by K. Gorman
Her breath rose into the air in a loose cloud. That second energy had returned, writhing like a snake between her bones. She gritted her teeth as she shoved it back down.
No. Not going to happen.
Back in her youth, she’d always equated the stones with gateways to other worlds, and much of the fiction they’d been allowed had presumed the same.
She was not about to prove it right with her new dimension-crossing abilities.
Marc hesitated, then splayed a hand on the surface of the closest one. “How old are they? Do you know?”
“Nope. No idea. And no one in the compound knew, either. Even Dr. Sasha…” She dropped the thought. Sasha had never shown more than a passing interest in the ruins. She’d likely had other concerns on her mind.
“What are they? Macedonian, I guess?” His tone trailed up at the end, framing his doubt. He gave her a guilty smile. “Actually, I don’t know shit about this area. Just a little bit of Greek and Roman history.”
“In this case, historical knowledge won’t help you. These stones simply don’t fit in.” She took a step back, her heel collecting in the bare scrubs of grass between the stones. “This style looks more like those standing stones in England—but that’s impossible, because they are here instead, and I don’t think the ritual stones came with much writing on them. And these designs…” She trailed her hand over the nearest stone’s surface, squinting to make out the faint etchings. They came up in a row, here, as if someone had taken a garden rake and scratched it up the stone at an angle. She paused and made a secondary light, spreading it to highlight the lines. “I have no idea. I mean, I’ve never asked any experts about them personally, but I know Fallon was sure asking, and none of its historians could figure out what the symbols were or where they came from.”
“Aliens?” Marc suggested.
“Might as well be. Now, if my weird dimensional-crossing dreams of the Brazilian compound are at all accurate, they have another set of ruins there. Different style, though. And I don’t think they match anything from the area, either.”
She waited a few beats, then retracted her light from the stone. It seeped out like a liquid, then collected into an orb. She joined it with her other one, feeling the connection click like a bulb switch and making the glow perceptively brighter. She darted her gaze around to the stone next to it, following it to its base.
She squatted down, pointing. “And this always fucked me up. I mean, that looks like an ‘A’, right?”
Marc squinted. “Capital A? Yes, it does.”
“Which would indicate Roman, you would think, but unless this is some kind of graffiti piece—or perhaps some old field post type thing and not-so-official—then you think it would have been etched, wouldn’t you?”
The rest of the word was obscured, the ‘A’ being all that was legible. She let out a breath, the laugh slipping out of her like a huff. “I used to think it looked like one of those furniture pieces you put together—you know, A side to A side, screw it together?”
“Yeah, I can see what you mean.” Marc glanced over the rest of the stone, his neck craning up. “It’s just…”
“Weird?” she suggested.
“Uncanny. Being here, I mean. Actually being here.”
Yes, she could see how that would work for him. It was uncanny enough for her, and she’d both seen and been here before. The only time he’d ever seen them was in his dreams—the ones that appeared as a warning, slotting in whenever a Shadow was about to show up and ruin your day. That, and the pictures she’d found in Nomiki’s journal.
She wondered if they’d ever figure out what they meant.
Maybe one of her Cradle memories knew.
After a moment, he stood back up. Grass rustled as he pulled out a pen light and disappeared around the nearest stone. His eyebrows were knitted together when he reappeared in the next gap, making rounds of the small, loose circle.
She let out a breath and sank back onto her heels. The sun had vanished now, the glow on the horizon reduced to a dull amber that was quickly subsiding to night. The sky was brighter in that direction, but a deep blue had already settled in its depths, growing darker with each minute. Stars sprinkled the atmosphere like loose beads. The light’s energy made small pinpricks on the back of her skin.
She closed her eyes, drinking in the feeling—the quietness, the peace, the way nothing seemed to move, not even the wind. It was cool, cold enough to almost matter, the first fingers of winter creeping closer to the surface. When she opened her eyes, she reached forward and felt along the edge of the nearest stone, catching it for balance and relishing its rough texture on her skin. The stone was cold, too, as if the day’s sun hadn’t been quite enough to warm it.
She stood as Marc came back into the circle. He still looked around at the stones, his expression one of bewildered frustration, but he appeared to have sated his curiosity. Whatever questions he’d come here with, the stones had held no answers for him.
After a moment, he came up to her and wrapped his arms around her, bending to kiss the top of her head. She let out a breath and relaxed into him, once again leaning into his chest. After a moment, she closed her eyes, pushed her thoughts away, and let her light flutter out. The deepness of the night pressed in around them. He went back to petting her hair, as he had in the hallway. It was silly, but it soothed her.
“You okay?” he said after a minute.
“No, but I will be.” I hope.
Her jaw tensed, her thoughts once again turning back to the Cradle and Tia’s offer. To the image of how she’d looked standing naked next to that tank, so young and skinny, an expression of naive curiosity on her face.
Tia’s words came back into her mind.
“You need the power of a creation program. If you want the full power you need to oppose Chaos, you’ll need to find my Cradle and complete your transformation with me.”
She flexed her hand. Just what kind of power did Eurynome come with?
Marc shifted, likely noticing her movement. His arms, warm and muscular, hard but lean—not chunky like Jon’s—tightened around her. She looked up. Warm, rich eyes met hers. The smell of the ship’s fabric softener, clean and smooth, mixed in with the small, dry smell of the day’s sweat. She stared up at him, studying his dim silhouette against the stone and the deepening, twilit sky.
“I wish we could go back to normal,” she said. “That I could go back to normal.”
He kissed the top of her forehead, and his arms shifted, holding her closer. “We’ll get through this. It’ll be all right.”
She snorted. “If Sasha doesn’t delete us from existence first.”
She tried to play it off as a joke, but fear tightened both her gut and voice too much for it. He squeezed again, then pulled her in for a close hug.
“It’ll be all right.”
But, though she allowed herself to sink into him, she couldn’t relax fully. Her eyes stayed open, mind spinning through their dilemma, heading down dark paths.
Well, it would be all right, wouldn’t it? One way or another. If they won, and everything went back to as close to a functioning normal as it could, then it would be all right. And if they lost—well, they would have never existed, would they?
The universe could go on without them.
Tears came to her eyes as she thought about everything and everyone she knew, their images and faces flashing through her mind like slides on an old projection marquee.
She didn’t want to stop existing. She didn’t want all of her friends to stop existing. If she didn’t fight, she’d never get to snuggle into Marc’s arms again.
He wouldn’t have arms to snuggle with. He wouldn’t be.
And while she was surprisingly okay with herself dying in weird, world-warping chaos, her entire being tugged with grief at the thought of Marc and all of her friends perishing—without even a single, strangled shout.
She swallowed, shaking.
We have to win.
&nbs
p; But she didn’t want to think about it right now. Instead, she shoved the thoughts and feelings back down as far as they would go, shivered in the creeping chill of the night, and leaned forward and up through the loop of his arms, relishing their warmth.
He didn’t expect the first kiss. The surprised inhalation was enough to tell her that—but the second kiss deepened. His arms tightened around her, and she pulled him down, tracing her fingers over his back, feeling the musculature through his shirt. Heat flooded between them, their touch seeming to meld, electric, as if his heartbeat bled into hers.
Dr. Sasha could wait an hour, at least. So could the Cradle.
When they broke apart, their breaths rose in a cloud, and everything beat a little faster.
She chuckled, a hesitant smile spreading across her teeth.
“You know, I never thought I’d be doing this here.” She fiddled with the fabric of his shirt. His skin lay just underneath, warm and soft. “Bringing anyone here. Kissing them. Boyfriends were kind of not a thing back then. With me, at least.”
Well, real boyfriends, anyway. There’d been plenty of imaginary ones, fueled by the books and television they were allowed. The selection of real people at the compound, however, had been quite limited, and Nomiki had already been inseparable from Brennan.
Even if she had been bisexual, most of the girls her age had died off. At the end, only two had remained—and one of them had been her sister.
Marc said nothing. He didn’t need to. Her light slipped up as he bent lower again, quivering in the air like a silent, broken firework until she doused it with a thought. She met his kiss, too eager this time and almost knocking them off balance. They stumbled together, her hands sliding up his spine. The stone caught them, though the impact let Marc’s breath out with a whumph. He didn’t seem to mind, though, pulling her closer, holding her tight.
A half-minute later, they pulled back again, breathless.
“You know,” she said, her voice wavering—suns, what was wrong with her? She was almost thirty, for Sol’s sake. “I don’t think there’s anyone in the Nemina right now. I bet we could—”
Something large and dark passed the gap between the stones next to them, making the field beyond blink out for an entire second. Adrenaline smashed through her blood as they both jumped. Marc jerked her back, one arm tense around her, the other already going for his blaster.
“What the fuck?” she hissed, sucking in a breath. A tremor ran through her body, arcs of electricity jittering her muscles. She craned her neck around the inner edge of the stone, trying to see into the next gap. “Was that a—?”
Yes, it was a Shadow. It looked like a dark ghost, its pace eerie and steady as it headed up the hill away from them, silhouette dark and clear-cut against the lighter-toned grass and horizon.
Apparently, Dr. Sasha was not going to wait.
Except… It didn’t seem to have noticed them.
She watched it go, waiting for it to turn around—waiting for it to attack.
When it didn’t, some of her initial adrenaline dropped off.
“What the fuck?” she said again.
Did I just get cock-blocked by a Shadow?
There was a click, then a whine. Marc aimed his blaster at the ground. The steady glow of its ready light pushed a line of red onto his shirt.
A rustling sound—correction, a lot of rustling sounds—came from back down the hill.
She turned her head around to look, and her eyes went wide.
Below, almost to their position, the slope writhed and undulated with black forms.
Fear jolted through her like a bolt of thunder. Her eyes went wide, mouth gaping open. She jerked her head back and flattened herself into Marc, pulling him against the closest stone.
In the next second, they were flooded. Shadows walked past, left and right, as silent and indistinct as they’d ever been, their passage lifting a whispery rustle from the dead, dry grass of the field. She and Marc pressed together against the stone, clinging to each other. Not daring to breathe, bodies as rigid as boards, they watched as Shadow after Shadow slipped up the hill.
Then, as quickly as they arrived, they were gone.
None had entered the circle of stones.
After a few minutes, she and Marc looked to each other, eyes wide, mouths agape.
“What the fuck was that about?”
Chapter Seventeen
“So, did anyone else see that fucking parade of Shadows?”
The netlink screen lit up the surface of the ruins as she activated its comms link. Now, at least, the dry, weathered stone was a comforting presence—not just in its familiarity, but in its apparent Shadow-repelling qualities.
It still boggled her that not one had ventured inside its circle. There must have been hundreds going up the hill.
Marc stood by, blaster still hot, his shoulder against the rightmost stone, looking out. There’d been a few stragglers after the initial crowd, ghosting up the hillside like the rest, but… they hadn’t seen one for thirty seconds now.
She frowned, listening to the comms channel. Nothing but the pop and hiss of the open link answered her.
Huh. Were they close enough? Without access to Earth’s satellites, everyone was using the Nemina’s onboard comms channels. They should work within the range, but, then again, she was not using a military-grade netlink.
“Uh… Hello?” she asked. “Is that a yes on the Shadows?”
The connection gave a heavy crackle—and then a scrape. In the next second, Soo-jin’s voice rang out from the speaker, sounding tinny and breathless on the connection.
“Sorry, was in the middle of breaking something. What was that?”
Karin bent over the microphone and repeated herself, speaking slowly and enunciating carefully.
“Parade. Of fucking Shadows. Went right up the fucking hill. Did you see anything?”
“Burned child, are you serious? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, but did you see anything?”
“No, nothing.”
“That’s good, then, I suppose. Unless y’all are running blind in the basement. Can Nomiki hear this?”
“Yeah. She just left the room to go check things out.”
“Good.” Karin paused. “What are you guys doing, anyway? Not fucking around with weird interdimensional shit, are you?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so.” A scratch sounded, likely the netlink mic brushing against something. “Cookie and the two doctors are just about finished extracting the Cradle. They’re planning to take it to the Nemina.” Soo-jin paused. “It’s dormant, by the way. Probably empty, if the vacant slots on the side are any indication. Some of them are scratched up, so I assume it used to hold things.”
Karin blew out a breath. They’d already figured as much earlier. It stung to hear confirmation. “Yeah, well, it’s one of those things where you’re not quite sure if you want to find out what’s supposed to go in it, isn’t it?”
Although, she suspected she had a very good idea of what was supposed to go into it. And that thought didn’t make her any happier.
“I suppose. Anyway, they’re planning to take it to the Nemina and do science shit with it. We also found the address to the Brazilian compound on some files in here.”
“Cool. We have our next location, anyway.” No way was she going to go on a camouflaged journey to Earth without trying to hit up the Brazilian compound—she’d heard so much about it that she just had to find out about the place. She puffed her cheeks, drawing her mind back to the present problem. “I guess Earth has roving bands of Shadows, then? And we just lucked out? I mean…”
She paused, allowing herself to trail off. Something had caught her attention in the sky above the compound—a star to the east that appeared to be moving horizontally over the horizon.
And getting brighter.
She glanced to Marc. “Is that incoming?”
A second later, a notification from the Nemina’s sensors confirmed it.
Her jaw tensed as she squinted at the coordinates. It looked high-up and far away, but she remembered how fast those Centauri corvettes had crossed the distance between Earth and the Manila.
“Hang on,” she said, tracking the craft on her netlink. Soo-jin would have gotten the same alert. “We may have incoming.”
“We definitely have incoming,” Marc confirmed.
She glanced up, then followed his gaze behind her. A set of similar lights shone on the horizon above the hill, nearly faded out by the lingering twilight.
This time, there was the muffled roar of engines.
She shut down her netlink screen, lest the light give her away.
Then, she frowned, looking at the collapsed device in her hand.
Soo-jin hadn’t responded.
She lifted it up, activating the mic. “Soo? …Anyone?”
A pop of static answered her, crackling quietly in the evening air. Heat rippled up her veins as her heart beat faster, adrenaline feeding into her blood. Moving closer to the stone—as if that would help against the oncoming ship’s sensors—she watched the lights move in a slow arc in the sky. When they straightened out again, they were heading toward the compound.
“Yeah, that’s definitely coming for us.”
He pulled her close, and they leaned against the back of the stone. She heard his shirt catch and scrape against the weathered rock. Above, the ships were slowing over the forest north of the compound, the light of their ion trails joining in a twinned path.
They kept still, listening.
Then, Marc shifted. “She didn’t reply back, did she?”
“No.”
He paused. She could feel the hesitancy tie up in his chest.
“What?” she prompted.
His breath caught. “I’ve heard things about scramblers. Even had some training, back in my old career. Do you think your message went through?”
Karin froze. She hadn’t considered that.
“I don’t know. I…” A trickle of fear slid into her blood like a block of ice. She sucked in a breath. Scrambling had come up as a possibility when brainstorming the causes of the Nemina’s external communications problems. “If they can scramble the signal above, they can probably scramble it in a smaller area…”