“Where in the hell are you going now?”
“If he won’t come out, then we’re going in.”
“How are we going to do that?” I panted.
“I don’t know. But I know someone who might be able to find out.”
Gracie
he dawn was melting away into a bright summer morning by the time we got back to the cabin. I felt a huge flood of relief when I logged on and saw 6_Star’s user name under the “members online” tab. It was still going to be okay.
6_Star would help me figure a way out of this mess.
GRC97: Hey, I need your help.
6_Star: Good morning to you too!
GRC97: It’s serious.
6_Star: Sorry, I’m listening.
GRC97: This is going to sound crazy, but can you get into *all* the stuff they know? Not just the emails, but the actual data?
6_Star: I don’t know. Why?
GRC97: I need to know how to get inside a ship.
GRC97: Not one of the big ones, or the ones with guns, it’s one of the long silver ones.
6_Star: W.T.F. What are you saying here?
GRC97: No time. I just need to know HOW. Is there a door or something? I couldn’t see one.
6_Star: I don’t know if they’d even know that. What are you doing? This sounds dangerous.
GRC97: Find out. Please!
6_Star: It’s not going to be easy to get into those files. It could take a few days.
GRC97: We don’t have a few days. The little kid we’re with. He’s trapped inside a ship. It crashed in the forest, and he went in. He’s on his own in there. And those army guys are out there.
GRC97: Shit. I just thought of something.
6_Star: ???
GRC97: What if the ship is what they’ve been looking for?
6_Star: …It makes sense :-( They never mentioned you guys in most of the emails. Just “the objective.” And they were talking about that before you ever met them.
GRC97: Then we have to get rid of that thing before they find it. But first we have to get him out. OMG I don’t know what to do.
6_Star: Calm down, okay? I’ll try to get in, search some keywords. If they’ve studied these craft there might be something, but it’ll be hard. Give me a couple of hours, okay?
GRC97: Okay.
Brandon squinted at the screen. “You seriously think she can help?”
“I don’t know. But we have to try.”
Brandon sighed. “I wish you’d just let him alone. Look, I care about him, too. I love him. But he can’t stay here forever, we both know that. They’re never going to leave him alone. If he goes now, while there’s still the chance—”
“You just want to get rid of him. It’s too much trouble, I guess, to keep him safe.”
“No. You think if you keep him it will make up for all the people you lost. But it doesn’t work like that.”
“That’s crazy!” I wanted Brandon to shut up, but he kept right on going.
“And in ten years’ time, when he’s a man; or something that looks like a man but isn’t, what are you going to tell him? ‘Sorry you have to spend your whole life hiding. Sorry it’s too late to go home. We decided you belonged with us, so too bad about what you decided?’ Look, you’re the one who gets on my case for refusing to think about the future. About reality. Well, this is it.”
“So, what do you think we should do?” I asked. “Leave him there?”
“Let him decide. Let it be his choice,” said Brandon.
I couldn’t believe he was being so pig-headed about this. “We don’t know what his choice is,” I told him “He disappeared inside that thing. Who knows what’s in there? He could be a prisoner. He could be dying.”
“You know that’s not true,” said Brandon. “We both heard him.”
“We don’t really know what we heard,” I said stubbornly. When Brandon tried to take my hand, I folded my arms.
“I’m going back there,” he said. “I’m going to take some food and water and go wait there. When he makes his choice, I’ll be there for him, whatever he decides. I’d like you to come. If he comes back to us, then great, I’ll be happy.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered.
“But if he decides to go, I want him to see that it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” I snapped. “I’m staying here until I know how to get inside that thing. Or at least until I know there is no way in.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He kissed the top of my head before I could react. Was he really going? I couldn’t believe it until I heard the kitchen door slam. Fine. Let him go.
Some people might have been happy just to sit around and let things happen to them, but not me.
It was tempting to camp out in front of the monitor until 6_Star came back online, but I knew that would just make the time crawl more slowly. My head felt hopelessly foggy and I suddenly realized I’d had no sleep for more than a day. There was no way I was going to sleep now, though. Not until I knew about getting inside that ship, one way or the other.
Dog had gone with Brandon, and the cabin was very quiet. I pushed open the door to Jake’s room. The window ledge was piled with a selection of the weird crap he liked to pick up. A fist-sized stone, a feather, an old Coke can, bleached white by the sun. The kind of thing any little kid would pick up and bring home. Hadn’t Liam and Mikey’s pockets always been stuffed with similar things? Hadn’t my own? I remembered the time my mom put my jeans through the laundry with a pocket full of seashells and busted the washing machine.
I knew that what Doc and Terry had said about Jake was true. I’d seen it with my own eyes at the Mall. He’d communicated with the Drones, the same way he was probably communicating with the ship.
But it was still Jake.
That he could be one of the creatures responsible for tearing apart my whole life was unthinkable.
You don’t know anything about him. You haven’t wanted to know. You’ve never just asked him what he felt. What he wanted.
There’d never been any point asking Jake, though! And even if he had been one of them, he wasn’t an invader. Not some big, bad-ass intergalactic villain. He was a kid. And he was too young to know what was best for him. I knew more about the world than he did. I knew what was best for him.
Just like Doc and Terry had thought they did.
Or the guys at the Center.
I groaned and rubbed my aching head. It was all such a mess!
Maybe Brandon was right about one thing: we should at least talk to Jake. Find out what was going through that crazy little head. But how were we going to do that without getting him out of the ship? Talking to 6_Star had definitely been the best plan.
6_Star was waiting for me when I logged back on.
GRC97: Did you find it?
6_Star: Maybe. Tell me what happened exactly, when he went into the ship.
GRC97: I don’t know, we weren’t there when he went in. We followed him through the woods. He made this crazy…trail thing. Then we found the ship and we knew he’d gone in.
6_Star: You followed his trail? What do you mean?
GRC97: There was this gap in the woods. It’s hard to describe.
6_Star: So the trail Jake made leads to the ship? Is he on his own there?
GRC97: …
6_Star: Hello?
GRC97: I never told you his name was Jake.
6_Star: ???
GRC97: I never told you his name. I’ve never told you any of our names. Even mine.
6_Star: I guess I got it from one of the reports. What’s the big deal?
GRC97: I read the reports too, remember? They always call him Subject 135. They’ve never once used his name. The only way you’d know it is if you’d talked to them. Tell me you didn’t. Please.
6_Star: …
6_Star: We needed to get Jami real medical care. I didn’t have anything else to bargain with.
6_Star: I’m sorry.
I ran down the stairs to
get the gun, but the distant sound of trucks on the road already echoed through the quiet forest.
Jake
t was dark inside the ship, but it was a cozy darkness, not a scary one. The silver lights raced along the gently curving walls, converging where Jake stood.
He put a hand on the wall of the corridor. It was slightly warm and yielding, more like flesh than metal. In the seat next to Jake’s, a figure slumped.
At first, Jake thought the pilot was dead, but as he walked closer the pilot stirred.
“The little one. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.” Its voice was a paper-thin whisper. It was taller than a human, its sickly yellow skin gathered in delicate fluted ruffles around its face. It had no eyes that Jake could see, but he could feel it watching him just the same.
“Was it you who called me?” Jake asked. He’d never given much thought to what others like him might look like, but this tall, strange creature was not what he’d expected.
“The ship called you. With the last of my strength, I gave it a voice,” said the creature.
“Why?” asked Jake.
“The herd is leaving. You will be left behind if you do not join them soon.”
“You came back for me?”
The creature’s face crumpled, and although the expression was strange to him, Jake could feel its laughter.
“My vessel was wrecked here. An accident. I wanted to see this planet. It is the last I shall live to see, and it is very beautiful. I do not regret my choice. I am old and my power over the ship is weaker than I had thought. I lost control and have been trapped here since. I have been calling for rescue, but the others are too far away to hear my feeble voice. I felt you and drew you near. It was chance.”
“I will rescue you,” said Jake.
“Too late for me now. This shell is spent. I am two generations old. There are few of my genus left. This shell was taken on a world far from here. We can prolong the natural span of a host shell, but sooner or later, all flesh yields to time. That is why we came here, of course. To seed new life in fresh host shells.”
Jake nodded. He didn’t understand all of what the creature said, but the knowledge was there inside his head anyway.
“There are enough of us, and of those, who were the children before you, left to teach you. When you have learned all you can, we will relinquish our shells and your genus will continue.”
“Why don’t I look like you?” asked Jake.
“You can’t think this stolen shell is me, any more than the shell you wear is you. Don’t look with your shell, use your true senses.”
Jake concentrated, but all he could see was the creature’s head lolling back against its chair. Its chest rising and falling fitfully.
“You’re still looking with the Shell,” it chided.
Jake sighed and tried again, and this time, it was so easy he couldn’t understand how he’d missed the trick of it before. He could see the knot of silver light woven into the living cells of the creature’s body quite clearly. The energy throbbed weakly, but it was there. The same as the knot of energy at his own center.
“It’s like the lights in the ship, too,” he said.
“Yes. When a Shell is spent, we join our energies together to give life to new vessels. All energy is the same on a base level; the ships are merely simpler shells, powered by a more diffused spark. Reach out to it. You’ll see what I mean. Communing with a ship is no different than communing with the energies in any living thing. It is merely a matter of patience and understanding.”
Jake threw his energy out and, slowly, the ship reached back to him. It hadn’t a mind like a bird or an animal. It was more like the trees out in the forest, something that lived but didn’t think.
“The ship is sick, too,” he said finally.
“It is weak,” conceded the creature. “You have the energy to help it. But it will take a little time and a great deal of concentration.”
The lights of the ship gamboled and pulsed around them. For the first time Jake could remember, he felt at rest. Inside the ship, he was stronger and more awake then he could recall feeling ever before.
And with the ship’s power complementing his own, he could feel the Herd, faint and far away, but there. A great host of entities just like him. He felt for the frail thread of the creature’s call for help and sent his own power coursing through it, trying to touch the minds of his people. Had they heard him? They were so very distant it was impossible for him to tell.
He’d have to make the ship stronger if he was to reach them. The strands of its consciousness were tangled and frayed, but if he could straighten them, nourish them with his own power, then the ship would fly again, and Jake would be strong enough to fly it. The creature was right; the knowledge to do it had been growing in him this whole time.
“Slowly, now. You are still a child.”
He was impatient, but the creature was right. The ship was exhausted, the shell bruised and hurting. He would have to feed it his power shred by shred or he would burn out himself. The creature guided him, melding the last feeble dregs of its own power with Jake’s. The walls seemed to shiver. The familiar silver shapes and patterns unspooled before his eyes until the map of the universe surrounded him, the old migratory paths of his kind glowing most brightly of all. The things he must always remember. All those days trawling the gutters for shiny trash flew through his mind. A bottle cap here, a shard of broken mirror here. A round coin, pressed into his hand.
The thought startled him out of his trance.
“Concentrate,” said the creature, blandly.
Brandon. He’d almost forgotten about them. His friends…Brandon, Gracie, and Dog.
“You’re losing it,” said the creature, and he was right. Jake could hear the fragile connection between himself and the ship fading.
In the ship’s eye, Jake had seen them out there in the forest.
They’d wanted Jake to go to them.
“You don’t have much time,” said the creature.
“They came to look for me, and I hardly noticed them.”
“As it should be. The creatures of this planet are not your friends.”
“Brandon and Gracie are. And Dog, too. They saved me!” His hand crept into his pocket where the Massachusetts quarter lay. His thumb rubbed the rough familiar edge of it.
“I cannot stop you from going to them, but if you go now you will never join the herd. I don’t say this to chide you; I say it as the truth.”
And the creature was right. They didn’t understand. He wished he could tell them all that was inside him. He wished he could make them see. His misery burst out of him, spilling into the ship which trembled and groaned until Jake felt it might tear apart.
“Hold back! You exhaust yourself!”
“I can’t leave them,” he moaned.
“If you mean to save yourself, you must. They already know you are not like them. They do not mean you harm, but staying here will kill you as surely as if they wielded weapons against you.”
Images flashed through Jake’s mind. The quarter rolling away into darkness. The look of terror on Gracie’s face as the Drones parted at Jake’s command. Doc’s cold eyes lit up with greed.
“They will help you as long as they can, but in the end, they must give you up or be destroyed themselves. If you rejoin the Herd, you will be saving them as well as yourself.”
“I could just talk to them,” said Jake.
“And after your talk do you think they will let you come back here? Or would they think they were helping you by preventing it? They fear the ship. In time, they will come to fear you as well.”
Jake’s head drooped and he scrubbed tears from his eyes.
“This is your first lesson, child. It is the lot of our people to exist at the expense of others. It is not an easy burden, but you will learn to bear it. They’ll forget about you so quickly. They are low creatures with weak sparks. You don’t belong with them.”
He
wanted to tell the creature that it was wrong, but what good would that do? Was he really going to argue himself off the ship now that he’d finally found it?
“Concentrate with all your will,” said the creature
Jake obeyed him. His body went limp and his head lolled back in his chair. The Massachusetts quarter dropped from his fingers and hit the floor with a thin silvery sound that was lost in the hum of the awakening engines.
Brandon
had a bag of food, the company of Dog, and the vague hope that I was doing things right. We would’ve been bitching back and forth at each other for hours if I’d stayed.
It was way better to leave Gracie to stew on what I’d said by her lonesome.
After all, she’d laid the same trip on me the night when I’d walked out into the snow.
“At least she gets to do it in summer in her own bedroom,” I told Dog, who twitched an ear in my direction. This time Dog hadn’t wanted to go even part of the way inside the spooky green tunnel, and I’d been forced to loop my belt through her collar and drag her dumb ass along behind me. It felt kind of mean, but Jake sure did love that dog, and I figured having her there could help our chances of persuading the little booger to talk to us.
As we got closer to the clearing where the ship lay, I started to hear a low musical humming. There was a breeze, too. Was I imagining it, or did that wind feel too warm even for a summer day? Was the faint smell of burning sugar only there because I was searching for it?
When I reached the clearing, Dog planted all four feet firmly in the soil, and I had to haul her forward as she twisted and squirmed against me.
“Chill out,” I told her. “Jake’s in there. It’s okay.”
The warm breeze was stronger here, the throb of the engines louder, and what’s more, the goddamn ship had moved. Before, it had been kind of tilted to one side, but now it rested upright, and the trees it had been crushed against lay broken to the side, bleeding fresh sap.
Sure, I’d told Gracie we should let the kid go, but was Jake really fixing to leave just like that? No goodbyes or nothing?
“Just me,” I called out to the ship.
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