by K. Makansi
It’s strangely comforting to be back underground, in tunnels lit by biolights rather than sunlight. It feels like home. I wind my way through the halls, taking a few wrong turns and at one point bumping into a tall, slightly oversized man who looks as if he probably has his own stash of Hodge’s special cookie butter. He redirects me cheerfully toward the mess hall. For all that there are not many people here, the tunnels are sprawling.
“Remy!” A voice calls as I almost walk past the open door. I turn into the room, the small round wood tables and wicker chairs of the mess hall. Bear’s waving at me, grinning, as he stuffs a thick slice of bread slathered with jam into his face.
“Hungry?” I ask.
“Thif food if ’ood.”
“I guess,” I say with a smile. It occurs to me that Bear’s never really had real food. All his life, he’d been fed OAC MealPaks, and then he lived on foraged food and who-knows-what else for a month or so in the Wilds with Sam. When we finally made it back to Thermopylae, we barely had time to say hello before we were driven out again. And then we subsisted on stores of millet, amaranth, and barley, dried vegetables, and smoked jerky at the rendezvous. We were all pining after good food, then. In a way, Bear was lucky—he had no idea what he was missing.
“What kind of jam is that?”
“Gooseberry,” he says.
I stick my tongue out.
“What even is that?”
“Some kind of wild berry they got around here. Adrienne says they got loads of it. Jars and jars and jars. Gave me a whole one for myself.”
The happiness etched into his face tells me this is probably the first time he’s ever been given anything to keep for himself.
I grab a slice off the wooden breadboard in front of us and spread on a thick layer of jam. I glance over to the food preparation area, where I realize there’s a surprising amount of clatter. Two unfamiliar men are busily clanking pots and pans, chopping vegetables, and whisking various liquids in giant bowls. The sweet, smoky scent of roasting meat is wafting around the room, but I can’t see where the smell is coming from.
“What are they doing?” I ask Bear quietly. He swallows an enormous chunk of bread before responding.
“Adrienne gave the order this matin to prep a good meal for if the others show. From Team Blue.” Like my father, I think. “Got some kind of pig in the oven, even. No one’s sure they’re coming or not, but if they do….”
A smile creeps onto my face. They’re preparing for a celebration that may not even happen. Everyone—not just me—is hopeful, eager to see the others return, safe and sound. It’s reassuring, as always, to remember that I’m not the only one with the heavy weight of uncertainty on my shoulders. Others share my pain, my anxiety, my loss.
I take a seat beside him. “Any word from … the rest of our team?” Vale’s sea-green eyes flash before me. I blink the image away.
Bear shakes his head.
“Zoe and Eli’s been tryin’ to contact them again. But they say no one’s there.”
I finish my bread in silence.
“Tea?” Bear pushes the mug he offered earlier toward me.
“Thanks, Bear.” I take a long drink. The tea isn’t hot anymore, but it’s rich and earthy.
Hodges walks in and stops at our table.
“How’s Miah?” I ask.
“Physically, he’ll be okay after another day or two of rest. I was just coming in to brew him another cup of tea. Mentally, he’s in good spirits. Worried about his friend, of course. Valerian. But keeping me plenty entertained. In fact, he said he feels like a new man. That if he’d lost all this weight before your trek, he probably would have beaten you here.”
I laugh and wonder how Miah does it. How he keeps such a positive attitude.
“Now, tell me how you’re doing? I missed you at the morning meeting, so I’m assuming my sleeping draughts helped.”
“Slept like a baby.”
Did you get something to eat?” he asks me.
“Bear just introduced me to the wonders of gooseberry jam.”
“It’s a revelation, isn’t it?”
“Soren ate almost half a jar ’imself,” Bear says, the corners of his mouth purple and gleaming with jam.
“What’s the drill today?” I ask.
“Aside from cooking, not much.” Hodges nods at the man and woman in the corner, who seem to have calmed down a bit from when I first walked in. “We’re waiting to see if anyone shows up. But otherwise, it’s a day of rest.”
Just when I’m about to retort that there’s clearly plenty we could be doing, a pair of hands squeeze my shoulders, thumbs kneading into my shoulder blades. I look up and see Eli’s curly, messy hair, his dark green eyes under butterfly lashes.
“A little lower and to the left, please.”
“I was starting to think your mattress had taken you hostage, Little Bird. I was planning a daring raid to rescue you from its clutches.”
“You weren’t far off,” I say with a smile. “Fortunately, I’m perfectly capable of rescuing myself.”
“That you are,” he says, “but sometimes we all need a little help.” Eli gives me one more squeeze and sits down next to me.
“Any news?” I ask.
“Nothing. Yet.” He fixes me with a fierce gaze that says don’t give up hope.
The moment of ensuing silence is interrupted when, from down the hall, we hear someone running and hollering. I jump to my feet, hope surging through me like an inferno.
“The Director’s here!” she pants. Her face, darker than mine, glows with excitement. “I just keyed her in!” I can’t breathe.
“Is anyone else with her?” Eli demands, reaching over to lace his fingers tightly with mine.
“Yes!” she exclaims. “Adrienne is meeting them now. They’re coming. You’ll see.” I want to run, to follow her as she turns down the hall, back the way she came, but I can’t bring myself to move. Eli’s grip tethers me to reality, as the question thunders in my brain: will my father be with them?
Noises fill the hallway. I hear that familiar resonant voice, and the air whooshes away from me as if I’d been stuck in a vacuum-packed bottle and someone just popped the cork. Too much is happening at once. I see my father’s lined face, covered in a dusky grey beard. His eyes, so tired, so happy, welcome me as I collapse into his arms. Chaos swirls around us, but we’re in our own world, clutching each other. There are no words. There’s no need.
Finally, I pull back, just to look at him, to reassure myself that this is real. I put my palm against his cheek, interrupting the tears tracing lines on his face then disappearing into his beard. “Oh, Remy.” He pulls me in for another hug, squeezing me tight. His chest heaves with a short, stubborn sob, and he opens his arms to pull Eli in as well.
“Remy, my little bird. Eli, my son.”
My heart explodes with the immensity of the moment, weeks of worry and tension crashing down into one sweet moment, like the thunderous release of a pent-up summer storm.
“Okay. I can’t breathe,” I say finally, laughing, tearing away just enough to look around the room. The Director and the other Thermopylae Team Blue members are greeting the rest of the Normandy crew, talking breathlessly, hugging, laughing and clapping each other on the back. The joy of being alive, seemingly unharmed, is overwhelming. That they’re safe. That there’s still hope.
Gradually, voices quiet. Calm slowly settles over the room. I hadn’t seen Soren come in, but now notice he and Rhinehouse standing, heads together, and, to my astonishment, Rhinehouse actually has his arm around Soren’s shoulder. Soren’s introducing Bear who smiles timidly, looking out of place. Now, Rhinehouse, bless his cranky soul, shakes Bear’s hand and tells him, Welcome to the Resistance.
The Director catches my eye and smiles, and I nod in return. She’s a quiet, intimidating woman and I’ve never been comfortable around her. She’s not much taller than I am, but she exudes a fierce intelligence, set by an angular jaw, barely-there brows in
a graceful arch, and a charismatic glint in her sparkling, narrow eyes. She was my mother’s friend—back then I knew her as Cillian Oahu—but was always all business with me. Since joining the Resistance, I’ve only known her as the Director. It seems to fit.
Adrienne clears her throat.
“With high hopes of your arrival, we’ve prepared a celebratory feast.” She nods at the Normandy operators, who begin setting out plates and forks. “We’ve got a boar roasting in the oven and Zoe’s breaking out her dandelion wine from last summer.”
Zoe does a little happy dance to everyone’s cheers. Adrienne holds her hand up again. “There’s plenty of food to go around, and I know you all are in need of nourishment. But before we dig in, I’d like to share a moment of silence in honor of your safe arrival and to keep in our thoughts those who have not returned to us yet—and those who will never return to us again.” A lump lodges in my throat, and I clutch my father’s hand, lean on his shoulder, and close my eyes. The room goes quiet for a moment until Adrienne raises her glass and says, “Let us always remember to set a place for friends old and new.”
Soon the table in the center of the room is laid out with enormous bowls of dried fruits, wheat pilaf, and roasted vegetables. Two of the Normandy workers pull a giant pan out of the oven and the smell of the sizzling roasting boar fills the room.
The next few moments pass in a blur of happiness. Plates clatter and knives are passed around, and everyone’s words seem to mingle in the air like summer fireflies. I barely taste my food, I’m so relieved. I can’t seem to think at all. I sit with my father on one side, Eli on the other. For a brief moment, it seems everything is right with the world.
Then I notice the Director across the room, a fork poised in midair, her mouth set in a frown. Her eyes are creased and worried. She turns and whispers something to Adrienne, at her side, but Adrienne shakes her head.
“Dad,” I whisper, “what’s wrong?”
He shakes his head, as confused as I am. An uncertain silence seeps into the room.
“Where are the others?” the Director asks. She doesn’t have to raise her voice to make herself heard. Eli, at my side, looks at me briefly before responding.
“When we were at the rendezvous point, waiting for your team, we took out the hovercar we used to flee the old city. But we were attacked by drones almost immediately, and the hovercar was totaled. We realized we would put ourselves in danger, traveling in a large group through the Wilds. So we split up. Firestone took Vale, Kenzie, and Jahnu and headed to Waterloo. We came here.” He hesitates before finishing the story. “We should have heard from them. They should have arrived there before we got here. But we haven’t heard anything from Waterloo at all.”
The Director stares at Eli for a moment.
“When did you last see them?”
“Nine days ago.”
She glances at Adrienne.
“Tonight, we’ll have to reopen the communication lines. Not just radio. We need to re-activate the digital connections between all the bases to see who else we can contact. Find out who made it to their rendezvous points and who didn’t.”
And who didn’t.
How many did we lose? How many were caught in the Wilds by drones, or worse? How many made it to safety, and how many will never see their families again? I count myself grateful that I can sit and hold my father’s hand and that Eli is at my side.
I thought that about my mother, once, too.
Without warning, the Director stands up.
“We’re all grateful to you here at Normandy for the food you’ve prepared, and tonight, if it’s alright with Adrienne, I’d like to take an evening to rest and celebrate that those of us who made it here are safe and sound.” She looks down at Adrienne next to her, who nods a silent assent. “But we must temper our joy when so many others might be in need.”
“It sounds like the situation in the Wilds is getting more dire,” a woman at Adrienne’s table says. “Eli’s group was attacked by drones, and you had no easy time getting here, either.”
The Director shakes her head. My father’s hand tightens around my own, and when I look at him, his mouth sets hard and his brows furrow.
“Rhinehouse’s group was supposed to rendezvous with Ellijah’s team, Team Red, at one of the safe houses outside of the city. But his group and mine were intercepted by Sector drones as we left. They tracked us through the woods and cornered us into a firefight with the remaining Black Ops in the city. We were outnumbered and outgunned.” There’s a heavy silence. “We lost three team members that day.”
There are whispers about the room, like the scattering of distant stones.
“They said our release,” the Director continues, “would be guaranteed as long as we gave them the information they wanted. The exact location of our bases, the names of recent Sector traitors, and the whereabouts of Jeremiah Sayyid and Valerian Orleán.”
A collective intake of breathe. The whole room goes silent.
“What happened?” Eli asks finally.
“We got lucky.” She shrugs, fatalistically, as though the matter was out of her hands. “I thought it was over. None of us would talk, of course. Corine’s soldiers were prepared to make the kill. I closed my eyes and accepted my fate. But then I heard a remarkable sound—the thwang of a bowstring’s release. When I opened my eyes, Corine’s soldiers were dead, arrows sticking out of their backs.”
“We stood there gaping,” my father says, quietly.
“We’d been bound and all of us but Gabriel gagged—they didn’t recognize any of us but him and James, thankfully.”
It always sounds strange to me to hear Rhinehouse referred to by his first name.
“I heard an explosion in the distance, and it took me a moment to realize it was their airship.” the Director smiles. “I still don’t know how they blew up a shielded airship, but they did.”
“Who’s they?” Soren demands.
“Outsiders,” she responds.
“They killed all the Black Ops?” Eli raises his eyebrows in curious surprise.
“And then untied us and disappeared,” my father adds. “One minute there, and the next gone, with fifteen dead soldiers in their wake.”
I glance at Soren across the room, where he’s sitting next to Rhinehouse. He cocks his head to the side slightly, toward me, and I know we’re wondering the same thing: Could Chan-Yu have been there? Or that Osprey person?
“Why would they have done that?” Adrienne asks.
The Director shakes her head. “I don’t know. They didn’t stay to explain. We know they harbor no love for the Sector. They’ve taken their own actions against Sector incursions into their territory. And we’ve tried to reach out to them. But they’ve always ignored our overtures.”
I open my mouth to speak, but Soren beats me to it, and I push back the twinge of annoyance that bites at me.
“It was an Outsider who helped Remy and I escape Sector headquarters. We never had a chance to tell you the whole story before the attack.”
“When I spoke with him, Valerian said a man he trusted had helped you,” Rhinehouse says quietly. “He neglected to tell me he was an Outsider, though.”
The Director fixes her gaze on Rhinehouse, considers him for a moment, and then turns toward me. I’ve never felt comfortable meeting her eyes, and now is no exception. I feel like she’s drawing out the very marrow of my bones.
“After dinner I want a full briefing from everyone who was on the raid the night you were captured. Every detail about your capture, your captivity, and your escape. Understood?”
Soren, Eli, and I all respond on cue.
“Yes, m’am.”
Eli turns to look behind me, and I follow his gaze. Hodges is in the doorway with Miah in tow. Miah is pale and shaky, but his eyes are fixed on the enormous slab of meat on the center table. Hodges glances at Soren who jumps up and grabs an empty chair. With a slight nod to Rhinehouse, Miah collapses into the chair with a grunt.
>
The Director’s eyes flit back and forth between Rhinehouse and Miah. Rhinehouse doesn’t look the least bit surprised to see Miah, but the Director’s wide eyes tell me she most certainly is.
“I felt sorry for him in the infirmary when the rest of us were celebrating,” Hodges explains. “I think he’s doing well enough to eat a little real food. A bit of bread and protein.” Hodges picks up a plate and puts a small piece of bread on it. Miah, however, looks ravenous and ready to celebrate anything that involves large quantities of solid food. The days in the woods had already hollowed him out, and being sick has thinned out his cheeks and created dark crescents under his eyes.
Soren, too, seems to have noticed how hungry Miah looks. He takes the plate from Hodges.
“I’ll do it,” I hear him say, as small talk picks up again around the hall. He goes about systematically loading the plate with every kind of food available on the center table. I smile as I watch him set the plate in front of Miah, who nods in gratitude. Hodges scowls a bit, but doesn’t object. Once Miah proves himself perfectly capable of ladling enormous helpings of food into his mouth, the medic relaxes.
There’s a clatter down the hall, and conversation in the mess hall quiets again.
“You’re shitting me,” someone says, a male voice.
“That’s what they said. You’ve gotta—”
Arms full of wine bottles, Zoe bursts back into the room, followed closely by the chubby man who gave me directions to the mess hall not so long ago.
“You’ll never believe this,” she says, staring at Adrienne and the Director. “The Sector is blaming Valerian Orleán’s disappearance on,” she points to Miah, “him.”
Miah, a fork-load of roasted vegetables halfway to his eager mouth, stares at her.
“What?” Soren.
“I stopped by the comm center on my way back from my room when I heard it. They’re scapegoating him. That horrible girl Linnea just said something about it on Sector News Network. They’re gonna make a formal announcement. You’ve got to see it.”
Chairs scrape. Bodies move. Voices, loud and whispered, float around my head like wisps of smoke. I clutch my father’s hand and wonder what this sudden change in tactics means. Miah leans on Soren as we all hurry through the hall, food utterly forgotten, to the comm room.