Nearby, my father was pulling himself up via the thin, metal table in the kitchen area, which was bolted to the linoleum. I looked around, still too weak to stand, taking stock of the situation.
I struggled to piece together what had happened. The answer was obvious, but made no sense. “You hit him. With a chair.”
My father leaned against the wall of the kitchen, looking down at me. “Seemed the thing to do,” he said, with obvious effort.
“Thanks.”
He rolled his eyes and gave a little shake of his head. “Stunner hurts even worse than it looks,” he grunted.
“He’s not dead,” I said, nodding weakly at Jorin, who remained splayed out on the carpet. “Grab the stunner. We have to be careful.”
“You shot him at point-blank range, Charlotte. Let’s not be paranoid.” Dad lifted the stunner between three fingers, as though it might ignite in his hand at any moment.
“He’s wearing a black uniform. The bullets don’t penetrate it. Hurts like a monkey, though.”
Dad gave me a strange look, but seemed at a loss for words. His ruse uncovered, Jorin shifted.
“Stay on the floor,” I barked. “I have a clear shot at your head. Dad.” I glanced at my father, who was massaging his neck, jaw slightly open. “Maybe you should get out of here. Take the oxygen.” Honestly, he was taking all this a little better than I’d expected him to.
Dad thought about that for a moment, then sighed in resignation. “No. I don’t intend to run from my problems, Charlotte.”
I ignored his tone, my mind racing. I didn’t think I could even stand up yet. “Fine. Whatever. Jorin, get up and cuff yourself to the chair. I’m basically looking for a reason to shoot you right now. Just so you know.”
Jorin smiled, understanding our conundrum at the same time we did. He moved slowly, though, and did as we said. I grunted, partly from the pain, but mostly out of frustration. I had no plan. None. From the looks of it, neither did anyone else in the room.
Finally, I spoke. “So then, what do you propose we do now?”
My dad shook his head. “There is no we, Charlotte. This doesn’t change anything.”
I took a moment to absorb that. Of course. My father had defended me because Jorin had been interrogating me about the Remnant, and West had joined the Remnant.
Actually, Dad hadn’t defended me at all. He had defended West.
As that realization hit me, a long, low rumble pulled itself up from the ground and through my legs. My father’s hand went to the wall, and I realized he’d felt it too, so it wasn’t my pain making me shake. Rather, it wasn’t just the pain.
The familiar female voice rang out through the hallway and the speaker in my father’s room. “Warning. Level Three Alert. Partial system failure. Citizens, return to your assigned room and locate your emergency gear. Prepare oxygen apparatus. Remain calm and do not attempt to unseal your door. Life support will reboot shortly.”
There was a pause, during which the hallway began to fill with panicked voices, followed by people rushing to find their rooms, but the voice spoke again, silencing the burgeoning chaos.
“All guardians report to Sector One, Level Fifteen immediately. Repeat. All guardians report to the Guardian Level immediately.”
The battle had begun.
Twenty-nine
The effects of the battle reverberated through the ship.
To my surprise, I was afraid. I hadn’t realized I could hate myself any more than I already did, but this newfound weakness was a good start. I’d also thought I was done apologizing, but I couldn’t stop my next words from spilling out. “Dad, I’m sorry. For everything.”
I checked that Jorin’s cuffs were secure, handed my father the gun, and left the room.
The door sucked open behind me almost immediately.
“Wait,” Dad called after me. “Come back.”
This level had matching light fixtures, and they shimmered, unable to draw enough power from the backup support system to maintain a steady glow.
“It’s no use, Dad. I can’t find West for you.”
He looked surprised.
“That’s why you’re out here, right? For West? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I’m kinda banned from the Remnant for life. They hate me and want me dead, actually. But nice try. Thanks for playing. Now go home, and be glad you have one.”
“He was always weaker than you, Char.” He spit my name out through twisted lips. “He always needed us. But we weren’t there anymore. First you, years ago. You never saw how he missed you. Then your mom, and—”
“But you were there!”
He shook his head. “No. Not since your mother—” he cut himself off, breathing a sharp, shallow breath.
I glared at him.
“Char—”
“STOP CALLING ME THAT.”
My father choked, trying to find some kind of balance between his anger and his grief. “Charlotte,” he said, more quietly. “She was my wife.”
“She was my mother. I’m through with apologies. I’m through with second chances. We’re way past that anyway. I no longer want you to forgive me. I don’t want us to be a family anymore. Everything is broken.”
“He’s all I have left.”
“You don’t want to know me. So don’t.”
And then there was darkness.
Pure, inky, thick, black darkness.
And then there was a voice. As smooth as coffee, as beautiful as velvet. It held a million promises, none of them broken. But then, I reflected, Isaiah hadn’t made many promises to me.
“ATTENTION, people of Earth, lost in space. The revolution is here. Allow me to enlighten you as to your current situation.”
On cue, the lights blinked back on. I looked at my father, who was pointing the gun back into the room, presumably at Jorin.
“For years, my people—the people of the Remnant—have suffocated under the rule of your so-called justice system. And now, you, too, will suffocate.”
Realization of what Isaiah intended to do next hit me like a storm in summer. I scrambled to retrieve the oxygen pack from under my shirt, shouting as I worked. “Dad! Your mask! Put on your oxygen—”
Then, I stopped. I couldn’t speak, because there was literally no air.
I hit the green button on my pack, and oxygen filled my lungs. I rushed back into my father’s room. He’d already gotten his flowing.
Isaiah continued. “For years, we’ve been without a voice. But the tables are turned, now. The day is coming when we will have equality. All of us. You too. So let me say this: We’re winning. Matter of fact, we captured the Commander’s strike force. Seems they couldn’t find their way in the dark. But the darkness has been our home for a long time.”
Isaiah paused.
“Here’s the deal. The first battle is over. You didn’t even know you were fighting, did you? But the war is just beginning. Now that you’ve seen what we can do, I urge you to write your Congressman, and tell ’em the Mole King sent you. Tell ’em you want equality for the Remnant. Full citizenship for everyone on board. A fresh start. Democratic elections.”
There was a long pause.
“I’m joking. You wouldn’t really want that, or you wouldn’t have gotten where you are, with everybody else left to die on Earth.
“Instead, tell ’em you just want us left alone. From now on, the Remnant is a separate nation-state on board the Ark. When we’re granted full access to the mainframe, we’ll leave you alone. That’s a promise. And I never break my promises.”
With that, the system slammed back to life. Air hissed down from the wall panels around us. I shuddered, thinking of Isaiah’s promises.
“Oh,” Isaiah’s voice continued ominously. “Here’s one more promise. Until we get access, we’ll shoot one captured soldier per day. Starting with the Commander’s son.”
My heart stopped.
I ripped the helmet off and looked back at my father, but he had returned to his bunk to shove
the remaining helmet over Jorin’s head. He’d been a little late, though, and Jorin wasn’t conscious.
Or, more likely, Jorin was faking it again.
I stood in the doorframe, thoroughly confused about what to do. Isaiah had Eren.
Isaiah was going to shoot Eren.
If my dad had told the truth, West had taken off to find the Remnant. He probably wouldn’t have left the bunk if he’d had no clue where to look. I would bet he’d found them.
Isaiah probably had West, too.
“He missed you,” my father said, out of nowhere, still avoiding West’s name.
“Why are you telling me this? Let me guess. You blame me.” I shook out my shoulders, trying refocus. I needed to come up with a plan. A good one. But my father’s words were distracting me. “I have news for you, Dad. I haven’t spoken to West in years. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
“There’s a reason why you know that I blame you,” he said quietly.
It occurred to me that, although I’d decided I was numb, West was gone. Our ugly, fragile, beautiful family had splintered again. The last link—the one between West and my father—was shattered. All this time, I’d been fighting to rejoin my family, but my family didn’t exist anymore. There were, instead, the shattered pieces of the Family That Was, floating through space, detached and isolated.
I was cold. I was numb. I did not feel. I needed to think.
Above all, I wasn’t going back to the familiar dance between us. Like I said, I was done. I fairly flew from the room. Let him deal with Jorin on his own. He’d have the connections he needed to make him either disappear or stay quiet, I imagined.
My father followed me into the hallway. “What am I supposed to do now? I don’t have anything left.”
I whirled around. When he saw my face again, my father made a sound like a sob. I felt my disbelief take over my face. I had never seen my father cry. The effect was how I imagined being sucked into space. There was no air, so I stopped breathing.
Everything in my chest burned with lack of oxygen. I was dizzy, detached, and nearer to dying than I’d ever been on Earth. I had no answer for my father, and none for myself, either.
My throat ached. I wanted to scream at him, but the pressure of space sucked my breath from my lungs and my words from my lips. I opened my mouth to shout I HATE YOU right at his face, but what came out instead was the last thing I expected to say.
“I can get him back.” My voice was impossibly quiet. Calm, even.
“What?”
A shaky plan began to take root in my mind. I spoke slowly, deliberately. “West. I know how to get him back.”
“Charlotte. I’m not asking you to do this.” There was a note of concern in my father’s voice I hadn’t heard in years. It was all I needed to be sure. My plan was suddenly as solid as a glacier.
“Of course you are.” I gave him a frank look, and he had the grace not to deny it further.
I slapped his door panel and ducked back into the room. “Where do you keep your screwdriver? Never mind.” I swept across the room and pulled a familiar metal box from underneath his bed. He’d always kept his toolbox there. “Some things never change,” I said lightly.
He did not share my tone. “What are you doing?”
“Stand back, Dad. Way back. And pick that stunner back up. Do you know how to handle a gun?” I hurried to Jorin, who looked up, apparently deciding he’d rather see what I was up to than continue to feign fainting. I grabbed his cuffs and willed my hands not to shake. They obeyed me, so I looked a lot more confident than I felt.
“Charlotte, no. You can’t let him out.”
“It’s the only play I’ve got left. I can’t get anywhere near the Guardian Level without a guardian. Now get out. Don’t come back to your room tonight.”
“No. I’m—I’m not leaving.”
I shrugged. This was among our stranger interactions, but I didn’t have the energy or the courage to parse through everything at the moment. I needed all of both to keep from running away as fast and hard as I could, as every instinct in my body was pleading with me to do.
“Fine. Have it your way.” I picked the lock on Jorin’s cuffs with an ease that probably made my father blush behind my back, if he still cared enough to blush. The catch clicked, and the rivet popped out into my open hands.
Jorin stood slowly, not seeing any danger, but not understanding what was going on. I placed the cuffs in his hand and extended my wrists to him. He looked down at them, eyes narrowed.
I sighed and took the cuffs back, then clapped them around my own wrists. “Now, Lieutenant Malkin. As you were saying. I’m under arrest. So take me to the Commander.”
Thirty
Jorin’s confusion melted into a dumb sneer, but he was only too happy to comply. He stood easily and gave a casual glance around the room, no doubt looking for more tricks.
For my part, I looked at my father one last time. He held the gun uncertainly, confused about where to point it and too unsure of himself to do any good with it. “Now, don’t try any more funny business,” he said to Jorin.
“He won’t,” I said. “Not here. The Commander’s son’s been taken. They’re going to want to interrogate me for real this time.”
My father looked slightly horrified and did not speak again.
Jorin gave him a long look before yanking me out the door by my elbow. I walked as gracefully as possible, and he continued to pull me off-balance as frequently as he could. It was a fun little game.
As we neared the end of the hallway, the calm blues and grays of the walls gave way to splashes of pinks, purples, and orange, which gradually melted into a mural. I slowed my pace, staring at the images that took form the farther we walked. The blue became an ocean that spread down onto the floor beneath us, teeming with dolphins, coral, and even a pair of scuba divers. The midsection grew into a mountain, which two climbers had nearly crested in the snow.
But the top of the mural was the best. The pale blue of the sky yielded to shades of purple and orange: an image of Earth’s final sunrise. But the painter hadn’t stopped there. Beyond the clouds, the atmosphere exploded into the majesty of space, covering every surface around, underneath, and above us. It was so much more than the star-speckled blackness I’d observed from the porthole in the Remnant. Here, the darkness was bursting with planets, nebulae, and even meteors, as full of energy as the ocean.
Sensing a theme, I found myself slowing further to look for the final pair of explorers before I found them: a tiny set of dots on a distant planet nestled among the stars. The planet appeared pristine and fertile, as rich with warmth and possibility as the one the meteor had ravished.
I stared at the new planet, transfixed, trying to read the dabs of paint and ink as though they might actually hold the truth about our future.
The mural was about hope. The abstract led to the concrete. Chaos and tragedy erupted into meaning and potential. It was our story, or the story that might yet be ours. We could never return to what we’d lost, so we would press forward. Our homelessness had made us a race of explorers. Someday, we’d become the builders of a new world.
Jorin yanked me forward, and I tripped over my feet, losing the game between us. I barely noticed when he laughed. It was precious, this potential of ours, and I found myself longing fiercely to protect it.
I kept my balance the rest of the way to the Commander’s office.
I couldn’t afford to trip again.
“Enter.” At the sound of the Commander’s voice, I shivered involuntarily, then steeled myself for what was next.
The heavy wooden door swung open, and I took in the pale walls and glass-like surface of the marble floors in an instant. The Commander’s fountain did not bubble and change shapes, as before. Maybe he wasn’t in the mood for it anymore.
The Commander himself seemed to have aged several years in the weeks since I’d seen him. He looked up at me, and I saw that the loss of his son was written all ov
er his body. Even his uniform appeared less crisp. His shirt threatened to come untucked. His hair had fallen forward slightly. His face was more wrinkled than I recalled.
“Lieutenant.” His voice was flat. “You’ve found her. Begin the interrogation. Keep her conscious. I’ll be along shortly.”
He waved, and Jorin pulled me back toward the door.
“Wait!” I said. I could have been the wind, for all the Commander acknowledged me. His face remained focused on his desk. Jorin pulled again, expecting me to stumble back, but somehow, I remained unmoved. The next time I spoke, the Commander would listen.
“Commander Everest, I can get him back.”
He looked up. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“And why should I believe you?”
I blinked. “I mean, I’m the reason you know about the Noah board being hacked.”
“My dear, you would do well to stop flattering yourself. You’re the reason the Noah board was hacked. I reviewed the security footage the moment the alarms stopped sounding. We hardly needed your so-called warning. My son could have done without it, certainly. It’s a pity you didn’t remain with the stowaways, for your sake. At least this way, I’ll have the pleasure of seeing you die in person.”
He massaged the bridge of his nose and gave another wave of his hand. Jorin moved toward me again.
My voice went up in pitch. “We want the same thing, Commander. If you’ve seen the footage, then you must know how I feel about Eren.”
He stood, his face reddening. “I know my son was fool enough to fall for your act, but please don’t mistake his gullibility for a family trait.”
“I can get him back, Commander. Don’t tell me you’re not interested in hearing me out. Besides, if you’re not afraid of being fooled by me, then what do you have to lose?”
He gritted his teeth and reseated himself slowly. “By all means, astonish me with your military acumen. If it works, perhaps I will spare you the discomfort of a few more days of your miserable life and move your execution up a week.”
“Don’t do me any favors.”
“The plan, Miss Turner. The plan, or your interrogation begins right now.”
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