by Rich Larson
It felt good to get one back. Violet didn’t even stop Alberto running and bouncing off the pod’s spongy tail end as they hauled it along.
She knew Wyatt had picked the storage unit carefully. It was close enough to make a quick trip back and forth from the theater, but not too close. If the pod, even with its mangled circuitry and torn flesh, could still communicate with the others, there wouldn’t be a vengeful fleet of them converging on the Lost Boys’ hideout. That was important.
The interior of the storage unit was dark and stank like gasoline. The pod still seemed dazed when they manhandled it in, but as the metal shuttered down, Violet saw a strange shiver go through its body. She didn’t know anything about alien anatomy. She didn’t know if the pods even felt emotions how people felt them. But she hoped, savagely, that it was scared. It deserved to be the scared one for once.
Wyatt posted Elliot and Quentin to first watch—both of them nodded gravely, stuck out their chests like pigeons as they spotted up outside the unit. The rest of the Lost Boys headed back toward the theater in shifts, splitting into smaller groups and taking winding routes. Wyatt wanted to take no chances, in case the ship was watching them somehow. Violet was one of the last to leave.
The mood in the theater was subdued, at first, like everyone was waiting for retribution, maybe a swarm of whirlybirds or jets of blue fire. They all sat in the theater, playing cards on autopilot or retelling, in hushed voices, the story of how they’d taken the pod down. Wyatt went up to the roof a few times, to check on the ship, and Violet didn’t try to follow him.
Eventually though, as the sky went dark and the aliens showed no sign of responding, the victory sank in all over again. Wyatt came down off the rooftop with a calm smile on his face, like everything was under control. He settled in next to Violet and his hand brushed her knee but she figured it was an accident. It still made her thrill a little, made her hope he’d already forgotten about her disappearing in the night.
Now the retellings got louder, more exaggerated, until Saif had been dangling twenty feet off the ground and Bo had dropped a full-sized water tower on the pod’s head. At some point Jenna and Bree went down into the basement and brought back a crate of pop that was cold as you could get without refrigeration or ice. The younger kids were excited by it, even though they could swipe whatever they wanted from convenience stores now.
Them and Bree started re-enacting the pod hunt, arguing over who would be the pod, who would be Bo, who would be the falling water tank. Wyatt laughed and Violet couldn’t help cracking a grin when Bree puffed her cheeks to imitate the pod’s wailing drone. For a moment she caught eyes with Bo, who was laughing too, smiling, loud. It was hard to think he was the boy who’d cried for so long last night. He waved his plastic bottle in her direction, nearly sloshing orange pop onto his shirt.
Someone nudged her arm. Violet turned and saw Jon, quiet Jon, grinning and red-cheeked. He passed her a heavy glass bottle with exaggerated slyness. She recognized the label and knew it was expensive, one of the vodkas they stuck behind glass in the liquor store. Normally Violet didn’t drink. She’d cleaned up too much puke and smelled too much alcohol in her dad’s sweat. But the corner of Wyatt’s mouth tugged up in a smile, like he was daring her, and that was enough.
“Cheers,” Violet said. She swigged. It might have been expensive, but it still tasted like shit. Not too much burn, though. She didn’t even cough. Jon took it back with an approving nod, then passed it to an eager Bree, who nearly spat it right back out. Violet laughed, maybe a little meaner than usual, but Bree laughed too. Wyatt drank deep when it came to him, and then he called Bo over. Bo had been the pod in the latest re-enactment, and had to pry Saif off him before he bounced over.
They passed the vodka around clockwise—Bo took only a few swigs before he started passing it off, but he stayed in the circle, grinning wide. Violet suspected Bree had her lips closed, but that only meant more for the rest of them. She had a warm feeling in her belly now, and a flushed feeling in her face. Her Parasite didn’t seem to like it, giving an odd ripple, but fuck the Parasite. They’d caught a pod. She needed to celebrate.
Normally Violet didn’t drink, but normally Wyatt didn’t either. This wasn’t a normal night.
Bo was trying to concentrate on the card game, but he kept getting distracted and Gilly had to nudge him every time it was his turn. Whatever Jon and Wyatt and Violet were drinking had spun his head a bit. He felt warm, though, and happy, and every time he did play it seemed really intentional, like his hand was moving the card so smooth and so perfect.
“Gotta pee,” he realized. It had snuck up on him somehow.
“One, two, three, Bo’s gotta pee,” said Saif, who was trying to rhyme everything now. Bo hopped up to his feet. On his way by he gave Saif a little cuff on the head, the friendly kind. He liked Saif. He liked everyone. They were a family, how Wyatt had said.
Bo wanted to take a piss from the edge of the roof. It seemed like a good idea, a really good one. He crossed the dim lobby to the stairwell, liking the feel of the carpet under his sock feet, the texture of the ripped-up spots. The rusty metal door to the stairwell was swung open. Bo skipped through, dodging the coagulated puddle on muscle memory, and scrambled up the stairs, nearly to the top before he noticed voices leaking through the second door.
Violet’s voice. Wyatt’s voice. If Jon was up there, he was being quiet like usual. Bo hesitated on the top step, wavering a bit back and forth. They could be making strategies, something they didn’t want him eavesdropping on. But maybe they were talking about how Bo had really pulled it off, really saved the day for them, and didn’t he deserve to know the strategies too?
Bo stuck his face up to the crack in the door. The cold air made his eyes water a bit and he blinked. Violet and Wyatt were sitting with their backs to him, right on the very edge of the roof. Bo remembered his plan and his bladder gave a twinge. He had a creeping suspicion of what might be going on, what older kids might actually do instead of just talk about. Violet and Wyatt were speaking in low, slurred murmury voices. The suspicion was confirmed when Violet leaned over and suddenly they were kissing, Wyatt’s fingers tangling her hair.
Bo looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed to have seen it, knowing immediately it was a secret. He supposed it made sense. Violet was pretty. Wyatt was handsome. It made sense they liked each other. Wyatt was good too, and sometimes strict but usually kind. He would understand about Violet’s parents if she explained it to him. Maybe Bo would tell her that in the morning.
Bo slipped back down the stairs as quiet as he could, then ran flat-out to get into the bathroom before he pissed himself.
11
The storage unit door hauled open with a rattle and clank. The smell of old gasoline spills and something else, something strange and chemical Bo had never smelled before, wafted out. It made his head ache. Back in the shadows, the pod was rolled over on its side, flesh pumping up and down, its raspy breathing echoing in the enclosed space. Bo tried hard to dredge up the feeling of victory from the day before, but he mostly felt ill and tired.
It was early still, the same pale gray morning as always, but Wyatt didn’t seem sluggish at all. Even after last night. He had dark circles under his eyes, but his steps had been springy all the way from the theater and there was a grin stretched tight across his mouth. He’d shaken Bo awake with both hands, telling him only that they were going to see the pod.
Now Quentin and Elliot, who’d taken turns sleeping in a green camo tent set up against the storage unit, were stumbling red-eyed back to the theater. Bo felt vaguely bad that they’d missed the party, but he didn’t feel very good in the aftermath, so maybe they were lucky.
Now it was just Bo and Wyatt and the pod. Wyatt took a step inside and Bo followed, standing at the edge of the unit. The pod was a hulking shadow and he didn’t want to go farther. He remembered something his mom had said, ages ago, about wounded animals being the most dangerous. And this wasn’t an anima
l either. It knew what was going on.
“How’s it feel, Bo?” Wyatt asked. “We really did it.”
“Yeah,” Bo said. “Did it.” He met Wyatt’s hard gray gaze as long as he could. The grin was still on his face, but it seemed different in the dark. He was almost relieved when Wyatt redirected his attention to the pod. It took up the whole back half of the storage unit. Once his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Bo looked for yesterday’s puncture marks on its back but didn’t see them. The pod’s skin was smooth gleaming black again, other than the gash torn by Jon’s hook. That one was sealed over with a thin yellow membrane, or scab, Bo supposed, if the yellow stuff was its blood.
“Heals fast,” Wyatt muttered. “That’s good.”
Bo didn’t know why that was good; his head was still muddled. But then the scraping sound of a knife shivered his teeth and he realized why. Wyatt was sharpening the knife with casual precision, the same look he’d had while tightening the spokes on his bike. Bo remembered back to the rooftop conversation—when we’re done with it, Wyatt had said. But somehow Bo never pictured it like this, all dark and foul smelling and with just the two of them.
“We have to know our enemy, right?” Wyatt said. “So the first thing is establishing communication. Doesn’t have eyes. Can’t really see any organs on it, can you?”
“No,” Bo said, wishing it was still last night and he was still on top of the world.
“I still think it echolocates,” Wyatt said, thoughtful. “Maybe we can find out later. But we know it’s got nerves, and there’s something all things with nerves understand. Right?”
“Right,” Bo said faintly.
Wyatt looked down the length of the knife like a chef. He nodded. Bo watched, feeling numb, as Wyatt approached the prone pod. He searched over it, then raised the knife. Even before it came down, Bo knew the spot he’d picked, the spot that made the most sense. He clenched his teeth as Wyatt dragged the razor edge of the blade through the yellow patch of healing membrane. The pod shook, and a low drone bounced a thousand times around the cramped storage unit, putting goose bumps on Bo’s skin. When Wyatt looked up, there was a sort of flush on his cheeks.
“Good,” he said. “First contact.”
The pod shied away from the knife, rolling upright. Facing them, it flashed its yellow light again, but it seemed dimmer this time, even in the dark. Bo saw, again, miniature versions of himself, and now of Wyatt, trickling over the pod’s skin. The chugging noise intensified and it managed to lift itself an inch off the floor of the unit. Wyatt took a step backward, clutching the knife and frowning.
From the pod’s underbelly, a multi-jointed metal arm telescoped outward, clicking and clacking. It was the same pincer Bo had seen it use to pick up the othermothers, but now there was something else in its grip. A glossy black sphere, maybe the size of a baseball. Bo thought of Violet’s bat and wished she was here with them, or that she was here with Wyatt instead of him.
The pod set the sphere down on the floor of the unit. Wyatt looked at it for a moment, his face blank, then kicked it away. It clanged against the back wall. A strange shudder ran through the pod again. The arm disappeared and reappeared. A new black sphere, identical to the first. Bo thought of the othermothers that came one after another after another. They didn’t think how people did, Violet had said. Not yet.
Wyatt darted in and slashed the knife into the pod’s yellow scab, eliciting another moan. The sphere clattered to the floor, rolling, and Bo saw that the underside of it was different. An eye-sized red circle with something liquid-looking inside. He thought he saw tiny things floating in it, like a petri dish under infrared light, before Wyatt picked it up and hurled it at the pod. The black sphere bounced, banged against the wall.
“Could be trying to talk to us,” Wyatt said casually. “But we’re not going to talk until we establish the relationship. Between us and it. As in we’ve got the power, it’s got nothing. Like that.” He gave the side of the pod a kick. “You ready for a go, Bo?”
Bo’s mouth was dry as sand. His violent little fantasies of punishing the pod had been so different, no smell in them, no sick feeling. This wasn’t like the whirlybirds or the othermothers. It could think, and it could feel. He tried to get the hate back. The hate that had let him drive his hook in deep yesterday when they ambushed it in the alley. Maybe this was the pod that had taken him and Lia to the warehouse in the first place. Maybe this pod was the reason for everything.
Wyatt placed the handle of the knife in his hand and gave him a reassuring touch on his arm, just above the elbow. Bo’s legs felt like sloshing water and it was hard to grip the knife. He took a step forward. The pod was reaching into itself again, producing another black sphere, identical to the first two. It didn’t think how people did, because it wasn’t one. Bo hovered the knife over its wound. Fresh yellow was leaking out, gleaming in the dark.
“Right there,” Wyatt said gently. “Right where it hurts.”
Bo thought of his sister trapped in the warehouse, of all the stumbling wasters with clamps in their skulls, all the dead people incinerated when the ship first came down. He remembered the pod swallowing him up and taking him away from his mom forever. He felt a sob working its way up from his belly, felt the Parasite start to thrum.
He drove the knife into the pod’s flesh and his sob came out as a snarl. Then he was stabbing it over and over, twisting and gouging, feeling the pod shake and groan under the blade. It tried to turn away, hide its wound against the wall. Bo dragged it back and started again. When he was finally done, the yellow fluid had drenched his fingers and spattered the roof of the unit, glowing up there like constellations. The pod was heaving and twitching. Bo was panting. He distantly felt Wyatt peel the knife out of his hand.
“It’s alright, Bo,” his voice was saying. “Relax, Bo. Relax.”
Bo saw the yellow stains on his hands and tucked them under his armpits. His breathing slowly subsided. He still felt sick, maybe even worse. But for a heady instant when he’d had the knife, it’d been different. He’d been strong. Savage. Untouchable.
“You really liked that,” Wyatt said. “I can tell. Loved it, even.”
Bo looked up.
“So do I,” Wyatt said. “I love that feeling. Damage, right? That’s what it is. The feeling when you damage.” His gray eyes flicked cold over the pod. “They deserve it,” he added.
Bo watched, feeling nearly hypnotized, as Wyatt washed off the knife with a water bottle and bit of rag.
“A lot of the others wouldn’t like this,” Wyatt said. “They’ve got some guts, or they wouldn’t be Lost Boys. But if Gilly knew what we were doing in here …” He gave a wave of his arm to encompass the storage unit. “I mean, fuck, if she saw you like this? She’d be scared, right?”
Bo could picture it, her big green eyes wide and teary. It gave him another hot pulse of shame. Violet wouldn’t like it either, he knew. Or Saif. Or Jon. Or Bree, even if she’d try to pretend she did.
“You and me are different, I think,” Wyatt said. “We want it more.” He offered the wet rag, and Bo took it automatically, wiping his hands. “That makes us special,” Wyatt went on. “You and me. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us, Bo.”
“No,” Bo said. But this storage unit, what they’d been doing to the pod—Bo wanted that to be a secret. Between them, from the others.
“We’re special, and that gives us more responsibility,” Wyatt said. “To protect the others. Make the tough decisions. Do the tough things. We have to keep the other Lost Boys safe, even if it means being hard on them. Right?”
Bo didn’t feel special anymore. Not in a good way. “Right,” he said. He wanted to get out of the storage unit, out of the shadows and the sickly smell. If Gilly could see him like this. If Lia could see him like this. He remembered back to the injured grasshopper and old guilt came back.
“Now that things are in motion, it’s more important than ever,” Wyatt said. “Now that we’ve got one of
theirs. Things are going to heat up. It’s a war, right? We can’t have any distractions. We can’t have anyone straying.”
“Right,” Bo repeated.
“Good,” Wyatt said, taking the rag back. “I’ve been wondering about something. Night before last. Before we caught the pod. Where did Violet and you go?” He wrapped the knife up in the rag and then put it into his bag, out of sight, like Bo had never had it in his hand at all. “I’m worried about her, Bo,” he said, gray eyes clear and earnest. “And I don’t want any secrets between us.”
Violet woke up in the afternoon with a seriously skull-pulping headache. She’d never been hungover before, to her knowledge, but she knew she was now, and had to get up in stages. First, sitting upright and swilling her cottonmouth away with the water bottle she kept beside her mattress. Second, clutching her head and grimacing for a while. Third, staggering off for a shower.
Even though she felt terrible, a big idiot smile kept slipping onto her face. Sure, it was only some kissing and they’d both been drunk. But just remembering back to it made her feel flushed and tingling all over, and the big idiot smile wouldn’t go away. People did things drunk that they’d thought about doing sober—she knew that much from her dad. Sometimes bad things, sometimes good ones. Like making out on the roof.
Still, she was a bit relieved when Jenna told her, on her way back from the bathroom, that Bo and Wyatt were gone to the pod. She needed time to get a hold of the smiling thing, and think of something smooth and unconcerned to say to Wyatt without her ears going red. It was stupid to be worrying about it anyway. Wyatt was already focused on learning about the pod, probably coming up with big plans to topple the ship out of the sky and save the world, or some such shit.
Bo came back in the afternoon, but he didn’t talk to her, or to anyone, really. He only said that Wyatt was still studying the pod, gave her a strange look, then disappeared into the theater auditorium to practice his shifting. Curiosity was seething under her skin like an itch, a little bit about the pod but mostly about Wyatt. She commiserated with Jenna about the loss of her hair for as long as she could stand it, then volunteered for a forage that nobody really needed and set off.