This Mortal Coil

by Emily Suvada

  Scarred and stitched up by my father’s own hands.

  The box holds four more files identical to Cole’s. In a snap decision, I grab them all and shove them into my backpack, then scramble up the trail and back into the mines. When I emerge from the passageways, Cole stands hunched in the main room. I can barely bring myself to look at him.

  “I’ve double-checked all the rooms except the little alcove,” he says. “I can’t get through that crack.”

  “There are no files in there.”

  “Can you make sure?”

  I nod, dropping the backpack, happy for any excuse to avoid talking to him face-to-face until I can pull myself together. I duck into the foot-wide crack in the rock face, angling my hips into a channel I have to stand on tiptoe to reach. My chin grazes against the stone, and the rough sides bruise my ribs every time I inhale, shuffling sideways an inch at a time.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Cole calls out. “I don’t like this. Come back, please.”

  “It’s fine, I’m almost there.” I reach for the edge of the gap and drag myself the last few inches, stumbling into the alcove. My headlamp dances across the walls, lighting up a stack of nutriBars and my crumpled sleeping bag. I brought supplies in here a few times, setting myself up with an emergency shelter to hide in if a fire came through the hills.

  I lift the sleeping bag with the toe of my boot. A bundle of underwear spills out, revealing a couple of yellowed books and the dull sheen of an antique revolver.

  Mother-of-pearl handle, ivy-leaf molding. I’d forgotten all about this gun. Agnes gave it to me, but I always preferred the rifle. Longer range, better accuracy, easier to snipe from cover. The revolver’s cylinder still holds two bullets. I lift it slowly and turn it in my hand, wondering whether to keep it.

  Cole won’t give me a gun, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bring my own. I briefly consider hiding it in my waistband, but I know that’s a stupid idea. He’ll notice it in a heartbeat, and two bullets won’t get me far, anyway. I set it back down on the floor again, still trying to make up my mind.

  “There’s nothing here,” I call out. “No notes, at least.”

  A beat of silence hangs in the air, but Cole doesn’t reply.

  “Cole?” I call, looking back through the crack. The main room is empty, and all I can hear are the bats’ shrieks, louder than they should be. Louder than they were when we came in. My audio implants tick up, searching for Cole through the roar of the bats.

  The sound of muffled laughter echoes off the walls.

  I flick off my headlamp and dive into cover. A man’s footsteps pound into the main room, then turn and retreat again. I catch the barest glimpse in the yellow light of the glow sticks, but it’s all I need to know that we’re in serious trouble.

  Dirt-crusted skin. Blackened nails. Tattered, blood-smeared clothing. The Lurkers must have hidden when they saw the jeep.

  Now they’ve come for us.

  “Catarina?” Cole’s voice is a whisper through the roar of the bats. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” I breathe, pressed flat against the wall.

  “There are four of them. They might not know you’re here, and they might not be able to get to you through that crack. I need you to stay in there, whatever happens.”

  “Okay.”

  “Keep quiet.” Cole runs out of the main room, his footsteps echoing through the shafts. The sound bounces off the walls, merging with the hurricane of leather wings until I can’t track him anymore.

  A sudden shout of surprise from one of the Lurkers echoes wildly, followed by a burst of gunfire that saturates my audio tech. I wince, the blare of static fading just in time for me to hear the thuds of three bodies slumping to the floor.

  Cole said there were four of them. Three down, one to go. I close my eyes, focusing on the sounds, trying to hear what’s happening.

  Footsteps echo in the main shaft, and the last Lurker lets out a roar. He’s running fast, spraying the walls with bullets. Cole’s rifle is almost silent, but I can hear him firing regular, careful shots. Both are getting closer, moving into the main room. A burst of gunfire bites into the walls, and I catch a glimpse of Cole racing into one of the side tunnels.

  The gunshots cease. I can hear two sets of lungs, both panting, both in cover on the edges of the room. I don’t think the Lurker can see me from where he is, but my eyes dart to the mother-of-pearl revolver on the floor.

  It’s lying in the middle of the crack, in plain sight of the main cavern. The silver is dull, but it still catches the gleam of the glow sticks. I must have kicked it into the crack when I scrambled to the wall, and now it could lead the Lurker straight to me. I drop to my knees and reach forward to grab it just as another burst of gunfire erupts.

  A wild spray of bullets slams into the cave walls. One hits the back of the alcove, and I throw myself backward, the gun clutched in my hands. Chips of rock spray out from the impact, slicing a gash across my wrist. A puff of sawdust floats through the crack as something hits the floor outside.

  Without looking, without listening, I already know what’s happened. I can feel it like a kick to the stomach.

  Cole’s been hit.

  In a moment of panic, I jerk my head to the crack, catching a glimpse of the Lurker. He’s in a tattered leather jacket, his hair in matted clumps. He picks up Cole’s rifle in one filthy hand. Cole is lying on his back in front of the alcove, but I can’t see where he was shot.

  I slide back out of sight, pressing myself against the wall. Cole is hurt. He needs my help. I look down at the revolver in my hands.

  “Tried to hurt me,” the Lurker growls, pacing around the room. He’s limping, breathing heavily. “Shouldn’t have come here.” His words have a strange inflection, his cadence off-kilter. All the Lurkers I’ve come across sound like that—the ones who can still speak, that is. Some talk only in snarls, abandoning language as they descend into pure savagery.

  Cole doesn’t reply.

  I risk another glance through the crack. In the dim light of the glow sticks, I can see his hand pressed to his stomach. He’s alive, but he’s badly wounded. His shirt is soaked with blood. The Lurker ambles past, and I dart back into cover.

  “Going to kill you now,” the Lurker says. I can hear the sneer in his voice.

  “G-go on, then,” Cole stutters. “Take your best shot.”

  “Reckon I will.”

  “I reckon . . . ,” Cole starts, then groans with pain. He sucks in a breath. “I reckon you’re batshit.”

  The Lurker chuckles, a deep sound that echoes off the walls. He stops pacing, coming to a stop on the other side of Cole. A metallic click rings out as he cocks Cole’s rifle.

  There is no conscious thought in my mind as I stand and swing around.

  I pull the trigger. The bullet flies through the crack and catches the Lurker square in the chest.

  In the space of a breath, my world splits into choppy, broken frames. The Lurker howls, his bloodshot gaze snapping to me. He swings the rifle up, and Cole’s head snaps around, shouting for me to hide. But his voice is lost in a roar of static. There is only me and my target. I exhale and fire my final bullet.

  The Lurker’s skull explodes. Blood splatters the walls. His body slumps into a crumpled heap on the floor.

  I drop the gun, swaying on my feet.

  “Catarina!” Cole roars.

  “I’m coming!” I shout, scrambling through the gap in the rock. I fall to my knees beside him and grab the medkit from my backpack. I tear open a packet of gauze with my teeth and press it to the gaping wound in his stomach.

  “Oh, Jesus,” I whisper as his blood bubbles up between my fingers.

  “Th-the bullet,” he gasps. “It’s nanite rigged. You need to get it out and cauterize the wound to stop the spread. It’s interfering with my healing tech.”

  I lift the gauze. There’s nothing but torn flesh and oozing, pulsing blood. I don’t know how to get the bullet out or cauterize this with
out killing him. Nanite-rigged bullets are lethal if they’re not removed. Cole needs a surgeon, or he’ll die.

  “I can do better,” I breathe. “You just need to hang on a few minutes. There’s a doctor in town, a friend of Agnes’s—he can help you. Do you think you can get to the jeep?”

  Cole nods stiffly, his eyes still black, then moans as he staggers to his feet. I throw the backpack on and duck under his arm to help him down the shaft. He drags his rifle through the sawdust with one shaking hand.

  “Okay, you’re doing great,” I whisper. We burst into the sunlight, stumbling down the trail and back to the jeep.

  Cole falls into the passenger seat and tosses his gun into the back. “You’re going to have to drive. My tech is glitching out.”

  I scramble in and grab the steering wheel. The seat is made for a body bigger than mine, and the dashboard is a smooth, curved LED screen. There are a thousand icons about weather and perimeter scans, but nothing to start the engine. Nothing to tell me how to drive.

  Cole grunts, leaning forward to press his forearm to the dash. The display changes to a map of our surroundings, and the engine growls to life.

  “Thanks,” I say, pulling the seat belt around me. If I had a better panel, I could just mentally picture where to go, and the autodriver would take us there. But I can’t even see an icon to load the GPS or enter a destination. I’m going to have to get us to the doctor’s on my own.

  “I haven’t really done this before.” I shoot a nervous glance at Cole. “We’re going to make it, I promise, but you should probably still hang on.”

  A hint of pressure on the accelerator is all I need to send the jeep surging forward, snapping a sapling in half as we plow into a copse of trees. The brakes kick in automatically, and I twist in the seat to reverse, then send us speeding back down the fire trail, racing toward the cabin.

  An alert on the dash picks me up as an untrained driver, and the autodriver kicks in, following the curves of the fire trail for me. It seems to sense my urgency, and maybe it even knows Cole is hurt, because we take the turns at a terrifying speed. I keep turning the wheel and using the pedals, but the jeep is an alien beast, hauling itself around the bends as it attunes itself to my driving. Valves hiss on the floor and the seat shudders as it folds and shrinks, rising slowly until it hugs my body perfectly.

  “Where did you get that gun?” Cole asks. His face is ashen and streaked with sweat. The pad of gauze on his stomach is already soaked with blood.

  “In the alcove, I’d forgotten about it.”

  He grits his teeth. “I told you to let me handle the security.”

  “Seriously?” I swing the jeep across a hill, cutting cross-country to the road at the edge of the property. “I just saved your life, as I recall.”

  “I had it under control.”

  “Didn’t look like it from where I was standing. That bastard was getting ready to shoot you with your own gun.”

  “That was the plan.”

  I let out a choked laugh. “Getting shot? I think you’re losing too much blood.”

  He lets out a grunt of pain. “The gun wouldn’t work for him. It’s coded to my panel.”

  “What do you mean, coded?”

  Cole winces as we swerve around a boulder, flying full speed toward the fence at the edge of the property. “It’s locked to my panel. I set it to defensive mode, which means if he tried to shoot me with it, it would have backfired and killed him instead.”

  The jeep crashes through the fence and hurtles onto the road, its tires screeching as we spin around to head south.

  “Oh,” I murmur. “I didn’t realize.”

  Cole lifts the gauze to peek at his wound and presses it back, closing his eyes. “I need you to stay in cover when I tell you to.”

  “I don’t take orders from you,” I say, flooring the accelerator. “We’re in this together. That’s the only way this works.”

  “You staying alive is how this works, Catarina. I’m not giving you orders. I’m trying to protect you, like I’ve been trained to. You’re my responsibility.”

  My responsibility. Who the hell does he think he is? I spin the jeep around a bend, rocks and dust flying into the trees. “You know, a simple thank-you would suffice.”

  “If you had stayed behind cover like I told you, then none of this would have happened.”

  “What do you mean? The only time I came out of cover was to shoot the Lurker, and you were already shot . . .”

  My voice falls away as I realize that’s not true. I replay the scene in my mind. I was pressed against the wall when Cole killed the first three Lurkers, and then . . .

  Then I crawled out of cover to grab the gun right as the Lurker started firing.

  “You took that bullet because it was going to hit me.”

  Cole doesn’t reply. His face is white, his fingers tight on the gauze.

  “Cole, was that bullet going to hit me?”

  He rolls his head away from me, his eyelashes beaded with sweat. “There was a forty percent chance of it hitting you, according to my equipment.”

  I choke, flooring the accelerator, my hands shaking on the wheel. “Forty percent? Jesus, Cole. Why did you trade that for a hundred percent chance of being shot?”

  He swallows. “I didn’t. Black-out agent, remember? I’m not always in control.”

  I glance over at his stomach, at the wash of blood across his shirt. He took a bullet for me. He saved my life, and here I was thinking I’d saved him.

  “This is my job, Catarina. This is what I’m trained to do.”

  “I know,” I say, my eyes fixed on the road. I have no doubt of Cole’s need to protect me, not anymore. I just don’t want to be the cause of his death.

  I veer the jeep off the road and through a gap in the trees, hauling us up a rocky, overgrown driveway. This is the doctor Agnes and I were going to the night Cole arrived. He was a neurosurgeon back before the plague. I used to babysit his daughters. His wife bred prize-winning horses, showed them all around the country.

  They ate the last mare over the winter.

  “This is it,” I say as we hurtle down the driveway. “Just a couple more minutes and the doc will have you back to normal.”

  Cole doesn’t reply. His hand is still lying on his stomach, but his fingers are hanging loosely and his forehead is shiny with sweat.

  “Come on!” I yell, elbowing him as we swing around a corner. “Stay with me, asshole.” He doesn’t have much longer if he keeps bleeding like this. Not long enough to haul him inside and get the bullet out.

  I let the autodriver take over, twisting in my seat to reach into the back.

  “What are you doing?” Cole whispers.

  “Just hang on.” I haul out my genkit. There’s a piece of code my father used on the night I hacked my panel, when I was bleeding out on the cabin floor. It’s called a jump, and it releases a violent surge of synthetic hormones and chemicals that swarm through the body, shocking the nervous system. It’s painful, and it’s dangerous. There’s a chance it’ll kill Cole, but he’s on the verge of death right now, and I don’t have much of a choice.

  I flip the genkit open and jam the wire into his panel, urging the hard drive to spin up as the jeep barrels down the driveway. The screen blinks to life, and my fingers race across the keyboard, navigating through my stored files, searching for the code. Cole’s panel lets me in using its new password, and the genkit’s screen flashes with a burst of emergency messages.

  “I know,” I growl. I know his blood pressure is dropping. I know his vitals are low. What I don’t know is whether jumping him will save or kill him.

  “What . . . ,” Cole whispers again, just as I find the file.

  My fingers hover over the keyboard. I don’t know how this code is going to work. My father wrote it specifically for me. It might clash with whatever tech they put inside Cole and kill him instantly.

  “I’m sorry,” I say as blood trickles from beneath the gauze, spil
ling over his belt. His lips form a word, but no sound comes out. In that moment he looks so close to death that I can feel his life rising from his chest, unfurling in the slow breath he exhales. For a moment I pause, lost in doubt.

  Then his eyes flutter, and I realize that he’s dying, truly dying.

  My fingers blur across the keys as I send the command.

  CHAPTER 14

  FOR A MOMENT COLE SITS beside me, pale and deathly still, as the jeep bounces across the potholes in the doctor’s driveway.

  “Come on,” I whisper, but he’s not breathing. He’s not moving. Maybe his body couldn’t handle the jump.

  “Cole!” I urge, grabbing his face. “You can’t die, dammit!”

  His body jerks suddenly, his head slamming back into the seat. The cobalt dots of his panel flash wildly. The genkit lets out a series of high-pitched beeps, and his eyes blink wide, his body shaking with violent spasms. He throws his head back, letting out a roar, and his hand shoots up, hitting my chest hard enough to slam me against the window.

  “Cole!” I shout, jerking into a ball, one leg caught below the steering wheel. The jeep’s dash flashes red, and it shudders to a stop. “Cole, stop it!”

  But his expression doesn’t change. His eyes are sharklike, glassy and blank. He’s staring at me like he doesn’t even know who I am.

  I bat at his arm, and his lips curl back. I scramble behind me for the door handle, wrench it open, and tumble out into the grass.

  “Stop it, you psychopath. You’re hurt!” I struggle to my feet.

  He pauses, swaying in the seat, the pad of gauze slipping from his wound. “Catarina?” Recognition flickers in his eyes. “I feel . . . I feel cold.”

  “That’s because I jumped your panel. You’re dying, Cole. I need you to sit down so I can take you to the doctor.”

  He looks down at his hands, bloodied and shaking, and blinks slowly at the gaping wound in his stomach. “Oh shit,” he whispers, falling into the passenger seat. He grabs another pad of gauze as I climb back into the jeep.

  “I must be crazy,” I mutter. We surge forward again. “I thought you were programmed to protect me.”