Annex

by Rich Larson

  “Do not touch the tanks,” Gloom said, louder than usual. “They will know if you touch the tanks.”

  Bo jerked his hand away from the last tank in the row. He looked over with a sunken expression on his face. “She’s not here,” he said, in a voice that was biting back a sob.

  Violet looked up and down the row at the three drifting kids. There was a fourth tank perpendicular to the others. Empty, but judging by the tubes waving inside, and the droplets of liquid splattered around the outside, it had once been occupied. She opened her mouth.

  The high-pitched whine of a whirlybird cut the silence. Her eyes flicked toward the doorway.

  Gloom had heard it too. “Back into the hole, please,” he whispered.

  Bo didn’t move for a second, still looking dazed, defeated. Gloom turned back into shadow and swirled around his legs, nudging him back toward the hole he’d made in the floor. Bo shook himself, slipped down into it. Violet folded herself in beside him and Gloom swept over them, concealing the hole, just as the whirlybird entered the room.

  It wasn’t alone. One of its multi-jointed arms was guiding what looked like a massive hovering embryo sac, veined with circuitry and lights, and for a moment Violet could see a figure balled up inside it. Then it passed over their hiding spot and out of sight. She heard a whirring noise, then a slimy pop and dull splash. Another whirr, and then the whirlybird and the deflated sac floated past again, almost directly over them.

  It was barely out of the room before Bo struggled up past Gloom, or through him, and ran to the fourth tank. He made a noise Violet had never heard him make before, not when he baited his first othermother and not inside the pod either. She levered herself out of the floor.

  The girl adrift in the tank was long-legged, dark-skinned, and there was something so familiar in the shape of her face that Violet knew, without seeing Bo’s tortured expression, that they’d found his sister. Her eyes were shut under long lashes and Violet could see her chest moving with each long, slow breath from the tube in her throat.

  Bo sank to a crouch in front of the tank, clutching his head in his hands, moaning in a way that made Violet’s stomach churn, made her Parasite twitch and flex. Gloom was standing awkwardly beside him, looking from Bo to the tank and back again. His pale slack face was uncomprehending. A small part of Violet remembered what Gloom had said about touching the tanks.

  She took a step backward. Gloom didn’t notice, neither did Bo. All she had to do was reach out and touch one of the tanks, Gloom had said, and it would trigger an alarm. The whirlybird would be back in an instant, and maybe the pods with their freezing gas. Violet pictured it in her head. She would swipe her hand along the tank and then go to Bo, and hug him, and when the alarm went off all she had to do was hold him there while Gloom slithered back down the hole.

  Bo might not even struggle. He looked nearly paralyzed.

  She reached her hand out, fingers splayed inches from the smooth surface of the tank with the little boy inside. They would come and take Bo, and she would only have to show them the black orb. Then she could go back to the perfect house with the perfect family and be the perfect Violet.

  She looked at Bo one last time, at his crumpled shoulders. She could see his face reflected in his sister’s tank. See his expression. It made him look older than any kid had a right to. No simulation pulled from her dreams and memories could ever get that expression right. There was too much love in it. She didn’t think she’d ever seen that much.

  Violet curled her fingers back into her fist. The orb was heating up again in her pocket but now she wanted to grab it out and hurl it away. If she looked inside it, if she saw the dream, she might not be able to turn it down again.

  Violet took a trembling breath. A step forward. “How do we get her out?” she asked.

  19

  How do we get her out?”

  Violet’s words broke through the fog in Bo’s head and he slowly stood up. He didn’t look at Lia. He’d always imagined getting to the warehouses and finding her waiting for him on her cot, still sharp, still ready, scolding him for taking so long. Maybe with the other kids already prepared to escape, a plan already in motion, something he interrupted on accident. She was the one who’d found out about the drinking water. She was the one who’d told him to take the chance when he had it.

  She shouldn’t have been the one floating in that tank like a human puppet, with the tubes squirming into every part of her, naked and drugged to sleep.

  “Yeah,” Bo said, wiping his face. “How, Gloom?”

  Gloom flitted back and forth in a swirling mass of motes, then re-formed in front of them. He rolled his hat between his long pale fingers. “I did say we would move the keys,” he said. “But that might not be possible. It might be better to destroy them here.”

  Bo stepped between Gloom and his sister and the static surged so hard from his Parasite, it flew blue sparks down his arms.

  “Without killing the hosts,” Gloom amended, putting his hands up, palms out. His hat flowed up his arm and back onto his head. “I can use a single mote for each. The entry wound will be very small. Working simultaneously, if I am quick, I can destroy the keys before our enemy arrives.” He gave a stiff little nod, looking pleased with his plan. “I am always quick,” he added. “I am a saboteur.”

  “You can kill the Parasites without it hurting the host at all?” Violet demanded.

  “Yes, yes,” Gloom said. “The key needs a host. The host does not need a key. Although keys can be very useful.” He gave Bo a pointed look.

  Bo looked back hard, trying to gauge if Gloom was telling the truth. Motes were scurrying down his long lanky legs, spreading out, one to each tank.

  “Wait,” Violet said. “If they come back and find all the Parasites dead, what’ll they do with the kids?”

  Gloom had a blank look on his face. “I do not know,” he said, but his toneless voice put goose bumps on Bo’s arms. The motes fanned out, finding their targets.

  “They’ll kill them,” Bo realized. “That’s what they do when kids aren’t useful. They put them down.” He looked at the mote creeping toward his sister’s tank. “Stop it,” he said.

  “We cannot let them have these keys, Bo and Violet,” Gloom said. “They will open the door.”

  Bo let out a focused wave of static. The mote vanished, taking a small chunk of floor with it. Gloom’s face twitched, maybe in surprise, maybe something like pain; the other motes stopped where they were. Then Gloom’s mouth twisted into an unnatural snarl, his teeth bared.

  “I’ll do the rest of you too,” Bo said, forcing bravado into his voice. “You’re not as fast as you think you are.”

  “I am exactly as fast as I think I am,” Gloom said. His face turned instantly blank again, and Bo couldn’t decide if it was more or less frightening. “We cannot take all of these children off the ship. It is impossible. Even if they were awake and their bodies were not atrophied.”

  “We’ll come back for them,” Bo said. “We’ll make a plan.” He swallowed. “But we have to bring one with us. We have to bring Lia.” He looked to Violet for support.

  “Can you fly three of us off the ship?” she asked. She finally looked like herself again, standing up straight and alert. Bo felt a grateful ache in his throat. Violet understood. She knew he couldn’t leave without Lia.

  “Maybe,” Gloom said, his eyes flicking between them. “Three is heavy.” The too-wide smile split his face again. “Maybe Violet would like to stay behind. Would you like to stay behind, Violet?”

  “She’s not staying behind,” Bo said tersely. “Nobody is. Can you carry three of us or not?”

  Gloom stared at the tank. Bo followed his gaze automatically and felt another punch to his gut seeing Lia adrift inside. He made himself keep looking, even though he felt sick and ashamed doing it. He needed to look, and remember, and punish the ones who’d put her in there.

  Punish. That made him remember Wyatt’s electrical cord, and he felt
sick and ashamed for another reason. The important thing was to get Lia out. He needed to focus on that, only that, not revenge.

  “I can carry three of you,” Gloom said at last. “And we will come back for the others? You will make a plan?”

  “Yeah,” Bo said. “We’ll make a plan. A good one.” He looked to Violet. She was watching Gloom closely, distrustfully. He didn’t blame her.

  Gloom’s black eyes narrowed. “Are you known as great tacticians, Bo and Violet?”

  “The very best,” Violet said dryly. “They throw parades.”

  “You do know irony,” Gloom said, not sounding pleased.

  “We freed you, remember?” Bo said. “We trusted you. Now you trust us back.”

  Gloom stared at him for a long moment, and Bo had the sense that his gleaming black eyes were boring tunnels into him. “Very well,” he said. “I trust you back, Bo.”

  Bo felt a rush of relief. “So we can’t touch the outside,” he said, before Gloom could change his mind. “What if I vanish the glass?”

  “The liquid will escape,” Gloom said. “They will know if a certain percentage of the liquid escapes. There are sensors.” He peered at the tank. “And without the liquid to suspend her, the cables may damage her flesh.”

  Bo had the image of Lia’s limp body jerking in the empty space like someone dangling from the gallows. He shuddered.

  “I will have to untether her,” Gloom said. “That will take time.”

  “Will they know if you’re inside the tank?” Violet asked. “Or at least some of you.” She folded her arms. “I can shift a bit of the glass. Just a flicker, then it’s back. If you’re fast enough you can slip inside. A little of the water, or whatever, the liquid, will get out. But not much.”

  “I am fast,” Gloom said. “I am a—”

  “Saboteur,” Bo guessed.

  Gloom nodded. “A fast one.”

  “Alright,” Violet said firmly. “I get you in, you untether her. Bo gets the both of you out. We’re back in the tunnel before anyone shows up.”

  Bo nodded, swallowing another lump in his throat. Gloom nodded too, then he turned back into motes and took up position in front of the tank. Violet stepped up beside him, narrowing her eyes. Bo remembered back to the first day he met her, back to the theater, where she’d shifted the chair. Her static was fainter than he remembered it, or maybe it was his that was stronger and he’d gotten used to it. Even so, he felt the hairs on his arms floating.

  “That spot level with you,” Violet said, drawing a circle in the air with her finger. “Ready?”

  “Yes,” Gloom whispered.

  Violet took a deep breath. “Go.”

  Static crackled as Gloom sprang through the air in a gleaming black blur. Liquid spat out of the tank in a saline spray that caught Bo in the face, then the glass was sealed shut again and Gloom was swirling around behind it like a cloud of ink. Some of his motes had been blown back by the jet of escaping liquid; when Bo wiped his face he saw them scuttling agitated circles around his feet.

  “It worked,” Violet said, triumphant. They watched as Gloom slithered up and down Lia’s arms, freeing the tubes that hooked into her skin. Bo’s own throat clenched as Gloom worked the breathing tube out. It seemed to go on forever. He squeezed his thumb inside his fist watching. Finally the last of the tube slid free and air bubbles started to leak out of his sister’s lips.

  Gloom’s head re-formed beside Lia’s and he gave a nod. There were no bubbles coming out of his mouth.

  Bo flattened one hand over his stomach, feeling his Parasite. The static swelled. He needed to be perfect. He couldn’t overshoot and risk hitting Lia. Or Gloom. And he couldn’t leave jagged edges that might cut them on the way through, though he didn’t think Gloom could be cut. He felt Violet’s steady hand on his shoulder. He inhaled. Exhaled.

  Let go.

  The static rippled out and suddenly all the tank’s blue liquid was gushing out as a wave, crashing into foam against the floor. Lia and Gloom spilled out with it and nearly bowled Bo over. He grabbed for Lia’s arm and caught it. Gloom slid a little farther along the floor, sopping up his lost motes, then got to his feet. A familiar vibration was starting to move through the room, but Bo hardly noticed it.

  “How long will she be asleep?” he asked, looking at Lia’s closed eyes, trying to not look at the rest of her, her nakedness and the purple bruises where the tubes had been inside her. He struggled out of his soaking hoodie and draped it over her.

  “Too long,” Gloom said. “I will carry her. We have to hurry.”

  The vibration rattled through the floor. Gloom turned into shadow again, wrapping around Lia’s prone body like webbing until she was fully cocooned. Bo checked to be sure her chest was rising and falling. He didn’t understand how Gloom was going to move her until a thousand tiny legs sprouted from underneath, raising Lia’s stiff body an inch off the floor. They scuttled her past him and down into the hole like an oversized black slug. It looked wrong, and weird, but it obviously worked. Bo hurried after; Violet had already climbed down.

  The contents of the tank were still dripping into the tunnel, making it dangerously slick, but Gloom set off at speed and Bo didn’t dare lose sight of his sister again. He and Violet scrambled along as quickly as they could, slipping around, sometimes banging a head or shoulder against the wall but never stopping. From above them Bo could feel the alarm’s vibration moving through the ship. There was no way a pod would fit down here, but a whirlybird would, and the thought of one floating along behind them with its claw outstretched was another reason to keep pace.

  “We are close to a cargo elevator,” came Gloom’s disembodied voice. “Rarely used. It will take us to the hull.”

  “Then we fly?” Bo grunted.

  “Yes,” Gloom said, then skittered to a halt. “Here. Stop here. You will need to make another hole, please.”

  Bo crouched, panting. His knees and wrists were aching from the long crawl. Violet was massaging a bruise on her elbow.

  “You got enough juice left?” she asked worriedly. “Mine’s dead weight right now.”

  “I’ve got enough,” Bo said, but he knew it would be a near thing. His Parasite felt numb and sluggish, spent from freeing Gloom, from boring through the floor, from vanishing the tank’s glass. It took longer than he liked to dredge up the static. No sparks and nothing but a weak ripple from the Parasite in his stomach.

  He put his hands up against the roof of the tunnel, and pushed out every last bit of static he had. The metal ate away slowly under his fingertips, like something decomposing. He focused. Focused. There was a strange hissing noise and the air in the tunnel seemed to be cooling. But he couldn’t think about that. Couldn’t think about Lia, couldn’t think about anything except the vanish. By the time he finally broke through, his forehead was drenched in sweat. He’d made a smaller opening than the last time, a tight fit, but they were through.

  Bo broke into a relieved grin, and Violet did the same, but it fell away as she looked back down the tunnel. He followed her gaze. A thick blue fog was creeping slowly toward them. Bo saw frost furring the metal nearest it.

  “Hurry, children,” Gloom said, his voice edged with something that sounded, for the first time, like fear. “Lift us through.”

  Bo took Lia’s shoulders, trying to be as gentle as possible, and Violet took her feet. The motes parted around his hands to give him better grip. His sister’s skin was dry now. They pushed her upward, Gloom’s motes forming tendrils to get purchase against the sides, and she was through. Violet clambered up next, quick as a gecko. Bo threw one last look back at the fog and realized he could see his breath steaming, could feel the sudden cold on his bare skin. He hauled himself up and out.

  Another hall, this one high-vaulted and filled with rows of towering black pillars. Facing them was a massive metal platform shaped like an Aztec pyramid. It looked nothing like the elevator he’d been envisioning, but Gloom was already carrying Lia toward it.
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  “We are nearly out, Bo and Violet,” he said. “We are nearly in the sunshine.” He made an inhuman warbling noise that had to be happiness. Bo gave Violet another weary grin as they stumped along behind him, sore all over from hurrying through the cramped tunnel. Nearly out, and Lia with them. Bo felt triumph flaring in his chest. They had Lia. They had an ally. Nearly out.

  A sharp high-pitched whine filled his ears and the whirlybirds seemed to come from everywhere at once, streaming from behind the pillars, descending from the vaulted ceiling. Their claws and needles glinted, extended. Drifting into view behind them, fanning out to block the elevator, were four pods harnessed with the gas guns. The freezing fog was wafting into the air.

  Bo’s heart dropped.

  Gloom stopped short and Bo heard Violet swear from behind him. He reached down for the static but his nerves felt raw and his Parasite wasn’t moving.

  “No,” Gloom hissed. “They are not going to catch me and keep me in the dark again. They are not going to freeze me again. No, no.” His motes swirled up and away from Lia’s prone body, unwrapping her.

  “Wait!” Bo shouted. “Gloom!”

  But Gloom was already streaming away, and Lia’s body thudded to the floor defenseless as the whirlybirds zeroed in on her.

  20

  Violet wished she had her bat. But it was back in the theater in her bag—she hadn’t dared sneak all the way inside to retrieve it—and with the sheer number of whirlybirds zooming toward them she didn’t know how much good it would do anyway.

  Gloom was a blur, darting toward the platform, dodging around the whirlys or bursting through them to rearrange himself midair on the other side. The pods were trying to track him with their nozzles. Bo was racing the nearest whirlybird to his sister, who’d been left splayed out on the floor, all limbs.

  And Violet was standing here doing nothing. She sprang after Bo, two long strides to get to him and his sister, then pulled him down just as the first whirlybird swooped in at them from the side. Its claw grazed his shoulder blade; she heard the fabric of his shirt tear. A second whirlybird was bearing down on them and the first was coming back around for another go.