“Charles,” I stammered. My pulse began to pick up, but he didn’t seem to care or even notice. “This may not be the best time after all. We were just about to leave.”
“Were you?” he said, his tone curiously blank.
It happened again. Every orderly in the room took another step toward us. This time, they weren’t even trying to hide it. I caught Mars’ eye. Her jaw was tight beneath her smile. It was a huge mistake to come here. We were outnumbered eight to one.
If she could handle the orderlies in our group, perhaps I could start moving Eren to the door. I reckoned we’d make it about half the distance before the other ones got us.
Less, if they started running.
I wet my lips. “It’s a tr—”
The orderlies nearest us flinched, and I ducked, slamming my fist into the first one as hard as I could. He moved past me, barely fazed, and I realized I was not his target. Eren was.
But the orderly was already too late. Eren’s eyes were sharp. Focused. And his gaze was clear.
Perhaps the mistake was theirs.
At a stroke, Eren twisted him backward, then returned his attention to Charles. The remaining orderly gaped, hand to hair, at the syringe that dangled from Charles’ thigh. Charles twitched, panicking, and the syringe emptied itself completely.
A flash of black fabric, and Eren was on top of the next orderly. The rest of the room galvanized toward the unfolding fight. It wouldn’t last long.
“Marcela. Gun.” Eren shot her a pleading look.
Mars pulled a gun from her jacket and aimed it directly at the head of the nearest orderly. He raised his hands, frozen, and the rest of the scrubs in the room ceased their advance.
The room fell quiet, and Eren stood. “Mr. Eiffel,” he said. His voice sounded strong, like it was in my memory, and I gave him an appreciative look. “We’d like to ask you a few questions about Ark Five.”
Charles blinked a few times.
Finally, he lifted his head and smiled.
“Ah, the Everests. It is good to see you.”
As Charles relaxed, so did the orderlies. One by one, they returned their attention to their tasks, shooting careful glances in our direction. Eren gave a pointed look at the ones nearest us, and Charles made a similar face at Marcela. “That will need to be confiscated if our conversation is to continue.” Eren nodded at her, and after a long moment of consideration, Mars placed her gun in an orderly’s outstretched hand. What else could she do? We wouldn’t get far if they were chasing us, and it’s not like we planned on shooting anyone in cold blood.
Charles waved them away and took his seat.
I was about to launch into an explanation of what we were doing there when Eren cut me off. “Who drugged you?” he said, standing over Charles.
“Drugged?” He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He gave an enormous shrug, which turned into a stretch, and I had an image of someone just waking up from a nap. “I didn’t even know I was drugged.”
“Trust me,” said Eren dryly. “You were.”
“What do you remember?” Mars demanded.
Charles pursed his lips. “Someone came from behind. I am fairly sure of that.”
“This can wait,” I said, and we filled him in as fast as we could.
“If I understand you,” he said at last, standing, “we need to prove the existence of Ark Five to the Asian Imperial. In exchange, we will take down the monster who destroyed our city?”
We nodded. “We’re certainly going to try,” said Eren.
“I’m sure you can contact them,” I said. “I know what I saw. I know they’re out there. Will you help us?”
“Help you contact Ark Five?” Charles asked.
“How do we know she won’t attack them?” Mars asked.
“She won’t,” I said slowly. “They’re unarmed, right?” The others nodded. “Surely she’ll want to save her nukes for the ones that can fight back.”
“You’re assuming she has to choose between them,” said Charles. “She doesn’t.”
“How many nukes does she have?” I asked.
“Enough to do anything she wants,” he said calmly.
“My impression of An is that she only wants peace,” said Eren.
“Control,” said Charles. I looked at him. “She wants control,” he said. “She will use it to ensure that there is peace.”
“Either way, I’m in,” I said, clenching and unclenching my fist. So many things weren’t adding up, but all I could think was, Hang on, Dad. I’m coming for you. “Don’t you want Adam under control? We can still beat him. But we need your help. And An’s.”
“Well, then,” said Charles, “we should go.”
The comms room required a retinal scan, voice clearance, and the use of Charles’ badge. “Why don’t they just take a blood sample, while we’re at it?” I muttered.
“Don’t give them any ideas,” said Mars.
“The receiver will take two minutes to unfurl,” he said. “If there has been any message from Ark Five, we should be able to pick it up.”
I decided to spend the time looking around the room. Unlike the amphitheater that housed North America’s communications control, the comm center here had only a few desks. But the desks they had were magnificent: dark green, with enormous, curved-glass shields around each station. They were arranged like blocks around a center square, which also appeared to be made of glass. “Let me guess,” said Mars. “One place for everyone on the Council.” She was clearly impressed by the set-up in spite of her usual nonchalance.
“I’ve heard about this,” said Eren. “Apparently, you can control the glass’s capabilities.” He laid a hand on one imposing shield. “It can be opaque or not, and it can block sound and host images as well.”
“One station might not even know what the other is up to,” I mused, and Charles gave me a quick glance before turning back to the transmitter.
“Ah, success,” he said moments later. “I hope this is to her satisfaction.” He twisted a knob, throwing the transmission to the middle block.
The center of the room lit up above the square glass pedestal, and a series of metallic taps filled the air. “Morse code,” I said quietly. Mars scrambled for a screen and a stem, but Eren held up a hand, his head cocked.
“Hold for translation,” he said softly. “Message reçu. Dispositif… d’invisibilité engagé jusqu’à nouvel avis. Nous avons atteint… la terre. Première mission accomplie.”
I shook my head, eyes wide. “And that means?”
Eren’s brow furrowed over intense blue eyes. “Message received. Cloak engaged until further notice. We have reached… the ground? First mission—” he looked at Charles—“a success.” Eren set his jaw, and his gaze met mine. “The message repeats from there. It’s on some kind of loop. No telling how long they’ve been broadcasting it.”
I stared at the screen in disbelief. “They reached the ground? Like, Eirenea? You guys, this is huge. They made planetfall! Why are they hiding it?”
Eren shook his head. “The phrasing just sounds wrong. But I’m not sure. And what’s all this about a mission?” he asked Charles.
“We shouldn’t stay too long,” he said, busying himself with another set of controls.
“It’s huge, all right.” Mars was frowning at a set of calculations on the screen. “But the trajectory doesn’t fit. Maybe it’s a code? Do we have enough data to pin down an origin point?”
“It’s several AU away.” Eren turned to the display. “No way it’s coming from Eirenea.”
“They could have some kind of phantom routing,” Mars said.
He shook his head. “It’s not like they’re trying to hide. They’re not even changing frequencies. It’s almost like… they’re shouting.”
“If that were true, they wouldn’t use a cloaking device,” Mars said, frustrated.
“AU?” I blinked, trying to keep up, but none of it made much sense. “Should we ping them back?”
; “Astronomical units, and no. No,” said Eren. “We need to stop for a minute. We don’t want to draw them out any further until we know what’s going on. Remember their last conversation.”
I did. Granted, I’d only heard one side of it, but they’d seemed a good deal more skittish back then. I flipped through the controls on the desk, looking for a line to the Asian Ark. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I found it, though. “In that case, it seems like we shouldn’t be announcing anything to An, either. Maybe it’s hiding from her.” I turned back to the desk and started flipping as many switches as I could, but nothing happened. Was it possible that they were all keyed to someone else’s fingerprints? “At some point, this is just paranoid.”
“Not if they think she’s trying to kill them,” said Mars.
“No, not the Ark. The desk. I need to talk to An,” I said, checking under the panel for some kind of failswitch. “I keep thinking we’re getting somewhere, but all I have is more questions.”
“See, I feel like we need to talk about this before we send it to An,” said Mars. From the sound of things, she was ducking behind another desk, trying to crack the same system as me. “Surely there’s something else we can do? Like, anything else?”
I thought about that. “We could ping the North American Ark.” They looked at me. “I mean, I don’t think he’s there. I think he’s probably with An. But just in case.”
“You could,” said Charles, “but it won’t do any good. They went dark some time ago.”
“Dark?” Mars said.
“Nothing in or out. No hoppers, no cargo ships. Nothing,” Charles explained. “They won’t even receive a transmission.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“I’m afraid not, my dear,” he answered. Something about his tone set me off-balance for the hundredth time that day.
I bit a lip. “Fine. Show me.”
Charles pulled up a graphic, and the familiar shape of the North American Ark came into view. “Home sweet home,” I said.
“Here’s their signal,” Charles explained, pointing. “You can see that it’s coming across every frequency. Here are the receptors,” he indicated a schematic below the graphic, and Eren nodded. “All shut down,” he said.
“What’s on the signal?” said Mars.
“Happy to play it for you,” said Charles. He flipped a switch, and a familiar voice hit the comms.
“To our esteemed colleagues and treasured allies aboard the other Arks,” came the message, “we regret that the North American Ark has closed its borders, effective immediately.” I inclined my head, listening, and the image of Adam’s Lieutenant popped into my mind. I had no doubt that the voice was hers, and that she was no longer under the influence of the drug. There was a certain melancholy to her words that could not have come from a puppet. “This closure is absolute. Any imposition on our airspace, diplomatic or otherwise, will be treated as the gravest of threats to our peaceful existence and an offense to our sovereignty.” The voice paused, lowered. “To those who oppose him: our hopes are with you. Good luck.”
I looked around the room, but the others were as speechless as I, struck by the finality of the missive.
“The running theory,” Charles said, “is that the lady is under his influence. That he is there, consolidating his power.”
I shook my head. “The Lieutenant didn’t sound like she was drugged,” I said. “She sounded genuinely sad. You don’t feel sad when you’re under. Or anything, for that matter.”
“I suppose you’ll want to talk to the Imperial,” said Charles. Something in his expression put me on guard. I couldn’t place a finger on it, though, and I couldn’t see a better plan forward, either. I resolved to stay alert.
“You know, that’s not a bad plan,” said Eren. “Was it just me, or did An seem to be acting strange—stranger than usual—during the conversation?”
“Wait! Did you see that?” said Mars.
“See what?” I asked, my tone level.
“Something moved.”
Eren looked around, presumably for a weapon, and said, “Hello? Show yourself. We mean no harm.” There was no response.
A shadow moved across the room. We saw it and tensed, as though a cord ran through us all and was suddenly pulled taut. Eren reacted first. I watched, open-mouthed, as he grabbed Charles by the shoulders and threw him to the ground. I should have been moving by then, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Charles. At last, it hit me. It was subtle, barely visible. But I was sure it wasn’t my imagination. He was smiling.
“Get down,” Eren shouted.
Now, there was a phrase I’d never needed to hear twice. I ducked into the space below the desk. Mars followed immediately, folding herself beside me in one fluid motion. At the same time, there was a small crash, and the lights went out.
That was not a good sign. In my experience, when someone kills the lights in a room, they are generally more prepared for a fight than the other people in the room.
Mars and I listened, motionless, as Eren and Charles shuffled around for a second. I could barely make out Mars’ face, but she seemed to be pointing to the far wall. I strained for any clue as to what might be going on, but all I could hear was the sound of the blood pulsing through my neck.
“I really need a gun,” I muttered.
“Yeah,” Mars whispered, still crouching. She twisted slightly and slid a hand up the leg of her pants, balancing on the ball of her other foot. From there, she unlatched something and withdrew a silver sidearm without a false move. “You really do.” She shifted her grip on the gun and slid out into the room.
I made a face at her back.
I needed a weapon, but nothing materialized. Another crash, followed by a hard pop, sent a jolt through my body, and my heart pulsed faster. I really, really didn’t want to be sitting around unarmed when he came for me. I banged my head into the back of the desk in frustration.
A drawer popped open to my left.
Fancy, fancy. But of course the people who worked here would have a place to put their stuff while they worked. A quick search of the drawer turned up nothing more exciting than a screen, a stem, and a handkerchief. Like, the kind the old people started carrying around when they outlawed tissue paper during the War. This one had a thin, blocky, red monogram: CBE.
My irritation surprised me. I’d thought I was past caring about the luxuries selected to survive the meteor in place of actual people. After all, it was only a piece of cloth. I braced the screen with a fist and a forearm. And besides, I reasoned, cracking the screen over my thigh, it saved me from using a sock. I selected the longest, most triangular piece of glass from the wrecked screen and, pinning it under my leg, wrapped the handkerchief around the thick part. Then I slid the stem into my sleeve and emerged from the desk in a half-crouch.
The sounds of a fight were to my right, but nothing was visible at first. Using the desk as cover, I slid my eyes around the room, hoping to catch a trace of movement in my periphery, when the door sucked open. I was too late to stop the intruder, who must not have belonged in the room any more than the rest of us, so I froze, fighting my instinct to hide, and forced myself to focus on the figure making his getaway.
We took stock of each other in the half-light of the hall, and I frowned, confused. But he vanished quickly, knowing I was in no position to give chase. I looked around the room. Charles seemed to have ridden out the skirmish in the same position as I: hiding under a desk. Eren had a small cut on the front of his arm. Mars was bleeding from her lip. She took in my makeshift weapon without changing her expression. Which was angry.
Eren crossed the room to stand next to me, and I gave his hand a squeeze. He seemed fine. For my part, I felt vaguely dizzy.
The three of us turned to Charles. I shifted my grip on the weapon, not quite brandishing it at him. “What do you know about this?”
“Not much,” he said casually. Too casually. He stood and faced the group.
Something in his tone
set off an alarm in my mind, and all at once, my thoughts came together, and the first of my questions had an answer. An was never allied with Adam.
“An wasn’t trying to find out what happened to Ark Five, was she?” I asked him. My tone must have set off his alarms, too, because he took a step back. Instinct made me check for his hands, but they were hidden beneath the surface of the square glass pedestal.
“What?” said Mars.
I gave Charles a look hard enough to crack ice. “She was trying to find out what happened to you.” I turned to the others. “That wasn’t Adam who attacked us just now. It was Shan.”
“He’s a long way from home,” Marcela observed, and I had to agree. It was hard to imagine the Asian Imperial’s favorite bodyguard anywhere but by her side.
“To be fair,” said Eren, taking in my words, “it wasn’t much of an attack. More like, we caught him off-guard. Hey, do you guys hear thunder? Are we that close to the biosphere?”
My breath caught as I listened, and a deep, distant rumble weaved itself through the silence in the room. “It’s a spaceship, Eren,” I whispered, feeling strangely cold. “There’s no such thing as thunder.” The entire puzzle shifted once again, and the nightmare before us took shape in my mind as the pieces continued falling into place. “And An wasn’t just distracted during our conversation,” I continued. My voice began to shake, and I lowered my pitch. It didn’t help. “She’s not getting ready for a fight, is she, Charles? She’s already in one.”
I turned back to the group. Eren’s hands were raised, a determined look on his face. Mars mirrored his posture. Her face was a mask of rage, all of it aimed at Charles. She was actually kind of terrifying when she got like that.
I’d have felt sorry for Charles, if it weren’t for the gun he was aiming at me.
“You’re working with An,” I said, taking in the barrel. I didn’t lift my hands. I had no intention of putting him at ease. Not when the world was coming to an end all over again.
“My dear, this entire ship is working with An,” he replied calmly. “It’s not a fight we can afford to lose.”
The last of the questions had an answer, and I was cold.
The Fall Page 14