The Fall

by Laura Liddell Nolen

  And then, my moment was spent.

  The slide grew steeper, and the Lieutenant relaxed her grip on my upper body. There was nothing left but the fall. My latest prison had no cells, no bars, and no hope of escape. So I couldn’t say I’d ever enjoyed the trip into mental stasis.

  But this time, I smiled the whole way down.

  Three

  In my dream, my mother held my hands—both of them—but she looked like Meghan Notting, the gritty old woman who’d died helping me escape Earth. I shook my head, trying to fix her face back, and in response, she offered me a screen stem.

  It was almost black, like graphite, but harder, and bluntly tapered on one end. I recognized it immediately because it was covered in blood: Jorin’s. I pictured his ugly, sneering face and backed away. I didn’t regret killing him. I didn’t. But that didn’t stop me from thinking on the moment in horror whenever I fell asleep.

  My mother-Meghan moved toward my face, and I resisted the urge to run. I could not account for her appearance as Meghan, but I knew that she was my mother all the same. Did this version of her have an open wound where Cassa had shot her? I looked away. I didn’t want to know.

  Perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps the dead felt no pain.

  “Your leg, sweetheart,” she said softly, pressing the stem into my palm. I picked it up with my other hand, the one from my bad arm.

  “Mom, no.”

  “Use this hand.” She put it back in my other hand, the one on my good arm, and closed my fingers around the sticky weapon.

  “That’s gonna hurt. I stabbed someone with a stem before, Mom. It hurts.”

  “Only the dead feel no pain, Charlotte. Your life was never meant to be so precious.”

  A flare of anger. “You’re just saying what I’ve been thinking. You’re not even real.”

  She started at a noise, then looked behind her. Her hair in my face was suddenly like my mother’s, long and dark, and I needed her to hold me. “Now, Charlotte,” she said. “Do it now.”

  “Mom. I’m afraid.”

  And then she did embrace me, and I was warm, and her hair smelled like I remembered.

  But she was only a dream.

  In real life, I had no mother. I had no right hand, either.

  I lifted the screen stem in my left hand. She nodded approvingly.

  I drove it deep into my leg, and when the pain came, I sucked it in through every pore. When I screamed, I breathed out the scent of her hair forever. It was my mother’s voice that shrieked, but I held fast to the red sensation taking root in my thigh, and my dream-mother grew distant.

  This pain was mine alone.

  “Charlotte. Hey. Wake up.” Eren’s face hovered over mine, awash in concern. “You’re having a nightmare.”

  I rubbed my face and tried to get my bearings. I was sitting precariously on the edge of a bed, half-wrapped in a warm comforter. Navy blue. “Not exactly.”

  “You okay?”

  “How did you get in here? How did you find me?”

  He was unsurprised by the question and spoke slowly, as if I were a child. “I live here. We live together, remember? Officially, anyway. You’re in our bed.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Our—what now?”

  He reevaluated my coherency and adopted a less irritating tone. “I’ve been sleeping next door. The rooms are connected through the kitchen.” He waved an arm.

  I stood up, intending to investigate, but he stopped me immediately.

  “Woah.” His eyes here huge, and I followed his gaze to my thigh.

  An empty syringe dangled from my bare leg.

  I took a breath and pulled it out.

  His eyes bulged nearly out of his head, but he put a finger to his lips, shushing me. I nodded wearily and began to limp around the room. It was cold, so I dragged the comforter with me. I lacked the energy to wrap it around me, so I just hugged it to my chest. It felt good.

  The kitchen was just as I remembered it, but I did not recall the door, or the little room behind it.

  It was pale yellow, with a generic-looking painting of a lamb grazing in a green pasture. There was a fluffy white rug in the center, just next to a tiny bed surrounded by bars. I frowned. The bars on the bed were decorated with ribbons.

  Wait, that wasn’t a bed. Not exactly.

  I turned back to Eren, who’d followed me. “You sleep in a crib?”

  “I kinda put the mattress on the floor, and my legs hang over the—you know what? That’s not important right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you get a little stabby when you’re sleeping.”

  “That.” I pointed. “That is a nursery.” My hand went to my belly, and I searched my memory for evidence of a pregnancy. Not that I knew what that might involve, but nothing came to mind.

  “You never—we never—Char, nothing happened. They made it a nursery for appearances. This was a long time ago.”

  “You’re not that naïve. It’s just a matter of time, Eren. Adam gets bored. He’ll want a new toy.”

  “He insisted,” Eren said. “He controls everything.”

  “Yeah. Kinda worked that one out already.” I leaned in and lowered my voice. “Eren, this room is bugged. It’s gotta be.”

  He shrugged and spoke normally. “It is. I found four.”

  “That means there are at least eight, and two of them probably aren’t even electronic.”

  “That’s what you said last time,” he said mildly.

  “Last time? Catch me up a little faster, here.”

  He shrugged, and I had the impression that he was trying to force his voice to sound bored. “You wake up like this every so often. We talk, and you go back into stasis. I don’t think it bothers him.”

  I slid the door to the nursery firmly shut and leaned against the formica counter in the kitchen. A cold prickle waved through the back of my skull. “Eren, how long have I been… asleep?”

  He rubbed the side of his head, looking pained. “Well, technically, it’s not sleep; it’s more like stasis. The body ages, but the mind—”

  “How long, Eren.”

  “You always ask this. It’s not going to—”

  “How. Long.”

  He met my eye. “Five years.”

  Reeling, I put out a hand. He grabbed it, steadying me, but released me as soon as I had my balance.

  Five years.

  Five years of droning on through meaningless, mindless tasks in Central Command, unable to form memories or connections, while the Arks barreled on toward Eirenea. Five years of listening to Adam talk, of hearing his taunts. Of watching him build a great and merciless empire on board the Ark.

  Five years of a lifeless “marriage” to Eren, who clearly no longer returned my affections.

  Five years of planning my escape.

  It seemed to me that it had passed overnight, but I read the exhaustion in Eren’s face, and I knew that what we’d once had together was long adrift, gone to sea. No one loves a puppet.

  That had been my choice, too. Before all of this, I’d told Eren that we couldn’t be together anymore, that we had bigger things to focus on. That I had to become more than a daughter, or even a wife. So I set him free.

  And judging by the speed with which his hand had pulled away from mine, he was free indeed.

  “That makes me… twenty-two years old.”

  I heard a note of panic rising up in my voice, but Eren just stared at me like he’d seen this scene play out before.

  “Eren, I have to get out of here.”

  “You say that, too,” he said quietly.

  “I have to find my family. Do I say that?”

  He gave me a sympathetic nod. “Then you won’t let me stay with you. You get back in bed. But you keep the light on all night, like you’re trying to stay awake.”

  I hobbled over to his wardrobe, leaving the blanket on the cold floor. Maybe he had a pair of pants I could wear if I rolled the legs up.

  The row of uniforms
perfectly tailored to my size was like a slap in the face. I yanked one down and stepped into it angrily, pulling it up over my hips and around my nightshirt. Of course they fit me. They were my clothes. I lived here. Eren moved to help with the zipper, but I shrugged him off angrily. It took longer, but I’d far rather put on my own clothes than accept one more second of his sympathy.

  I yanked my ID card off the mattress and pulled Eren’s shoulder down towards mine, so that I could whisper directly into his ear. Maybe Adam had planted a bug right inside Eren’s head, and I’d never be free of him. Maybe his Lieutenant noticed the syringe I’d swiped, and he was waiting for me just outside the door. At that moment, I didn’t even care. I was furious. “I’m leaving,” I muttered. “Right now. And you can come or not; I don’t care.” I pulled away, meeting his gaze with fire. “Have I ever said that before?”

  I let my eyes glass over as we marched through the hall. The next phase of my plan was significantly less clear. “So,” I muttered, “my plan is to sneak into InterArk Comm Con and ping Europe.”

  “Not gonna work,” he whispered back. “They know what’s going on. They don’t care.”

  More like, they’d rather leave it alone so we can all get to Eirenea in one piece. Not that I blamed them. From their perspective, Adam had presided over five years of relative peace. Left alone, he was no threat to any ship but his own. “So we’ll make them care.”

  “Charlotte.”

  The warning in his tone was clear, and I could guess what he was thinking. If I failed, he had another year of waiting to look forward to. Another year under Adam’s thumb. His age had increased tenfold in the dark circles beneath his eyes. Eren had felt every minute of the years I’d lost in the space of a single dream.

  “Have a little faith,” I said lightly, speeding up to brush past an oncoming group. “I don’t intend to get caught,” I muttered. “But I can’t just let a twelve-year-old despot control my brain forever.”

  “He’s seventeen, now,” Eren said softly.

  “They grow up so fast.”

  We marched the rest of the way in silence, greeted by the occasional nod to Eren. I was ignored. “How many people has he drugged like this?”

  “Unclear,” he murmured. “But you’re the only one who’s consistently under. He’s used it on others. Any one he sees as a threat, of course, and anyone he wants to punish.”

  “You?”

  His focus slid back to the hallway. “No.”

  I barely had time to wonder why Adam never saw Eren as a threat when the door sucked open. Comm Con was much as I remembered it, floating stars and all. This was the place where I’d married Eren. It was where we’d shared our first kiss, and our last.

  I half-lowered my eyelids in an attempt to look like I was still in stasis, but no one paid any attention to me. The enormous black amphitheater had maybe four other people, and no one was near the control desk.

  “New plan. We ping my dad.”

  I couldn’t miss the look of alarm that hit his face, or the care he took to hide it.

  “He’s not dead, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I whispered.

  “Don’t let them see you talking. Nothing coherent, anyway.”

  I angled my face away from the others. “He’s not dead. Adam wouldn’t have made such a big deal out of it all the time if that were the case.”

  Eren avoided my gaze with the precision of a fighter pilot. “Adam had no reason not to kill him, Charlotte. And there was opportunity, motive.”

  “I’m not sure about that. It was chaos the day of the attack.” I should know. As far as I was concerned, it happened yesterday. “He had a strike team after him, and his Remnant headquarters were obliterated, obviously. There was a big lag between when he lost Isaiah and when you and I got here, which was when he had control of the speaker system.” I paused, reliving the moment, and sucked in a deep breath. “And the oxygen.”

  Eren settled himself at his desk, and I sat, robot-like, in a nearby chair.

  “Anyway,” I continued, monotone, “I’m not totally convinced he’d take the shot even if he had it. He didn’t know Amiel was dead at that point.”

  “Depends on when your dad tried to leave, doesn’t it?” said Eren. “And let’s just agree to disagree on whether he’d take the shot either way. But here’s the real problem: you can’t ping him. You don’t know where he is.”

  He had me there. I had no way of knowing where they’d gone.

  But I had a pretty good guess.

  “Is there a shipment or anything headed toward the European Ark today? I assume we have a good relationship with them, right?”

  “To the extent that you could call it a relationship, yes. Adam sends them things from time to time. Usually tech-related. They reciprocate. A bunch of our doctors disappeared right after he started drugging people. There was talk of a strike among the medics, but instead, they just vanished. When our sick bay filled up, Europe stepped in.”

  “Europe sent us doctors? Willingly?”

  “No, they refuse to give him any personnel. But they accept patients.”

  I glanced around the room. By some miracle, no one was paying any attention to us. I guess after five years of puppethood, I had become completely invisible. Predictable, even.

  I could work with that.

  “So,” I said softly. “When’s the next shipment of patients going out?”

  “Not for another week.”

  A week. That was a long time to dodge Adam. “I don’t think I can wait that long. He’ll know something’s up any minute now. Certainly by morning.”

  “I don’t see that you have any choice. You can’t stay here,” he said, his voice more urgent than before. “He’s going to drug you again.”

  “Look who’s suddenly on Team Char.”

  “The way I see it, you need to get off this Ark. You can’t hide here. No one can. We have to depose Adam before we land. If he drugs you again, that’s another year gone. We’ll miss our window. Get out. Get some support. Come back and stage a coup.”

  Five years ago, Eren would never have dreamed of supporting a coup. I had the sudden, slippery feeling that I was talking to a stranger, that I’d lost something I cared for, and I shivered. I couldn’t think about that right now. “I can’t possibly—”

  “If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

  “Is there even any support still left around here? Maybe people want Adam in charge. I mean, he destroyed the Remnant and overthrew the Commander. He’s probably not anyone’s first choice, but you never know.”

  “I have no idea,” said Eren. “No one talks to me. I’m too close to Adam. And I’m married to you, remember? You’re not exactly popular with either group, either, you know.”

  He was probably referring to the fact that I’d killed the Commander and betrayed Isaiah, putting me squarely at odds with both Central Command and the Remnant. That would also account for the depressing fact that in five years, no one had bothered rescuing me, rebellion or not.

  “Can you arrange another patient transport? Say, tonight?”

  “Charlotte. We have no allies. No resources.”

  “Aren’t you the Lieutenant Commander? I seem to remember something about that from my hospital stay.”

  He gave me a long look, then turned back to fiddle with the control panel. “I was, for a little while. The position changed hands a few years ago.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I met her. Early thirties, kinda stabby, likes to play with needles? Arms like a bear trap.”

  “No. I mean, yes, she’s the real LC. But that’s a secret. Officially, on paper, it’s someone else.”

  “Anyone I know?” I scanned my brain for candidates, but Eren had stopped dinking around and sat still instead, staring at the constellation hologram. It was disconcerting. “Earth to Eren.”

  “Yeah, Char. It’s you.”

  I snorted. “Me.”

  “Lieutenant Everest,” he said, using our married name. His voice was
blank, but there was a sad softness in his eyes that made me reach for his hand. He pulled away, and I whisked air. It was like falling through an unseen crack in the middle of a familiar street.

  “Eren, please. We can’t just—”

  “Lieutenant!” a voice pierced our conversation, and I forced myself not to jump.

  “Mnmm.” I glanced up sleepily. A uniformed man strode toward us, insignia blazing, and my hand wandered toward the emblems on my own uniform. His mouth concealed a sneer. It hit me that he’d probably been in the military all his life, and I, to all the world an idiot, outranked him. Adam played a dangerous game.

  He saluted, an action I did not return, and a look of disdain, or pity, crept over his face. “Inform the High Commander that the day’s operations are completed.”

  Now, how in the heck was I supposed to talk to Adam?

  I sat there, dumb as a stump, until Eren laid a hand on mine. It was warm, and for a moment, I felt secure again. “Here,” he said, his voice gentle and slow. He slid my fingers across the control panel in front of us and pressed my finger over an iridescent plate an inch wide. Fingerprint scanner, I supposed. “InterArk Comm Con to headquarters.”

  There was a pause, then a rustle, and Adam spoke.

  “Command.”

  The two men looked at me, and I used my best sleepy voice. “The day’s operations are complete. Comp-leted,” I corrected myself with a slur.

  “Dismiss the crew. Send her over, Everest,” came the reply. “Command out.”

  The man in uniform scoffed and trooped away.

  The crew filed out of the room without a second glance at me, and when the door closed behind them, Eren cleared his throat. “So.”