by Karen Bao
19
THE BEACH BECOMES A BLUR OF action, with Pacifia’s concrete blocks and square windows as a backdrop. I hear the boom of the floating city’s engines, interwoven with the factories’ churning and screeching. The air smells thick and poisonous, like smoke and gasoline. As I begin to move, Pacifia’s lights form yellow streaks in my vision. I duck to dodge Callisto’s sedative-filled Downer and fire a laser at another soldier’s outstretched hand. Callisto can’t shoot anything more dangerous if she wants to capture me alive.
Beside me, Wes isn’t so lucky. He twists to avoid a pellet, but it grazes his elbow, surrounding the joint with ropes of electricity. The Militia jacket’s fabric is an insulator, but it’s not strong enough to withstand this level of shock. Wes’s hiss of pain catches Finley’s attention, and the younger boy turns, exposing his front to enemy fire.
I toss a dagger, which sinks into another soldier’s unarmored hip. As he lets out a scream, I wince as if the dagger had hit me.
Move on. He’s an enemy.
At that moment, a streak of violet light from Callisto’s Lazy hits Finley in the chest.
“Run, Fin!” Wes shouts.
Finley’s stolen armor will protect him until the laser burns through. But instead of moving, he stares in horror at the point of impact, where the armor on his chest is beginning to glow orange. Callisto keeps her finger on the trigger, her visor obscuring what I imagine is a slowly spreading smile.
Three seconds later, the boy wobbles on his feet. Another second, and the wind blows him backward onto the sand.
* * *
It was so easy for her. She killed him, and it was nothing. As the laser burrowed through Finley’s armor, I felt his life leave the shoreline. Like Belinda, like Mom, he died at the pull of a trigger. And like them, he never hurt his killer, never even scratched her skin.
I’m going to fight for this boy, though he’ll never know it. Fighting won’t bring him back, but it’ll take away the numbness, the cold inside me.
“Fin!” Wes sprints forward and drives his dagger up and under my latest victim’s chest plate. Then he rushes at Callisto, his blade dark with blood.
Callisto stands frozen in place, but I can’t tell if it’s the cold night or the weight of her actions that’s paralyzed her. Her head hangs down as if the helmet is too heavy for her neck. Wes is so close—
Jupiter’s lumbering form knocks him sideways.
A Downer glances off my back armor. I twist around to find some idiot private running at me. When he’s a meter and a half away, I execute a forward roll to the side, hook my foot around his shin, and yank him down. His head cracks against a rock—not even his helmet can protect him from such an impact.
Immediately, I’m back on my feet, dagger in hand, and running toward Wes, who’s grappling with both Jupiter and Callisto. Callisto mostly hides behind Jupiter. At such close range, Wes forces them to drop their guns and engage in hand-to-hand combat, which they don’t seem to have practiced since our Militia training days. Wes darts between them, lunging and swiping like a manic animal. Nothing but their armor can stop him from killing them, but will he? Can he murder? The Wes I know is too good for that, but I’ve never truly feared him until now.
One of the two remaining underlings heads for Wes; the other tries to sneak up behind me. I hear his boots crunch on the wet sand, and I turn and throw my last dagger into his groin. As he looks down, wondering what clipped him, I dash forward, grab the dagger’s hilt, and yank upward. Hot blood spatters my hand.
Without thinking, I throw the dagger at the soldier running for Wes. It burrows into the back of his neck. He flops forward and lies lifeless on the sand.
What have I done? What will I do?
The knife—I have to get it. It’s lodged in my third victim’s body. Dead body. Dead, because of me.
I reach him. My knees hit wet sand.
I hear Umbriel’s singsong in my head: Beater, Beater, the blood gets sweeter. He used to chant the Lunar children’s rhyme, which mocked violent, power-drunk Militia members. I may be fighting Militia Beaters now, but that doesn’t make me any better than they are.
I wiggle the dagger out of the dead man’s flesh with the same care Mom used when tweezing a splinter from my seven-year-old palm. But I can’t bring myself to remove the soldier’s helmet and look at his face. A face that was loved by a mother, a father, a friend—a face I don’t want to see in my dreams for the rest of my life.
“Phaet!” shouts a familiar voice. Wes. I’ve been kneeling here too long. I look up in time to see him smash a sizable rock into Jupiter’s chest armor, denting the plates. As I rise to my feet, Wes runs, feints, and side-kicks Callisto, felling her.
What’s wrong with her? She doesn’t fight back as Wes repeatedly kicks her in the stomach. Her movements are so languid, it’s like she’s sleepwalking. Maybe the guilt caught up to her too. Maybe she’s “soft” like me.
Wes isn’t hitting to kill. Yet.
“How could you?” he shouts. Callisto stops moving, lies limp on the snow-dusted sand. “My cousin! He never hurt you. He wasn’t ever in a real fight! You’re filthy, you’re worthless—”
But Jupiter barrels into Wes, knocking him to the ground. They wrestle, Wes’s knife-hand strikes to Jupiter’s neck seeming to have no effect. With his legs, Wes tries and fails to push his attacker off of him.
“Damn you!” Jupiter bellows into Wes’s face. “Don’t touch my girl!”
“Phaet!” Wes hollers. “Get him!”
I jam my dagger into the holes in Jupiter’s armor: behind the knees and elbows, the upper thigh. Finally, it’s enough. Wes pushes Jupiter away and launches into a limping run toward a nearby submarine, bigger and better camouflaged than the Tourmalinian one we used to reach Battery Bay. Blood trickles onto his white skin from a decimeter-long scratch on the side of his face, blood I want to wipe away.
For a moment, I stare at the dark stains he leaves on the white sand. Then I sprint after him, every square centimeter of my skin tingling. I don’t feel like myself—my body has become a charged chemical soup.
The hatch on the nearest submarine is locked. “Agh!” I holler, pounding on the metal.
A clicking sound as a bolt slides open.
Even as I lift the hatch and help Wes climb in, we hear Jupiter’s footfalls behind us.
20
THE PACIFIANS LEFT A HELMSMAN IN the submarine to make pickup. He’s on the round side, with a patchy blond beard and a bald spot on the back of his head. He sits in a small nook, his behind propped up by a black cushion. His head nearly touches the low ceiling, which is crossed by bluish fluorescent lights that make everyone’s skin look pasty.
“Mutineers!” cries the helmsman, taking his hands off the tarnished analog gauges he’s been adjusting.
Grabbing an exposed, rusty pipe for balance, Wes stumbles into a seat by one of the oval windows. He sucks in breath as he yanks something shiny—a knife—out of his shin.
“Pacifia!” I shout at the helmsman, pointing my bloody dagger at the floating city.
“Wha—”
I hold the dagger to his throat. “Go!”
Hands shaking, the helmsman pushes the submarine off the beach and submerges us beneath the black water. I sit by Wes, but face the cockpit to make sure we stay on course.
Wes has pulled the submarine’s medical kit off the wall. He efficiently disinfects his leg wound and binds it, wrestling with the tape. I dip my finger in the gooey disinfectant and, with a shaking hand, rub it into the cut on his cheek.
“Thanks. Jupiter pulled a knife,” Wes says. “I should have anticipated that—I was so angry, so stupid.” His face contorts in shame.
“At least you punished Callisto.”
“She hardly put up a fight. Maybe she felt bad for . . . for Fin.” He looks out the window. “Did anyone hurt you?�
��
I shake my head. My skin feels scratched up, and my muscles are sore, but neither will handicap me—not like my guilt will. “They didn’t hurt me. But I killed two of them.”
“Oh, Phaet.” He raises his hand and catches mine with it. My finger is shiny from the antibacterial cream. “Your first kill . . .”
I couldn’t even lift their visors to see their faces.
“I’m as bad as the Committee,” I blurt. “Who were they? What were their names? Back on the beach, I didn’t even care.”
“They would’ve sent you the same way as Fin if you hadn’t—”
“Don’t try to make me feel better.” I take my hand out of his, and Wes falls silent. I immediately regret snapping at him. I turn away, but instead of leaving me to stew, Wes hugs me tight. It’s a kindness I don’t deserve. Tears pool in my eyes; I blink once, allowing a few to fall.
“You’re still coming on board Pacifia?” I gesture at his leg.
He looks surprised. “I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to see another architectural wonder of the twenty-third century. Battery Bay, now Pacifia—soon I can call myself a seasoned globe-trotter.”
“If you can’t run . . . if you can barely walk, let alone fight . . .”
“I have to. I’ll get you on your way home, and then experiment until I can disrupt the attacking battalion’s chain of command. Either take out some higher-ups—remember, the General’s camped out on Pacifia—or grenade the control tower. My leg isn’t that bad. Remember your arm the day we left Base IV? We’ve fought through worse together.”
“Thanks for watching my back,” I say.
“You’ve always done the same for me. Nothing will happen to us, all right?”
“I’d like to believe it.”
The submarine’s interior vibrates with a series of sudden clangs and clashes, interrupting our conversation. We’ve arrived. Metal arms lift us into Pacifia’s underbelly, where the gray walls crawl with tan barnacles and the water is slick with spent diesel. Our reception at Battery Bay was far more glamorous, I think sarcastically. There, we had uniformed escorts—albeit ones that were threatening to deport us—and a whole entourage of glittering followers. Even the trash in the water was shiny.
We rise into one of many submarine-sized rectangular pools in the vast indoor port. Dim overhead lighting illuminates the sickliest tones of every object. Pacifian and Lunar soldiers scurry across the pathways connecting the hundreds of docking stations, skidding into row formation. Even as we watch, many of the troops hop into other submarines. Blast—reinforcements.
I push Wes from the hatch. Before I exit the vessel, I shoot a Downer into the helmsman’s neck. Sorry, I say to him in my mind.
The room smells as ugly as it looks. The slime molds growing between the rectangular, puce-colored floor tiles give off a sour stench. A family of brown rats nests in the corner nearest us. The skin on the back of my neck crawls at the sight, and I swallow bile to keep from retching.
A second submarine docks beside ours, even though there are scores of stations to choose from. Jupiter. It has to be. He made good time. Wes and I run once more, blending into a crowd of mixed Pacifian and Lunar soldiers before Jupiter can disembark and spot us. Leaping from his craft, he consults his handheld radiation detector, though it won’t help him find us, because our handscreens have been disconnected.
Looking back, I watch as he raises his head, scans his surroundings, and then takes off in the opposite direction, toward another group in which a returning Lunar soldier is doing a worse job than Wes of hiding his limp.
When our group passes a square doorway, Wes and I duck inside. He leans against a wall, standing only on his good leg.
“Is that your version of ‘it doesn’t hurt so bad’?” I say.
“When I stand like this, I only dirty one shoe at a time.” He’s joking, but he’s also trying not to sound annoyed. “Stop worrying about me, Phaet. I’m fine.”
I nod, resolving not to ask about his leg again. “Then let’s go.”
“Don’t fall too far behind.” Wes grins before jogging lopsidedly down the corridor.
* * *
From the maps we’ve seen, the naval docks sit at the center and bottom of Pacifia, and a cross section of the city’s floor plan looks like an elongated U. The aviation and space center is located high on the stern, so that exhaust from takeoffs doesn’t settle into the U’s base, where population density is highest.
Along with about twenty other soldiers, Wes and I board a cubic monorail car. It takes us up to the naval compound’s entrance, which is accessible from the Pacifian streets. The soldiers disperse, probably to carry out assignments on the floating city itself.
“Where are we meeting your Sanctuarist friends?” I whisper to Wes.
“I don’t think anyone else made it to Pacifia.” His voice sounds dead. “They must be putting out fires and protecting the shelter.”
Except for the military’s hustling, the area is strangely silent. Clumsy orange streetlights line narrow walkways between identical concrete buildings. Only about 20 percent of the windows are lit. Through the metal bars installed on the first-floor windows, I see dingy rooms with cloth-covered furniture and cracks in the walls. In one home, three children warm their hands over a gas stove on the living room floor. Occasionally, I catch a burst of beauty—a bunch of dried flowers, a child’s sketch of an owl. They remind me of my hidden moss garden in my family’s old apartment.
The Militia has surely destroyed my moss by now. Sadness lands on my heart like dust motes. For a time, those little plants were all the beauty I had.
Our feet kick up soot as we run to the civilian monorail station, and I taste the smoke particles in the air. Three Pacifians, all wearing dusky brown, blue, or gray, wait for the next late-night ride. No colorful clothing or private hovercraft here. This city lacks the vigor of Battery Bay, the vigor that comes with endless activity, the movement of people and their clashing opinions.
One of the Pacifians, a sweaty middle-aged man, registers our presence but seems unsurprised; a glance and then he goes back to staring lasciviously at the young woman beside him. She’s pretty, with a high nose and pointed chin, but soot and sleeplessness pinch her features. If she had the Batterer vlogger’s 3-D clothing pen, I imagine she’d sketch a veil to cover her face. But she can only brush her tangled dark hair in front of her eyes and grip her daughter’s arm more tightly. Her hand relaxes the slightest bit when she notices Wes and me.
The monorail arrives, and we board. Dirt coats our car’s square windows. The metal floor is so filthy that the occasional drop of blood falling from Wes’s pant leg blends right in.
We have no Pacifian money, but I remember from Primary that Pacifia is . . . different from most places. The government collects 80 percent of an average citizen’s income, and redistributes that wealth as food rations, transportation, education, and other public goods.
“Stupid,” my Earth Studies teacher commented. “Capitalism laid waste to the Earth and left developing countries’ economies in the dust. So Pacifia encouraged other city-states to try communism, as several Earthbound states did in the twentieth century. The government guarantees people their survival, but where is their motive to improve? If people don’t retain their earnings, why even work? There is about a zero-point-one correlation between their economic output and returns from the government.”
What my teacher said seems to hold true for Pacifia: the people here don’t seem to benefit from their labor. I press my helmet to the window, looking at the sorry streets, the flickering lights, the gray apartment buildings that rise above and fall away below us. We pass a final gray block, and I catch my breath. On our left is a vast city square of red brick. In its center is the Pacifian alliance’s symbol: a white fist punching a yellow sun. At the far end, two rows of soldiers stand at attention before a five-tier scarlet
building hundreds of meters tall. Each tier is marked by a sloped golden roof that tilts upward at the corners. The hexagonal tower must house the government offices.
When my amazement wears off, anger sets in. Pacifia’s poor live crowded up against this grand plaza. From their underheated homes, they can see the shiny paint and relative cleanliness; likewise, the officials in the tower can see the squalor in which their people dwell. At least the bases are more discreet about social inequality. There, the wealthiest people live walled off from everyone else, as I did in my captain’s apartment.
But perhaps the contrast only shows how much Lunars like hiding things.
Beyond the square, darkness descends again. As we pass over a cluster of smokestacks, my nostrils burn; I smell acid and a sickly splash of bleach. The woman and child get off at the next stop; the creepy man slinks away at the one after. Wes and I ride the monorail until the last stop, where the stench of smoke is replaced with something else.
Wes sniffs the air. “Beautiful. Spaceship grease.”
“We’re in our element at last,” I say, feeling lighter.
Wearing half smiles, we tear into the aerospace complex. Soldiers hustle through motion-sensor doors, tracking mud across the scarlet floor tiles. The walls are buttercup yellow, with painted images of a fat white fist punching upward every dozen meters or so. Black disk-shaped lamps hang from the ceiling.
Because the main hallway has the most foot traffic, Wes and I pick that one to jog through. Hopefully, we’ll find a hangar or runway at the other end. I hear his breath hitch with every other step, and my ghost of a smile vanishes.
If the Committee sent only Base IV Militia to deal with Saint Oda, as Lazarus said, I can board any Lunar ship and know I’ll end up in my home city. What’s essential is picking a good hiding spot and selecting a vessel that’ll get there quickly. Without access to flight plans, I’ll have to eavesdrop until we find out which vessels are suitable, and then sneak on board while no one’s watching.