by Rich Larson
“Drag her,” Violet panted. “Have to try to get to the elevator. Pods are looking at Gloom, not us.” She hooked Lia’s underarm and Bo, eyes wide and frantic, took the other. They made it only a step before the whirlybirds were on them again. Violet swung blind with her fist and connected with a part that wasn’t sharp, knocking the first whirly off course, but the second slipped under her flailing arm, its syringe aimed for Bo’s neck, and—
Something black and gleaming erupted from it like a geyser and the whirlybird spun wild, crashing to the floor beside them. The syringe flew past Violet’s face an inch from her eyeball. There wasn’t time for a thank-you. Gloom was already off again, springing away, searching for a gap as the pods closed ranks. One fired; she saw the gas jet out in a frosty plume and glance Gloom in midair. There was a horrible grinding shriek and part of him seemed to shatter, dropping instantly to the floor in dead disparate motes.
Bo was slinging his sister onto his back, bent nearly double. “Can’t do a vanish,” he choked. “Parasite’s tired. Can’t do anything.”
Violet’s eyes landed on the carcass of the whirlybird Gloom had downed, still hemorrhaging sparks. She jammed her shoe against its joint and yanked an arm free. It wasn’t heavy enough to swing, not really, but it was better than nothing.
Bo stumped forward, pulling his sister’s slack arms tight around his neck. Violet followed, waving the stiff whirlybird arm back and forth, trying to keep the others off them. The whirlybirds were stupid, moving at straight angles, never feinting or swerving, always aiming at Bo and Lia, but they were endless. Violet jabbed, retreated, jabbed again. One got through and caught hold of Lia’s arm before she managed to batter it off. Blood oozed out of the gash, slower than it should have, more like syrup. Violet only had a millisecond to wince at that before the next whirly swooped at them.
Through the swarm, she saw that Gloom, or at least most of him, had gotten past the pods. He was swirling up the base of the platform. She heard the sound of machinery coming to life, humming and whirring. The platform started, slowly, to rise. Violet felt a tight panic in her chest. Gloom was getting out no matter what, spooked by the gas, scared to go back to the cell. He was getting out whether the rest of them did or not.
Then the platform jerked to a halt. Maybe malfunctioning, or maybe Gloom was giving them a chance.
“Let me carry her,” Violet ordered. Bo hesitated for a split second, then slipped Lia off his back and helped move her onto Violet’s. She straightened up, caught her balance, and they ran. The whirlybirds had mostly stopped; they were turning away, distracted. Violet didn’t understand why until she saw that Gloom had flattened himself onto one of the pod’s backs, clinging there like a second skin, and the other three pods were circling it, reluctant to use the freezing gas and hit one of their own. The whirlybirds were going to peel him off.
The platform started to rise again, creaking and grinding. Violet broke into a sprint, off-balance, nearly spilling on every step. Bo was running along beside her, his jaw clenched hard. Eyes forward. Eyes on the platform. They hurtled under the distracted pods and up the wide cubic steps, and Violet finally did trip, sprawling forward, but Bo was there to yank her upright again. He vaulted up onto the platform, then splayed out on his belly, reaching down for his sister. Violet boosted her up with a hard shoulder. Bo pulled her the rest of the way, then Violet sprang herself.
Bo snapped to her hand with both of his, straining as the platform ground its way upward, and Violet realized they were going to make it. She wormed her elbows onto the edge, then her ribs, then all of her, rolling over to lie flat on the metal. Her ears roared; her heart pounded. The Parasite in her stomach was awake again, feeding off the rush.
She heaved herself upright just in time to see the three pods fire on the fourth, three jets of the icy blue gas lancing into the air. Gloom sprang away, snapping through the space like a black snake, and slapped against the edge of the platform. He wriggled up, over, and burst into a living cloud of motes again. She saw flashes of his suit and his pale hands, like he was trying to re-form his human shape but couldn’t quite manage it.
“The controls, the controls,” he rasped. “More speed.”
He splashed over to the corner of the platform where exposed circuitry was fizzing sparks, past Bo, who was holding tight to Lia. The platform lurched and Violet lost her balance, thumped down to her hands and knees. She looked up. They were heading toward a square-shaped opening in the roof, but the pods were rising with them, staying level. She saw the nozzles take aim.
“Gloom!” she hollered.
In jerky film, the jet of gas flung out toward him and he burst around it, letting it pass through a perfectly parted gap in his motes.
And strike Bo instead. Bo dropped, sprawling forward and losing his grip on his sister’s arm just as the platform gave another sharp lurch. Violet was jerked off balance, and as she tumbled back she saw Lia’s body ragdoll up and over her brother’s. Bo reached, but slow, clumsy, and Lia slipped over the edge. Violet threw herself forward on her stomach.
Lia was plummeting away from the platform, limp limbs flailing, but just as Violet braced to see the impact, a pod snatched her out of the air. The platform accelerated. Violet pulled back from the edge an instant before they hurtled through the ceiling, into the shaft, slamming into the grooves, leaving the pods and the whirlybirds and Bo’s sister all behind.
Bo struggled upright with a howl torn out of his belly. His shirt tugged at his skin, frozen to it, and he felt a burning sensation all up and down his back, like touching a metal door handle in winter but a thousand times worse, but it didn’t matter because Lia was gone. He’d seen the pod grab her. She would go back into the tank. They would put the tubes in her again and put her back to sleep and she wouldn’t know he had ever been there.
“We have to go back down,” he gasped. “Gloom, we have to go back down, take us back down …” They were still shooting upward like a rocket, climbing toward a dim gray square of light. Bo crawled to the corner where Gloom was crouched, human-shaped again, his long skinny hand buried in the peeled-open circuitry of the controls. “We have to go back,” he snarled. “You have to take us back down, we have to get her back—”
“No,” Gloom said flatly.
Bo threw himself at him, raining blows on his chest, grabbing for his arm, but his hands sank deep and then Gloom was slipping around him, through his fingers, re-forming on the other corner of the platform. Violet was sitting there panting for breath, her hands clenched to her sides. She said something Bo couldn’t hear. He lunged for the gash in the metal where Gloom had stuck his fingers, thinking maybe he could stop the platform, maybe he could turn them around.
Spidery hands yanked him back by the shoulders; he felt his skin tear. He gave a scream that was half pain, half fury. Lia, Lia, Lia, tumbling over the edge and out of sight and he’d reached but couldn’t grab her. He wrestled against Gloom’s grip.
“We are not going back down,” Gloom hissed. “We are lucky to escape at all. They were waiting for us. They knew where we were.”
Bo kept twisting, kept fighting, until finally he gave up on freeing himself and was only slamming his fists against the metal platform, over and over, skinning his knuckles raw. Finally he stopped that too, and sat there with his whole body heaving around a sob. The platform had decelerated but they were still moving steadily upward. Away from Lia.
“We’re coming back for her,” Violet said in his ear. “We had to come back anyway. For the other kids. She’ll be fine, Bo. The pod caught her.” Her hand touched his back, then darted away when he flinched and settled on his bare arm instead. Bo sucked in a trembling breath. Another. She was right. They’d always planned to come back. But he still felt like his chest was speared through.
Gloom released him at last and drew himself up to his full height, then higher, his limbs becoming impossibly long and spindly. He loomed over them like a shadow. His dark eyes were fixed on Violet.
“How did they know, Violet?” His voice was soft but clear, clipped and dangerous. “How did they know where we were emerging from the tunnel? Did you tell them?”
Bo choked out a laugh at the absurdity, but he felt Violet stiffen beside him. Her hand left his forearm.
“What do you have in your pocket, Violet?” Gloom asked. “I thought it smelled like them. But my senses were so full of their dank dead metal.” His face twisted into exaggerated rage. “I should have tasted it. I should have made sure.”
Bo looked up at her, to share her confusion, but his eyes were drawn to her jacket instead. She had her hand clenched hard around something inside her left pocket. Bo got slowly to his feet, facing her, as she pulled out a black baseball-sized sphere. He had seen those before. He knew what it was. He swallowed.
“Why do you have that?” he asked. His mind was already cycling through the possibilities; he grasped at the one he wanted to believe. “That’s the one Wyatt dropped,” he said. “In the storage unit. You picked it up?”
He was willing her to say yes, say she’d grabbed it not knowing what it was and forgotten she had it with her. He remembered the pod pulling the identical spheres out over and over. How they communicate, Wyatt had said.
Violet slowly shook her head. “They gave it to me,” she said in a strangled whisper. “The night I left. They were waiting for me at my house. They gave it to me then.”
I made a deal, Wyatt had said, tossing the black sphere up and down.
“Why?” Bo demanded, almost snarled the word. He could feel new tears smarting his eyes. Blinked them back hard.
“They wanted me to bring you to them,” Violet said shakily. “But—”
“You liar.” Bo felt fresh rage pour through him like gasoline. His skin flushed with it; his Parasite twitched to life too little too late. “You said you needed my help. Your note. You said you needed my help, you liar, liar, liar.”
The last word was a shout and the static made his clothing crackle, made sparks halo around his head. He didn’t need it now. He’d needed it down there, with the pods and the whirlys.
“You’re the one who’s like Wyatt. Not me. You’re a liar like him. Making people do what you want.” He searched for a way to hurt her, for words that would make her feel how he was feeling. He bared his teeth. “No wonder you loved him so much.”
Violet flinched back like he’d slapped her. Her nostrils flared. “Oh, no,” she snapped. “No, you don’t get to talk. You’re the reason all this happened. You swore you wouldn’t tell anyone. Remember? You swore on your sister.”
Bo felt a surge of guilt; he shoved it aside. “So you were going to just switch sides? Give me to the aliens to make things even?”
“I didn’t bring you here,” Violet shouted. “The pod did. It brought us both. Who saved you from Wyatt, huh? Who helped get your sister out of that tank? I should have fucking handed you over. You know what they were going to give me?”
“Why do you still have it, then?” Bo demanded, pointing at the sphere in her fist. “That’s how they knew. That’s how they tracked us, I bet. I bet they can see where it is and—”
“They were going to give me my family back!” Violet screamed. She was shaking, her ears were bright red. “I was going to get my family back. But better. They were going to give me my life back, but better. I was going to be a perfect fucking girl with perfect fucking parents and everything I fucking wanted. I was going to be a waster.” All the energy seemed to leave her body at once and she slumped to the floor of the platform. “But I decided to get you your family instead,” she said heavily. “Your real one. What’s left of it.”
Bo thought of Violet sneaking out of the theater, night after night, going to spend hours in her old house with her parents, who couldn’t speak or even see her. He thought of Lia, who he’d sworn on, being put back in the tank. He sank down too, sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees. His shirt pulled against his back and seared but the pain was almost welcome now. He felt like he deserved it.
Gloom was standing off to the side, looking at both of them, his expression blank and unreadable again. The platform kept rising.
The dim gray square above them widened and widened, until Bo could hear the howl of the wind across the top of the shaft and see the cloudy gray sky. He didn’t speak, and neither did Violet, and neither did Gloom. He thought the elevator might keep rising forever and they would all be stuck sitting there, saying nothing, but at last the platform ground to a halt a meter from the top of the shaft. Wind whistled over them. Bo knew they needed to move. Knew more pods had to be coming after them. But standing up and walking away would mean leaving Lia behind all over again.
Gloom turned his face skyward. “Where is the sun?” he asked, breaking the silence.
Violet ignored him. Bo looked up. “What do you mean?” he said dully. “It’s cloudy. It’s been cloudy for months.”
“I need more light,” Gloom said. His voice was fearful. “I thought there would be more light. Do you understand photovores, Bo?”
Violet finally raised her head. “Can you fly us still?” she asked.
Gloom’s face twisted. “Maybe one,” he said. “Maybe one of you.”
Violet snorted. She didn’t look surprised. She looked like she was nearly going to laugh. “Then go, Bo,” she said.
“Bullshit,” Bo said fiercely, surprising himself. “Both of us go or neither of us. You want me to leave you behind so you can hate me.”
“You’re the one who got the perfect Parasite, remember?” Violet said. “If they get you, they bring their other ships and they do this to the rest of the world. I don’t hate people that much.” She blinked. “And you I don’t hate at all. I don’t blame you for telling Wyatt. What happened would have happened eventually. No matter what.”
Bo looked down at the space between his feet and took a ragged breath. “You’re not like Wyatt,” he said slowly. “You’re nothing like him. You’re … You’re like my other sister.”
“Like, your othersister?” Violet said. She tried to smile. “Pooh Bear, honey, Pooh Bear, honey.” She put on a shrill voice for it but it turned thick with a sob.
The floor of the platform shook; Gloom slithered up and out, onto the hull of the ship. “They regained control of the elevator,” he said. “Hurry, please.”
Bo got shakily to his feet, still looking at Violet. “No,” he said, feeling hot tears in his eyes. “I don’t mean that. I mean—”
“I know, Bo,” Violet said, tired-sounding. “Just go, okay?”
The platform started to sink.
“I am coming back,” he choked. “For you and Lia and everyone.”
“Alright,” Violet said, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “Now go.”
Bo took a running leap up the wall and Gloom caught him under his arms, hauled him over the edge. Then Violet was sinking out of sight, down into the shadows, and even with Gloom swirling all around him Bo felt as alone as he’d ever felt. He stood up.
21
The hull of the ship was an enormous black plain, burnished smooth in places, pitted and scarred in others. Bo was small as an insect by comparison. They were near the edge of it, a sheer cliff dropping away. Gloom slithered toward it, craned over to look, slithered back.
“From here,” he said, re-forming, cracking his long fingers. “We will jump from here.”
“You said you can fly,” Bo said automatically.
“I can fly,” Gloom said. “We will jump, and then we will fly.” He paused, grave-looking. “I know it is difficult to leave motes behind. I feel like less than myself. Is that how you feel?”
“Yeah,” Bo said, rubbing his eyes. “I guess, yeah. A lot like that.”
Gloom looked at him for a moment but said nothing else. He jerked his head and walked over to the edge. Bo followed, taking slow, bracing steps against the gusting wind. He flattened himself down to stick his head out over the drop. The dizziness hit him instantly.
&nbs
p; Spinning out underneath him, too tiny to be real, he saw what was left of the city. The stalled cars on the roads looked like toys. The burned-down buildings were smudges of charcoal. He tried to see something he recognized, to make sense of the scale, but had to pull back before he could. His stomach had already plunged off the edge, dropping, dropping. Bo scooted another foot backward and took a deep breath.
Higher than the high-diving board. A hundred times higher. But Lia was counting on him, and now Violet was too.
“The elevator,” Gloom said urgently.
Bo got to his feet and looked back the way they’d come, hoping, irrationally, to see Violet clambering up out of the shaft. The pods came instead. Only two of them, though. Maybe Violet was inside one of them. Maybe Lia. Bo’s Parasite surged and for a moment he wanted to stay, to fight, but he knew he would lose in the end.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
Gloom nodded and turned into the motes again, flowing up Bo’s arms, wrapping around his midsection, feeling like cold sand where they touched his bare skin. Bo clenched his teeth as they hugged tight to his back. The pain across his shoulder blades had dulled to a steady throb but spiked again as the motes rasped against his shirt. He thought he knew what he would find when he peeled the fabric away later, the skin all shiny and purple. He’d seen photos of frostbite.
The pods were drifting closer now, unhurried. Maybe they didn’t know that Gloom could fly. Bo figured they would now, as the motes finished enveloping his torso and two massive wings sprouted. Gloom had shown them off in the cell, but they seemed bigger now, stretching out to either side of him, skinned a smooth featureless black. They caught the wind and nearly blew Bo off his feet before they sucked back into Gloom’s body.
“I will extend after you dive,” Gloom’s voice echoed in his ear. “When we are clear of the ship.”