“Is your door stuck again?” Leo came around to my side and opened the portal.
The scent of fresh leaves and moist earth hit me as both strange and familiar. I stepped out, the ground uneven under my ripped tennis shoes.
“Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?”
“Go ahead.” I had no idea why we were here, so I let Leo lead the way.
He walked toward the small white box and opened a hatch. Letters made with real paper sat inside.
He pulled them out and flipped through them. “Another credit card offer, Dad’s farmer magazine, a drugstore flyer, and...”
He held up two white envelopes. “Our results.”
I stiffened. Results of what? Of our lifemate assignments? Hadn’t those been nullified?
The sickening feeling I’d left an issue unresolved stirred inside my gut. I had to tell someone something important, but I couldn’t remember what. It must have been the humid air. The longer I stood outside, the more blurry my thoughts became.
Leo handed me my letter. “We open them at the same time, okay?”
I looked down and read the name Lila Brently, along with an address from Brookfield, Missouri. One of the states. A place from Old Earth.
Why was the Earth old?
“On the count of three.” Leo held up his envelope.
I had no idea how to open it. Actually rip the paper? It seemed so wasteful.
“One, two...three!” Leo ripped the top of his envelope, and I followed, wincing as the paper tore.
The heading was from Julliard School of Music in New York.
I read aloud, “Dear Ms. Brently, I am happy to inform you of your acceptance into our Bachelor of Music Performance program.”
Leo’s face fell. “Congrats, sis.”
Why was he so upset to congratulate me? “What does your letter say?”
“It says I’ll be staying here with Mom and Dad and tilling the fields.” He crumpled the paper and threw it on the ground. “I didn’t make it.”
“There are other schools, aren’t there?” Wasn’t he a few years younger than me? “Don’t you have two more years to prepare?”
“Two more years won’t do a damn thing. Face it. I’m not good enough.” He started walking to the sorry excuse for a landrover, and an uneasiness nagged my conscience. It had nothing to do with the letters. This was something bigger.
“Wait.”
Leo turned around and threw his arms up in the air. “What?”
If he got in that landrover, we’d be stuck in some never-ending cycle. “I won’t leave you behind.”
His eyes brightened then darkened almost instantly. “You can’t give up your music career for me.”
The wind blew through my hair, fanning it out behind me. The passing of time weighed heavily on me, as if each second counted more than I could know.
“Somehow I won’t have to. Not this time.”
He stepped toward me. “What do you mean, not this time?”
Out of the corner of my vision, a small woodland spider dangled from a tree branch just above the landrover, moving back and forth like a pendulum in the breeze.
Reality rushed in, and I remembered the New Dawn, Asteran, and the arachnids. The mother brain had trapped us in our own memories. I had to wake Leo because he was the only one who could get us out of here. Asteran had given me the answer. I just had to remember.
Leo waved me back and moved toward the landrover. “You’re not making any sense. Come on. Dinner will be ready soon and Mom’s going to be looking for us.”
“Leo—”
“My name’s Lewis. Jeez, you’d think after sixteen years you’d have it down.”
I walked up to him and put both my hands on his arms. “What did we do before this?”
He blinked then gazed up at the sky. Gray clouds merged above us, and a distant rumble threatened rain. “We were just...I’d taken the old pickup...and...”
He pulled away from me and held his head in both hands. “Why do I have such a bad headache all of a sudden?”
I positioned myself between him and the driver’s side of the landrover—or pickup, as he called it. “Because you’re trying to remember where you were before.”
“That’s right. Where I was before...” His eyes widened. “We have to get back to the cavern before the mother brain finds us.”
Relief flooded my jittery nerves. We weren’t home free yet. “You’re the only one to get us back. Remember, Asteran taught you how.”
He closed his eyes and I held on to him tightly, fearing he might make the jump and leave me behind. Then I’d be stuck in the past forever and I hated everything to do with Old Earth. It would be like living on a ticking time bomb. What if something happened to my body in the cavern? Would I die here? No, I couldn’t. I needed to complete my mission and see Asteran again.
Leo swayed in my arms, and I pushed him upright. The wind increased around us, whipping my sweater against my back and penetrating the holes in my jeans, to prickle my skin with goose bumps. Rain fell, lightly at first, then heavier and heavier until it seemed it would pound me into the ground.
I closed my eyes and held on to my brother.
All at once the pattering stopped and the world went silent.
***
I awoke lying beside Leo. My hand ached from where the glass had cut, and I held it to my chest. My clothes were dry, as if the scene on the dirt road had never happened. Leo lay unconscious, his hands folded on his chest.
“Leo, wake up.”
He stirred, rubbing his head. “What just happened?”
I put my finger to his lips to quiet him as the mother brain clicked her pincer jaws across the cavern—no doubt still looking for Nova, who she’d probably knocked unconscious, like us.
We had to hurry if Nova was to live. I peered over the first row of eggs. The giant arachnid picked through the eggs carefully, heading toward the tunnel where Nova had disappeared. The brain sack in the back was fully exposed.
I pulled Leo to standing. “This is it. Our only chance.”
He nodded and held both his weapons. “Let’s do this.”
We bolted toward the brain, kicking up mushy eggs and firing both guns. The first few shots landed on the eggs in front of the giant bug. The mother brain turned around, and her thick, black carapace shielded her weak spot. She hissed, brandishing her front legs in the air as spires shot out around her three dark eyes.
“Duck!” I yanked Leo to the ground where we fell on top of white, yolky mush. A sulfurous, metallic smell choked my throat.
Wiping goo from my forehead, I peered over the unbroken eggs. The mother came right for us.
“Get up, space brain!” I yanked Leo forward and we scrambled to our feet, firing.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Trivial Thoughts
The first metal nets ricocheted off the mother brain’s carapace. Her high-pitched shriek echoed in the cavernous ceiling as she closed in.
“Aim for her legs!” Leo gritted his teeth.
“I’m trying.” It was hard enough for me to hit a stationary target, never mind a blur of movement.
Leo shot a net that skimmed over the eggs and took out her right front legs. The mother brain stumbled and regained her stability, limping forward with her remaining free legs.
“She’s still coming!” Panic welled inside my throat. I’d been close enough to the bug in the cell to know I never wanted to feel the cut of their razor sharp legs again. I fired repeatedly. Most of my nets stuck on eggs halfway to the target. If I aimed too high, I hit the carapace, and if I aimed too low, I hit the eggs. Narrowing my eyes, I focused and sent a net so close to the eggs, it sliced off the top layer of moisture as it passed, catching on her left set of legs.
The mother brain tumbled forward, squishing all of the eggs between us and her.
“Incoming!” Leo pulled me back and we cowered against the wall as her heavy form barreled toward us. She halted mere inches away, and her
pincer jaws snapped at our legs. My entire reflection was warped in the biggest of her three eyes. Was that how she saw us? Tall legs with a skinny stretched out body and a small head?
Her presence resonated in my head. Her anger was like a punch to my gut. She probed, leaving her sticky webs in my mind and collecting everything about our colony she could. I didn’t know a whole lot about our weapon efficiency or strategic advantages, anyway. To tell you the truth, she probably just saw a whole bunch of teen boy bands from Old Earth.
Leo climbed on top of her and she writhed underneath him. He held on to one of her wiry hairs. The metal cut into the palm of his hand, but he didn’t let go.
“What are you doing?” I winced as the mother brain squeezed the inside of my head. My nose started to bleed, leaking down my face. If Leo wasn’t fast enough, I’d have no brains left to save.
“Ending this once and for all.” He jammed his microbe spray gun into her brain sack and fired. She bucked, throwing him off. Leo hit the wall and crumpled to the floor. Her pincer jaws snapped at my ankles, and I kicked her away. What if Leo’s gun had jammed?
She knocked me to the floor, and I braced my legs against her head, holding her back. I blocked my thoughts using lyrics from my favorite songs, which probably sounded like gibberish to her.
“Flying on a journey across the stars
No one knows what to expect,
Our hearts look ahead and not back
The end is near...”
All of a sudden, her presence receded and my mind cleared. She stilled, and her three black eyes glassed over. I wiped at the blood running down my face. I was alive. Leo’s gun had worked.
Leo.
I pushed the mother brain off me and climbed over her. My brother lay on his stomach on the other side of the room. Tears ran down my face as I bolted to him and turned him over. Bloody drops of my sweat fell on his stomach as I checked for his pulse. He’d saved my life and our entire colony on Paradise 21. He didn’t deserve to die.
His chest rose and fell, but his eyes remained closed. I checked for broken bones, but everything seemed in place.
“Leo, come back to me, please.” If I could have traveled back to Old Earth again, I would have, if only to help him come back. This time he’d gone alone, and all I could do was wait for him to come out of it.
I continued the song I’d begun with the mother brain inside my head, hoping the sound of my voice would provide a beacon for his return.
“Diving through the violet clouds
Our ship breaks apart.
No one knows what we’ll find
In this land of paradise...”
“A whole bunch of trouble. That’s what.” Leo opened his eyes.
Relief roiled through me, and I collapsed onto him, crying and laughing at the same time.
He picked up his head. “Did we get her?”
“Yeah, you got her.” I sat up and wiped the streaks of blood, sweat, and tears from my face.
“Not without your help.” Leo scanned the cavern. “Where’s Nova?”
Full panic returned and I shot to my feet. “I don’t know. We have to find her before one of the arachnids does.”
Leo climbed to his feet, holding his hand on his back, and grunted.
I helped him up. “Are you in pain?”
He waved me away. “Not so much. Let’s go find her.”
We picked our way through the gooey mess on the cavern floor. Most of the eggs were crushed, split, or cracked, oozing white gunk. If the species hadn’t been so aggressively predatory, then I would have felt sorry. Taking out an entire planet went down as a big no-no in my book.
We followed the tunnel where I’d last seen Nova disappear. Using the light from our wrist locators, we examined all of the shadowy hiding places in the cracks of the walls.
“Over here!” Leo shined his light on a boot sticking out from a crevice in the wall.
We rushed toward her and pulled her into the corridor. Nova’s eyes were wide open and unblinking, staring at nothing.
I felt for her heartbeat, thinking of how she had a family, a sister, and a fiancé back at home. “Her pulse is weak.”
Leo put his hand over her forehead. “She feels ice cold.”
I checked around her neck. No crystal. It must have shattered when mine did. “You think the mother brain fried her mind?”
“Not fried. Imprisoned, maybe.”
“We can’t carry her out of here with all those arachnids roaming around. What are we going to do?”
A strange spark lit Leo’s gaze. “Remember when Asteran brought Tauren back?”
“Yeah...” I was having trouble accepting Leo could travel back in time, predict the future, and hear the mother brain’s thoughts, never mind bring someone else back from the brink of death. “You think you can do the same?”
He shrugged. “I watched Asteran do it, so I can try.”
I checked the corridor around us and listened carefully. No movement or sounds. “Go ahead and hurry. I’m not sure how much time we have.”
Leo closed his eyes. “I can sense her presence, but she’s entirely withdrawn into herself.”
I felt like a little kid not tall enough to see over the railing. “Tell her there’s nothing to worry about.”
Leo nodded, and the hand he’d placed on her forehead grew red and swollen, like all the blood from his body flowed into his fingers. I was tempted to yank his hand away. What if Nova pulled him in with her and I lost them both? I had to have faith in my brother, just like before. Instead, I kept watch over the two directions where the tunnel led.
A scraping sound came from the left, in the cavern where we’d just left. Had one of the eggs hatched? I held up both of my weapons.
Nova blinked once then returned to her mind-numbing stare.
The scraping continued, followed by light clicks. My hand shook as I held up the weapons. Even the babies were dangerous. I only had to think of Alcor’s scarred face to remind myself of their capabilities. Come on, come on, come on.
Nova sucked in a gasp of air. Leo snaked his arm behind her back and held up upright. She blinked, looking through us like she didn’t see us.
“It’s so cold. I’m hiding and I’m scared.” Her words chilled me to the core. That didn’t sound like the Nova I knew.
Leo leaned in front of her, forcing her to look at him. “Do you remember where you are?”
Just then, an army of tiny arachnids scurried around the corner. I started shooting both guns. The metal nets trapped some, but for every one they brought down, another took its place. “Leo, we’ve got to get out of here.”
He started shooting, and we managed to hold them off by picking off the closest ones, but it wouldn’t last long.
One of the hatchlings jumped, flying through the air at my head. I’d pointed my gun at the floor, and I didn’t have time to raise it.
This was it. We’d killed the mother brain only to be overwhelmed by her spawn.
A metal net shot from behind me, encasing the arachnid just before it hit my face. It fell to the floor, writhing in the net at my feet.
“Looks like she’s back.” Leo grinned as he fired.
I turned, not knowing what to expect.
Nova wielded both her guns at the oncoming horde. She nodded to me. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”
“Affirmative.” I fell back alongside my brother. We shot a few more times, running backward, then turned around and launched into a sprint.
“What if we bump into one along the way?” I shouted as I ran.
“Without the mother brain in charge, they’re in a state of confusion right now, so I wouldn’t worry about it.” Leo fired behind his shoulder as he ran. I fired as well, even though I couldn’t imagine we’d hit anything without aiming.
“Worry about what’s behind us.” Nova skidded around the corner, leading the way.
My heart beat like a thumping drum, and my lungs hurt with every breath I sucked in. Thank the Gui
de I’d taken gym class and run two miles a day throughout my senior year. I knew to push through the pain and hit the sweet spot where the endorphins kicked in.
Leo wasn’t a great runner, but he kept up. Just as we reached another turn, Nova pulled us into a crevice in the wall. We backed up into the shadows, catching our breath. I checked my locator screen, even though I’d turned it off after it started showing static fuzz.
“What are you doing?” Leo whispered.
“We’re close to the tunnel entrance, and I heard movement from outside.” Nova spoke in between breaths.
We kneeled down and held up our weapons, just in case one of the hatchlings discovered us. A heartbeat later, they flooded the tunnel, racing toward the entrance. Two larger arachnids met them from the opposite direction. Instead of eddying around them, the hatchlings scattered. Some climbed the tunnel walls and others climbed on top of the adult arachnids.
“What are they doing?” I whispered as a leggy hatchling climbed across our crevice.
“They’re confused. They don’t know where to go without direction,” Leo murmured from behind me.
I shook my head. “The one in the cell back home had enough of a brain to attack me.”
“Yes, but thought can travel through time and space much more efficiently than you can imagine. They could have still been psychically connected to the mother brain. When we killed her, we shut off every driving impulse they had, so they have no direction.”
“This is just what we want.” Nova’s voice held encouragement. “They’ll be too confused to launch the invasion.”
My mind shot to Asteran and Tauren. If these beings couldn’t function without the mother brain, was it really necessary to destroy the fleet? As much as I wanted to beg the two of them to come back to the ship, leaving the whole armada ready to conquer would plant a seed of fear and doubt in my heart. Even if we returned home unharmed, I’d always be looking at the sky and wondering. No, Asteran was right. It was best to end it now.
The arachnids cleared the tunnel. We waited a few minutes then cautiously stepped out. The floor was littered with black casings amongst the wiry hairs.
Leo held one up. “Look, they’re already shedding.”
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