Alone
Page 1
Alone is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Scott Sigler
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Sigler, Scott, author.
Title: Alone / Scott Sigler.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Del Rey, [2017] | Series: The generations trilogy ; 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2016033771 (print) | LCCN 2016040149 (ebook) | ISBN 9780553393194 (hardback) | ISBN 9780553393200 (ebook)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Science fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.I4725 A792 2017 (print) | LCC PS3619.I4725 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/2016033771
Ebook ISBN 9780553393200
randomhousebooks.com
Book design by Caroline Cunningham, adapted for ebook
Cover design and illustration: David G. Stevenson, based on a photograph © Ruth Henderson/arcangel images
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
The Birthday Children
Part I: Home and Hearth
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Part II: Signals and Silence
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Part III: Violence and Visions
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Part IV: Flight and Fight
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Part V: The Unknown
Chapter Sixty-five
Chapter Sixty-six
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By Scott Sigler
About the Author
THE BIRTHDAY CHILDREN
Italics=deceased
EM’S GROUP
B. Aramovsky
K. Bello, M. Savage
K. O’Malley
J. Yong
T. Spingate
BISHOP’S GROUP
R. Cabral, M. D’souza, J. Harris, O. Ingolfsson, Y. Johnson, E. Okereke
G. Borjigin, Q. Opkick
Y. Bawden, R. Bishop, U. Coyotl, T. El-Saffani, T. El-Saffani, Q. Farrar, S. Latu, W. Visca
G. Beckett,
X. Gaston
K. Smith
XOLOTL KIDS
B. Walezak
D. Abbink, G. Abrams, W. Alves, R. Andreasson, R. Ansel, A. Aucciello, K. Baardwijk, M. Bardsley, S. Bohner, R. Broz, V. Buffone, H. Chowdhury, A. Csonka, D. Doyle, L. Esser, K. Grosser, N. Harman, M. Hoffman, P. Howland, E. Jahoda, K. Jepson, W. Kysely, E. Lestrange, U. Marshall, L. Maus, D. McBride, G. Mehmet, R. Pecora, I. Perreault, A. Poole, F. Pope, J. Queen, Y. Raske, J. Rigby, T. Romagnoli, D. Roth, M. Savona, A. Schoettmer, I. Sharman, V. Sherazi, E. Simonis, G. Snider, D. Szwarc, Z. Taylor, A. Tittensor, J. Tosetti, I. Tosto, M. Traverso, P. Van Kane, G. Vincent, L. Wieck, J. York
J. Abrantes, T. Aeschelman,
L. Bariso, H. Bemba, N. Derrickson, T. Schuster
V. Abdul, O. Afoyalan, E. Argyris, T. Arkema, H. Blaha, C. Boesch, U. Brankovich, K. Brown, P. Bruhn, W. Cadotte, B. Cody, I. Darzi, P. Degˇirmenci, N. Derrickson, A. Dreesens, I. Fields, D. Giroux, N. Holub, H. Horn, D. Hornick, P. Horvat, C. Hrabe, M. Krejci, S. Kysely, E. Loncar, B. Marija, F. Metharom, V. Metharom, R. Mohammed, V. Muller, S. Myska, J. Olson, C. Pokorny, S. Radic, I. Resnik, S. Schovajsa, J. Thorn, C. Tosi, A. Uzun, M. Vendi, Q. Wakefield, S. Xanth
M. Cathcart, C. Kalle, A. Nevins, N. Peura, B. Zubiri
L. Pokano, F. Yilmaz
SHUTTLE KIDS
A. Aaltink, P. Abbink, V. Agim, J. Aiolfi, Z. Akinyi, C. Albert, A. Almog, E. Aloísio, A. Amsel, M. Andrews, Í. Angerona, H. Anima, A. Antónia, I. Antonizius, C. Anxo, A. Apollodoros, K. Armbruster, J. Asta, S. Attar, B. Babirye, J. Bartram, K. Benson, V. Bernhard, G. Bjarne, M. Blanco, X. Bobbi, S. Bohumír, K. Bousaid, O. Boyce, V. Breindel, B. Bureau, A. Carlota, O. Charmchi, T. Chinwe, T. Church, T. Cindi, K. Costello, H. Dalibor, C. Danailov, A. Danica, B. Danielle, X. De Campo, P. De Felippis, R. De Witte, F. Doretea, R. Dykstra, S. Eadburg, F. Eccleston, H. Einarsson, K. El-Amin, C. Eld, D. Érica, V. Erikanos, D. Esparza, F. Estera, H. Fabian, C. Fehér, M. Ferrari, V. Filipov, S. Fortunato, S. Frank, H. Gerben, C. Gilbert, P. Glietezzia, W. Golanz, D. Grieve, I. Hachilinski, E. Haig, D. Hallman, B. Hanley, H. Harald, N. Hasenkamp, A. Heimirsson, E. Hinog, L. Höfler, A. Hornik, A. Hovanesian, L. Iakovu, N. Adoha, T. Iona, I. Jonkheer, P. Ivanov, M. Jäger, S. Jeffers, A. Jelena, T. Jolånka, J. Joris, C. Júlia, E. Jurre, T. Juvenal, F. Kamala, A. Kay, K. Klavdiya, E. Kowalcyzk, M. Lagunov, R. Lan, N. Leary, M. Leblanc, J. Lei, A. Livia, É. Llorenç, B. Lunete, L. Lyudmyla, A. Machado, S. Machán, N. Malley, X. Merckx, S. Metharom, Z. Min, H. Min-Jun, C. Miron, S. Morgan, C. Nauer, M. Nicolson, J. Nikole, N. Nilsson, K. Nogah, T. Oberto, S. Ochoa, O. Oliver, A. Oluwatoyin, N. Ophelia, Y. Pajari, G. Pandev, C. Pavia, L. Peak, N. Pemphero, N. Poindexter, A. Potenza, C. Quintana, J. Rhee, J. Royston, Z. Salut, H. Salvay, W. Scarpa, K. Schlusser, H. Schwenke, D. Shemaiah, A. Shepherd, K. Siet, A. Sigurosson, E. Skye, A. Sniegowski, P. Spini, G. Stabile, N. Taalay, E. Tabitha, J. Tawfeek, M. Tesar, S. Uidhir, E. Vaccaro, S. Van Der Beek, O. Vanev, B. Vasilyev, Y. Vibius, L. Vincent, C. Wasylyna, D. Weekes, R. Williams, S. Winona, K. Yancy, C. Yazhu, Y. Yeriyahu, J. Zénaïde, B. Zheng, J. Zinat, T. Zola, P. Zuleika
A stabbing pain jolts me awake.
My neck…the needle, the snake…
No, not a stab. A poke…a poke of cold metal. I lift my
head, look around. My silver bracelet. I wear it over the sleeve of my black coveralls, its wide ring circling my right forearm just below my elbow—I must have rolled over in my sleep, laid my neck on the long point that extends from the flat ring down to just behind the back of my wrist.
I’m cold. I’m wet. It’s raining again. Correction: it’s raining still. I was sleeping on the tiny metal deck of a spider cockpit, other people crammed in around me. My thigh is numb—I rolled over onto the combat knife I always have strapped to my leg.
So tired. As uncomfortable as I am, I just want to go back to sleep.
A boy’s voice: “Em, wake up.”
Victor Muller, part of my spider’s three-person crew.
“D’souza spotted them,” he says. “She’s coming.”
That wakes me up for real. If Maria is coming, maybe it’s time to fight.
Finally.
I sit up. Muscles, cramped and stiff. My cold skin feels like it’s made of half-dry clay. Our black coveralls are good at keeping us warm, but in the jungle the dampness always finds a way in.
Ten days of this. Ten days of hiding, without fire or heat, without a hot meal, eating prepackaged food and raw jungle plants. Ten days since I bathed—I want a shower almost as much as I want to catch the Belligerents. I want to lie on my couch, Bishop’s arms around me as I watch the jungle from afar, not from within it.
I miss him. I miss his eyes, his hair and his smile. I miss the very smell of him. If we’re able to force our enemy to battle—and that is a very big if—I might be hurt in the fighting. Possibly even killed. Before I left, he told me he loves me.
Did I tell him the same thing?
I think I did. Yes, I must have.
You would have told O’Malley, and you know it.
Well, hello, Annoying Little Voice. How nice of you to show up now.
Annoying Little Voice always wants me to second-guess myself, to doubt my decisions. It always seems to think things would be better now if they’d gone a different way then. If I’d made different choices. If I’d had stronger self-control. I hate that damn voice.
Wiping the last of the sleep from my eyes, I reach up and grab the armored ridge that surrounds the cockpit. I stand, slowly, careful to not jostle the branches that hide our position.
The twin moons of Omeyocan—one bluish, one maroon—shine through sparse cloud cover. In the daytime, this jungle is bright with yellow leaves, brown tree trunks and long blue vine stems. At night, everything is a blue-purple shade of gray. The plants gleam with wetness.
Spingate still insists on calling our machines “pentapods,” but no one listens to her about that. To us, they are spiders. Five-legged, yes, but spiders all the same. The machines are meant for a two-person crew: driver and cannon operator. We use them with crews of three, adding one person who can fire with whatever weapon they have at hand. Three makes for close quarters. The cockpit is open-air. No glowing holograms here—all the controls are manual, built to last a thousand years, to take a real beating and keep on working. A waist-high, horseshoe-shaped armored ridge surrounds the cockpit, protects us from bullets and musket balls. The ends of the horseshoe blend into the cockpit’s rear wall, which comes up to my sternum. If I stand straight, I can rest my arms on the spider’s sloping back and fire my bracelet at whatever is behind us.
We’ve repainted the spiders to cover up centuries of superficial damage. Each one has black numbers on the sides (ours is 05), while most of the shell is dark yellow with jagged stripes of brown and blue—the colors of the jungle. When the machines work correctly, they blend in well. Of course, they’re all a couple of centuries old, so they don’t work correctly all that much. Parts often clatter and gears frequently grind, making unmistakable noise. We do our best to fix those problems when they come up.
There are two legs in front, two on the sides—one each below where the armored ridge blends into the back wall—and one leg in the rear. The three-jointed legs all end in hard, sharp points, which can slice right through any enemy unfortunate enough to be in our way.
I ride in the cockpit’s right side. Yoshiko Bawden, the driver, is on my left, in the middle. She’s a tall, muscular circle-star who thinks it’s funny to make fake burp sounds. When she’s not being crude, though, she is a fierce warrior. She’s always kept her black hair shaved down. Before we began this campaign, she had some of her fellow circle-stars tattoo the word KILLER on the right side of her head. She has a pitchfork strapped across her back and a bracelet on her right arm over her coveralls. She used to use an axe, like Bishop does, but she prefers the pitchfork for jungle fighting. I have known her almost since I first woke up. I’m so grateful to have her as part of my crew.
“Little” Victor Muller is on Bawden’s left, where he mans the beam-cannon. He’s not little anymore, though. When the circle-star came out of his coffin, I was a bit taller than he was. Now my eyes come up to his chin. He’s added muscle as well. He’s not as thick as Bishop, probably never will be. Victor has the same wiry frame my friend Coyotl had—long, lean, athletic. Victor wears a bracelet on his right arm. In his hands, he holds a spear. Not my spear, of course, but one that looks close to it. A repeating rifle is slung over his back, black barrel and the black loop lever that lets him reload it with a flick of his hand gleaming from a recent cleaning and oiling. Victor has become one of our best warriors, almost as skilled as Farrar, Bishop and Bawden, who are all fully grown.
I am brave enough to fight, but I’m not stupid—I want people in my crew who can protect me. I’d rather have Bishop instead of Victor, of course, but right now it’s more important to our people that Bishop remains back in Uchmal.
The lower half of our spider is buried in the jungle floor, the upper half covered in branches and vines. Sometimes you hunt your enemy—but only if you can find them. When you can’t, your best bet is to set a trap and hope your enemy falls into it.
It looks like they finally have.
A light rustling from the jungle in front of us. I see what looks like a thick, yellowish snake rise from the underbrush and move toward us. The furry snake ends in wicked, hooked pincers that can snap together so hard they’ll damn near cut a person in two.
A few meters away, the full animal rises up from the underbrush. A year ago, the sight of this predator would have scared me half to death. Now? It only scares me a quarter of the way.
When I first saw these creatures, I didn’t have the memories or words to describe them. It’s still hard. Different people have remembered different things at different times, filling my head with images of animals that Matilda only read about in books. The heavy body of a bear. The thick trunk of an elephant. Below where the trunk connects to the head is a piranha’s dagger-toothed mouth. Claws of a tiger. All of it covered in brown-striped yellow fur. Heavy plates of mottled yellow bone on its chest. Three beady black eyes in a line on each side of the head, which is also plated in yellow bone.
On the back of this beast, on a saddle made of tough leather, sits Maria D’souza, a fellow “empty.”
She took to calling the big predators hurukans. We’re not sure where that word comes from, but as soon as any of us heard it, we agreed it was the perfect name.
“Hail, Em,” Maria says. “Guthana, Yalani.”
Maria greets me first in English, then in the Springer language. She always wants the Springer fighters in her squad to know I am in charge—Yalani means “leader.”
“Hail, Maria,” I say. “You’ve found them?”
She nods. “The Belligerents are coming from the east, closing in on the cornfield. I have the Creepers circling behind them to cut off any escape. Barkah and his infantry battalion are positioned to the north as a reserve, per your orders.”
Cornfield sounds a bit grand for our sickly crop, but we have invested countless hours getting it to grow.
“How many Belligerents?” I ask.
“Maybe a hundred,” Maria says. “All on foot. No cavalry of any kind.”
Maria points north.
“Straight ahead, Yalani. My squad will attack from the southwest. When you strike, we’ll be on your left flank.”
Atop the 650-kilo hurukan she calls Fenrir, Maria is a striking figure. She wears cloth strips of yellow, green and blue, just like the Springer warriors. Vine juice and dirt cover her brown skin, helping her blend into the jungle. She has a half-dozen knives strapped to her body and a repeating rifle slung across her back. When the violence began months ago, I offered her one of our precious bracelets. She declined. She chooses to use the same weapon as the Springers in her cavalry squads.
The snake-wolves are the top predators of this world. As far as we can tell, they kill and eat everything they see. That included the Springers. Then came Maria, who somehow learned how to not only capture the beasts, but tame them as well. She’s trained others to do the same.