Children No More-ARC

by Mark L. Van Name

  "So do I need to put the whole staff on alert for the next two days?" Lim said.

  I kept my tone the same as I said, "No." That was the worst thing she could do. Her surprise at Wylak's visit had to be genuine, or he would know something was going on. "No, you do not." I shrugged and said, "Look, if you don't want to do this, say so, and we won't. I don't, though, see any harm in keeping the boys busy for another day or in having a big party."

  "Most of them have enjoyed clearing the field," Schmidt said from behind me, "and they've worked really hard at it. It's been decent therapy for them. A party would be a nice way to thank them for all that work."

  "Work on taking down perfectly good trees to create a big flat stretch of ground we don't need," Gustafson said.

  "All of this is beside the point," Lim said. She pointed at me. "He's misdirecting us every chance he gets. We all know he's planning something, and somehow everything he's doing is tied to it. We also know he's not going to tell us. We've agreed that torturing him to get the answer isn't a viable option—though sometimes I regret that decision." She turned and went back to her desk. "At least this would keep the boys focused on non-destructive tasks."

  She sat and faced us. "Moore, we'll give you what you want."

  She waved us all to go.

  As I stepped through the doorway, she said, "Moore."

  I turned around.

  "I know I keep repeating this," she said, "but I can't tell if you really understand me. You better know what you're doing. These boys are amazing, and unless your mystery plan works, soon Wylak is going to take them away."

  "I know," I said. "I do understand."

  "Make signs?" Bony said. "You want us to paint signs?"

  "Yes," I said. "Thank-you signs. Little ones and big ones, some like giant banners. Lots of them, hundreds of them, one from each of you if we can manage it, maybe even more."

  "Hundreds of them?" another boy said. "Why?"

  "To thank the counselors for all they've done for you."

  Bony faced Gustafson and Schmidt and Long and all the others standing off to the side. "Do you guys want those signs?"

  "Not really," Gustafson said. "It's his idea; don't blame us."

  "The whole point is to decorate for the party," I said. I stepped back to get a broader view of the growing crowd of boys. "We're going to have a huge party tomorrow, right here in the clearing that you guys created. I thought it would look amazing to tack thank-you signs to all the trees around the perimeter."

  Bony shook his head.

  A lot of the boys stared at me as if I were insane.

  "There's something you're not telling us," Bony said.

  "What would it cost you to make the signs and put them up? How could it hurt?"

  "You want us to spend a whole day on it," another boy said. "That's a lot of time, a lot of work."

  "Yeah, but it's a day you wouldn't have to listen to the grown-ups talk to you, a day without any classes, a day doing easy stuff."

  A murmur of agreement swept through a lot of the boys.

  "And what will they be doing?" Bony said.

  "Making signs to thank you," Schmidt said.

  "For what?" a boy off to my left called out.

  "No one thing," Schmidt said. "For trying, for working so hard, for everything."

  Bony walked up to me. "I'm trusting you, big man," he whispered. He turned and faced all the other boys. "So let's make thank-you signs," he shouted. "It's not like we have anything better to do." He pointed to the adults. "If that's all it takes to get them to give us a party, it's a pretty good deal."

  A lot of boys nodded and stepped forward.

  After a few seconds, more followed.

  Bony walked over to Schmidt. "Show me how to do this," he said.

  She smiled and said, "My pleasure."

  Counselors spread among the boys.

  As Gustafson passed me, he paused and said, "I feel like a damn fool idiot. You know that, right?"

  I nodded. "So do I."

  He headed to his group.

  "They're all trusting you," Lobo said over the comm. "Amazing."

  "I'm doing my best," I subvocalized.

  "I know," he said. "Before you ask, no, there's no word from Jack and no sign of him or Maggie."

  "But there wouldn't be," I said, "not yet, would there?"

  "Probably not," Lobo said, "not if he was able to make it all work out."

  "So there's still hope," I said.

  "Yes."

  I glanced at the sky and hoped that Jack had been able to execute our plan, that he and Maggie would show up on time, that I wasn't making these boys spend their last safe day doing something that might never make sense to them, that they wouldn't ever be soldiers again—either for Wylak or with me in a battle against him.

  Tomorrow morning, I'd find out if my hopes would come true.

  Chapter 59

  In the former rebel complex, planet Tumani

  As everyone else headed to dinner and the sun dropped behind the horizon, I surveyed the clearing for the last time. All around its perimeter, trees hosted signs shouting "Thank you!" in words big and small, on single sheets and multi-page assemblages, in red and black and green and blue and purple and gold and many other colors.

  We were done.

  Long and a few of the counselors called to me to join them for dinner, but I waved them off. I'd kept myself cheerful in front of everyone for the entire day. I couldn't do it any longer.

  I headed to Lobo. I'd eat a little and get as much rest as I could.

  One way or another, in the morning I'd need it.

  That night, I dreamed.

  At first, I was aware I was dreaming, but that awareness faded as the vision grew increasingly vivid and the dreamscape coalesced around me. I stood outside the complex, the morning sun bright and the air still chilled from the night. I was on the road, but this one ran downhill straight to the sea, which tossed and churned as if in the grip of a storm. The sky directly overhead was clear, but dark gray clouds blanketed the ocean. I glanced behind me at the complex, and it now rose in terraces on the side of the mountain at the center of Dump. Gone were the trees of Tumani; in their place jutted sharp outcroppings of polished stone only a shade darker than the sand.

  I closed my eyes, confused at what I saw.

  When I opened them again, soldiers standing ten abreast filled the road in front of me. Only twenty meters separated us. All of them pointed rifles at me. Hovering on either side of them was a line of shuttles like the one that had brought me to Dump.

  I heard movement behind me and checked there again.

  To my right, two lines of boys stretched as far up the mountain as I could see. At the heads of the lines, Bony and Nagy pulled rifles and pistols and spears and sticks and knives from open wooden boxes and handed them as fast as they could to the front boys, who passed the weapons up the line. Lim and Schmidt and Gustafson and Long and all the other counselors stood farther to the side, shaking their heads and checking their own weapons.

  To my left, Bob and Alex and Han fought with a huge guard, a man wearing an Aggro uniform and standing easily eight feet tall. They struggled to stop him from pointing his rifle at them. Benny, his discarded cart behind him, clung with his front flippers to the guard's left boot and kept biting the man's leg. Jennie held the other leg and tried to stop the man from walking, but he moved with ease, attacking my three friends as if neither she nor Benny were there at all.

  "You're done, Moore," a voice said.

  When I faced front again, Wylak stood only two meters away. The first rank of soldiers was only a meter behind him. On either side of him stood two more of the giant Aggro guards. They smiled and shook their heads as if laughing at the weak anger of a child.

  "You let them down," Wylak said. "They counted on you, they bet everything on you, and you let them down."

  "No," I said.

  "Oh, yes," Wylak said.

  The guards nodded their agreem
ent.

  "You always do," he said.

  The guards nodded again.

  Behind me, Benny screamed, "I'm sorry!"

  A shot pierced the day.

  I turned in time to see Bob fall.

  Alex and Han pushed upward on the rifle, trying to save themselves.

  Wylak stepped closer and slapped me. "What made you think one stupid boy could help them? If it weren't for you, we might have been able to let them live, to give them at least a chance at survival as they fought the rebels. Now, though—" he paused and shrugged "—we're going to have to kill them all."

  "No," I said. "You don't have to do that. Leave them alone. Leave them all alone."

  He slapped me again. "Or what? You'll stop us. One scared pathetic boy?"

  I glanced at my body and saw my sixteen-year-old self, lean from my time on Dump and lacking the muscle I later gained.

  Another shot rang out.

  A scream followed it.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw Alex go down, blood geysering out of his neck.

  "Please," I said. Tears poured down my cheeks. "Please stop. Let them alone."

  Wylak laughed. "It's too late for that, Moore. If they'd never involved you, maybe they could have lived, but not now, not what with all that you've done." He put his hand on my neck and pulled me so close I could see the hairs in his nose as he grew a meter taller and towered over me. "This is on you."

  I fell to my knees. "No!" I screamed.

  "Jon!"

  The cry came from behind me. Benny and Han and Jennie were screaming my name. The guard had swatted away Han and was pointing his rifle at Benny.

  "Big man!" Bony called.

  A line of soldiers marched past me and aimed their weapons at the boys.

  Nagy charged them with a spear.

  The soldiers opened fire. Even after Nagy fell, they kept shooting. The bullets ripped through his body and drove into the sand.

  I stared at Wylak, hoping I could find a way to get him to stop, but he wasn't even looking at me. He stepped to the side and motioned the troops to proceed.

  I pounded the sand in front of me with my fists.

  "No!" I said.

  More shots sounded.

  The soldiers marched on.

  "No!" I said again. I hit the sand once more, grabbed some with each hand, and rubbed it on my face. I mixed it with my tears and willed my nanomachines to use the sand to make more of themselves. I instructed them to target the guards and the soldiers and Wylak. Small gray clouds formed in front of me, grew rapidly, and spread like whirlwinds sweeping upward from my eyes, upward and outward, racing from me in all directions.

  They made contact with the soldiers.

  The men swatted and screamed and fired but could do nothing as the nanomachines converted their bodies into more nanomachines and moved on, each person transforming ever more rapidly into a part of the cloud that swept over the land, a mist of charging death darker than the sky over the ocean.

  In seconds, the soldiers were gone, but the nanomachine swarm kept moving, consuming everyone and everything in its path. Benny and Jennie vanished. The corpses of my dead friends disappeared, as did Bony and Nagy, Lim and Gustafson. Everyone and everything turned into part of the ever-growing dull gray cloud as the darkness from within me fanned across the island.

  When all that remained was the sand and the rocky husk of Dump and the buildings and walls of the complex, the nanoclouds dissolved and fell to the sand like black rain.

  "No!" I screamed. "I didn't mean—" I spun around and around, hoping to see someone, anyone, still alive, but everywhere the world was still and dead. "No! I thought I could—"

  I sat upright in my cot, soaked in sweat, my mouth open in a silent scream, my training too good to let me make a sound, though my neck was so taut with the effort of containment that it ached.

  "You better get over whatever you were dreaming," Lobo said, "because it's time. Wylak is on the move and two hours away."

  The lights came up.

  I swiveled my legs to the floor and gripped the edge of my cot. I willed my heart to beat less frantically and breathed slowly and deeply through my nose.

  I wouldn't fight. I knew it now. No matter how much I might posture, the risk to the boys was too great. Lobo and I would probably win for a while, but in the end we'd lose, and the casualties along the way would be enormous.

  I also couldn't bear to let them down.

  I needed Jack and Maggie.

  "We have another problem," Lobo said, "one we hadn't anticipated."

  Chapter 60

  In the former rebel complex, planet Tumani

  "What?" I said. We'd always faced the risk that Jack and Maggie might not be able to execute the plan, but I'd been confident that the plan itself was sound, that as long as there was enough time it would work.

  "Wylak has jammed all transmissions. Nothing electronic is getting in or out of here."

  "How?"

  "Two ships hovering a few klicks off the north and south sides of the complex have thrown an electronic net over us."

  If Jack and Maggie were successful, this wouldn't matter, though it would make coordination with them difficult. "What about ground-to-ground comms?"

  "They'll work," Lobo said. "All my sensors in the area are still transmitting. The ships threw the blanket on us a little over two hours ago, but they're flying high enough that as long as we don't need to bounce off a sat, we can talk."

  "Two hours ago?" I stood. "Why didn't you wake me?"

  "To what end?" Lobo said. "So you could lose sleep while we argued pointlessly?"

  "You're right," I said. "Sorry. It just means that coordination with Jack will be tougher."

  "We'll hear him once he's under five hundred feet and our comm link takes over," Lobo said.

  "I assume no word from him prior to the blackout."

  "You assume correctly," Lobo said. "You know I would have told you."

  I nodded. "I do. I'm just thorough by habit."

  "I know," Lobo said. "This isn't our first mission. In the same spirit, let me point out that I could easily shoot down those ships."

  "And give away your capabilities and provoke Wylak into stronger actions and almost certainly push us into a fight with him." Images of the dead from the dream lingered vividly in my mind. "No. I know you could, but no."

  "As I said, like you I was simply being thorough."

  "So we proceed as planned," I said. "We're functioning with less data, but the situation is the same: We meet with Wylak, hope that Jack and Maggie make it and that they're ready, and if they're not, we surrender the boys or start a war."

  "Correct," Lobo said, "but since when has reason stopped you from fretting?"

  "When it's go time," I said, "and you know it." I stretched and started getting ready. I wanted to look right when we greeted Wylak.

  "Your first morning meeting will be starting early," Lobo said.

  "What? Wylak is arriving earlier than he said?"

  "Not that meeting," Lobo said. "Wylak wouldn't come at night because it would make his visit appear too aggressive. I'm talking about the meeting you're about to have with Lim. Her team's comms are buzzing. One of her communication monitors noticed the blackout and woke her. She'll be here soon."

  "This isn't going to be fun," I said.

  "Come in," I said as Lobo slid a side hatch open, "and stop banging on my ship. All you'll do is hurt your hand."

  Lim glared at me and stormed inside Lobo.

  He closed the hatch behind her, stranding Long and another counselor outside.

  "What do you know—" she said.

  "—about the communications blackout?" I smiled. "Everything that matters. I think—"

  "I don't care what you think!" she said. She stepped closer to me. "Tell me what's going on!"

  "What I was about to say is that I think it's time for me to explain a few things."

  "If you brief her on the entire situation now," Lobo s
aid privately, "you still risk all the same problems as before. There's too much that could still go wrong."

  I turned and walked toward the pilot area. As I did, I subvocalized to Lobo, "I know."

  Lim followed me without saying anything else. When we reached Lobo's front, she leaned against the near wall, crossed her arms, and said, "I'm waiting."

  "Two small Tumani government ships are hovering about five hundred feet above the ground a few klicks away from our north and south perimeters. They're jamming all transmissions in and out of this place."

  "How do you have this information?"

  Lim already knew more about Lobo's capabilities than I found comfortable, so I said, "Intel sources transmitted it right before the ships cut us off from the world."

  She pushed off the wall. "And you decided to keep this to yourself instead of telling us?"

  I held up my hands and said, "No. I didn't actually see the data until a few minutes ago. By the time I was ready to go outside, you were already here."

  "What else?"

  I shrugged. "That's it." For now, I thought but did not say.

  She was silent for a few seconds. "Tell me if I'm missing something. You got out of bed more than two hours earlier than any of us have ever seen you out and around. Intelligence sources you won't name sent you a warning about a communications blackout, but Lobo chose not to wake you with the news. Is that about right?"

  I nodded. "That covers it."

  "How stupid does that tale sound to you?" Lim said. "I can't decide whether to be angrier about your lies or about your belief that I'm dumb enough to buy that weak crap."

  I smiled despite myself. "Fair enough," I said. "It's not the whole story."

  "Obviously." Lim stared at me, waiting for me to continue.

  "You know you have to stall her long enough that her team can't make any serious preparations," Lobo said. "Wylak has to believe we're surprised. We have a hundred minutes left, more than enough time for her to ruin that illusion."