by Shaun Barger
Suddenly her weight didn’t make sense.
She teetered, almost falling but for the hand Nikolai put on Jem’s shoulder to steady her.
“Careful now. I’ve made you a fraction of your normal weight. Here, try jumping.”
She shot up, and would have gone straight through the ceiling had the boy not grabbed her by the ankle.
He released Jem’s ankle and got out of the way. She landed on her feet, graceful now that her mods had determined the adjustments necessary to correct the difference for optimal balance and mobility.
“Wow! Just . . . WOW!” she said, her expression lit with glee as she gripped his arm. “This—this is incredible, Nikolai. It’s like being on the moon again! The Synth don’t have anything like this!”
Nikolai preened. “Well, I—”
Booted footsteps ran past the room. They tensed, huddling in the darkness.
“We need to go. Any ideas?”
She looked down, nervously drumming out a complex beat with her fingers on the tile. Then her fingers stopped, and she looked at Nikolai, intense. “It’s Friday.”
“Thank God, right?” he said. “I’ve had a really long week.”
“No,” Jem said, growing impatient. “Listen. Every Friday at seven a.m., a convoy of trucks leaves the base to go pick up supplies from the Synth. They won’t cancel a run for anything—not even maximum alert. The base needs the supplies and the Synth don’t reschedule. They’ll search the shit out of the convoy on its way out—but mostly the nooks and crannies. If you can give us both stealth camo we can hide out in the open; no deep search there. Then we ride out—hop off along the way.”
“And you’re positive about this?”
“Yeah. Synth aerial surveillance always gets heavier to the north and lighter to the south during pickup. That’s when Runners usually sneak people to the base zone.”
It was as good a plan as any.
Jem tucked the incapacitated soldier’s pistol into the back of her pants.
“I need you to promise me something,” Nikolai said, looking sick. “If we get captured, and there’s no way out?” He tapped the center of his forehead. “It’s important that they can’t bring me back.”
Jem nodded, grim. She was almost tempted to ask for the same.
* * *
Feet propped on the bumper, they clung to the back of an SUV packed with nervous soldiers as it sped along the darkened street.
Jem had one hand clamped on Nikolai’s invisible shoulder. She was invisible too, though she’d created an augmented reality overlay with her mods, so that she could at least see herself. She’d found the experience of being able to peer straight through where her body should have been to be deeply unsettling.
An urgent voice over the radios rang out a repeating warning with a detailed description of Nikolai’s appearance.
“. . . extremely dangerous! He is believed to be an agent of the Synth, and though his intentions are unclear, let me repeat that he is armed and extremely dangerous. He was last seen in HQ facilities at zero-four—and though believed to be hiding on the premises, until he has been apprehended we ask that every civilian be alert and on watch.”
No mention of Jem yet. No mention of Nikolai’s cloaking abilities. So far so good.
It began to rain as they came upon the civilian district—fat, icy droplets coming down in steady gusts on the shivering escapees as they clung miserably to the vehicle.
The truck began doing sweeps of the city streets, one soldier sitting atop the cabin, shining a floodlight down alleyways and into shadowed corners. They slowed to a stop in front of a repair shop—slatted gate open as a single early-bird mechanic stood up beside one of several hovercrafts under repair.
The driver chatted amicably with the grizzled mechanic as she warned him about Nikolai, though she assured him that that it was unlikely he would come to the civilian area.
Jem gently tugged Nikolai’s arm and hopped off the back, trying not to splash in the water quickly collecting along the sides of the street as the rain intensified.
She took invisible boy’s hand and led him up a darkened street.
“Gate’s this way,” she said. “Let’s scope it out and wait there until they begin to load up.”
“What is it now, four thirty?”
“Four thirty-six.”
Nikolai sighed. “It’s a long ways till seven. I won’t be able to keep us invisible that long. I need a break to recharge.”
Jem felt him stagger, almost falling over. Her grip on his hand tightened, and she pulled him up, steadying the sickly boy. “Let’s scope out the supply train, then find somewhere to lay low for a while, so you can rest.”
The supply train was seven trucks long, surrounded by a dozen nervous soldiers all smoking and chatting in hushed voices. The trucks waited in a fenced-off sally port—a secondary sort of airlock to the actual gate that served as an extra security measure so that when the main gate was open the base was still locked off.
The inner gate was still open, the outer gate closed off. Wet pavement shone from the floodlights of the twin watchtowers along either side of the entrance.
“Won’t the watchtowers see us?”
“They’ll just think we’re part of the crew,” Jem said, crouching in the bushes beside him. “Probably won’t lock the inner gate till they’re ready to go. We’ll be safe so long as we’re back here by six forty.”
She decided that the nearby apartment complex would be the best place to hide until then.
The whole base was up and awake. Gentle, wailing alarms filled the air; radios, TVs, and wrist comms chattered warnings and descriptions, pulsing red lights flashing in the halls of every building. Fleets of hovercrafts zipped silently through the air, gunmen leaning over the rails with lit scopes, searching the streets, peering through windows.
A crowd of men and women milled about the entrance of the complex in various disheveled states of dress: some in bathrobes, some in pajamas.
“The hell is going on? We under attack?”
“Is it the Synth? Are the Synth coming?”
“No, there’s some kid. Or some kind of Synth assassin. Disguised as a kid? I heard he tried to kill the colonel.”
“What? You sure this isn’t just a drill?”
“I got work in three hours. Damn well better not be a drill.”
Backs to the wall, Jem and Nikolai eased their way over to the entrance—freezing as a truck full of soldiers screeched to a halt before the group.
“GET BACK INSIDE!” boomed a soldier through a loudspeaker as he shone his light onto the crowd. “NOW! We are on HIGH ALERT—REMAIN INDOORS UNTIL OTHERWISE INSTRUCTED!”
They fell into line behind two men holding hands and an old man clinging to an old woman as they navigated their way over to an elevator.
Five stories up, they followed the two couples down a hall lit with flashing red lights. One of the men opened the doors for the others and Jem quickly dashed inside, pulling Nikolai after her before the family could get in the way.
The apartment was small for four people. An old, heavily patched couch sat at the center of the main room—a small, equally worn table pressed up behind it, surrounded by four mismatched chairs.
A long, curving holoscreen suspended in the air from wall to wall stood in sharp contrast with the ramshackle furniture. A neatly dressed military official sat at a table, looking into the camera as she silently mouthed words. An image of Nikolai floated beside her. His hair was disheveled, his hands and legs bound to a chair, and he was wearing a paper medical gown.
The image spun slowly, then changed to another image of Nikolai fully dressed, head turned, frozen midstep as he followed Maalouf through a security checkpoint. The image continued spinning to show all angles, and occasionally zoomed in as the woman gestured at the bandage wrapped around his hand. At the super-black rod, hanging at his side. On his strangely luxurious sneakers.
Jem led Nikolai over to an out-of-the-way corner, where they waited i
nvisibly for the right moment to hide in the living room closet.
One of the two younger men collapsed onto the couch, rubbing his eyes as he unmuted the screen with a wave.
“. . . rest assured, the would-be assassin will quickly be brought to justice. We are currently on full alert—all military personnel must immediately report for duty. All civilians are to remain indoors until—”
The old woman stood wide-eyed beside the couch, trembling. “This is it,” she whispered. “This is how it starts. Just a little thing. Just one person. But it’ll all be over soon.”
The other three stared at her, concerned.
“Why don’t we watch something else, mom,” the young man said, gently sitting her down on the couch with him and wrapping an arm around her frail shoulders. “One of your old movies. Something to lighten the mood.” He gestured again and the woman on the screen disappeared, replaced by deep blue skies full of misty clouds.
The other men exchanged glances as the woman’s son navigated the menu. The old man opened a sliding, slatted closet door set into the wall opposite the screen and grabbed two coats. He tossed one to the other man. “Smoke?”
They went out onto a small balcony, closing the glass door behind them. Jem brought Nik over to the closet, helping him scoot over into its depths to nestle in the warm darkness of long hanging coats and a neat pile of shoes and boots.
Beside her, Nikolai let out a long sigh of relief as their invisibility dissipated.
The old woman was left alone to watch the movie. Nikolai leaned forward, eagerly peering through the slats, eyes wide with a childlike glee that made Jem’s heart ache. Smiling to herself, she signaled for him to wait and crept out of the closet into the living room, and then to the kitchen.
When she returned, her arms were full of nutrient-dense plunder.
Nikolai barely had time to thank her before he’d chugged an entire bottle of water, had already torn open two full protein rations, and was getting ready to pounce on a candy bar.
With time to kill, they settled in to watch the movie and feast on snacks.
A pair of lovestruck teenagers sang a duet in Hindi—fingers intertwined as they danced across a balcony overlooking a sea of twisting orange-tinted clouds.
“You know what movie this is?” Nikolai asked through a mouthful of roasted peanuts.
“Romeo and Juliet,” Jem said. “They’re the heirs to warring Venusian crime syndicates in this one. It’s a musical.”
“Do you know what they’re saying?”
Jem looked at Nikolai, smiling. She began to translate, whispering the words just as the characters said them onscreen. He watched, enthralled.
Soon she too found herself enthralled. Not just by the movie—but by the sea of clouds beyond. The atmosphere of Venus, where the film was shot. The chemical rain, running down the windows. The crackling multicolored lightning, ever underfoot.
How could she have thought that there was nowhere else for her to go? Of course there was more. There were worlds.
Jem watched the couple dance—watched the orange light play across the ballroom tile through the skylights, her chest bursting with hope and wonder.
So much more than this.
“I’ve never been to Venus,” she said. “I went to the moon when I was little. Danced out in the fields of dust. The Earth looked like a toy. Like a big blue globe, hanging just out of reach.”
She turned to Nikolai, impassioned. “The skies of Venus. The seas of Europa. The cliff cities of Mars, the ring colonies of the asteroid belt. I can see any of them. Feel ANY of them. I can live there in my mind. Walk the cracked red Martian sands barefoot without any fear of vacuum or cold. But that’s not good enough. I want to go there. I want to go there for real. In my mind I can touch it, smell it, feel it. But—it’s just not the same.”
She put her hand on his shoulder, grasping it tightly.
“You’ve been there, right? Venus? Europa?”
After a moment of hesitation, Nikolai nodded.
“And?”
“They’re even more beautiful than they were before the war.”
The holoscreen went red—a screeching noise replacing the music. The old lady jerked awake and began screaming.
The men rushed in from the other rooms, rubbing sleep from their eyes.
The red went white—then shifted back to the neatly dressed woman at the desk.
“An update,” she said. “The suspect is now believed to be accompanied by a cybernetically enhanced female of African descent.”
A picture of Jem appeared, sitting fully dressed for interrogation—then it changed to another of her standing, midstep through a security checkpoint.
“Whether she’s a hostage or an accomplice is unclear, but until these suspects have been apprehended they are both considered to be armed and dangerous agents of the Synth. They are believed to possess cloaking technology. A full-scale manhunt is now underway, including any and all civilian living quarters. Please remain calm. Prepare for your homes to be searched. We thank you in advance for your cooperation.”
Shit.
“How are you feeling?” Jem whispered to Nikolai. “Can you move?” Brow furrowed with concern, she placed the palm of her hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“I’m feeling a little better. But we’re fucked, aren’t we?”
She looked away, thinking. “The gate, it’s not going to work now. It’s the obvious way out, and they’ll be going over it inch by inch on every spectrum.”
“So yes?”
“Not necessarily.” She glanced at the blade hanging at Nikolai’s side. “The way you broke through the window. Do you think you’d be able to cut through chain-link fence?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Easy.”
“Okay,” Jem, formulating a plan B. “If we commandeer one of the armored vehicles searching along the perimeter, and incapacitate the—”
A horrible alien trumpeting cut through the air—loud enough that it hurt, loud enough that it reverberated through the floor. The family in the apartment screamed, clutching their ears, and there was a flash of light followed by a glow. The young couple rushed out onto the balcony, the old couple quickly following.
Invisible once again, Jem and Nikolai crept out of the closet while the family wasn’t watching and went to investigate.
The marbled black clouds overhead were painted over the center of the base with otherworldly light.
The light was being projected from off base—surging mist and rain making the beam appear as a solid, angled shaft. The light shifted, seeming to turn in on itself as the image of an immense face formed at the center. Pale skin. Fair, neatly parted copper hair. Beautiful and androgynous, like some sort of angel.
Armitage.
That trumpeting horn blared out again, and then it was coming from the TV, from wrist comms, from vehicles on the street. The pale face now dominated the living room screen as well as the clouds.
“Occupants of Durham Air Force Base,” the voice said, thundering from the sky and echoing from every wirelessly connected audio device on the base. “You are currently in violation of the terms set allowing for your continued existence as a self-governing entity. Approximately thirty-six hours ago an artificially weaponized humanoid of unknown origin entered your jurisdiction.”
“Armitage,” the old lady moaned, clutching herself. “I knew it. Oh God, I knew it!”
“Shush, Mama,” her son said, though his eyes were full of despair.
“Armitage?” Nikolai whispered to Jem.
“This region’s Overmind,” she said distantly.
“We generously allowed a grace period exceeding twenty-four hours,” Armitage continued, its sophisticated, melodious voice hateful to Jem’s ears as it rang out from a thousand places in every direction, “in which we awaited word from your appointed leader, Colonel Rafael Machado. Hoping that as a sign of goodwill he would alert us to this entity’s presence, it was with great disappointment tha
t it fell upon us to contact your colonel, insisting on the weapon’s transfer.
“As per our terms, the covert development, purchase, or undisclosed concealment of advanced weaponry is seen as evidence of intent to commit violent insurgency. To our further disappointment, after a promise of transfer within the hour, we have been met with excuses and delay. It is with great regret that we now prepare to occupy and disassemble your settlement if the weapon has not been transferred into our custody within thirty minutes. We sincerely hope that this won’t be necessary, and that our relationship can continue peacefully. You have until six a.m.”
The beam of light disappeared. The clouds went black, the screen went dark. For a moment everyone stood there in stunned silence, the old lady weeping softly into her hands.
The woman on the screen returned, frantically begging the civilian population to remain calm even as she failed to hide the terror in her eyes.
The family living in the apartment frantically packed their bags amid heated arguments. Jem and Nikolai waited, quietly pressed into the corner, until the foursome left to go hide in a nearby shelter.
Nikolai allowed the invisibility to drop. He walked over to the balcony door, peeking out through the blinds to look at the sky.
Slowly, Jem crossed the room, moving to stand opposite from where Nikolai had his back to her. An icy detachment began to permeate her being, making it feel as if she were watching somebody else slowly draw their gun.
“I’m sorry, Nikolai.”
He turned to face her, puzzlement turning to shock as he found a gun leveled at his face.
She hardly knew the boy, but couldn’t help but be sickened by his look of wounded disbelief.
Looking at Jem like that, while she held him at gunpoint—he looked so much like Eva.
Was this to be her life?
“Not another step,” she said. “Hands in the air.”
“Jem?”
“I said hands in the air!”
“Jem, what are you doing?” Nikolai failed to keep the tremor from creeping into his voice. He raised his hands, placating. “The Synth are coming. We need to get out of here!”
“I’m sorry, Nik,” she said. “I have to kill you.”