One Giant Leap

by Heather Kaczynski

  I stepped away from both of them, breaking my hold on Luka’s hand.

  Luka, lips parted, eyes wide, just stared at Tamaz in horror.

  Tamaz almost seemed to be enjoying this, reminiscing over the unsung genius of his brother’s work. “Your people eventually advanced enough to figure out how to combat the problem, of course, but you never did figure out the cause. Back when we’d first infected you, DNA was an unknown concept to you. When it was discovered, you all just assumed that little segment of virus was a naturally occurring mutation. You would’ve thought it harmless, useless, inert. Not that it would’ve mattered; there’s nothing you can do about it now. Funny—in a sad way—how much you people could overlook the most dangerous concerns you face as a species to squabble over such petty things that you, as a culture, give such weight to.”

  A flash of hot anger, followed by a cold sweat of dread, washed over me in waves. I was speechless.

  “That’s why we wanted to work with them,” Luka said through gritted teeth. “To help them scale back the damage and show them a better way. To make their lifestyles sustainable and save one of the few garden planets that can support species like ourselves. As though we knew better,” he added bitterly. “As though we are blameless.”

  “It was a nice idea, I’ll give your dad credit. But the humans are greedy and stupid, and the megobari are greedy and superior. And neither are above violence to achieve their goals. There was no peaceful cooperation in your future. One would have exterminated the other from the face of the Earth before you two even had a chance to pick out wedding rings.”

  Tamaz approached Luka, face congenial, and placed a reassuring hand on Luka’s shoulder. “We’ll find somewhere else, Lukas. And until then, the fleet will be our home.”

  “I was born here,” Luka snapped, shrugging out from under the other man’s hand. “And I will not run away.” His breathing was ragged. “You’re the last of my family, Tamaz. I know you hate that I call you that name—but it is the only name I’ve ever known. This is the only home I’ve ever known. Please. In all your years on Earth, did you not see anything worth saving?”

  Tamaz regarded him a long time. Then one eyebrow quirked up. “Do you even have a plan? The weapon is in the hands of powerful and foolhardy humans. There are still warrants out for the two of you.”

  “Still?” I asked.

  Tamaz shrugged, uncaring. “Presumably the American government wishes to understand why two teenagers are so highly desired by a hostile enemy.”

  “That’s why we need your help, Tamaz,” Luka said.

  Tamaz raised his eyebrows into his hairline. “Now you need my help? You start this conversation by demanding what I’m doing here, refuse the help I offer, and ask for more?”

  “Nothing could be clearer to me at this moment than the fact that I do not know everything,” Luka said carefully. “The fact that I have been ignorant—have been kept ignorant—of the truth, and I have allowed myself to believe without question that we were in the right. I don’t know what to think anymore, Tamaz. I don’t trust that I know the best path. Please, Tamaz. Help us save these people.”

  Tamaz tilted his head curiously and leaned back against the kitchen table, arms crossing over his chest. “Where . . . precisely . . . have you been?”

  “Stay, and I will tell you.”

  I wasn’t sure what Luka was doing—if Tamaz could help us, even if he wanted to. But he was right in that we didn’t know what we were doing. And being on a Most Wanted list was certainly going to hamper any plans we might come up with.

  Tamaz considered the proposal. His face lost the pretenses of arrogance and disdain, and for a moment I fooled myself into thinking that I saw someone worthwhile. Then he spoke. “I know you mean well, Lukas. But you do not owe these people your life. This mess is older than all of us. You cannot fix it—none of us can. We can only save ourselves.”

  Luka’s eyes went wide in a flash, and then he looked wounded. Betrayed. “So be it.” He blew past me and threw open the front door. Dawn light showed on his haggard face, illuminating the fury barely contained in his eyes. “If you’re not going to help us, you can get out.”

  Tamaz closed his eyes and nodded, as though he expected this unfortunate outcome. He obeyed, pausing in front of Luka briefly. “I do care about you, nephew. And I do not want you to throw your life away in a hopeless war when I can still save you. If you change your mind, you know where to reach me.”

  Luka glared at him as he left, and locked the door after him. Then he stormed into the kitchen and braced his hands on the countertop, his face flushed.

  I approached him cautiously, my own heart still pounding. There was still the knowledge bouncing around in my head that the megobari had poisoned humanity’s gene pool to limit our size—a gross manipulation whose ramifications I had only begun to wrap my head around. My parents couldn’t conceive because of what his parents did and that’s why I’m here—

  Luka seemed to gather himself somewhat. Then he slid one hand from the counter to open and slam shut a drawer.

  I jumped, surprised at his anger. But I should have known better.

  Responding to some cue of Luka’s doing, the smooth face of the plaster wall to our left slid open to reveal a screen of black-and-white security camera footage. We watched together in silence as the camera’s eye followed Tamaz down the path and into his car, and then he drove away.

  “How much time do we have?” Luka asked dully.

  It took me a moment to realize what he meant. “I don’t know. Maybe days? Hours? Maybe he won’t turn it on at all unless there’s provocation.” Crane may have been ruthless, but he wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t destroy the vrag while he could still stand to gain something from them. He probably still thought he could ally with them. Or strong-arm the vrag into giving him whatever it was he wanted. Crane’s greed might be our saving grace.

  Or he might take that power he’d been given and doom us all with it.

  Thirty-Four

  ONLY ONCE THE dust from Tamaz’s car had disappeared into the horizon did Luka relax even one iota.

  “I’m sorry.” Luka’s shoulders slumped, the fight gone out of him. Head hanging. Sweat darkening his hairline. He still hadn’t looked at me.

  “For?” I crossed the room toward him, one step at a time.

  “For . . . everything. For what just happened. For what might happen very soon. For what my family did to your DNA before you were born. Before either of us were born, I’d already betrayed you. At every turn, it seems, I have acted against your best interests.”

  I came closer. His back was a network of taut muscles, each so tense as to be almost individually distinguishable beneath his shirt. Gingerly, hoping touch could convey what words couldn’t, I laid my hand between his shoulder blades, and felt the slightest exhalation deflate his rib cage. A muscle beneath my hand loosened, only just.

  “I wouldn’t say that.” There was a storm brewing inside me, but on the outside I felt oddly calm. Too much had happened, and my mind was no longer able to take it in. It felt like being left in the wake of a tornado—utter destruction and silence. Nothing to do but pick up what pieces you could scavenge and focus on your most pressing needs: food, water, shelter. “You’re still with me.”

  “You don’t . . .” His voice was small. “Blame me?”

  “I haven’t . . . sorted out how I feel about that yet. But like you said—you weren’t born and neither was I. You obviously didn’t know enough to lie about it. I do think you could have told me there was another member of your family still living here.”

  “I didn’t know where he was. I assumed he’d still be back in Georgia.” He cleared his throat and kept going, as if he needed to explain. “We had been close, before. He had been like a father to me, while my own father was busy. He was the one who made me read classic literature to perfect my English. He read me The Count of Monte Cristo. Both of us loved that book—though now I think for different reasons. H
e was . . . a different person then. Or perhaps I saw a different version of him.”

  I dropped my hand from his back and stood by his side. “He will work against us now,” Luka continued bitterly. “He will tell the others that the humans have Skyfall. Whatever that investigative squad can do to finally rid the universe of their mistake, they will do. They will incite the vrag to violence against Earth, if that’s what it will take for Crane to activate the device.”

  My hand fell from him. “They care so much about killing an innocent species that they will kill two of them?”

  He finally turned toward me, leaning the small of his back into the wall. His shoulders were hunched. “I’m sorry I did not see it before. I think . . . I think the reason Tamaz wanted me to read that Dumas book was to see that vengeance against a wrongdoing was right, and good, and empowering. But I only ever saw it as empty and destructive. And now that I know what truly happened . . .”

  “You believe God-Mother?”

  He avoided my eyes. “I did not want to. I wanted to believe it was a trick. But Tamaz more or less confirmed it. He knew what we were bringing back. How else could he? He was one of the few who escaped that day. And now perhaps I know why my entire family escaped, when so few did. Why they knew where to find that weapon undisturbed after so many years.” He looked like he might be sick. “My father helped design it.”

  “You are not them,” I said firmly. “You are a good person. And I trust you.” Finding my words limp and inadequate, I wrapped my arms around him instead and held him tight. “We’ll find a way to fix this. We will.”

  When his arms pulled me against him, I felt stronger somehow.

  Maybe I don’t like kissing, but I do like this.

  “We have to stop Crane,” I whispered into his shoulder. “That’s first. We can figure out everything else—the vrag and your people and my people—after. We have to get Skyfall out of play.”

  “We cannot simply walk in and take it from him.” He pulled back from me a little to study my face. “Skyfall operates like all the megobari tech. He needs someone able to operate it. We should be safe until then.”

  I shook my head. “Hanna.”

  His brow furrowed, and then the light dawned in his eyes. He cursed. “Do you think she would really do that? Just to find favor with Crane?”

  I’d asked myself the same question. Was her ambition so great as to cast a shadow over all her sense and morals? “We have to get to SEE. We can figure out the specifics on the way.”

  “Great. What do you want us to do?” Mitsuko came into the kitchen, rubbing at the back of her head. Emilio followed, limping slightly and blinking.

  Luka and I flew apart—a bit too fast to escape suspicion—but Mitsuko just grinned.

  I rushed to Emilio. “What happened to you guys?”

  He waved me off. “I’m fine. Your boy wanted us out of the way for this conversation, E.T.—tossed us into this room at the end of the hall that locked from the outside. But we were listening at the door. Luckily you guys were loud.”

  “My lock-picking skills came in handy, finally,” Mitsuko said, brandishing a handful of bobby pins.

  Emilio sobered quickly. “You’re not planning to head straight into the belly of the beast, right, Cass?”

  I shot a surreptitious look at Luka, who drew himself up to his full height and said nothing.

  “Because you know that Crane will just take you prisoner. Make you disappear. He’ll make you operate the doomsday device yourself.”

  “He can’t do that,” Mitsuko said. “Luka was crap at the EEG.” Then, at my pointed look, the light bulb went off in her head. “Oh. Duh. You were faking.”

  “I was faking,” Luka confirmed. “What can we do, then?”

  Mitsuko interjected. “I’ll take Cass back. They can’t hurt me, not really, since Michael’s out of their reach and my parents are in Japan. Emilio, you and Luka . . . well . . . maybe see about those megobari commandos the big guy mentioned? I’d like to not run into the best of your best in a dark alley.”

  Luka and I met eyes. His jaw worked. “I do not wish to part from Cassie. Not now.”

  “Me neither,” I said, but quietly.

  Mitsuko rolled her eyes. “Fine, ride back to Houston with us and we’ll figure that shit out on the way. Wait, you do have another car, right? Because that bitch stole my rental.”

  “You saw her take off? Hanna?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Heard the car start up before sunrise, woke me up. Got outside just in time to see her taillights.” She rubbed at her forehead, looking like she’d sucked on a lemon. “I’m telling you, Cass, she was in on this the whole time.”

  “Good news, though!” Emilio said, brightening. He dove for the remote control and flipped on the television. “Our message made it out.”

  There was Colonel Pierce, looking pissed to be up so early, mouth moving silently as the closed captioning filled the screen below him, a few seconds behind. And in the cutaway screen, playing beside his face, was my helmet-cam footage of the death of Exodus.

  Thirty-Five

  AS LUKA’S FAMILY had planned for every eventuality, he did happen to have an SUV in the garage, though it was dusty and needed fresh gas.

  We piled silently into the car, our meager belongings in the trunk. Luka driving, me sitting beside him, Emilio and Mitsuko in the back.

  Hanna’s absence was a glaring, angry wound among us.

  We continued playing the news footage in the car. Emilio and Mitsuko’s transmission had been successful; the world now had access to the fatal end of Project Adastra. And they all believed it had been leaked by retired astronaut, first man on Mars, Colonel Pierce.

  Our gamble had worked. Pierce didn’t lie about the true source of the transmission—he couldn’t, since he didn’t know—but he was on live TV proclaiming that as far as he was concerned, everything we were seeing was true and accurate. And that without further evidence from eyewitnesses, it seemed that the vrag were only posing as our friendly neighborhood aliens.

  As validating as it was to see the truth being spread, and Pierce backing it up, his assertions that only Luka and I could tell the full story were not going to help.

  Not long after the sun had grown to full strength, we pulled off the interstate to a truck stop.

  Emilio and Mitsuko hopped out—Mitsuko to put gas in the car and Emilio to head inside to pay—leaving Luka and me alone in the car, trying to keep our heads down and remain inconspicuous.

  Luka hadn’t spoken much since we’d left. Either determined to ignore me, or too lost in thought to acknowledge me. So I slid down in my seat and pretended like he wasn’t there.

  Until he seemed to snap out of it. His hand snaked across the leather seat to hold mine, gingerly, loosely, leaving me room to pull away. “I don’t know how to apologize to you for everything that’s happened.”

  “Then don’t. I don’t need an apology.”

  His brow crinkled. “You don’t?”

  “Bad things happen. These circumstances . . . you didn’t put them into motion. And you’re helping us to fix them. So . . . we’re good.”

  One by one, the crinkles smoothed. He offered a pale imitation of a smile, but it was more pained than happy. “This could still end very badly.”

  I looked down at our joined hands. Squeezed. “I know.”

  All we could do was hold hands. I studied his knuckles a moment, wondering. I enjoyed this amount of contact. I liked his hands, his smile. Would this ever be anything more? Did I want it to be?

  I closed my eyes and wondered if I’d live long enough to find out. If I’d ever have a chance to get bored of this feeling, where everything inside me felt warm and at peace and exactly where it should be.

  And then the car door opened and Mitsuko was sliding inside. She met my eye. I expected a joke, expected to be laughed at or teased. But there was nothing. Only an acknowledgment. That we were coming down to the final hours of whatever this may be—a new beginnin
g for humanity, or its end. Then she looked away, affording us what little privacy there was to be had.

  Emilio returned with an armful of chips, trail mix, and candy, and Luka started the car.

  After we’d eaten our truck stop brunch, Emilio called his girlfriend to check on her. He spoke quietly, words muffled beneath the noise of the interstate and the near-constant pop-ups of ads animating the dash as we passed their corresponding billboards. Mitsuko was on her burner phone with Michael. Luka and I had a shared bubble of privacy in the front seat.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say that I hadn’t already. I was drained. Sunny might be quietly helping me sort and catalog the information overload of the past few days—I assumed she was working hard at that, since I rarely noticed her presence now—but the constant fear and sleep deprivation were swirling reality into a dreamlike state. Beneath it all, a pulsing anger at Hanna’s betrayal colored everything else. All I wanted to do was sleep. But even when I closed my eyes, I saw red.

  Sunny, can you maybe just—turn off my brain and let me sleep awhile?

  Suddenly the background noise of my brain was muted and all I heard was the hum of the road, lulling me into a dreamless sleep.