Under Falling Skies

by Kate MacLeod

Scout grasped the arms of the chair in her hands and started hopping madly up and down. The chair pivoted a bit, but not much. She saw Girl’s black hindquarters, her white-tipped tail laying inert on the floor. Then Beatrice put her hands down on the arms of the chair, leaning her full weight in to stop Scout from moving.

  Scout gasped. She should be able to shift a girl of this size, but she was incredibly heavy. Like Warrior had been.

  “You have body modifications. All three of you?”

  Beatrice laughed and turned her back on Scout to walk back to the others. Felicity shrugged as she licked peanut butter from her fingertips. Clementine just smiled.

  “You can talk. And so can she,” Scout said, pointing her chin at Felicity. “So why doesn’t Clementine talk?”

  “Who knows? She just never does,” Beatrice said, facing Scout once more as she leaned back against the counter. She took one of Felicity’s peanut butter–covered crackers and bit off half.

  “Clementine hasn’t spoken for as long as we’ve known her,” Felicity said. “And we’ve known her longer than anyone.”

  “But don’t judge her,” Beatrice said. “She’s the best of us. No one takes a mark out like Clementine.”

  “Well, she’s also been training longer,” Felicity said. “She got a head start.”

  “She’ll always be the best,” Beatrice said.

  Clementine didn’t seem to be paying attention to their compliments at all.

  “Just how long has she been killing people?” Scout asked.

  Beatrice looked up at Clementine. “How long, Clementine? Since you were five?” Clementine nodded. “Since she was five,” Beatrice said to Scout.

  “Murdering people at five? Sounds traumatic. Scarring. No wonder she doesn’t speak,” Scout said.

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” Beatrice said, looking to Felicity. “I’ve been killing people since I was seven—”

  “Seven as well,” Felicity said with a nod.

  “—and I don’t have any scars. Not psychological ones, anyway,” she added, touching the wound on her face.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Scout said under her breath.

  “She’s good at her job. Whether she can talk or not doesn’t really bear into that,” Beatrice said and reached for another cracker. “Liv told you all about Clementine, but she never mentioned us.”

  “Did she know about you?”

  “Did she know about us,” Beatrice scoffed, looking to Felicity, then to Clementine. “We grew up together, we three. We were smuggled down here together and into Liv’s care. We didn’t split up until Liv put us in separate houses for the assassin work. Yes, it’s fair to say Liv knew us—what we were, what we did. I guess she wanted one last secret.”

  Scout lifted her buttocks off the chair. She shifted to a more comfortable position, but also she felt for the telltale lump of the two data disks in her pocket digging into her thigh as she moved. They were still safe, for now.

  “Liv was afraid of us,” Felicity said.

  “Yes, right there at the end, she was. Felicity and I had both finished our assignments, but when we went to return home, Liv was gone. Disappeared. Even we with our sizable skills at finding people couldn’t track her down. Not until Clementine just stumbled upon her all the way out here.”

  “And she called us,” Felicity said. “And we came, because she’s our sister.”

  “We’ve been helping ever since,” Beatrice said. “Not with Ruth, of course, that was Clementine’s particular task, but with the others.”

  “How?” Scout asked. “We searched everywhere and never saw any sign of you.”

  “We’re very good,” Felicity said.

  Beatrice just pointed up at the ceiling.

  Scout stared up past the light for some time before she saw what Beatrice was pointing at. The faintest of outlines. A hatch in the ceiling.

  “Every room?” Scout asked.

  Beatrice nodded. “Every room.”

  “No cameras up there,” Scout said. “No motion sensors.”

  “Nothing,” Beatrice agreed. “It’s not easy to crawl about up there, true. It’s cramped even for the likes of us. But we had full access to the whole compound and the rest of you never knew. Not even the marshal who thought she was so clever.”

  “We had a good laugh about her, didn’t we?” Felicity said.

  “Did we ever,” Beatrice said.

  “So now what?” Scout asked, heartsick. “Why didn’t you just let me die with my dogs? Why did you open the door?”

  “The air thing was my idea,” Felicity said.

  “Yeah, you mentioned,” Scout said.

  “Clementine didn’t want you to die that way,” Beatrice said. “She really likes you.”

  “I’m touched,” Scout said from between gritted teeth.

  “We do love her. She’s our favorite sister, isn’t she, Felicity?”

  “She is indeed, Beatrice.”

  “So now what?” Scout asked again. “Are you going to cut me free? Give me a weapon? A fighting chance?”

  Beatrice laughed long and loud, as if this was the funniest thing she’d heard in ages. “You think even with every weapon in this place and us with our bare hands you would have a fighting chance?” Her laughter died as suddenly as it had started. “You wouldn’t.”

  “So you're just going to kill me here in the chair?” Scout asked, tears of frustration making her vision swim. She twisted her hands in their bonds. The cuffs tightened, biting into her skin. Blood dripped to the floor. “Just do it then!”

  Beatrice looked over at Felicity, who gave another bored shrug. They walked up to Scout still squirming in the chair, step by deliberate step. Then they stopped an arm’s length away, as if still worried she would somehow break free. Scout bit back a whimper of pain. She’d have to sacrifice a hand, and it still might not be enough.

  “Rochambeau?” Felicity asked.

  “Seriously?”

  “Why should she be your kill?”

  “Clementine says she wasn’t yours.”

  “That’s because she didn’t like the oxygen deprivation thing. You got to kill the last one tied to a chair. I just got to poison the chubby one’s tea. How is that any fun?”

  “Oxygen deprivation isn’t fun either.”

  “I know, that’s why this one should be mine—”

  Scout froze as Clementine appeared behind the two arguing girls, that smile of hers appearing over their overlapping shoulders like some demented sun. She raised her left hand, clutching Ottilie’s little knife, and drove it straight into Beatrice’s ear, promptly releasing it as Beatrice’s knees buckled and she sprawled at Scout’s feet. Then Clementine reached for Felicity, a hand gliding over her cheek as if she were about to draw her in for a kiss. Felicity seemed like she too wasn't sure if Clementine was about to kiss her or not, but when Clementine’s hand tightened on the back of her neck and drew her in, the other hand sprawled across her face, twisting in the opposite direction.

  Felicity made one last squeak of surprise. Then she too was sprawled at Scout’s feet. Scout drew her toes back as far as she could, not wanting either of them or even one of Felicity’s long braids to touch her.

  Clementine stepped closer, bending to retrieve the knife from Beatrice’s ear. Then she folded her arms, beaming down on Scout.

  Scout had never been so terrified to have a friend.

  26

  “Are you going to cut me free?” Scout asked, indicating the knife with her chin.

  Clementine shook her head sadly.

  “No witnesses?”

  Clementine nodded.

  “You want this to be a fair fight.”

  She shrugged one shoulder.

  “But like your friend said, this can’t ever be a fair fight. You have advantages I don’t. So what is it?”

  Clementine stepped closer, putting a hand on each arm of the chair and leaning in until her nose all but brushed Scout’s. Her eyes stared into Scout’s, demandin
g that she understand.

  “I see,” Scout said slowly. “You don’t want a fair fight, but you do want a fight. Not death by poison or lack of air or invisible darts. You want me to fight with everything I have. Fight and fail.”

  Clementine grinned again, delighted that Scout understood her so well. Scout flinched as Clementine stepped back and tossed the knife into the air, but it came down gently onto Scout’s lap.

  Clementine brushed her fingertips over Scout’s cheek as she ran past her. Then she was gone.

  Scout looked at the knife on her lap. How long would Clementine wait for her to cut herself free before she came back to finish the job? She’d rather not find out.

  It took more tries than Scout could count to get the knife balanced on her knees and then bring her knees up to where she could grasp the handle in her teeth. She had to give up on more than one attempt when the knife started to slide away from her; if it fell to the floor, she truly was lost.

  She was exhausted in mind and body, bleeding profusely from each wrist and ankle, thickheaded still from the lack of oxygen not far enough in the past.

  But she was still lucky. And once she had the knife in her teeth, cutting the bond from her wrist was surprisingly easy. Either that or her injured wrist was too numb to register pain as she sawed at the cord. After the first hand was free, the others quickly followed.

  Clementine must have run back to the hangar, but Scout didn’t follow. Instead she fell to her knees beside her dogs, gathering Shadow up into her arms. He was cold already, and all the tears she hadn’t shed since Warrior had died flooded out of her in a deluge. Clementine could come back and stab her from behind at any moment and she wouldn’t know, wouldn’t hear, wouldn’t care. Shadow was all she had left of her family from before, and now he too was gone. She had nothing.

  It wasn’t a whimper, really, just a soft sort of complaining breath. Still hugging Shadow tight to her chest, she reached down to put a hand on Girl’s chest. She was cold too, so very cold, but under Scout’s palm, a heart was still sporadically beating.

  “Girl,” Scout said, giving the dog a shake, but she didn’t wake. She tried again, louder and with more shaking, but still the dog slept on.

  Perhaps there was something in the medical supplies to bring her out of it? Some sort of adrenaline?

  Or perhaps she just needed to sleep it off?

  Scout looked down at Shadow still in her arms. She didn’t want to leave him just lying on the floor, but she wasn’t strong enough to lift both at once. She carried him first past the demolished communications room, through the barracks into Viola’s rooms. She set him gently at the foot of the bed, pulling some of the comforters around him like a nest. He always liked to sleep under covers, even on the warmest of nights.

  Scout went back and gathered the much heavier Girl up into her arms. Girl did whimper this time, but she still didn’t wake. Scout brought her to the bed and put her inside a nest of covers as well. Viola’s room felt warmer than the rest of the station. Perhaps the air was purer here as well. Perhaps it would be enough.

  Tubbins lifted his head to look at Girl, but if he held any animosity toward the animal who had crushed his pelvis, he seemed to have let it go now that she too seemed in danger of death. Scout scratched his ears and listened to the loud rumble of his purr.

  Then she went out to the hangar to find Clementine.

  If she had been traveling through the ceilings before, she wasn’t now. She had left a very clear path through the dust, even occasionally swiping a hand over a dusty tarp to leave a sloppy sort of arrow pointing the way.

  She had the gun. Scout didn’t know if she would use it, but she had it. Scout had Ottilie’s knife as well as her own not-much-larger utility knife.

  She also had her slingshot. Scout drew that out of her back pocket, taking a round stone from her side pocket and setting it in the cup. She kept it in her hands, not yet drawn back. It wasn’t remotely as reassuring as a gun.

  Then again, Scout had never seen that gun fire. She doubted it was defective, but she’d lay even odds that no one but Warrior could fire the thing. That seemed to be the way the bulk of her equipment functioned.

  Did Clementine also have the lens? Could she fire with just one, like Scout had read the tablet with just one?

  Scout bit her lip but kept following the trail of footprints. In the end, it didn’t matter whether the answers were yes or no. Either way, she’d get maybe one good shot with her sling, and only if she was very, very lucky.

  She wasn’t surprised that Clementine had turned to watch for her approach, or that she was waiting for her under the open hatch Scout and Ottilie had found. Scout was certain now that this was how Beatrice and Felicity had entered. How they knew to come here, how Clementine had summoned them when she had never been left alone, would have to remain a mystery so long as Clementine remained silent.

  Clementine had the gun in her hand but was spinning it through her fingers, fast and nimble. Scout didn’t waste what would likely be her only chance. She drew back and fired on Clementine, fishing out another stone before even looking up to see if she had hit.

  Clementine’s mouth was an almost comical gaping O as she wrung her hand and watched the spinning gun disappear into the darkness under a tumbling down stack of crates.

  Scout drew back the next stone and fired. Clementine ducked and the stone bounced off her shoulder. She straightened, her eyes dark with fury. She raised her hands, gesturing towards herself with her fingers. Scout didn’t need a second invitation. She fired again and again. Clementine dodged the stones, never jumping for cover, preferring to simply twist her body out of the way each time. It was indescribably frustrating. Scout was a dead-eye shot with her sling, but that didn’t matter, not against inhuman speed.

  The last stone. Scout pulled it back and fired without aiming, screaming her rage as she sent the last of her hope hurtling toward the girl who was so much more than a girl.

  Perhaps it was the scream, but Clementine hesitated. Not long—perhaps a fraction of a second—but long enough. The stone struck her square between the eyes and she stumbled back behind a pile of crates.

  Scout took deep breath after deep breath, letting her anger go so she could focus. She didn’t believe for a second that Clementine was down. She might be circling around her even now, keeping to the shadows that Scout’s eyes couldn’t penetrate or even crawling across the ceiling like a spider. Scout looked around and saw the gleam of metal in the dim light.

  Someone had left a pry bar wedged between the slats of a crate, like they’d been in the middle of unpacking when they had just given up and walked away from all their belongings. Scout tucked the slingshot away and grasped the bar, putting a boot on the crate when she needed more leverage. At last the bar pulled free and she stumbled back.

  She had a weapon. Unless Clementine found the gun, it was more than she had.

  She started to raise it up as she walked closer to the light from the open hatch, but before she even had it halfway there, she was knocked to the ground. Clementine had circled around her—three-quarters of the way, at least—and the full weight of her knocking Scout to the ground was more than enough to drive every bit of air out of her body.

  Scout wheezed painfully, unable to draw a full breath despite the stars in her vision. But she kept a tight hold on the pry bar.

  Clementine climbed over her, one knee pressed tight to her side, the other coming down on the elbow of the arm with the pry bar. Scout whimpered as the bones in her elbow joint ground together. Clementine just smiled.

  Her fingertips traced over Scout’s face, brushing back the loose strands of sweat-dampened hair, then cupped her flushed cheeks. It was almost gentle, but Scout wasn’t fooled. Not after what had happened to Felicity.

  She heaved her entire body with all she had, but the girl was just too heavy. She couldn’t budge her. Not even the hands softly touching her face were dislodged. They slipped past her cheeks, almost stroking her
earlobes before positioning themselves on her neck.

  This was it. She was going to tighten up now, and then Scout would be gone. It would all be over, as fast as switching off a light.

  Scout closed her eyes. She wasn’t afraid, not exactly, but she didn’t want that lunatic grin to be the last thing she saw in this world.

  A scream split the air. Scout thought at first that she was the one screaming, but biting her lip didn’t cut off the sound.

  She opened her eyes. Clementine was still straddling her, but now she was also showering her with blood. Or something like blood; even in the dim light Scout could see the color was wrong.

  Something in the darkness had a hold of Clementine’s forearm. Scout saw bright white canines buried deeply in the flesh. Clementine screamed, sobbed, and struck at the thing. The thing pulled back, tearing a mouthful of Clementine’s flesh away with it.

  And exposing Clementine’s shining metal interior.

  The thing growled, then leapt again, this time striking higher and knocking Clementine off of Scout’s chest. Scout raised the bar and brought it down hard on Clementine’s blonde head. It clanged loudly and left a dent but didn’t stop Clementine’s struggle with the darkness.

  “Girl?” Scout said. Her eyes couldn’t make sense of the whirl of motion in the half-light, but then the dog turned to look at her and she saw she was right. Girl had recovered, and had come to her rescue.

  Clementine flung the dog off her and dragged herself with frightening speed across the floor. One arm hung useless against her chest, but the other was enough with her feet to propel her to the mountain of detritus under which the gun had disappeared.

  “Girl!” Scout shouted, but too late. Clementine had the gun aimed at the dog. She rose slowly to her knees, then laboriously got to her feet without the use of either arm, her aim never wavering. Girl growled, every hair on her back standing on end in the most impressive threat display Scout had ever seen her do.

  “Don’t shoot her,” Scout said, getting to her own feet with hands raised high. “Please. She’s not a witness. Just me. It’s not like she really hurt you. You have nanites too, right?”