The Rogue World

by Matthew J. Kirby

  If she were to say what she wanted back, right then, in that moment, it would be her mom. She wasn’t about to say that out loud, but it was true. When her mom had gone missing in the Arctic, and when Eleanor had found her again, she’d realized how much she needed her. Even though they fought, and even though she never felt like she measured up to the girl her mom wanted her to be, and even though her mom had been gone all the time with her job, and even though she’d sided with Dr. Watkins back in Cairo, and even though she refused to eat anything that wasn’t a hamburger or a grilled cheese sandwich . . . Eleanor still wanted her there in that tea shop with her. But that was impossible, for many reasons, one of them far more painful than the rest.

  Her mom had chosen this.

  Her mom didn’t want to be there with her, and Eleanor had never in her life felt so alone.

  When Eleanor woke in the morning, she realized nothing had disturbed her during the night. Specifically, no helicopter. No one else had heard anything, either, which reassured them that they might be able to keep moving without being followed.

  They had no food left, and doubted they could find anything in town before they had to get moving. So they packed up their bedding and set off.

  Eleanor could see the sun today, the sky blue and the clouds white. In that light, the village felt a little less haunted, and Eleanor noticed things that the people who had lived here probably loved about it. An old war memorial at the center of town. A stone bridge with an exaggerated hump. An old church sporting a gargoyle in the likeness of a jester.

  When they reached the edge of the village, they found a toppled sign that Watkins called a fingerpost. The elements had long worn away the names that had once been there, and Eleanor wished she had something she could call this place. She hoped the people who had lived there could return.

  Though the sun was up, a cold wind blew over the fields and pastures, and Eleanor felt chillier than she had yesterday. They found an old road, and they followed it, staying close to the hedgerow to the side, even though they still hadn’t heard any hint of the helicopter.

  Before long, they’d traveled a mile, and then another, and then another. Eleanor was soon hungry and thirsty, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it, so she kept going. Along their journey, they encountered few living things. A few small rodents that made their nests among the fence stones. Some stubborn grass, lichen, and weeds. A large hawk that circled them, perhaps out of curiosity, before flying away to the south.

  Around midday the road they traveled came to a fork, and Dr. Von Albrecht pulled out his maps to figure out which way they should go. After a few moments, he indicated the lane to the right, but before they set off again, Eleanor heard the distant sound of a motor.

  “There’s someone coming,” she said.

  Uncle Jack nodded. “I hear it, too.”

  “That’s not a helicopter,” Luke said. “Let’s get off the road,”

  They all scrambled over the hedgerow and ran far out into the pasture, where they lay down as flat as they could and waited. A helicopter overhead could have easily spotted them, but a car on what must have been the road they were walking would not.

  The hum of the motor grew louder, and then the car appeared, coming around a bend in the road that Dr. Von Albrecht had just said they should take. The hedgerow blocked much of the vehicle from view, but Eleanor could see the top of it, and it looked like a military jeep. It sped away from them, down the road they had just followed outside the abandoned town. Everyone held still until they couldn’t hear its engine anymore.

  “At least we know we’re going the right way,” Watkins said. “That was a UN vehicle.”

  “It’s going to be a lot riskier if those keep coming, though,” Uncle Jack said.

  “I guess we’d better stay off the road,” Luke said. “Keep to the fields like we did yesterday.”

  So that’s what they did, crossing several miles of pastures. They passed a few more villages, too, off in the distance. Eleanor noted their bell towers, and from that far away, she could imagine that people still lived there. They also saw a few more vehicles traveling the roads, all of them government or military. Each time, they dropped down low to the ground and seemed to have gone unnoticed.

  By late afternoon, Luke announced that they must be getting close to the site of the alien ship.

  “I think it might be time to start thinking about how we’re going to get near to it,” Watkins said. “There will no doubt be considerable security.”

  “Maybe we don’t have to get that close,” Eleanor said. “Maybe we just have to get close enough to connect with the alien intelligence.”

  “Perhaps,” Watkins said.

  “If that doesn’t work,” Luke said, “A few of us could just create an old-school diversion. Eleanor and Watkins can use that to get past security—”

  “Shh,” Eleanor said. “I hear another car.”

  They all dropped to the ground once more. Eleanor peered through the turf toward the road, waiting, holding still. But then she had an idea.

  “What if we steal one of these vehicles?”

  “How would we do that?” Luke asked.

  “I’ll go down to the road and pretend like I’ve been hit or something. When the car stops, and the driver gets out, you guys jump him. We leave the driver tied up and we take the car back to the site.”

  “That sounds pretty risky,” Uncle Jack said.

  “It’s all risky,” Eleanor said.

  “What if you can’t just drive the vehicle through security?” Watkins asked. “I imagine they will likely have a gate.”

  “If we get close and it doesn’t look like it’s going to work, we ditch the car and go back to our first plan.”

  “And I suppose,” Luke said, “we might be able to get some equipment from the car. Maybe even a radio to listen in.”

  “If we are going to do this,” Dr. Von Albrecht said, “we should hurry. The vehicle is almost here.”

  Eleanor listened. He was right.

  “Are we doing it?” she asked.

  “I guess so,” Uncle Jack said.

  “Let’s go!” Eleanor jumped to her feet and ran toward the road. Then she clambered over the hedgerow and lay down alongside it, facing the rocks, hoping she wasn’t about to get run over, which was a risk she hadn’t considered until this moment.

  The rest of them hunkered down behind the wall, just a few feet away from her.

  “Eleanor?” Uncle Jack whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “I may have to tell your mom about this.”

  She smiled. And then she played dead.

  The sound of the engine grew louder, and then a vehicle came around the bend, going fast. Eleanor held her breath and heard the slight squeal of brakes, which meant the driver had seen her. The car slowed down, then came to a stop. The door opened, and Eleanor heard the sound of boots hitting the road. Then footsteps drew nearer to her, and when Eleanor sensed the driver was about to reach her, she called out.

  “Now!”

  Commotion came from the other side of the wall as Uncle Jack and Luke leaped up, but then they both went silent.

  “Sam?” Uncle Jack said.

  Sam?

  Eleanor rolled over and looked up, squinting. At first, she simply couldn’t believe it. She had to be imagining it. But in a second that disbelief passed, and then Eleanor gasped.

  She was staring up at her mom.

  CHAPTER

  18

  MOM!” ELEANOR JUMPED TO HER FEET AND THREW HER arms around her mother.

  “Eleanor!” her mom replied, returning her embrace. “Oh, sweetie, it is you.”

  Then Uncle Jack was there, with his long arms around both of them. “Sam,” he said. “How—?”

  “I’ll explain on the way.” Eleanor’s mom gave her a kiss on her forehead and pulled away. “We need to hurry.”

  “On the way?”

  “To the ship.” Her mom moved back toward the veh
icle, a white SUV stenciled with a UN label. “That’s why you’re here, right? So you can shut down whatever’s inside it? Come on, get in.”

  Eleanor didn’t know how many scenarios she would have had to imagine before this one came up: a ploy to steal a vehicle out here in the middle of the English countryside, only to discover the vehicle driven by her mom, taking them to the very place they needed to go. And her mom sounded as though she almost supported what Eleanor planned to do.

  She climbed into the front passenger seat. Uncle Jack, Luke, Dr. Von Albrecht, and Watkins climbed into the back two rows. The men had barely shut the doors before Eleanor’s mom put her foot on the gas, pulled a tight U-turn on the narrow road, and sped down the lane.

  “I can’t believe it,” Eleanor said. It had really only been a matter of days since she’d last seen her mom in Cairo, but it felt like months. So much had happened.

  Her mom took her eyes off the road briefly to smile at her. “I can’t believe it either. What on earth were you doing lying in the road?”

  “I wasn’t in the road,” Eleanor said, grinning. “I was beside it.”

  “But what were you doing?”

  “We were going to steal your car,” Watkins said from the back row.

  “That’s a coincidence,” her mother said.

  Uncle Jack leaned forward. “What are you doing out here, Sam? Are you working for the UN?”

  “I am—I was.” She twisted her grip around the steering wheel. “I heard they shot down a civilian plane. I worried it was Consuelo. But there was talk of searching for the survivors. So I stole this to come look for you.”

  “Do you know if they picked up Betty and Finn?” Luke asked.

  Eleanor’s mom nodded, her lips tight. “They’re fine.”

  “What happened?” Eleanor asked. “How did you get here?”

  “After you ran away, back in Egypt, Watkins left for Nepal, and Hobbes brought us to a G.E.T. office in Spain. We were supposed to meet with senior UN advisors about the Preservation Protocols. But that never happened. . . .”

  “The ship?” Eleanor said.

  “Yes,” her mom said. “The ship changed everything.”

  They whipped down the road, along pastures and fields, fences and hedgerows.

  “I saw the first news reports with the rest of the world,” she continued. “Someone was out here visiting Stonehenge—wanting to see it before it was covered by a glacier—and they caught the whole thing with their cell phone. The UN had no warning before the images were everywhere, and people started asking questions. It didn’t take long for them to connect aliens to the Freeze.” She paused. “The rioting broke out almost immediately. Even back home.”

  “No,” Eleanor whispered. She’d been afraid of that.

  “It started in the Ice Castles,” her mom said. “All the refugees who live there. Mexico has closed its borders. Egypt, Libya, and other parts of northern Africa are in chaos. Now it really does seem like the end of the world.”

  Jenna and Claire lived in the Ice Castles, and Eleanor hoped once again they were okay. As for the rest of the world, in Barrow, Mexico City, Peru, Cairo, Mumbai . . . she hoped the friends she’d made in each of those places were safe, too.

  “How did you end up here?” Uncle Jack asked.

  “It was Hobbes. Once the alien ship landed, the UN decided the G.E.T. had—” Eleanor’s mom glanced in her rearview mirror.

  “Feel free to continue, Dr. Perry,” Watkins said.

  Her mom nodded. “The UN decided the G.E.T. had failed in its purpose. Dr. Watkins hadn’t properly assessed the threat. They recruited Hobbes to lead a UN team to secure the site of the ship. Hobbes brought me with him, along with Simon and Julian.”

  “Why?” Uncle Jack asked.

  “We’ve been around the alien technology. We understand it better than almost anyone else in the world, even though that’s not saying much.”

  “What have you been doing for Hobbes?” Uncle Jack asked, his tone slightly sharp.

  “There isn’t much we’ve been able to do,” her mom said. “The UN has a position of noninterference with the ship. That’s why they declared this a no-fly zone. Some countries were talking about a nuclear strike right away, but the UN Security Council rejected that proposal. They believe we need to understand the ship and the potential consequences better before we make the decision to destroy it. They don’t want to repeat past mistakes.”

  “My mistakes,” Watkins said.

  No one argued with him on that.

  “You’re right, Mom,” Eleanor said. “I’m trying to get to the ship. I’ve connected with its alien intelligence, and I think Watkins and I can stop it. How soon until we get there?”

  Eleanor’s mom seemed to focus all her attention on the road ahead. A muscle quivered in her neck. “Soon,” she said.

  Now Eleanor felt a suspicion tickling the back of her mind. Something she couldn’t quite put into words. Everything—her mother finding them, driving them to the ship in a UN vehicle . . . it all seemed too easy. Eleanor wanted to believe they might have luck on their side, after the struggles they’d dealt with to get to this point. But still, she couldn’t quite believe it. Maybe Uncle Jack had sensed the same thing.

  Eleanor turned toward her mom and scrutinized her more closely. She appeared weaker than Eleanor had ever seen her, with bags under her eyes and a deflated posture. Something was definitely off. Her mom hadn’t taken her gaze from the road since Eleanor had mentioned connecting with the ship.

  “Are you okay?” Eleanor asked.

  “Of course, sweetie,” she said. “Now that I have you back, safe and sound.”

  But Eleanor had abandoned her in a mob to go and do the very thing her mom didn’t want her to do. And now her mom was driving her to the ship to do that same thing?

  “Are you really okay with me doing this?” Eleanor noticed that everyone else in the car had fallen very silent.

  Her mom accelerated the SUV. “Doing what?”

  “You know what,” Eleanor said.

  “Where are we going?” Dr. Von Albrecht asked.

  “The ship,” her mom said.

  “But this is not the way to the ship,” Dr. Von Albrecht said.

  Eleanor turned around in her seat. The professor had one of his maps out, and Watkins frowned at it next to him. Luke was shaking his head, and Uncle Jack was looking right at Eleanor with sadness in his eyes.

  The SUV took a sudden turn, throwing Eleanor sideways in her seat. In the distance ahead she saw a roadblock—multiple vehicles, and a few of them looked like tanks. Dozens of armed soldiers stood waiting next to them.

  “Mom,” Eleanor whispered. “Turn around.”

  Her mom said nothing. Did nothing.

  “Mom?”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she whispered. “They gave me no choice.”

  Eleanor’s suspicion broke like a dam, and a torrent of pain and betrayal flooded over her. “Mom,” she said. “Turn around, please!”

  Her mom blinked rapidly, staring ahead through tears. “I can’t,” she said.

  “Sam.” Uncle Jack put a hand on her mom’s shoulder. “Don’t. Not this.”

  They were almost to the roadblock, maybe a few hundred yards away, and her mom completely ignored Uncle Jack.

  “Sam!” he said again.

  “Dr. Perry,” Watkins said. “I would have expected more from Eleanor’s mother.”

  That finally drew something out of her. “I am her mother!” she shouted. “I’m doing what I have to do to protect my daughter! I’m not letting her anywhere near that thing!”

  Eleanor felt too stunned to do or say anything. But as they drew close enough to the roadblock for her to see the soldiers ahead raising their weapons, her survival instinct took over. They had to get out of there. They couldn’t be caught, or it would mean the end of everything. She had connected with the alien intelligence; she knew what it planned to do. And she wouldn’t let anyone—even her mom—stop her
from ending it.

  She reached out with both hands and grabbed the steering wheel.

  “Eleanor, don’t—”

  “Turn around!” she said, and wrenched the wheel sideways.

  The SUV swerved, hurling Eleanor against the restraint of her seat belt, choking the air out of her. Her hands flew off the wheel, and her mom lost control. The brakes screeched, and they slammed headlong into the stone hedgerow. There was a loud bang, something hit Eleanor in the face, and for a second everything went black.

  Then Eleanor coughed. A fine dust coated her skin and filled the air. She refocused her eyes and saw the airbag had deployed in front of her.

  “Sweetie,” her mom said, leaning toward her. “Are you okay?”

  Eleanor felt something warm on her lip and licked it.

  Blood. From her nose. It must have happened when the airbag hit her face. “I’m fine. I think.” She turned around and looked in the back rows. “Uncle Jack? Luke?”

  “We’re fine,” Luke said.

  “We are, too,” Watkins said. “Though I suspect we’ll all have sore necks tomorrow—”

  “Hands in the air!”

  Eleanor looked out the window to her side. Soldiers had rushed up to surround the vehicle, rifles and pistols aimed inside. Eleanor couldn’t see any way out of this. She raised her hands in the air and looked over at her mom.

  She had her hands in the air, too. “Just do what they ask,” she said. “No one will get hurt.”

  “They might,” Uncle Jack said, almost growling.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Eleanor’s mom hissed. It sounded very much like an older sister scolding a younger brother, which is exactly what it was. Eleanor didn’t like that at all.

  “I said hands up!” shouted one of the soldiers.

  Eleanor looked back and saw Uncle Jack slowly raising his arms, hands balled in fists. The others in the backseats had already done so.

  A soldier standing by Eleanor’s door yanked it open, and then rough hands reached in, unbuckling her and pulling her out. She sniffed at the blood still oozing from her nose as soldiers surrounded her and spun her around. They pulled her hands behind her back and handcuffed her.