Achilles

by Greg Boose

  Like Jonah, Paul is growing increasingly restless. The Fourth Year and his team can’t find the energizer, which Paul explains is an extra power supply for one of Thetis’s smaller spacecrafts. Sean seems just as determined as Paul to find it, if not more so, and when the sun starts its descent, the two cadets become accusatory and pull in more kids to aid in the search, even recruiting some demics from Vespa’s camp.

  Jonah keeps thinking about the professor and the cook, Dr. Z and Garrett, the fire and the woman’s voice. Kids are free now. Free from what? Sanity? And run. Someone wants us to run and we’re all just standing here, and night will be here soon. Then what’s going to happen? Is tonight Phase Two if last night was Phase One? He’s crazy for just waiting around, isn’t he? Shouldn’t they be running?

  While Paul, Sean, and the demics hunt for the power supply, Vespa calls all the nearby cadets in for a meeting.

  “Nope. Sorry. No way. We’re not doing any more of those,” a girl’s voice says from behind the huddle. Jonah and the other cadets spin around to find a thin demic girl scratching the underside of her chin with the barrel of a blue handgun. Her face is long and bronze, and her dark lips pull down in the corners as if they were attached to her stiff shoulders. The girl’s hair is black and hangs in a messy ponytail. A bright white shirt, much too large for her, hides everything to her knees. There’s no way she’s older than fourteen.

  “Where’d you get that gun?” Vespa asks.

  “Same place you got yours, I guess.”

  “Demics don’t get guns.”

  The girl shrugs and examines the weapon. “Well, I don’t see how that’s fair, so I’m keeping this little guy. And anything else you cadets lay claim to from here on out, I’m getting some of that, too. And no more of these meetings with just the cadets. The academic crowd needs to be informed of all plans from here on out, and we get a voice in what we do as a group. That all starts right now. So make room.”

  Vespa marches toward the girl and opens her hand, demanding the gun. They stare at each for a moment, waiting for the other to back down, and then Vespa lunges. The demic angles herself and steps backward, snatching Vespa’s wrist with her left hand. There’s a blur of white, a sharp cry from Vespa, and the circle of cadets is dumbfounded as the girl slams the Fourth Year onto her chest. A knee falls onto Vespa’s back, her wrist still secure in the girl’s hand.

  “Get off me!” she screams. “Get this little shit off me!”

  Jonah is so surprised he almost laughs. Steph and North move toward them, but the girl simply twists Vespa’s wrist until the cadet yelps and tells them to back off.

  The girl moves her knee onto the back of Vespa’s neck. Calmly, she asks, “So, can I keep the gun? Do you mind? Or can I keep your wrist?”

  “You can have the gun, all right?” Vespa spits a mouthful of dirt to the side. “Now get off me before I get pissed off.”

  The girl releases Vespa. She takes the barrel of her gun and scratches the back of her skull. “You guys itchy? I’ve been super itchy ever since the wormhole.”

  “What’s your name?” Vespa growls, rubbing her wrist. Her cheeks are maroon with embarrassment.

  “Brooklyn,” the girl says.

  “And you’re a demic?”

  “Sure. But you know we don’t really like that term. Don’t try to demean us because we’re supposedly not as strong physically.”

  “But you’re not. Well, most of you aren’t, at least,” North says.

  “Where did you learn to fight like that?” Vespa asks.

  Brooklyn releases the magazine of her gun into her palm and then locks back the slide, ejecting a single bullet from the chamber into the air. The bullet glides slowly in the low gravity, and she catches it with her other hand. Examining her weapon closely, she says, “My father was in the military.”

  Vespa looks on. “Oh, yeah? Which branch?”

  The girl reloads her gun and says, “That’s classified.”

  “You’re still a demic to me,” growls Ruth. It’s the twin sister of Daniel, the boy who got sliced in two in front of Jonah’s eyes when they crashed. This is the first time Jonah’s heard her speak since they landed, since she found out her twin didn’t survive.

  Jonah likes the small girl’s attitude, and ignoring Ruth, he asks, “If you were to join our meeting, what would the academics propose we do?”

  The cadets wheel around, disgusted at his offer of inclusion, but he doesn’t care anymore. Vespa grumbles audibly.

  “Well, everything is pretty much useless here, if you haven’t noticed,” Brooklyn says. “We’ve been searching for specific parts to fix the communication devices, but they’re either crushed beyond use, or missing. Some things are suspiciously missing, actually.”

  “So what? Are you saying people are stealing stuff?” Portis asks. “That the adults took them?”

  Brooklyn watches the demics hustle about under Paul’s direction. “Maybe. Probably. Or it’s you and me and everybody else. It’s survival of the fittest, right? Do anything you can to survive? And to some people, that means lying, cheating, and most definitely stealing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a genius or the toughest kid here. Everyone wants an edge. I can see it happening already, which isn’t surprising. I’m sure some of you stole extra food rations and ammunition, not to mention the best clothes.” She pulls at the sides of her huge shirt. “It’s not going to be long until we smart kids revolt against the cadets, by the way. And if you were half as smart as we are, which I doubt you are, you’d start treating us as equals. Or at least pretend to. Otherwise, we’ll leave you behind to fight each other for scraps while we’re waving from a window on our way to Thetis.”

  “Just shut the hell up, kid,” says Griffin.

  “So, what do you think we should we do?” Jonah asks, receiving fewer stares this time.

  “We’ve had our own meetings. Thetis, as you might know, has a telescope that monitors its moons closely. By our calculations, we’re about forty rotation days away from being visible. Now, some of the academics, like myself, are taking the warning to run pretty seriously. I mean, you don’t up and kill a couple people, take the time to write something creepy like that on their shirts, and then not get pissed when people don’t respect your warnings. So some of us have decided to avoid tonight’s sure massacre and move west, taking what we need from the crash site with us. We’ll be able to close the visual gap by twenty or so days. Whatever it takes to double our chances. It’s all about the numbers. It’s always about the numbers.”

  Jonah’s mood lifts higher than the mountains behind him. Twenty days? If they could flag down Thetis after twenty days, that would give him just enough time to get the cure Dr. Z talked about. He might just make it after all.

  “And the rest of the demics?” Steph asks. “What do those geniuses think?”

  “It doesn’t matter what they think. They’re too scared to go ten yards from where they are now. Couple of them haven’t stopped crying since we got here. I voted to go in the direction that we’ve determined to be the west. I voted to run, like the shirt says. And I’m telling you, when you get a warning like that, you have to take it seriously.”

  Griffin kicks a charred spoon. “Yeah, that’s real smart. There’s a killer out there. We’d be walking right into a trap.”

  “Or there’s a killer right here,” Brooklyn says. “Maybe I’m having a conversation with the lion-headed asshole killer right now.” Griffin touches the side of his hair. “Regardless, if you’re not the killer, then you’re nothing but a sitting duck right here. At the rate people are dying and going missing, no one is going to make it forty days. That’s why I like twenty. Numbers, people. I’m telling you.”

  Jonah exhales a lungful of hope. He knows what he’s going to do before anyone even asks him. Not that anyone will.

  “Maybe the adults come back tonight, and they have a better plan,” North says.

  “Kids are free now, remember,” Portis says. “Get it through
your gross beard, man. They’re not coming back. They’re never coming back.”

  “Don’t say that,” Steph warns.

  They all spin around at the sound of Paul yelling at a group of demics: “There’s just no way it’s not here!” Slowly, each kid in the search party breaks away to talk to the cadets guarding the food and water.

  “We’ve got these now,” Vespa says to Brooklyn, picking up her rifle. “We’re not exactly sitting ducks.”

  Brooklyn waves over a small group of demics. “It’s a long night, cadet. You’re going to have to sleep sometime. Too many kids to watch over. I’d say you’re a sitting duck. But hey, that’s just my opinion. And I’m taking my opinion west. In like an hour.”

  As Vespa looks to be mulling things over, four demics cautiously approach: a handsome, tall boy with the sling; the freckled Aussie; an awkward, pale boy with an upturned nose and bright blue hair; and a tiny Korean girl holding a bandage over her one eye.

  “Hey,” says the boy with the sling. His blond curls are stuck to his sweaty forehead. “So, um, do we have a plan yet?”

  Brooklyn looks at the cadets. “Screw these guys. We move in less than an hour. Find a bunch of bags and backpacks, stuff them with food and whatever else we can use, and then let’s start for the wild, wild west.”

  “Hold on, little girl. Let’s wait until tomorrow morning before anyone does anything. We haven’t even found Module Eight yet,” Steph says. “And I’m going to keep looking for stuff. It would be totally stupid to leave at this time of day, anyway.”

  Paul and Sean march in their direction, arguing and pointing fingers at each other. “We’ve looked all day and found what we can,” Jonah speaks quickly. “I know this sounds kind of crazy, but I think I’m with Brooklyn. I say we move while there’s still a little light. We’ll take lanterns so we can travel at night, and one of the cycles can lead the way while the other one takes up the rear.”

  “The sooner we move, the sooner the telescope can see us and Thetis knows where to send a ship,” says the boy with the sling.

  “If they have a ship,” Griffin says.

  “They’re supposed to,” Brooklyn says.

  Paul shoulders his way into the middle of the meeting. “Can’t find the energizer thing anywhere, which is ridiculous because we’ve found all of Module Nine. There’s no way it could just disappear… So, what are you all talking about? What did I miss?”

  The demics shy away until Brooklyn twirls her handgun on her index finger. When it stops, the barrel points up at the sky, and she squints up the length of it. “We’re talking about moving west, son. Soon. In under an hour. Pack your shit.”

  Paul laughs. “Yeah, right. Stupid demic.”

  “She’s talking about moving into Thetis’s visual range,” Vespa says. “If we can’t find a way to communicate with Earth or Thetis and they don’t know where we are, then we have about forty days until we’re seen. She says we can cut it in half and they could find us in twenty.” After a pause, she says, “I don’t know, Paul, some of us don’t think it’s a terrible idea.”

  Paul looks incredulous, as if each kid just spat in his face. “I’m the highest-ranking cadet here and I say we stay right here. I’m sure Thetis already knows where we are, and they’re just a day away from getting here. It’s what, a twenty-six-hour flight for a smaller ship, right? Plus, all the last-second preparations. We take off now, then we miss the lifeboat. You’re all fucking idiots. I hope you know that.”

  “That’s true,” the Korean girl says. She takes the bandage away from her face, revealing a festering green wound under her right eye. “I was thinking that if they were really coming, then they would have already shown up by now. But I didn’t think of some of the outside variables. Why didn’t I factor in the outside variables? Maybe they’ll still come.”

  “See?” Paul asks. “Even a brainy demic nerd like her agrees with me.”

  “They would have been here by now,” the boy with the sling says.

  The Korean girl dabs at her wound. “Not if they needed time to prepare a ship. That could have taken them three to ten hours, depending on the readiness of the crew and if there were any technical problems to address before launch.”

  The boy throws up his one good arm. “Then that means they would show up well past nightfall, and maybe you don’t remember that somebody’s out there killing people. Somebody told us to run. Aren’t you guys scared yet?”

  “Let’s just hedge our bets, then,” Brooklyn says. “Some stay and some go. If the ship comes here, those kids send it off in the direction of those that head west. And vice versa. I think we can trust each other that much.”

  Jonah watches the eyes of everyone in the group, trying to read each of their minds, when Paul speaks up: “Listen, assholes. It’s suicide to head into that jungle, then to try to deal with that huge lake or ocean or whatever’s between the jungle and the west, not to mention what’s beyond. You all saw those snouts last night, what kind of damage those dumb bastards can do. If you’ve read the reports, then you’d know there are much much much worse things out there than those clumsy things. Wait until you come face-to-face with the roopers, or the giant white mountain spiders and the jellyfish things with talons that just float around wherever they want, slicing shit up. This place is not friendly. It’s much more hostile than what they’ve encountered on Thetis. And what if this traitor killer is in your camp? He’ll be able to pick you off so easily down in the jungle. Once you’re away from the safety of shelter and numbers, he’ll strike immediately, I guarantee it. I’m the highest-ranking cadet, and I insist that we all stay.”

  “You don’t speak for me. And your rank means absolutely nothing to me,” Brooklyn says. “I’ve read the same reports and I’m packing up and leaving in an hour with however many kids—academics and cadets—want to join me.”

  “You’re dead out there!” Paul barks.

  “You’re dead here,” Brooklyn says matter-of-factly.

  “You’re not taking any of the food.”

  “Like hell I’m not. I’m taking my portion, and anyone who chooses to come with me will take their portion, too.”

  Paul slams his palm into Brooklyn’s left shoulder. She spins like a tornado and then falls on her face, her gun bouncing away. Without considering the consequences, Jonah jumps in between them, pushing Paul backward, offering a hand to Brooklyn. His feet are suddenly swept out from underneath him. His cheek meets the black soil, and then Paul drops a knee onto the back of his head, and it’s driven downward with all the Fourth Year’s weight. Furious, Jonah swings his arms under his chest to push himself up, but they’re slapped flat and helpless.

  Before Jonah can try to get up again, he hears soil crunching behind him, and a second later, Paul’s face lands just inches away from his own. They stare at each other for a moment before Paul’s head is jerked upward by a small set of hands, and his neck is craned further back than it should ever go. Brooklyn, sitting on top of Paul’s upper back, winks at Jonah, and Jonah can’t help but laugh. And then she pulls back just a little bit more.

  Paul wails in agony. His limbs whip every which way. North leaps over Jonah and wraps a huge arm around Brooklyn’s neck. He chokes her off the cadet, and Jonah, again without considering what anyone will say, gets to his feet and delivers a crushing right hook to North’s red beard. The boy whimpers and tips backward, releasing Brooklyn. The girl runs and stands beside Jonah, who prepares himself to keep fighting.

  By the time Paul gets to his feet, sides have already been chosen. Behind Paul stand North, Steph, Griffin, the Korean demic, and the blue-haired boy. Vespa, Sean, Ruth, and Portis fall in next to Brooklyn and Jonah, with the boy in the sling hiding in their shadows.

  Chapter Six

  Vespa negotiates for one of the cycles by letting Paul’s camp keep the excess weapons, a fairly even trade in Jonah’s eyes. Five more demics join their westward crew, plus Malix, an athletic black fifteen-year-old cadet with a square jaw a
nd small ears, and Christina, a girly but tough Third Year with long sandy blonde hair. About three hours of daylight remain when they stand on the cliff’s edge saying their goodbyes.

  “I guess we’ll go ahead and bury the dead for you then,” Paul says to Vespa. Jonah stands just out of Paul’s vision as he studies the jungle below, trying to map a route through.

  Vespa frowns and pushes her shiny black hair out of her face. Her voice is soft. “Sorry to leave you with that, cadet. I guess with everything going on I forgot it was on today’s agenda. Be really careful down there when you do it.”

  Their hands meet and pump, and then to Jonah’s surprise, Paul yanks Vespa close to his chest. She wraps her arms around his waist and buries her forehead under his chin. Jonah looks on with shock. Vespa slowly pushes away, composes herself, and then offers her hand again.

  “This is the stupidest thing you could do, cadet,” Paul says. “Completely and totally and insanely stupid.” Then, he almost whispers, “I only told you a little bit about what I saw last night. Looking for Module Eight. It was so messed up, Vespa, I can’t even…I can’t explain the rest of it, what happened. There’s something horrible out there. There really is. Don’t go.”

  “Don’t stay. And it sounds like what you saw was just your head messing with you, Paul. Don’t you get that someone really doesn’t want us around for whatever they’re planning? How do you not get that? I still want to get to Thetis. I really do. So I’m going to ask you one more time to come with us. Right now. Pack some shit up and let’s go. Take the lead on this one.”

  He lets go of her hand and rubs the heels of his palms into his forehead. “Damn it, V. You’re going to die out there. The shit I saw. You go down there and you’re walking into the lion’s den. Just stay here, we’ll all bunker down and cover each other’s backs, and if things get any worse, if one more major thing goes wrong, then we’ll all march out of here together.”