The Good for Nothings

by Danielle Banas

  16

  “Run!”

  I didn’t think twice before vaulting over the bar. “Come on! Move!” The others obeyed, their panicked cries drowned out by an uproar as the crowd in the tavern followed suit, chasing us down.

  My destination was the door behind the bar leading into the kitchen. Criminal pro tip: every kitchen has a low-key escape route. A simple iron door, a loading dock, a doggy door … I learned that last one during a fancy dinner party heist when I was fourteen. My shoulders almost couldn’t squeeze through the doggy door then, and I prayed that the Fuzzy Lizard’s kitchen wouldn’t have one too, because, stars, I knew I couldn’t squeeze through one now.

  “If anyone has any other ideas besides running like hell, please enlighten me, because I’m just winging it!” I shoved aside two cooks, sending pots of scalding water sloshing to the floor. A burst of fire and smoke shot up from one of the stoves against the wall. I jumped to avoid it, darting around an island covered in chopped vegetables. Just before I pulled open the back door—a regular door, thank the stars—I noticed Elio halt in front of the food. His mouth fell open, fingers stretching forward …

  Anders hoisted him up without ceremony and tossed him over his shoulder.

  “Wait! I wanted a hot pepper!”

  “Wren will steal one for you if we live through the night.”

  The four of us burst into an alleyway behind the building, taking to the streets. The shouts of our pursuers followed like a buzzing cloud of insects. The swarm was growing; everyone we passed seemed to recognize us. A symphony of pounding footsteps crashed along the pavement.

  In less than a minute, we reached the end of the block, coming up on more merchant tents that dwindled after fifty yards, leaving room for strips of row houses. There was nowhere good to hide. Everyone was watching us, and I knew that somewhere, somehow, the warden was watching too. Whether he had spies on the outpost or he had hacked into a local security monitor, I could sense his presence as easily as I could sense the hundreds of greedy jade auras fogging the streets.

  To my left, I saw Anders pull his blaster from the inside pocket of his new, stolen jacket. He aimed a blind shot over his shoulder, over Elio’s head. There was an explosion, the sound of bricks tumbling onto the pavement, and then a few blessed moments of silence as a haze of smoke spread across the crowd.

  “This way. Hurry, while they’re distracted.” Anders grabbed us and thrust us into an alleyway filled with garbage. We emerged on the other side, in the shadow of a pedestrian bridge spanning the width of the street. The buildings were shorter off the main drag, dirtier, with cracks in the windows and chipped paint on the doors. I looked behind us. We’d lost the mob in the commotion, but my heart sank when I realized how much farther we had traveled from the landing bays and the Starchaser.

  There was nowhere else to run. Nowhere we could—

  “Cora!”

  I spun around. “What?” I demanded to Wren.

  Puzzled, she looked over her shoulder. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you just say my name?”

  “No…” She furrowed her eyebrows.

  “Cora!”

  I heard it again. Right in the back of my head. Felt the hook in my gut dragging me forward.

  “Cora!”

  “Come on!” I told them. “This way.” I sprinted down a side street, not even checking to see if they were following. All the while the voice was there, chanting my name, louder with every step. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to go running toward a disembodied voice, but my feet wouldn’t slow, no matter how hard I tried.

  “Where are we going?” Elio called.

  “Cora, we’re not getting any closer to the ship,” said Wren.

  “I know, but we need to get off these streets.” I stopped at the corner, shivering as a tingle spread through my limbs. The voice called to me one more time, an echo in my head. And then everything fell still.

  “What in all the stars was that about?” Wren caught up to me, panting.

  “I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you,” I said, helping Elio slide down from Anders’s shoulder. I eyed a cellar hatch at the edge of the sidewalk. Somehow, deep in my bones, I felt the call to open it. It was locked, but I knew better than anyone that every lock could be picked.

  Anders pointed out a fire escape wrapped around the nearest building. “We’ll get a better vantage point up there. Higher ground.”

  “Yeah, until your father’s friends find us and fire a missile at our heads,” I said.

  “Well, I’ve always imagined dying with a serene view.”

  “How interesting,” came a new voice. “I thought Andillians didn’t make jokes.”

  We all jumped. Anders aimed his blaster in the direction of the cellar hatch, which had swung open toward us. Elio flicked his wrists, unleashing two serrated knives hidden in his jacket sleeves. Wren raised her carpetbag, and I knew it was heavy enough with stolen objects to knock out any enemy with a single swing.

  Though the new enemy—if that’s really what she was—was so emaciated that a hit from the carpetbag might have been enough to kill her. I looked down, meeting the green eyes of a young Earthan girl peering up out of the cellar door. Despite having an arsenal of weapons pointed in her direction, she didn’t seem frightened at all.

  With a grunt that seemed too loud for a kid so small, she shoved the hatch open all the way. A concrete ramp disappeared down into a dark, yawning hole. “Unless you’re interested in adding ‘death by angry mob’ to your résumés,” she said, “feel free to follow me.”

  With only a few wary glances at each other, we followed the girl underground. The hatch slammed shut behind us, darkening the room except for the dull blue glow at the end of Anders’s blaster. Through the shadows encroaching on us, I could just make out the edges of dozens of wooden shelves lining the walls of the square bunker, each one covered in boxes and twisted heaps of metal. I angled my body toward the closest shelf, eying up a long, rusty pole. If the girl turned on us, that would be my go-to weapon.

  The girl stood on tiptoe to retrieve a pack of matches from a shelf, then used them to ignite a lantern in the middle of the room. We groaned at the sudden burst of light, but when my eyes adjusted, it was no longer the young girl staring back at me from across the cellar floor.

  The new figure’s green, crepe-y skin was mostly covered by a long shawl, but I could see her face well enough. And she was grinning at us with a mouthful of rotted, black fangs.

  I dived for one of Elio’s knives, reaching for the rusty pole with my other hand. Even though the creature before us had a mouth, where there should have been a nose and eyes, there was … nothing. Just more wrinkled skin.

  “Come now,” said the creature in a breathy voice. The same voice that had been in my head. The voice that had drawn me here. “I don’t bite. Often.”

  Anders held his blaster at the ready. “Make one move and I will detach your skull from your body. Don’t think I’ll hesitate.”

  I felt Elio shaking behind my legs. “What is she? She doesn’t have a face. Is anyone else seeing that she doesn’t have a face?”

  I took a small step back. “Thanks, Elio. I would have completely missed that if it weren’t for you.”

  The figure opened her mouth. “I have been many things to many people. A friend…” Her body contorted, and then I was looking at clones of all four of us standing across the room. My double winked at me. Anders took a shot at them, but they scattered into clouds of mist and re-formed into the faceless figure once again.

  “I have been a lover…” The creature’s body turned into two shadows caressing each other in the lantern light. “An enemy.” She plucked a few strands of gray hair from her head and dropped them to the floor, where they curled into the bodies of four yellow pythons that slithered around our legs. We lashed out with our weapons, but the snakes were too quick, wrapping around us, pinning our arms to our torsos.

  “Anders,” snapped
Wren. “This is an excellent opportunity for you to do some kind of fancy shape-shifting trick too.”

  He writhed. “I’m focusing on breathing at the moment. Try again later.”

  “We’re going to die.” Elio beeped. “We’re all going to die.”

  I couldn’t move my arms, but I had limited control over my fingers, which were quickly going numb. I turned the pole in my hand just slightly, aiming for the tail of the python lying on the floor in front of my feet. Putting all the energy into it that I had left, I drilled the piece of metal into the skin of the snake.

  The python shrieked. As did the faceless figure, who crumpled to the floor just as all four reptiles vanished in a puff of smoke. Anders aimed his blaster again, but right before he pulled the trigger, the figure lifted her head. Her face was no longer green and wrinkled and eyeless. She had transformed into the scrawny Earthan girl again, shivering into her shawl despite the lantern’s heat.

  “What. Are. You?” demanded Anders.

  The girl pushed herself to her feet. “I have existed for so long that not even I remember. I am simply whatever I am needed to be.” Her features melted back into the faceless creature with the round mouth full of teeth. This was her true form, I guessed.

  “I summoned you to my home. I sensed that you needed a place to hide, and I knew only an innocent face that you could trust would lure you here.” She shuffled over to a row of shelves. How she knew where to step without eyes, I wasn’t sure. “So that was what I became. And now I sense that you are in need of something more … valuable? I can help there too.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You are in search of a treasure chest, correct?”

  Wren gasped. “You have one of the keys here?”

  The creature shook her head. “I do not. Although I do have a clue.” She rummaged around in one of the boxes, extracting a silver cube the size of my fist. “You will have to decipher it. And you, Cora Saros…” She turned to me, and my breath caught. “I sense that you are eager to pick through my possessions.”

  Warily, I took a step toward the shelves lining the edges of the bunker. There was scrap metal galore, far more than what I’d found in the Starchaser’s lab. Wires and microchips and a chest full of tubes of liquid mercury. It was tough to be certain without digging through all the shelves, but I suspected there were enough materials to build a few mediocre bombs, a few stun grenades. I was apprehensive of hoping that there might be enough supplies to rebuild my old phaser and visual enhancement device, but my mind was still whirling with the possibilities. We needed to get off Tunerth without getting caught. If I had the correct tools, I could make that happen.

  Elio tugged on my sleeve. “Cora, you’re drooling.”

  “Sorry.” I turned back to the creature. If I was really nice to her, then maybe she would help us. “Do you have a name? Is there anything we can call you?”

  The creature smiled. At least that’s what I thought it was. There were certainly a lot of teeth involved. “Mieku,” she said.

  “Great. Mieku, we would love to take a look at the cube you have there. And if you don’t mind me poking around your shelves, that would be wonderful. We need to get off this outpost as soon as possible and—”

  “I understand what you seek.” Mieku licked her lips. “I can see into your hearts, into your minds. I see all that you have hidden from each other.”

  Oh boy. I stared straight ahead, forcing back the embarrassed flush that seemed determined to creep up my neck. On either side of me, I felt Wren and Elio shift uncomfortably, but neither said a word. Anders locked his jaw and stood with his back straight, as always.

  Mieku’s grin widened. “As you wish, I will keep that knowledge to myself. Since my birth, it has been my duty to provide any service that is required of me.”

  Wren reached forward. “Cool. So … the cube?”

  “Will be yours. As will any supplies you deem necessary. For a price.”

  “Excellent!” Wren started digging through her bag. “If there is one language I speak, it’s money.”

  “I don’t want your money,” said Mieku.

  “What scary green alien doesn’t want money? Everyone wants money.”

  Mieku rolled the cube in one hand before hiding it in the folds of her shawl. I wanted to lunge for it, but the memory of the python wrapped around my chest kept me rooted to the spot. “I deal in something far more valuable than money,” she said.

  “Food?” Elio suggested.

  Mieku laughed, though it sounded more like a cough. “Life.”

  “Great,” said Wren. “So we made it all this way to die.”

  “Of course not.” She held a hand to her heart. “Do you think I am a monster?”

  Well …

  Mieku stepped closer. “I am interested in conserving life; therefore, I will only take a bit. And my senses tell me that there is one of you here who has just the right amount to give.” She took one more languorous step across the cellar. Then, to my immense horror, she bent down.

  “Hello, Elio. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  17

  “No!” I jumped in front of Elio, knocking him back against Anders’s legs. “You can’t touch him. You want life? Take it from the rest of us. Take it from Wren!”

  “Do not take it from Wren!” Wren yelled back.

  “No treasure is given freely,” Mieku said, straightening up. “Each one steals something precious in return.”

  “Well, in that case, we don’t need you.” I stomped toward the ramp leading out of the cellar. “We appreciate you trying to help, but we’ll get off this outpost another way. We’ll find the keys another way.”

  “Cora!” Anders shouted.

  “No!” I was halfway up the ramp. The hatch gleamed like a beacon at the top. “Do not make a bargain with that thing. Come on, we can find a way back to the ship. I’ll find some scrap metal, build us some bombs to use as distractions and—”

  “Cora.”

  I halted. This time it was Elio’s voice, feeble. But when I turned around he was standing with his hands on his hips, determination written into each of his wires, each corroded metal panel.

  “I think we should do this.”

  “What?” I bounded back down the ramp and clutched his arm. “Are you insane?”

  “Maybe. But I want to help. Mieku won’t take everything.” His expression fell as he glanced at the faceless alien hovering behind him. “W-will you?”

  “I will try not to. It is not my intention to cause you harm.”

  “Well, that’s exactly what you would be doing!” I said. “His memory core is already malfunctioning.”

  “I understand the situation.”

  “Do you? Then take me instead. Take the life from me instead!” My voice cracked. All my energy, all my life force or whatever Mieku believed in, was ready to leap from me and devour the creature whole for even suggesting that Elio sacrifice himself more than he already had.

  “Cora, breathe.” Anders was at my side, his fingers twitching like he wanted to comfort me, but he didn’t know how.

  “They can’t have him,” I stressed. I couldn’t lose Elio. Not yet. I hadn’t prepared myself to say goodbye yet. “Take someone else.”

  Mieku shook her head. A strange mist hung in the air between her and Elio. If I listened closely, the mist almost sounded like it was whispering Elio’s name. “I will try not to kill him, but he is the one I want. He is the only way I will give you what you seek.” She licked her rotted lips. “I told you I was not a monster, Cora Saros, but I never said I was kind.”

  “Do it,” Elio said before I had a chance to speak. He thrust his chin in the air. “If this is the only way we can get home, then I can take it.” He reached out, the tips of his fingers brushing the back of my hand. “And if something happens, you’ll fix me, Cora. You always do.”

  Oh, Elio. Sweet, stupid, brave Elio. I loved him dearly.

  He had too much faith in me.
/>   Next to Mieku, the cloud of mist grew denser, twirling like a cyclone. At the creature’s command, it darted forward, down Elio’s throat. Wren jumped when his body hit the ground with a metallic clang. I held back my terror for Elio’s well-being, focusing only on my hatred for the monster standing before us. If that thing killed Elio, I didn’t care how many pythons tried to strangle me—I would rip Mieku limb from limb.

  “It’s okay,” Elio said. “It just tickles the wires in my tummy a little—beep!”

  Mieku’s long fingers pawed around in the folds of her shawl before pulling out the cube and tossing it to Anders. “As promised.” With a nod to me, she gestured toward the towering shelves. “Make yourself at home.”

  I’d never worked so fast. I ripped down scraps of metal and arranged them on the floor while the mist thickened, forming a bridge between Elio and Mieku. The creature claimed she could provide any service that was required of her, and I supposed that little talent extended to the bunker as well. I found all my usual tinkering supplies on the shelves, from diamond-edge tools to nuts and bolts in various sizes to my favorite three-pronged, four-millimeter cable. But for all the strange powers that Mieku possessed, it seemed like a cruel twist of fate that the thing I truly sought could not simply be plucked from a magic shelf. I needed all of us to leave this outpost alive, though unless I got myself in gear and worked harder, that wasn’t going to happen.

  A cluster of pythons slithered around our feet, a warning should we try to attack Mieku, but they didn’t touch us, and frankly I was too busy to care. I located a blowtorch hidden inside a tool chest and fired it up, dodging sparks.

  I managed to knock out two VEDs in about an hour—they were only advanced versions of holograms, using light beams to cycle through a variety of photos to obscure the wearer’s appearance. Simple stuff. We would need disguises to make it back to the landing bays and the Starchaser. I started on the phaser next. That one would prove much harder. Molecular manipulation wasn’t something I could accomplish under duress.