Annex

by Rich Larson

  Bo remembered back to the last time he’d stood on top of the ship, preparing to hurl himself off it. There was no howling wind this time, just the sea breeze, but the entire hull was moving slightly under their feet, rolling with the motion of the water. Bo bent his knees to stay balanced.

  Gloom had steered the boat around to the side they’d jumped off, close as possible to the cargo elevator that had taken them up to the hull in the first place. Now the empty shaft was a massive square pit. Bree nearly stepped into it before Gloom yanked her back. Bo inched to the edge and looked down. Jon had his flashlight out, but the beam was swallowed up long before it touched the platform at the bottom.

  “Again,” Gloom said, sounding slightly strained as the cable sprouted from his back. “One at a time, please, children.”

  Bree grabbed hold first, maybe wanting to make up for her near slip. She squinted down into the shaft. “Like rappelling,” she said. “Easy.” She looked at Wyatt for permission.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  Bree nodded. Gloom’s cable snaked around her while the rest of him hunkered down over the edge, anchoring himself there with his bony white hands. Then she slipped into the shaft and started her descent. Jon kept the flashlight trained on her from above as Gloom lowered her, bit by bit.

  The cable stretched dangerously thin, and Bo thought of the black wings breaking apart in midair, how Gloom sometimes thought he could do things he couldn’t, as Bree disappeared into the dark. They all waited in silence until they heard a distant thump and her I’m okay drifted up to them. The cable slithered back up the side of the shaft, reeling into Gloom’s body.

  Bo took next. As the cable looped around his waist, a vibration shuddered through the ship’s hull, almost taking him off his feet. He crouched to steady himself, shooting Gloom a questioning look. Before Gloom could speak, Bo’s ears filled with the hum, the same he’d heard on the rooftop but louder now, deafening. The static leapt, and he squinted his eyes a split second before the pillar of light erupted skyward again.

  It shot up from the dead center of the ship, so close it threw the hull into stark relief, showing all the pits and scars and clumps of machinery. The green and purple twisted together like a violent bruise, and this time Bo realized it was cutting a hole in the sky. The gash opened up like a hungry mouth, wide enough to envelop the entire ship, maybe the entire city. Bo couldn’t see anything through it but blackness. It put a deep dread in every part of him.

  Then it was gone, and Bo was left blinking watery eyes.

  “Hurry, Bo,” Gloom said. “I think they are ready.”

  Compared to jumping off the ship, scaling down an elevator shaft was nothing. He knew it in his head, but the vertigo still made him queasy. He tried to use the same trick he had before, pretending there was a swimming pool below him, pretending Lia was shouting for him to hurry up.

  But it was harder and harder to imagine Lia anywhere but inside the machine, maybe with tubes running into her Parasite, maybe awake now, not knowing where she was or what was going on. Or worse, knowing exactly what was going on.

  Bo didn’t wait for his vision to clear before he slipped down over the edge, trusting Gloom to hold him. His gut gave a savage lurch. Then the cable sucked tight against his aching ribs, catching him, swinging him against the side of the shaft, and he started his descent.

  Once the second surge ended and the hum cut out, Violet stepped through the fissure she’d carved in the wall. She immediately felt liquid lapping at the canvas of her sneakers. The tank room was how they’d left it. Nobody had replaced the glass Bo had vanished, and the tubes that had kept his sister suspended were dangling from the top of the tank, revolving slowly in the air like a mobile. She saw that the tank nearest it had sprung a leak too, adding to the thin layer of liquid slopping around under her feet. Some of it was still drizzling down into the hole Bo had torn in the floor to get them inside.

  She made her way down the row. All the tanks were occupied except Lia’s emptied one. She was somewhere else, then. Maybe wherever the pods had been rushing to.

  Violet stood in the center of the room and tried to decide what to do. She couldn’t leave the kids in the tanks, but she couldn’t haul three unconscious bodies around with her either. And as soon as she busted one of the tanks, the alarm would start up again—though she suspected the aliens now had larger concerns. She chewed hard on her lip, looking from one drifting figure to the next, knowing the longer she stood here thinking the closer the aliens were to opening the door. Bringing the other ships.

  A noise spun her around. Someone was climbing out of the floor, two hands gripping the smoothest edge, one of them wrapped in black tape. Wyatt raised his head out of the hole and Violet’s heart stopped.

  Surprise flashed over his bruised face for only a split second, then he gave a rueful smile. “Hey, Vi. This must feel a bit awkward, right?”

  Violet realized she was still in the simulation. It made such perfect sense. They’d let her think she’d escaped. They’d let her think she was strong, that her tuned Parasite could do anything she wanted. And now it was going to start all over again. Wyatt first, but her other tormentors couldn’t be far behind. As he clambered out of the hole, Violet brought the static up from her stomach. It was swirling, sparking.

  She didn’t know what would happen, didn’t know if Wyatt would vanish and then reappear again behind her, or if he would stand there unharmed and laugh at her. The static tingled up and down her skin. She wanted him gone. Wanted him gone more than she’d ever wanted anyone gone. Violet focused.

  Then Bo’s head emerged from the hole. His eyes widened. “You got away?” he demanded. “You’re okay?” An incredulous grin spread across his face, almost too big for it.

  Violet faltered. She felt the static slipping. Was this part of the simulation? Was Bo the newest thing they’d come up with to hurt her? She watched as he hopped up and out, wiping his hands on his shirt. Bree came next, glowering as usual, then Jon, wrestling through the too-small hole. His brow was furrowed and he didn’t look happy to see her. Last came Gloom, unfolding his long limbs like a spider.

  “Hello, Violet,” he said. “I see that you have been fully tuned. Congratulations, but please do not let yourself be recaptured. That would be disastrous.”

  Violet’s gaze flicked from Gloom to Bo to Wyatt. Her heart was thudding hard.

  “No hard feelings, Vi,” Wyatt said, holding up his taped hand. “I hope you’re not holding any grudges. That’s what weak people—”

  Violet’s knuckles connected with the unbruised side of his face and the impact sang all the way up her arm. Wyatt staggered back. He ran his tongue around his teeth. His eyes narrowed as he stepped forward, and Violet readied herself to swing again, but Jon’s bulk was suddenly between them.

  “Out of the way, Jon,” Wyatt said, sounding only faintly annoyed.

  Jon didn’t move. Through her rage, Violet felt a pang of gratefulness that Jon was still her friend and still on her side. Over his broad shoulder, Wyatt’s face twisted livid for a second. Then he ran his tongue over his teeth again. Shrugged. His gray eyes suddenly went calm, which only made Violet want to claw them out even more.

  “Good call,” he said, stepping backward. “We don’t really have time to waste, right, Gloom?”

  Violet looked at Bo again. “I can’t tell if you’re real,” she said, feeling crazy for saying it out loud. “They had me clamped.”

  She touched the back of her neck and felt the tiny puncture marks scabbing over. They felt real. But everything in the simulations had felt real, and it made sense, didn’t it, that they would let her think she was free before they dragged her back to hell.

  Bo’s eyes were wide and worried. “We’re real,” he said. “I said I was coming back, remember?” The expression on his face reminded her of something. How he’d looked when he saw his sister in the tank, that expression Violet didn’t think a simulation could get right. He took something from behind h
is back: her baseball bat.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Bree demanded. “You’re suddenly on our side again? Why are you even in here?”

  “To me it seems Violet is trying to relocate these hosts and their keys,” Gloom said. “Which is our aim as well. As the strategist says, we have no time to waste. We need to break the tanks open as quickly as possible. Disregard the alarm.”

  Gloom sounded like himself. So did Bree, so did Bo, so did Jon in his not-speaking. But there was no way to be sure. Maybe it would be like this for the rest of her life, however short that might end up being. She would always be wondering, in the back of her mind, if it was all a simulation.

  Violet reached out and took the bat. The handle felt cold under her fingers. Solid. Real enough for now. She gave Bo a nod, mouthed a thank-you. The weight felt right. She tossed it up and down, then turned and swung, hitting the glass of the nearest tank with a resounding crack. Tiny fissures spider-webbed across the surface and the whole thing buckled.

  It gave way on the third blow and Gloom rushed inside, unhooking the tubes, wrapping motes around the suspended sleeper. Violet took a breath. Shot another look at Wyatt. Then she moved on to the next tank. It helped to pretend she was swinging for his head.

  30

  Bo kept glancing over at Violet as they worked, pulling the sleepers out of their tanks and dressing them in the fleece sweatshirts he’d swiped off an XXL rack and asked Jon to put in the backpack. He’d figured it would keep them warm, and make them look more like real people. More dignified.

  He was relieved they hadn’t found Violet floating in a tank, but there was something unsettled about her that made him think that maybe whatever they’d done to her was worse. She was tuned, like Gloom had said. He could tell from the way his Parasite rippled back and forth with hers. But they’d had her clamped while they did it.

  Bo remembered what Violet had said a long time ago, when he asked about what the wasters saw. Better than this, she’d said, meaning the ruined city, the empty streets. But Bo didn’t think Violet had seen anything good. Her hand kept creeping to the back of her neck and she kept looking over at Wyatt, not with the sly longing glances he’d caught her at before, but the look you gave a wild animal. He wanted to explain why he’d had to bring Wyatt. How he’d needed his help to make a plan, how he still didn’t trust him.

  No time. Jon was pulling the last piece of equipment out of his backpack and assembling it with Bree’s help—a stretcher, jerry-rigged from collapsible tent poles and a bedsheet stretched taut between them. Elliot had thought it up. It still wouldn’t be easy to drag through the tunnel, but it would be easier than trying to carry the sleepers any other way.

  Gloom wouldn’t be there to make a scuttling body bag for them. Bo watched him tug the last tube free from the last sleeper, then stand up.

  “Wait at the cargo elevator,” Gloom said. “Then we will all go up together.” His gaze circled the room and fell on Violet. “If you are followed, Violet is now fully tuned. She can use her key to defend you.”

  Violet blinked. “You’re going after Lia?” she asked, her voice hoarse. “Where is she?”

  Bo realized the question was directed at him. “They’ve got her in the machine,” he said. “The machine they use to hold the door open. She’s the battery for it. Gloom’s going to reprogram it so the door opens up right here. So it vanishes the ship.”

  “I like that you are succinct, Bo,” Gloom said. His gaunt face flashed an exaggerated smile before it turned grave again. “Yes. That is our strategy. You will take the other hosts to safety. Bo and the strategist called Wyatt will come with me to the machine.”

  Violet bristled. Bo could see a sudden tightness in her shoulders and her eyes were narrowed.

  “The asshole called Wyatt can help carry the kids out,” she said. “I’m coming to the machine with you and Bo.”

  A ripple passed through Gloom’s body. He shook his head. “No. I may need help inside the machine. But I cannot take another key inside with me without risking interference.”

  “What do you mean?” Violet demanded.

  “Between Lia’s Parasite and mine,” Bo interjected. “Or between hers and anyone else’s. Gloom explained it back at the theater.” He looked over sideways at Wyatt, who had dug his crowbar out of Jon’s backpack again and had it dangling gripped loose in his good hand. Gloom had explained it, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

  “He needs someone without a Parasite to go inside with him,” Wyatt finished. “Don’t give me that look, Vi. We’re all on the same side, right? We all want these fuckers gone. Whatever it takes.”

  “You are more valuable protecting the other hosts, Violet,” Gloom said. “The diagnostic drones may attempt to retrieve them.”

  He was already at the broken wall Bo assumed was Violet’s handiwork, waiting impatiently, his motes moving and blurring him. Wyatt crossed over to join him. Bo took the last fleece from Jon’s outstretched hand, bundling it up under his shirt for Lia, then looked at Violet. She was stock-still, her hands clenched at her sides.

  “Don’t trust him,” she said.

  “I don’t,” Bo said.

  Wyatt snorted.

  “And if it’s something where you have to pick,” Violet said, looking over his head at Wyatt. “If it’s either him or you.” She looked straight at Bo. “Kill him. Make sure. Got it?” A muscle twitched in her cheek, but her eyes were dry as she leaned forward and wrapped him in a stiff hug. Her cold hand ran over his head. “Because if he comes back without you, I’m putting that brick where I should’ve,” she whispered.

  “I’ll be okay,” Bo said, feeling an ache in his chest that wasn’t from Gloom’s cable. “We’ll all be okay. I think.”

  He pulled away, nodded to Jon and Bree. They already had the first kid loaded onto the stretcher and ready to lower down into the tunnel. Both of them nodded back, looking grim. Determined. They were Lost Boys, and maybe Violet wasn’t anymore, technically, but she could still take care of herself easy. He hoped Lia would want to meet them all once she was awake. He figured she would.

  He gave Violet one last look, then followed Gloom and Wyatt out into the hall. It was lit from above by wriggling yellow lights.

  “The machine will be guarded,” Gloom said. “Even if some of them have been diverted by the fire. Please be ready.”

  Bo pulled the baton from his waistband and flicked it out to full length. As for his Parasite, that was ready and waiting. He’d been full up with adrenaline from the moment they left the theater. It gave a twist in his stomach and he felt the static flare up.

  He glanced over at Wyatt, remembering what Violet had said. Maybe the static wouldn’t just be for whirlys. Even if Wyatt had given up his idea of taking Bo’s Parasite, maybe he was lying about not holding grudges, lying the same way he lied about so many other things. If they were alone together for even an instant, Bo didn’t know what he might do. But for now, Bo had to work together with him.

  Gloom set off at speed, abandoning his human shape completely, flowing along the floor like shadow. Bo and Wyatt had to run to keep pace, shoes slapping against the metallic black floor. Bo kept one hand holding the fleece under his shirt and the other curled around the police baton. Wyatt was loping along easily beside him, his long legs doubling Bo’s stride. Bo gritted his teeth and sped up, pushing through all his aches.

  Gloom didn’t scurry up onto the walls or run circles or switch back and forth with his human shape—he moved only forward, intent, focused. Fast. Bo and Wyatt pelted along behind him through the ship’s dizzying architecture, through the cavernous spiky halls, sometimes past things Bo recognized. The bright silver pyramids, the blacklit pits full of tangled tendrils like the wormy wall. He couldn’t be sure if they were the same rooms he’d seen before or just identical to them.

  And there was nobody in their path. The ship seemed empty—maybe Wyatt’s plan had worked even better than they’d hoped, maybe all the pods had flown to the wa
rehouses. Bo had the fleece wrapped around his arm now, so he could pump both of them properly. He was still scared and strung but exhilarated too, in the way a good footrace always made him feel light as air, like he was flying through the dark. Faster than his own shadow.

  They passed under an archway, and Bo was pushing his stride just a bit longer, feeling Wyatt slip a bit behind, when the ceiling opened up above him. Gloom came to an abrupt halt; Bo skidded into him and was caught, pushed back by a ripple of motes. He looked up.

  It was the hugest room he’d ever seen, dwarfing the other halls, its black walls curving upward forever into a high-domed ceiling that reminded Bo of cathedrals but twice the size. And it wasn’t empty. Dominating the space was a massive spiked tower that touched the vaulted ceiling, and Bo could guess extended through it too.

  The entire thing was moving: revolving blocks shifted in its base, spars extended and retracted, strange bulbs expanded and emptied like gigantic black lungs. Arcs of pale green and purple sparked up and down its surface. Bo felt every hair on his body stand on end, felt his Parasite rippling hard. It was a machine, but not like any machine he’d seen before.

  “The key is inside that structure,” Gloom said, re-forming to point with one bony finger. Bo followed the motion and saw a black globe anchored into the base of the machine, unmoving. Lia was inside of it. He moved forward on instinct, forgetting all about his Parasite causing interference, about the plan to reprogram the machine. The only thought in his head was tearing the globe open and getting Lia out.

  Then the pods descended on them, all of them harnessed with the gas guns, their proboscises extending, glinting scalpel-sharp. At least a dozen. More than Bo had ever seen in one place. Their low chugging sound filled the air and rumbled his chest. Gloom sank low to the floor—Bo remembered the horrible noise he’d made when the freezing gas had hit him last time.

  But this time, Bo was ready. He dredged the static up from his Parasite and held it, let it swell and crackle, and as the pods dropped toward them he unleashed it. The first burst vanished an entire pod, ripping it out of the air. The others angled their blunt heads toward the empty space even as they streamed around it, still heading for them. One had its gas gun ready to fire, blue fog billowing from the tip, and Bo took that one next. The burst was misaimed, but it sheared half the pod’s tail away and sent it crashing into its companion.