by Rich Larson
Her right hand slipped, her gut lurched, and she shifted. The pod’s black skin flickered for just a heartbeat, barely enough for her to swing inside. Darkness sealed around her. For a frenzied moment she wondered if she’d gotten into the underbelly or if she’d gone too high, if she was going to suffocate in its flesh and metal body, but then the warm gelatin flooded her nostrils and she felt another occupant kicking and twisting alongside her, sending ripples through the cocoon.
Violet tamped down her drowning reflex, tried to remind herself that the gelatin was breathable. Her heart was still going like a jackhammer. She’d been in a pod before. They all had. But nobody had ever been to the ship.
Through the warm sliding liquid, she felt a hand clamp to hers and cling hard. She squeezed back. Bo didn’t know what she’d been planning to do, was maybe still planning to do, and he wasn’t going to find out. Violet could lie to anyone now.
15
The pod’s warm gelatin was slowly sluicing away. Bo realized it when he jammed the stinging heel of his hand up against the curved roof of its belly and felt a pocket of cold air. He tugged Violet’s wrist, to get her attention, then rotated himself so he could push his face up against the roof. He gasped. The air tasted like tin, but it was air, and a thousand times better than forcing the porous gel into his lungs to breathe. There was enough space for his mouth and nose, and a few gurgling seconds later for the whole top half of his head if he jammed up hard against the roof.
Violet burst up out of the gel beside him and raked in a long breath.
“Are you alright?” Bo coughed.
“Yeah,” Violet coughed back. “You?”
The events of the night were a nightmare jumble in Bo’s head: Wyatt straddling him with the knife, Violet standing over Wyatt with the stained brick, Quentin hoisted into the air, impaled, the pod rushing at him in a black blur. He’d lost himself for a little while when the pod swallowed him up. He’d thought Lia was inside it with him. He’d thought they were being swooped off the sidewalk outside their burning house.
But then he’d felt someone hanging on the outside, slamming against it, then there’d been a sudden surge of static and the someone was inside with him. The hand he reached out to touch was too big for Lia’s, too smooth and soft for Wyatt’s, and he knew it was Violet. Violet trying to save him one more time.
“Thank you,” Bo said, struggling to link his thoughts to words. “You threw the brick. I thought—I thought it was Quentin at first. But—”
“Don’t think about Quentin,” Violet said, and he felt her shudder ripple through the gel.
Bo tried not to, but he knew it would be one of the things he saw at night. For now he needed to relax. To focus. He took a deep shaky breath of metallic-tasting air.
“The pod’s leaking,” he said. “Maybe you broke something when you shifted in. Or maybe it’s on purpose.”
“Could be dumping weight,” Violet said. “Like a sinking boat. Getting rid of ballast, or whatever.”
Bo fell silent, and from the way Violet did too he could guess they were both thinking the same thing. Both picturing the pod’s underbelly peeling open entirely and the two of them free-falling with a shower of gelatin. The chugging sound from the pod’s engine, or lungs, or whatever it had, seemed to grow louder, sending vibrations through the gel.
“We keep going up,” Bo said. “We haven’t gone sideways any. Not that I can feel, anyway.”
“It isn’t going to the warehouses,” Violet said. Her voice was small and tinny in the enclosed space. “It’s going to the ship.”
The ship. Bo saw it in his mind’s eye, drifting over the city like a jagged black cloudbank, and alongside his fear he felt a small thrill of excitement. It was cut short as the pod gave a sudden lurch. The chugging sound started to sputter, then pitched up, turning shrill and whiny.
“If it can make it there, I guess,” Violet added.
More of the gelatin was sluicing away, leaving Bo’s neck bare, then his shoulders. He was curled up in a crouch, bobbing slightly with the motion of the pod. Goose bumps prickled over his exposed skin and he nearly wanted to burrow back down into the warm gritty fluid. He could hear Violet’s teeth chattering in the dark.
“It won’t drop us,” he muttered. He was almost sure of that. They wanted him, or at least they wanted his Parasite.
Violet made a noncommittal noise in her throat.
Bo thought about how the pod had been locked for days in the storage unit, scored with wounds from Wyatt’s knife, starved for fuel. Maybe it was desperate. Maybe even if it wanted to bring him back alive, it would choose dropping them and surviving over dropping itself.
“I’m sorry I told Wyatt,” he said. He felt Violet turn and look at him in the dark. He wished he could see her face, even though sometimes that wasn’t any help with Violet.
She was silent for a second, then: “It’s not going to drop us.”
Bo shook his head. “I know,” he said, not knowing. “But I shouldn’t have told Wyatt. I swore I wouldn’t. I’m sorry, is all.”
Maybe it was better that he couldn’t see her. The dark meant he didn’t have to know if she was staring at him how she’d done in the theater, so furious it hurt. He heard her open her mouth.
The pod slammed into something, rattling his bones, flinging him up against the hard ceiling. Violet bounced too; he heard her curse and her flailing leg smacked against his back. They tumbled back into the hip-high gel with a thick splash. Bo’s head throbbed and purple blots swam across his eyes. Violet was disentangling herself, swearing again through a mouthful of gelatin. Through his ringing ears Bo realized that the pod’s chugging noise had stopped. They had stopped moving.
For a moment both of them were still and silent. The pod rocked slightly, back and forth, but they weren’t floating. They were resting on something solid.
“We’re not inside the ship,” Violet said. “Listen.”
Bo put his ear up against a swathe of wrinkly flesh. He could feel palpitations running through the pod, could hear the sound of labored organs, maybe, pumping the yellow fluid around its body. But beyond that, from the outside, he heard the whistle and roar of strong wind. The pod rocked again and Bo fell into Violet.
“How’s that Parasite feeling, Pooh Bear?” she asked, jerking him upright. Her voice had a nervous edge. “Think you better bust us out of here.”
Bo wiped a glob of gel away from his eye. “Where are we, then?” he asked, his heart clamoring. Violet didn’t reply. His Parasite was only just starting to move again, curling gently in on itself. He put both hands against the curved roof and took a steadying breath. His nerves felt raw and stretched, but maybe there was just enough adrenaline left for the Parasite to feed on.
The static flared. Bo felt a bit of relief. He still remembered what Wyatt had said when he’d first arrived about not wasting it, about it running out of charge like a battery. He hadn’t paid much attention, but that was before he’d had Wyatt sitting on his legs with a knife to his throat and the static not coming no matter how hard he tried. He needed to be more careful with it. Smaller bursts, holding back a reserve, and only using it when he needed to.
The pod gave another violent lurch; Violet lunged to one side to steady it.
He needed to use it now. Bo couldn’t see to focus, but he could feel the smooth metal under his fingers. He let the static go slow, painfully slow, trickling out of his Parasite and up through his body. It vibrated out from his cold hands and he felt the roof dissolve. He pushed up farther into the gap he’d made, feeling pulsing flesh and machinery around him, something warm dripping onto his shoulders, and let more static out.
The pod gave a low moan and Bo realized he was killing it, burrowing through it like a worm. There was a stab of guilt, but only until he remembered Quentin. He poured more static on, and the moaning grew loud and then cut away all at once. The pod gave a final shudder and went still. Bo gave one last surge of static. Suddenly cold air was whistling th
rough the gap and he could see a vast black shape above them, illuminated by a familiar yellow glow.
“What do you see?” Violet asked from underneath him.
“Hold on,” Bo said. “I’ll stick my head out.”
He wriggled up the tunnel he’d carved away, trying not to catch himself on the splintery bits sticking out—wire or bone, he wasn’t sure. Tendrils of steam whisked past him up through the gap, carrying the same chemical smell from the storage unit, more pungent than ever. It hugged to the back of his throat and he tried not to breathe until he had his head outside.
Cold wind sliced across his face and watered his eyes. He blinked hard. He couldn’t see sky, only the ship, too big and too close to understand its dizzying architecture, all the slowly shifting struts and revolving cylinders. Bo pulled himself all the way out and the wind nearly buffeted him over. He windmilled his balance back, his heart in his throat, and crouched down against the pod’s black skin. Slowly, slowly, he craned to look over the edge of its body.
They were resting on a strut like the ones up above them. The massive spar jutted down from the ship horizontal enough for the pod to have run itself onto the end and collapse there without sliding off. But the wind was tugging them back and forth, and if the strut started to move at all, like the others, they would slip. Right off the end.
Bo stuck his head back into the pod and nearly banged foreheads with Violet. Both of them recoiled.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re sitting on the end of this big spike, but the wind’s going to—”
There was a jolt, a creak, and the pod started to roll backward. Violet’s eyes went wide, she flung up her hand; Bo seized it with both of his and heaved, ignoring the pain in his scraped-up palms. She burst out of the gap and they toppled back in a tangle of limbs just as the pod reached its tipping point. Bo landed on his butt, slammed his tailbone against the hard cold surface of the spar. Violet landed half on top of him. Both of them watched, panting, as the pod slipped off the end. With all the gas escaped from its punctured body, it plummeted out of sight like a stone.
“Holy shit,” Violet exhaled.
“Holy shit,” Bo agreed.
She squirmed off him and they lay on their stomachs for a moment, catching their breath. The wind was whipping Bo’s hood up against his face and he let it. He didn’t want to look off the edge of the spar. He’d never liked heights, not even the diving board. This was nearly as high as an airplane, he was sure. It was cold enough to frost his breath.
His hood whipped away again, and he looked up. He wished he hadn’t. Backlit by the ship’s eerie glow, drifting side by side, two pods were slowly converging on them. He glanced over to Violet, but she’d already seen them. Her jaw was clenched tight.
“What should we do?” Bo asked. “Violet?”
Violet was still watching the pods approach, not looking at him. She ran her tongue over her teeth. “Maybe we should let them take us,” she finally said. “Better than falling.”
Bo shook his head fiercely. “No,” he said. “No, I’m not going in one of them again. Not ever.” He looked up the spar with a queasy feeling in his stomach. It was long, but it stretched up and away into the ship at an angle gentle enough to walk, or at least crawl. “Let’s go up it,” he said. “Maybe there’s a way inside at the top.”
Violet clenched her teeth again, still watching the pods.
“Come on,” Bo said, getting carefully to his feet, bracing himself against the wind. “We got to try,” he pleaded. “Come on, Violet.”
Violet shook herself. “Alright,” she said, finally turning to look at him. “Let’s try.”
She let Bo go first; he was smaller and if he slipped she might be able to catch him. And this way he wouldn’t see her take a last look at the pods to wonder if she’d made the right choice. They were still floating toward them, unhurried, droning in short bagpipe bursts. Maybe they had a whirlybird ready and waiting for her, to put the clamp in her head. She’d forget all about Wyatt. Maybe she’d go to the pharmacy and meet Daniel the pharmacist, except he’d actually talk back and they’d actually get that coffee. She would have to forget Bo too or she would feel guilty forever.
But now wasn’t the time to give him up. Bo would have tried to climb it with or without her, and if she’d tried to stop him they both would have ended up falling off. She watched him scramble along the spar, using hands and feet, nimbler than he’d been climbing fire escapes.
Violet felt an ache in her throat that was getting to be way too common, thinking about that and then about the theater and her corner mattress and the other kids. Saif and Alberto. Jon. Jenna. It was hard to remind herself that they didn’t want her. That they’d all just been waiting on an excuse to drive her away, and Wyatt had given it to them.
Bo turned and looked at her over his shoulder, gave a serious-faced thumbs-up. “I think I see a way in,” he hollered.
Violet returned the thumbs-up and a savage gust of wind nearly ripped her other hand away. She hunkered lower against the spar.
Wyatt had given them the excuse, but Bo had given it to Wyatt first. He’d betrayed her, so there was no reason she should feel guilty giving him up. Besides, they never really hurt kids in the warehouses. Bo had admitted that himself. And if she hadn’t found him in the Safeway lot, he would be back there already.
Violet clenched her teeth and returned her full attention to the spar. Wind was blowing her hair all around her face and for a brief second she wished she’d had her head shaved like Bo’s, all smooth and aerodynamic. The black metal was cold enough to sting under her palms, but it was rougher than the pod’s slick side, easier to cling to. As the wind grew stronger, Bo flattened himself out and Violet followed suit. They shimmied along on their stomachs for the last stretch; her Parasite squirmed at the pressure, then the wind’s howl dampened and they were at the juncture where the spar met the ship.
She saw what Bo had seen: a triangular gap, illuminated by the yellow glow of the ship’s underbelly. It looked wide enough to fit through with a bit of effort.
“Made it,” Bo said, his voice shakier than she would have thought. “Beat those fuckers.” He pointed his chin back toward the pods. They were drifting near the end of the spar. Violet wondered if they’d even spotted them. Maybe they’d only seen the dead pod fall. She was dressed dark and so was Bo, and they wouldn’t stand out much against the black surface.
“Don’t swear so much,” Violet said. “It sounds funny when you do it.”
Bo gave a rueful shrug, looking a bit sheepish, then turned and wriggled through the gap before Violet could tell him to wait. She’d read stories about people trying to stow away in landing gear and getting crushed by the moving parts, but judging by Bo’s triumphant ha! a moment later, he was safely uncrushed on the other side.
Violet cricked her neck, glad for once that she had so much experience hiding in tiny spaces. She stuck her head through first, then worked her left shoulder, then the right, then twisted the rest of her body in after. The wind cut out entirely. The sudden silence made her ears ring as she palmed herself up and looked around. They were inside some kind of pipe. The walls and floor and ceiling were all curved, but it wasn’t the same hard metal as the spar. Her shoes squished into it a bit. Lighting was dim, provided by streaks and swatches of faintly glowing yellow against the black surface.
“A pod wouldn’t fit in here,” she realized. She could brush her head against the ceiling on tiptoe, and it was nowhere wide enough.
“Good,” Bo said.
“Yeah,” Violet said absently, studying the streaks on the ceiling. They weren’t nearly as bright as the yellow light where the pods went to fuel at night, but maybe it was all the same stuff. Fuel in a pipe, blood in an artery. Maybe the ship was alive the same way the pods were. In any case, there was enough of it to see by.
“Should walk,” Bo said. “Get away from the hole, in case they come try to stick their heads through. Or send a whirly.”
&nbs
p; “Yeah.”
They rock-paper-scissored to pick a direction. Violet won with just two rocks because Bo was too stubborn to try paper, and they started to walk. The air was warm and the roar of the wind was replaced by a low, constant hum. She could feel all the adrenaline draining out of her body, replaced by what felt like lead.
Before long, just putting one foot in front of the next was taking all of Violet’s concentration. Every part of her body was aching. Her shoulder, from wrenching up the brick and hurling it all in one desperate motion. Her ribs, from throwing herself onto the pod. Her hands worst, from the clinging and the climbing. She could feel all the tendons in them throbbing. They looked a little swollen too.
The pipe branched off over and over again, into smaller passages only wide enough to crawl through. Violet thought of veins again. They didn’t want to get stuck in one, so they stayed in the main pipe, even as it began to curve. She’d lost all sense of direction and wasn’t sure if they were heading farther into the ship or still along the outside of it. It was hard to care. She was exhausted and the floor seemed to be getting softer. The air was so warm.
The pipe was warped and gnarled in places, with little pockets protruding out to the sides like air bubbles. The next time they came up on one, they stopped and crawled into it in a wordless agreement. Violet groaned as she sank down onto the soft floor. Bo collapsed beside her. She massaged her shoulder, about to suggest one of them keep watch, and probably it should be Bo, because she was the one who hadn’t slept for three days straight, not since she’d run from the theater. But he was already asleep, face digging into the floor. With the drool at the corner of his mouth he looked more like a little kid again.
Violet dug out her plastic baggie and swallowed her last couple pills. Then she lay down, tucking her head into her elbow. The instant before sleep washed her away, she felt a trembling warmth against her side. The orb. She’d forgotten. But she couldn’t use it with Bo here. She wrapped her fingers clumsily around it and hoped she would dream the dream they’d shown her.