t tell anyone else.”

  Molly’s brows draw in, concern deepening into a frown. “Babe, what’d you get into?”

  I take a deep breath, feeling shaky now in the wake of the panic that greeted me when I first walked into the bar. “I can’t tell you, Baojia.”

  There are only a few people on the base who know Molly’s real name, much less use it. It makes him pause, then nod. He gives my shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll watch for it. Get some rest, kid. Y’look like death on ice.”

  I try to do as Molly suggests when I get back to my bunk. Even after showering the last of the blood and muck from my skin and putting on dry, warm clothes, I still feel covered in grime. I’m trained to sleep wherever and whenever I can get it, but despite my exhaustion, my desperate need to close my eyes against the memory of this night, I find myself staring up at the ceiling.

  Maybe it’s because when I close my eyes, I see that child from the rebel base lying there, the side of its head blown away, the skin and hair around the area scorched in a way that only a military-issue Gleidel could have done. The child I killed while not inhabiting my own skin.

  I roll over, desperately seeking some relief from the incessant tangle of my thoughts. If I had anyone I could call, even to have the most inane conversation imaginable, I’d do it. Towers might be a stickler for using the retransmission satellites for watching the HV, but we’ve got good, clear lines for getting messages off Avon. But we’re not designed to have friends—we’re not given the chance for it. Two years ago I would’ve called my fellow rookies, but we’re spread out across the galaxy now. I’ve got no one. Alexi was the closest thing I had. Everyone else I’ve served with is gone. Dead, or else stationed so far away, they might as well be.

  Sometimes I think they isolate us on purpose. It makes me wonder what my life would’ve been like if I’d stayed at that orphanage, if I’d never gone into the military. Or if I’d managed to put aside my need for vengeance. My old captain always told me I had to find something to fight for, not just a reason to fight. If I’d listened to him, would I have had friends that lasted beyond their next reposting?

  I’m not sure what brought my old captain to mind, but now I find myself wishing he were here. He had a way of making impossible things seem okay, like climbing this mountain or traversing that plain wouldn’t be so hard.

  I sit up abruptly as an idea hits me hard. My captain. Flynn and I have been searching for a way to understand LaRoux Industri
es’ involvement. For the reason there was a LaRoux ident chip on the site of the vanished facility. How could I have been so stupid? My old captain hasn’t been on Avon for over a year, and there’s a risk—but even brainwashed by fame and fortune, I can’t believe he’d refuse to help me if I asked.

  I shove my blanket away and slide into the chair. Sweeping the clutter aside with one hand, I press the palm of the other to the top of the screen. It swings open out of the desk obligingly, adjusting itself automatically to my height. The keyboard rises after it, out of the hollow below the screen. No eye-trackers here—strictly low-tech, nothing that would provide much benefit to the rebels if they got hold of it.

  I start with the lines of code I need to get to a call screen. Just because my screen’s low-tech doesn’t mean you can’t do a lot with it if you know how. And the man I’m about to call is the one who made sure I learned lessons others didn’t.

  I run a simple sweep for keytrackers, and once I’m sure I’m working unrecorded, I start. I key in the network address, adding in another line of code to ensure my request will route through a secure proxy, hiding my call’s point of origin. I add in privacy tags to signal an approved personal call and take myself off the base’s register—it’s not perfect, but unless someone really digs, there’ll be no trace I called at all.

  But my finger hesitates over the ENTER button. The distraction of setting up a secure line can only last so long. What if he has changed, and he’s not the same man I served with? What if someone’s monitoring my computer activity, despite my best efforts to cover my tracks? What if…

  I close my eyes. I could list a thousand reasons not to call. And only one reason I should: I trust him. My finger stabs downward, and I lean back, closing my eyes, waiting for the call to route through the retransmission satellite above me and connect through the hyperspace network.