by Rajan Khanna
The next day, though, I finish it. The radio is complete. I even found a soldering iron in Viktor’s toolbox (though my dad taught me how to make one when I was a kid). I sit and stare at it, my fingers twitching. This is my choice: I can broadcast on a friendly frequency (there’s one the boffins usually use) or I can leave well enough alone. Broadcasting means I might possibly reach someone, but . . . well, that person might not be friendly.
I’m a plod now, I think. That means playing it safe. I can’t fly away anymore. I’m fixed. Stuck. Stationary.
Put it away, the gray voice says. This is your life now. You have to protect it.
I think back to what I told Miranda before I left the Core. That if I found a place that spit out food on a regular basis, I’d stay. Viktor’s farm is the closest to that kind of thing I’ve ever found. It’s well stocked, safe, and close to some good forage.
I think of Miranda and realize that I lied.
I sit up, stab for the “On” switch, depress it. Then I’m transmitting. Not a voice message, but code. Morse code like back in the Clean. A string of numbers. Prime numbers. The boffins love shit like that. It would practically scream at them. But your average raider, even if they could decode it, odds are it wouldn’t make a lick of sense to them. So it’s safer, if not safe. If any of the boffins hear me, then they should get back in touch. Hopefully it’s not a code in advanced mathematics.
This is it. I’m sending my message into the sky. It’s up to the sky if I’m worthy enough for this to work.
But I try not to think about that. Try not to want anything. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a plod. This is my new life. As limited as it is.
But inside, deep inside, some part of me hopes.
It’s the next day that I hear knocking on the door. I’m halfway to it when I suddenly stop. I’d first thought it was Viktor, but he wouldn’t knock at his own door. Even if he was wounded. He’d call for me. Or just let himself in. I pull the pistol out and hold it tightly.
Maybe my message was picked up. But by whom?
The knocking comes louder. And I recognize it. The same pattern I’ve grown used to.
Miranda.
I lower the revolver and open the door. She stares back at me, her hair stirring in the wind, her glasses reflecting my face back at me.
“Ben! Thank God.”
She pulls me close and embraces me. And I feel a surge of feelings bright and warm and comforting push up inside me. For a moment I feel this incredible sense that everything’s going to be all right.
Then I push her back. “You got my message?”
She nods. “We didn’t know it was you. We thought it might be someone from Apple Pi.”
“But how did you find me?”
She smiles. “We triangulated your signal. It took a few hours, but we got a rough position and then when we got close, Sergei spotted the Rover.”
Of course, I think. Of course Sergei has some directional radio antennas on his ship, and any one of them could do the calculations to figure out where the signal was.
“I’m glad it was you that picked it up.”
She nods. Then her smile fades. “We were looking for survivors. After . . .” She looks down at her clenched hands. “We went to Apple Pi and saw.”
I look down, too. “Was there anyone left?”
“Just bodies. The crumpled shell of one of the airships. Wreckage. They took . . . they took everything they could. And just left a mess behind. Why? Why not just take over?”
“Because they don’t want to hold the Core. That’s not their land. They have Gastown and Valhalla. That’s where they’re invested. That’s where they want to be. They just suck everything else dry to make themselves stronger.”
“And the Cherub?”
My teeth clamp down. “They took it. It’s gone. Fuck, Miranda. My father’s ship is gone.”
She reaches an arm out and rubs it along my shoulders. Comforting. After everything that’s happened, she’s comforting me. After I told her to leave my ship. After I ran from the Core. After the loss of all her data, everything she worked so hard to build. She’s comforting me. It makes me feel like the world’s biggest asshole. But I take it, because at that moment I need it and it’s all I can do not to ask her for more.
“Where’s your ship?” I ask at last.
“Above us,” she says. “With Sergei and Clay.”
And then it hits me. I can get back into the air. Without the Cherub, of course. But up in the sky. With Miranda. And Sergei. I deliberately ignore all thoughts of Clay.
“But what are you doing here?” Miranda asks. “What is this place?”
I frown. “Someone found me. Helped me.” I shake my head. “Saved me.”
“Where is this person?” She looks around as if Viktor will materialize and they’ll get to meet. And I wish that that were going to happen.
“He went out a few days ago and didn’t come back,” I say. “I don’t think he’s going to.”
She gives me a look of sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
I nod. “Me, too.”
“And the horse?” She jerks her thumb back toward the door.
“His . . . his name is Rex.” Suddenly I wonder if Rex is the last horse in the area. Hell, he could be the last horse in the world for all I know.
We both stand there in silence. Then Miranda says, “Do you want to come with us?”
I realize she didn’t have to ask. I basically told them to fuck themselves. Yet here we are.
“I was all set to stay here,” I say. “Live on this farm. Forage for what I could get until the fuel ran out. Make at least some kind of life.”
“Do you still want to do that?” she asks.
“No. I want to be in the sky. I want to go with you.”
She smiles. Then her face goes serious. “Okay. There’s just one thing.”
“What?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me.”
“The Feral is onboard. Alpha. We rigged up a cage in the cargo area and he’s inside it. Inside the Pasteur.”
I close my eyes. “You kept it?”
“We had to,” she says. “Especially now. With most of our data gone, this is all we have.”
“And what are you going to do with it? Make it part of the gang? We have nowhere to secure it. No place to study it. Better to let it go and not let it slow us down.”
She stares at me hard in the eyes. “Look, Ben. These are the terms. You want to come with us, you suck it up and deal with this. You don’t want to do that, then you stay here. Keep the Rover. Do with it what you will. But that’s the way things are.”
In that moment I love her and hate her at the same time. Hate her for what she’s telling me. And love her for how tough she sounds.
Above me, inside Sergei’s ship, is the Feral. A drop of its saliva could infect me. And I’m going to have to go with it. On the other hand, Miranda is offering me the sky. She’s rescuing me from Gravity. And I realize that’s more important to me.
She walks to the ladder leading up to the ship. “You coming?”
I nod. “Yes. But I have a few things to take care of, some things to get. I’ll be right behind you.”
I return to the house and pack up everything I took from the farmhouse and a few of Viktor’s things. It makes me feel dirty, like stealing from a friend, but I know he’s dead. That he’s not coming back. At least not as a human being.
Then I walk outside. Rex comes trotting up to me. I reach out to him and stroke him lightly on the head where he’s thankfully free of blood. He may just be the last horse left in the world. A magnificent animal who deserves to be cared for. Only . . . I’m not the one to do it.
I step back, pull my revolver, and shoot Rex in the head.
He dies quickly. Quicker than he would by starving to death. Or getting some strange horse disease from not being cared for properly.
It’s then that I do retch. I bend over, gagging, vomiting
all over the ground. The truly sad thing is that in any other situation, I would have cut poor Rex up into little pieces. Packed that meat away for later eating. You don’t let that much meat go.
But there’s the possibility that he’s got the Bug all over him. Viktor assured me that it doesn’t affect horses, but it does affect humans. And I can’t eat anything with the Bug all over it.
When I’m done, I walk to the ladder and leave the ground behind.
Sergei gives me a strong handshake and a pat on the back when he sees me. His face looks tired, haunted. Like he saw his home, his safe place destroyed before his eyes, which he did. I know the feeling. When there’s no place to go back to.
Clay nods at me with a look like he just ate something rancid. I suppose in a way he did.
Miranda clears away some things in the gondola to make room for me. The gondola of the Pasteur is by no means small, but much of it has traditionally been used for research. Now it’s the remaining store of the Core’s data and it’s covered in papers and small solar-powered devices that I have no names for.
With all that, it’s suitable for about two people. Three, in a pinch. Four is pushing it. We’ll be jammed up tight against one another. But we’re in the air, and I’ll take it.
“We lost a lot,” Miranda says. “Too much. But I have most of the latest data here. Luckily I brought it with me to review. And we have Subject Alpha. I suppose it could have been worse.” She says it nonchalantly, like she just didn’t have everything taken away from her. And suddenly I feel like such a baby. But I also worry.
“Have you been in touch with any of the others?” I say. “At least two of the dirigibles got away.”
Sergei shakes his head. “We’ve been listening for them, but nothing. Though with everything that’s happened, they may be maintaining radio silence.”
“What exactly did happen?” Clay asks. He makes it sound like an accusation. Like I was in on it somehow. But they deserve an answer.
“I was heading west and had a run-in with another airship set upon by raiders. Gastown raiders. I helped them with that particular problem, and they mentioned, after a fashion, that they saw other ships heading in the direction of the Core. I was worried, so I set back to try to warn everyone. I got there ahead of them, but . . .”
“But what?” Clay says.
“They came in soon afterward. With Ferals on hooks.” Sergei and Miranda both go pale. They were there on Gastown when the raiders attacked. They saw the horror there.
“At our place?” Miranda says. Her hand curls into a shaking fist.
I nod. “I tried to get to the Cherub, but . . .” I rub a hand over my face. “They took it. So I ran for the Ferrari. Took that instead.”
“Why didn’t you take anyone else with you?” Clay says. “Why didn’t you grab any of the data? The equipment?”
I stand up. Take a step toward him. “You weren’t there, Clay, so just shut the fuck up. It was chaos. You think I’d know what to grab? Which stack of papers or which hunk of metal was important? And if I had, I’d likely be dead in the Core along with everyone else.”
“So you ran,” he says.
Pressure builds behind my eyes and I’m moving, bringing my arm up. Then Sergei has his hand on me, pulling me back, and Miranda’s up off her seat and stepping between us.
“Ben’s right, Clay,” she says. “Sergei and I have seen this before. There wasn’t anything he could’ve done. And we just have to deal with the fact that we lost . . . excuse me.” She pushes away and moves to the back room of the gondola.
I follow her, pretending Clay isn’t there. Because if he’s there, I’m going to have to hit him.
Miranda slides to the ground and puts her face in her hands. Then her shoulders shake, and choking noises come from her throat.
I sink down next to her, and it’s my turn to put my arm around her. She feels so small next to me. So fragile. I know she’s not. I know that inside of her is this core of hard steel. A core I helped to harden. But right now she feels like glass and I want to pull her against me and hold her tight. But I don’t. I don’t move away either.
“It’s all gone,” she says.
“It’s not all gone. You have some stuff here. The others might have managed to salvage more. And you have that loaded gun in your cargo bay, crazy as you are.”
She cracks a thin smile at that, knowing how much it unnerves me. “What do we do now?” she asks.
I shrug. “We’ll think of something. We always do.”
She looks up at me, her eyes red and wet behind her glasses. “But for how long? How long can we do this? How long can we take all of this?”
I place a hand on the side of her face. “For as long as we have to.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“I’ll help you,” I say. And it surprises me. “C’mon. Let’s get back in there. Figure out what we’re going to do. It will make you feel better.” I stand up, help pull her to her feet. She hugs me, clinging to me, and the scent of her, that smell I can’t place, is all in my nostrils. And she’s warm and solid against me. And my body responds of its own accord and I gasp. We stay like that for a moment. Then we pull away. She gives me a little smile and we return back to the others.
“What now?” Sergei says.
“We should go back. See what we can salvage,” Clay says.
“No,” I say. “They may be watching the place. And if they’re not there now, they will be soon. You can never stay there again. It’s too vulnerable.”
“Then where are we supposed to go? We have a Feral aboard.”
“Oh, I’m aware,” I say. “I’m very fucking aware.” Then it clicks into place. I smile. “I know where we can go.”
They all look at me.
“Just before the shit went down,” I say, “I got word of a new city out there. They’re not advertising their presence, of course, but I think I can get us in. We just have to head out to San Diego.”
“Not advertising is a good idea considering what’s going on,” Miranda says.
“Right. But so far they’ve escaped notice. I ran into a couple of their people before the attack. I think they might let us hole up there. At least temporarily while we consider our next move. We can refresh our supplies, too.”
“Well, we’ll need to find a place to study Alpha,” Miranda says.
“That’s going to be the tricky part,” I say. “A live Feral? That’s not going to be a popular addition to any community.”
“We’ll just have to see what they say,” Sergei says.
“We can’t lead with the fucking Feral,” I say.
“You want to lie to them?” Clay asks.
“No. But give them one big reason to turn us away and they will. We need to play it more carefully than that. They’re going to want to see the thing, see how you have it contained, at the very least.”
“That’s fine,” Miranda says. “He’s contained and rigged so that we can test him with minimal exposure.”
“Is that all documented?” I ask.
“Not yet,” she says.
“Then get it written down. The more we have to show these people, the better.”
“If they can read,” Clay says.
“Someone will be able to read,” I say. “Just do it.”
“I’ll get on that,” Sergei says.
I pause for a moment. Then I say words I didn’t think I would hear come from my mouth. “You need to show me.”
“What?” Miranda says.
“The Feral.”
I don’t think Miranda’s eyebrows can go higher than they go right now.
“I know, I know,” I say. “I don’t really want to look at this thing, but if it’s staying on this ship, I want to make sure I check out its . . . accommodations.”
Miranda stands. “You’re sure?”
“No. But I need to do this.”
“Let’s go, then,” she says.
And she takes me into the cargo bay.
All of this means that the Feral is closer to the gondola than I’d like. But if it were to be a bit farther out, it might not survive. Which is fine with me, but not with Miranda. And right now she’s calling the shots.
They have their Feral in a cage, rigged with mesh like I’d suggested. But they were smart enough to rig the tranq gun up to the cage, behind a sliding panel so that they can easily take it down without having to dismantle anything.
“Aren’t you worried that you’ll have to tranq it too much?”
“That’s what the cage is for,” Miranda says. “We won’t need to until we land. Then we can study him more easily. I can maybe rig up some storage for his blood.”
Those words make me light-headed.
“I don’t feel good about doing this, keeping him like this, but we need him.”
Leave it to Miranda to worry about the well-being of a Feral.
I move closer to the cage. “Well, Alpha,” I say. “Let me get a good look at you.”
The Feral’s hair is long and messy, like most of its kind. It hangs down around its face like a bird’s nest pulled to shit. Caught in its hair are leaves and other bits and pieces. I try not to think too hard about what else might be in there.