by Caryn Lix
Imani put her hands up, a smile playing on her cracked lips. “I didn’t mean to accuse you,” she said, her tone gentle. “You and Cage aren’t the only ones with brains. The rest of us could have said something too.”
I sighed, inspecting the deserted street. “Maybe we didn’t want there to be danger. At least for a little while.”
“Yeah. Hope overrides common sense, right?”
A long silence stretched between us. It was a surreal feeling, sitting on a doorstep as the sun rose overhead. The concrete vanished in either direction—cracked in places, with weeds forcing their way through and winding along buildings. But it was all so familiar nonetheless. “Where the hell did I take us?” I wondered out loud.
“Hey,” said Imani softly. “I suppose … I mean, this is an alien planet, right?”
I blinked, my water-starved brain struggling to catch up with her. “What else would it be?”
“I don’t know. I mean, we couldn’t have jumped through time, could we? This isn’t Earth in the future once the aliens have destroyed it?”
That I could answer definitively. I shook my head. “No. The only person with the ability to jump was Liam, and he moves through space, not time. I used his power before, remember? If I’d jumped in time, I’d have known it.”
“Yeah. You’re right. That makes sense.” She smiled faintly. “Okay, good. I was getting nervous, thinking maybe we’d missed the fight.”
“Who, us? We never miss a fight. We always seem to be right in the middle of whatever goes down.”
“That we are.” She raised her fist, and I pressed my knuckles to hers and smiled. In spite of everything, I still had friends. Still had family. Sitting here with Imani was a powerful reminder of that, and it unlocked a fierce protective swell in my chest, something I’d never experienced with my parents, maybe because I’d never had to. I knew with sudden, startling clarity that I would die for Imani—for Cage, for Reed, for any of my friends. I would leap off a cliff without thinking if it meant giving them an extra second to escape certain death, because they were all I had left, the only thing that mattered.
Of course, before I could worry about laying down my life for them, I had to find them.
Imani stood and stretched. “You ready to come back inside? I think I hear people moving around.”
I gazed into the morning, the crumbling city to my left, the desert expanse to my right. My heart still raced with the intensity of my emotions, my drive to protect this ragtag group of survivors. “In a minute. I think I need to sit here awhile longer.”
She reached down to touch my shoulder. “You saved our lives, Kenz. Don’t think we don’t know it.”
I squeezed her hand in gratitude and watched her retreat inside. I visualized a part of myself going with her to protect everyone, keep them safe, alive. And part of me was with the others, too, wherever they were. If some stupid metaphysical part of me—call it spirit or heart or soul or whatever—could keep them safe, then my determination would do it.
I returned to studying the desert. By day it was just sand, an endless expanse of blowing dirt. Had we imagined the screams the night before?
Right, I said to myself wryly. You all imagined the same thing at the same time. Want to explain how exhaustion managed that?
No. It had been real enough. And probably Cage was right: wolves, or what passed for them on this alien planet. Maybe Rune was right too: it was a good sign. Animals meant food and water, and we needed to find both—especially water—soon.
A clatter signaled Cage emerging from the shop. He scanned the street, saw me, and sighed in relief. “You scared me,” he said, sinking down beside me against the wall. “I woke up and you were gone.”
I studied him for a moment, his sharp, angular face, the high cheekbones and flashing eyes that always appealed to me so strongly, even when he’d been nothing but a murderous prisoner in my mind. “I wanted to see things more clearly. We stumbled in here in the dark last night. I barely got a look at the building, never mind the street.”
Cage gazed into the desert. “And you wanted to see if there was any sign of the creatures we heard?”
I laughed in spite of myself. No point hiding anything from him. “Yeah. I haven’t seen anything. What do you think they were?”
“Honestly? The more I consider it, the more convinced I become that it was some kind of animal. I mean, this is an alien planet, right? We shouldn’t expect the local wildlife to be familiar.”
“Or friendly,” I said cynically. “Better wolves than monsters, I guess—but alien wolves could still be a problem.”
“You’re not wrong. We’ll have to be careful.”
He didn’t seem particularly worried, though, and I didn’t blame him. After everything we’d been through, with all of our abilities, surely we could handle a few wild animals—even alien ones.
But none of that made me feel much better. “What do we do now?” I asked. The hopelessness echoed in my voice and I hated it but could do nothing to stop it. Had I saved us from the aliens just to die of thirst and starvation on a deserted planet? And why was this planet deserted, anyway? Plague? Radiation? There were just so many ways to die, and I had no idea what I’d dropped us into. My mind raced, picturing a thousand scenarios and trying to respond to all of them at the same time.
Cage must have heard my despondency. He slid his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned against him gratefully, wanting for this moment to let someone else carry the burden. “We search the city,” he said, sounding positive. It was only because I knew him so well that I caught the slight hesitation in his voice, telling me he didn’t have any great expectations of success. “We’ll find supplies, and we’ll find the others.”
“And if we don’t?”
“We will.”
That was Cage, always refusing to even consider the possibility of failure. “Even if we do find them, there might not be much left to save. Think about who’s out there,” I added, my imagination filling in horrifying details. “Mia, who can’t go five seconds without insulting someone, alongside the bounty hunters sent to catch us. Should go really well.”
Cage winced but didn’t argue, knowing I was right. Mia was not going to get along with Hallam and Priya. As for Matt, well, who knew? “That’s a good argument for moving sooner rather than later,” he said, “and before it gets too hot. I’ll wake the others.”
“Sure,” I said, standing and stretching, my joints popping and cracking. I tried not to think about how long it was since I’d had anything to drink, or how dry my mouth was, or the parched feeling on my tongue and lips. “I’m going to take a walk down to that shop and see if anything’s left.”
Cage, who’d been halfway into the store, spun on me. “Not by yourself.”
I scowled in impatience. Every second’s delay was another second my friends could be in trouble. “Have you seen any signs of life in this city?”
“Remember what we heard last night.”
“I’ll go with her.” Rune emerged from the shadows, rolling her head from side to side. “If there’s something worth finding, we’d better try.”
Cage didn’t look any happier with me and his sister going off, but I raised an eyebrow in challenge, and after a moment he backed down. “We’ll be right behind you,” he said, sighing in defeat.
Rune smacked him on the shoulder as she walked by. “Cool it, gege. We’re going fifty feet. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Cage and I winced simultaneously, but Rune was already halfway down the street. I shrugged and ran after her. After all, if the worst did indeed happen, I probably shouldn’t let my best friend face it alone.
THREE
“YOU’VE DONE A GOOD JOB with my brother,” Rune informed me as I caught up with her, smiling over her shoulder in spite of the obvious exhaustion in her face. The morning light revealed broken windows, run-down signs proclaiming book shops and electronics stores, recognizable by their pictures if not their f
aded words. “He’s learning.”
“Learning what?”
“That he can’t control everything and everyone around him.” She squeezed my hand as we approached the store. I glanced around again, taking in the street. It was almost spotless, no signs of litter or animals or human presence. Weeds grew up through cracks and twisted over buildings, though, and some of the windows were cracked, doors hanging askew. This place had been abandoned a long time ago.
A huge sign with a few letters on it arched over the entranceway, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was the cheerful cutouts of things I did recognize: fruits and vegetables remarkably like those on Earth, like carrots and apples and grapes.
But Rune frowned. “Strange,” she said.
I nodded, biting my lip. “Yeah. The pictures are awfully familiar. Just like what we have back home.” Still, it wasn’t that unusual. The atmosphere here seemed the same as back home—I hadn’t even considered that I could have dumped us on a gas giant or something—so it made some sense that the plants would grow in similar ways. Besides, the signs were so weathered and faded it was hard to see details.
Rune shook her head. “Not the pictures, the letters.”
I blinked at the sign, which proclaimed F_ _ D _ _ U _ _ S in large letters. “Um, Rune?”
She laughed. “The lettering, Kenzie. It’s Roman letters. On an alien planet. Doesn’t that seem unusual to you?”
I peered from her to the sign. “You can read it?”
“Yes, Kenzie. I can read.” She glared at me.
I brushed off her irritation. “No, it’s just … I assumed my power was translating the letters.” In spite of my fancy new ability, my primary talent was languages. I read and understood them with almost no effort. But if Rune saw them too … “Okay, that can’t be coincidence.”
“No.”
I reconsidered Imani’s theory, that I’d teleported us not in space but in time. But no. If Liam’s power teleported through time, I’d surely have noticed with how many times I’d borrowed it on Obsidian. Liam would have noticed. I mean, it was his power. “I don’t understand any of this,” I said out loud.
“Tell me about it.” Rune frowned, then shrugged. “I guess it’s not completely improbable. Liam was an alien, and he spoke nearly the same language, looked almost the same as us. Evolution’s a funny thing.”
“It produced those … creatures, but it left us to evolve like this? And another race just like us?”
“Like I said, evolution is weird that way. It’s all about what has the best chance of survival. Presumably the aliens’ home planet is very different from ours, while this one is very comparable. As for the cultural and linguistic similarities, well … that’s harder to explain. I haven’t quite figured it out yet. But there are slightly less scientific possibilities that could account for them.”
I regarded her dubiously. “You want to explain that?”
“How about later? We’re on a mission, remember?”
I flushed. It had been a gentle reminder, but a reminder nonetheless. Our time on the alien ship had changed Rune, too. She was more confident, more of a leader now. I nodded and followed her toward the store.
The doors were ajar, which wasn’t a great sign; it probably meant the store was as empty as the one where we’d spent the night. But we went inside anyway.
“Weirder still,” said Rune, echoing my thoughts. I’d expected an alien grocery store to look at least a little bit different than it would on Earth. But this could have been the local Shop ’n Save in any corporate facility. I half expected to see the Omnistellar logo looming over the electronic tills, but there was only an expanse of blank white wall.
Shelves graced the middle of the shop. They didn’t seem to be empty, either— in fact, they were nearly fully stocked. With renewed hope, we advanced. The store’s outer edges didn’t yield much of interest. Any produce had long since rotted and decayed into nothingness, confirming that the city had been abandoned for quite a while. In the center of the store, though, we hit the jackpot: prepackaged nutrient bars and emergency pouches of water. We tore into both, each draining a water pouch before we’d stopped to think about what we were doing. When mine was empty, I stood, holding the dripping package and raising my eyebrows at Rune. “Water on this planet could contain any kind of element that isn’t friendly to humans,” I pointed out.
“Good thing we travel with healers, then,” she replied with a grin. She was already shoving water pouches into her pockets. “Want another?”
“Hell yes I do.” There was a pile of water here, enough to last us a good long time, and I could worry about conservation later.
Rune laughed, a light, tinkling sound, and tossed me a pouch. I drained it. She was right: we traveled with healers. And what were our choices, anyway? It was drink the water or die.
I made a face as my initial thirst abated, my latent guilt catching up with me. “We should get the others.” What was I thinking, sitting here drinking water with my worried, dehydrated friends less than a block away?
Rune nodded, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Fuel to help us gather stuff,” she replied. “I don’t know why this store is still so well stocked. Must not have been anyone left to scavenge. My point is, there’s lots for everyone. Let’s gather it up.”
We started stuffing our pockets. Rune found some canvas bags, and we filled those, too, working in rapid silence until …“Hey,” said Rune, examining something on a shelf. “Look at this.”
I took the packet she passed me and examined it in bewilderment. The packaging showed a familiar and welcome sight: freeze-dried fruit. Not strawberries, my favorite treat back on Sanctuary, but even the weight of the package in my hands was enough to bring back a flood of memories: of my family, my friends, my safe, secure, manipulated life with Omnistellar. It almost triggered another wave of grief and loss.
Almost.
But not quite.
Because of far more interest were the words on the package: FREEZE-DRIED MIXED FRUIT. “This is in English,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Rune, what the hell?”
“Yeah.”
We stared at each other. What were the odds that out of all the planets in the entire universe, I’d managed to select one where the alien life-forms ate the same food as us, lived in the same types of buildings, and spoke the same goddamn language?
Then again, when I’d reached out with my borrowed power, I’d begged whoever might be listening to send me somewhere safe. Somewhere we could find help. Somewhere we might even have a chance of defeating the aliens. “Maybe it’s not coincidence,” I said, although I barely heard myself over my pounding heart. “I don’t really understand my own powers, let alone Liam’s. I was searching for somewhere safe, somewhere we could find help. Maybe this is part of it.”
“Maybe.” Rune brushed her fingers over the package in my hands. “There are other theories,” she added. Brushing her hair behind her ears, she tilted her head in her inquisitive, birdlike way. “What I was talking about outside. Some scientists have theorized that if there is life similar to ours in the universe, we might have a … a connection, so to speak. We might be more similar than we could ever imagine. Almost like we could reach across time and space without knowing it, creating an invisible link between races.”
I made a face. “That sounds like …” I hesitated to finish the sentence. “Not like you,” I settled on at last. “You’re usually pretty firmly entrenched in the facts.”
Rune shrugged. “Right, and the fact is that we’re on an alien planet that closely resembles our own. We’ve met at least one alien who was so much like us he could easily pass for human. At some point, you have to leave the proven science behind and consider other hypotheses, you know? I agree it sounds strange that species could connect without ever meeting. But look at some of the cultural similarities on our own planet. There are differences, of course, but even races who didn’t meet often had similar my
thologies. Similar laws, similar practices.”
I sucked on the water pouch thoughtfully. “I guess it doesn’t make any less sense than anything else that’s happened lately.”
“I wish I had some tech. I wonder what they used here, if it’s like ours.”
“I kind of think the power’s been down for a while.” I gestured around us, encompassing the decaying building, the weeds growing through the doors.
Rune sighed. “Oh, I know. But still.” She looked forlornly at the fruits, as if staring at them hard enough might transform them into a computer.
Hell, maybe she could. None of us really understood what our powers were doing these days. Just in case, I tore the package open and shoved a handful of the fruit into my mouth. Rune grinned and extended her hand, and between us we breakfasted on our tiny treat there on the dusty floor. “We have to get back to the others and share this,” I said.
“We will. We just need a burst of energy to examine the rest of the store, right?”
I laughed. “Right.”
The combination of food and water did plenty to improve my spirits. Okay, so we were on a weird planet where the aliens apparently spoke English. Yes, strange sounds surprised us in the night. Sure, we were separated from our friends and trapped here. But we had hope. I was holding it in my hands. And if nothing else, I’d get to see Reed’s grin when I held up the food and water. There was nothing quite as cheering as Reed’s uninhibited enthusiasm.
Once we’d loaded ourselves with all the remaining water packages and nutrient bars, we scoured the store for anything else of value, but we didn’t find much: some unfamiliar packaged foods and a lot of dust, things that had clearly passed their prime and wouldn’t be of much use. “This is good,” Rune assured me as I nervously examined what might have been some kind of dried meat. “If we found one store with supplies remaining, there are others. We can survive here.”
Yes, but for how long? I left the sentiment unspoken. One problem at a time, I reminded myself. The star of my favorite manga always said nanakorobi, yaoki: fall down seven times, get up eight. I’d long since amended the numbers into the thousands, but the sentiment held. The food and water would let us get up one more time.