by M. K. Krys
They were passing the mouth of what looked to be the ship’s headquarters when all of a sudden, the overhead lights switched on. Beacon blinked against the brightness. They were standing in the brightly lit command center of the alien ship, surrounded by Sov.
“What’s going on?” Arthur whispered frantically.
The Sov didn’t seem to know, either. People spoke into radios and wireless headsets and looked around with big question marks on their faces.
“My guess is they figured out I set off those alarms,” Nixon said. “I thought it would buy us more time.”
Beacon’s stomach clenched hard.
“What now?” Everleigh asked in a squeaky voice.
Any moment now they would be recognized.
“Just keep walking,” Nixon said out of the side of his mouth.
A cold sweat broke out on Beacon’s skin. His chest was so tight, he could barely breathe as he went with Nixon down the corridor. They weren’t invisible anymore. Several pairs of eyes landed and rested on them as they passed. A woman wearing a black skirt suit and a wireless headset squinted at Arthur before speaking in rushed tones into her headset.
“We need to hide,” Nixon whispered.
He used his ID badge to swipe into a surgical suite. The four of them slipped inside. The walls were circled with windows, and they had to crouch down and flatten themselves against the wall so the people—the aliens—walking past just feet away wouldn’t see them.
“We’re trapped!” Arthur squeaked.
“It’ll all be okay,” Everleigh said. “We just need to let things calm down for a minute.”
“No, I think he’s right. We’re totally screwed,” Nixon said.
A voice came through the radio at Nixon’s belt. Beacon couldn’t understand the commands, but he heard the names Beacon, Everleigh, and Arthur.
They’d discovered their empty cells.
“Okay, forget about waiting,” Everleigh said.
She reached for the door handle.
“Wait!” Beacon cried. “I have an idea.”
The others followed his gaze to a medical cart pushed up against the wall.
“Good idea. We’ll need weapons,” Everleigh said.
“No,” Beacon said. “We need to get inside the cart. They’re looking for three kids. They won’t look twice at a guard pushing a cart down the hall.”
The cart didn’t look big enough for one of them, let alone three. But they didn’t have any better ideas, so the kids scurried around the perimeter of the room. Everleigh whipped open the doors of the cart, pulled out the plastic-wrapped packages contained inside, and climbed in. Arthur climbed in next, and then Beacon squeezed in the front. Or tried to, anyway. No matter how he contorted himself or how small he tried to make his body, he couldn’t get the door to latch.
“Move over!” he cried.
“I’m over as far as I can go,” Everleigh said.
“I can’t get the door closed.”
“You’re not trying hard enough!”
“I think I liked you better when you were a Gold Star,” Beacon muttered.
“Ha ha, so funny. I’m crying laughing,” Everleigh said. “Move over. Let me try.” Everleigh heaved on the door. Beacon yelped as the metal dug into his leg.
“Oh yeah, this seems like a great idea,” Nixon muttered.
“We’re just going to have to hold it closed,” Arthur said.
“Oh, hello there!” Nixon said suddenly. It was said loudly enough that Beacon knew that it was for their benefit—they were no longer alone. Inside the cart, they fell instantly still and silent.
“On Victor’s orders,” Nixon said. The cart rumbled underneath them. Through the crack in the door, Beacon saw a flash of green as they passed a guard. Once they were in the hall, Nixon spun the cart around so that the doors were facing his body. Anybody who looked closely would be able to see that there was something hidden inside, but he hoped it would at least conceal them a bit better.
Beacon’s leg was cramped and twisted unnaturally, and soon, a hot, prickling sensation traveled up it. Before long, he couldn’t feel his leg at all. But it was working. Minutes passed, and no one stopped them.
“You! Where are you going with that cart?” The clear, commanding voice made Beacon’s back go stiff.
“On Victor’s orders,” he heard Nixon say.
“You just wait a minute while I check with Victor.”
“That’s not necessary,” Nixon said.
There was a strained pause before the guard said, “What do you have in that cart? Let me have a look.”
It was game over.
“Run!” Nixon said.
Beacon, Everleigh, and Arthur wriggled out of the cart, numb limbs immediately forgotten.
“Stop those kids!” someone shouted.
And then they were running flat out. Even Arthur was running like he meant it. Beacon figured he just needed to get his muscles moving again. Or to be threatened with death.
It took Beacon a moment to realize where he was, but then he saw the moving walkway built into the floor. They were in the tunnel leading back to the docks. So close to escaping.
Nixon sped forward. Everleigh sprinted behind him, her ponytail flying out as she leaped onto the belt with barely a stutter in her step.
Beacon jumped onto the belt next. Unlike his sister, he landed with a wobble before he finally got his footing. Behind him, he heard a little surprised yelp before Arthur appeared at his side.
He smelled briny water and fish, and knew the elevator to the docks must be close.
For a moment, Beacon hoped there wouldn’t be any guards here—that they’d all converged on the ship when they heard the alarms going off. But that hope was extinguished as the end of the corridor loomed.
A guard stood in front of the elevator, his legs braced apart and his arm raised up and trained right at them. There was something bulky and metallic strapped to his wrist. Beacon didn’t have time to wonder what it was before a whirring, buzzing noise filled the corridor. Two thin cylinders whizzed up from either side of the metal device, locking into place above it with a jarring snap-snap sound. Blue beams of light glowed to life inside the cylinders.
“Stop right there,” the guard said.
18
Nixon’s footsteps stuttered. He raised his hands in surrender. Everleigh followed suit, then Beacon and Arthur. They all held their hands in the air as they glided slowly toward the guard. Beacon’s heart banged in his chest. They’d been so close. So close, and one single guard was going to stop them.
Desperate ideas raged through his head, but it was useless. They might as well have been baitfish in a bucket. They were trapped.
“Don’t move an inch,” the guard commanded. Which seemed stupid considering they were on a moving conveyor belt. He kept the weapon trained on them while he brought a radio to his lips.
Beacon saw movement cross his vision. Before he knew what was happening, Everleigh had rolled across the ground like some kind of desert commando. The guard reacted quickly, dropping the radio and locking his arms out in front of him like he meant business as he tracked Everleigh’s movements. Twin blue laser beams snapped out of the cylinders, once, twice, three times, landing just inches from Everleigh on the concrete floor. The ground sizzled where the lasers struck. His sister rolled up behind the guard, wrapped a forearm around his neck, and grabbed a baton from his belt. She fumbled with the thing for a split second before she depressed a button in its side; the baton shuddered hard, nearly rattling right out of her hand with its electric charge. When she got a good grip on it, a big smile stretched across her face.
“Neat. I wondered what that button did,” Everleigh said.
The guard started to move. Everleigh pointed the baton at him, whip fast; the air still fizzed around the wand. A direct hit
with that thing would probably knock a person flat for days. The guard looked at the baton as if he was thinking the same thing—and wondering if he could dodge her fast enough to escape.
“Don’t even think about it,” Everleigh said. She’d dropped her false, cheery tone to one so low and dangerous, it made even Beacon shake in his boots.
The guard kept still, except for his chest, which rose and fell with his quick, shallow breaths. His eyes were as round as dinner plates.
“Take off the wrist thing,” Everleigh ordered. When he hesitated, she poked the baton into his belly. “Do it slow, and no funny business or I’ll drop you with this thing.”
She sounded like she would do it, too. Beacon shuddered.
The guard released the straps, then slid the device off his wrist.
“Drop it,” Everleigh said.
Again, hesitation. She sighed and dug in the baton. The guard took a quick breath and dropped the weapon. It landed with a clatter as it hit the concrete floor, breaking into two pieces. Everleigh kicked the bulk of it down the corridor without moving her eyes from the guard. Beacon and Arthur leaped out of the way of the skidding weapon.
“Go,” Everleigh ordered Beacon, Arthur, and Nixon.
Nixon started to run, then stopped when no one followed. “Come on,” he said. “Before they send backup!”
“I’m not leaving without Everleigh,” Beacon said, rooting himself to the spot.
“You think I’m sticking around this place?” she said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“No way,” Beacon said, shaking his head.
“Oh, come on!” Nixon cried, throwing his hands up. “This is our chance to escape!”
“You can leave anytime you want,” Beacon snapped. “I’m not going anywhere without my sister.”
“Me neither,” Arthur said. “Well, she’s not my sister, but you get the point.”
Raised voices echoed from down the hall.
The guard let out a quiet grunt.
“W-what’s happening?” Arthur cried.
All at once, the guard’s bones shrunk; his jawline slimmed, and his entire face structure transformed; bright blond hair sprouted and curled from his head, and pink fingernails pushed through delicate, white fingers.
One minute, the guard was a thirty-year-old man. The next, a twelve-year-old girl.
Beacon and Arthur screamed, scrabbling backward. Everleigh gasped. Even Nixon’s dark skin went pale. Despite all of his inside information and bravado, it was clear he’d never seen a Sov transform so quickly before. Maybe he hadn’t even known they could transform this way.
“Holy cow,” Arthur whispered.
Jane breathed hard and fast, her panicked blue eyes darting to the baton.
“You have to help me,” she begged the boys.
“Y-you’re not Jane,” Beacon said. But he didn’t sound so sure. She looked like Jane. How did she do that?
“What do you mean? Of course I am,” the girl said.
“No. You’re a Sov!” Everleigh shot back.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Jane begged Everleigh. “I thought we were friends.”
She leveled a meek, pleading look at Everleigh. When his sister’s grip on her slackened, Jane used the distraction to slip free and reach for the baton. She was lightning fast, but Everleigh jerked her hand back and retrained the weapon right at the girl. Betrayal blazed in Everleigh’s eyes.
“Hands up, or I’ll do it!” Everleigh ordered darkly. “Don’t test me.”
A slow smile curled Jane’s lips.
She transformed again. In front of them stood Victor. Steely fury rippled across his face. Instead of the shirt with the sleeves casually rolled up, he now wore an intimidating black suit and matching black tie, knotted tight around his thick neck. A small part of Beacon’s brain that wasn’t freaking out noted how the Sov was able to shift its clothes too.
“Give me the baton,” he ordered. His tone was calm, but it made a frisson of fear spike up Beacon’s back. Arthur moved behind him. Based on his friend’s injuries, he didn’t blame the guy.
“No,” Everleigh said.
“Stop her,” he commanded Nixon, jutting his chin at Everleigh.
There was a small pause before Nixon stood up taller and said, “No.”
His voice was thin and reedy. Nixon had told the twins that Victor wasn’t someone to be messed with, and he’d meant it. Maybe he knew from firsthand experience, the same way Arthur did.
“I’ll put you back on the program.”
Nixon snorted. “Is that the best you can do?”
Victor’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
He shifted again.
Beacon gasped, the air instantly getting sucked out of his chest.
Jasper stood a foot taller than Everleigh. If it weren’t for the softness he still held in his cheeks and the awkward way he carried his body, you might have thought he was a man. Wide brown eyes met Beacon’s.
“Hey, little brother,” he said.
Beacon stepped forward involuntarily, but a hand grabbed his wrist. Arthur shook his head.
“It’s not him,” Everleigh breathed. Though her eyes didn’t leave Jasper, and tears slipped down her cheeks.
“That’s a mean thing to say about your favorite brother, Leigh,” Jasper said.
A pained look washed over Everleigh’s face. No one called her Leigh but Jasper. When he died, the nickname died, too.
Beacon fought the intense urge to reach out and touch him, just to see if he was real. But then his brother smiled at him, and all of the fight inside Beacon shook loose. The rational part of his brain knew it wasn’t Jasper. His brother was in a graveyard across the country. But he wanted to believe.
“I missed you,” Beacon said. “So much.”
And he did. He missed his booming, infectious laugh. His bad jokes, and the way he’d always forget the punch line. He missed finding him buried underneath the car, torso out, fixing this or that. He missed him doing homework at the kitchen table, eating cereal on the couch, listening to music flopped down across his bed. He missed hearing him move around the house, seeing his car in the driveway and his shoes in the porch, always twelve feet apart and upside down because he’d launched them off his feet like missiles. He missed having Honey Nut Cheerios in the pantry, and he missed going down that aisle in the grocery store without biting his lip until it bled so that he wouldn’t cry. Most of all, he missed the time when he didn’t know what it was like to miss someone with your whole heart.
“Hey, don’t be sad, little brother,” Jasper said. “I’m right here.”
“Are you real?” Beacon asked, his voice a whisper.
“Course I am.” He smiled the way Jasper did, where only one side of his mouth moved and a dimple popped up in his cheek.
“You can’t be real,” Everleigh said. But she sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
“Put the weapon down, Leigh,” Jasper said, good-naturedly.
“Don’t do it,” Nixon said.
Everleigh shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jasper. I can’t do it.”
Jasper looked at Nixon and let out a little laugh, half-disbelieving, half-dismissive. “Who’s this guy? You’re going to listen to him instead of me?”
Beacon had never heard his brother be even halfway rude to someone. But then again, he’d never seen his brother have an alien weapon pointed at him, either.
“If you’re really Jasper, then what’s my favorite car?” Everleigh challenged.
Jasper smiled. “You don’t have a favorite. You love them all.”
Everleigh’s eyes were impossibly bright.
Boots thundered down the corridor. Nixon shot a panicked look down the tunnel. His mouth set into a grim, determined line. He turned to face the others.
“Leave Driftw
ood Harbor,” he said. “Don’t stop until you get to the next county. And listen: There’s an invisible force field around this town that runs through the forest and up around the highway. It messes with your mind, discourages exit. You just have to be strong, okay? You have to want it. Push past the doubt.”
“I knew it!” Arthur cried. “I knew there was something wrong with that forest.”
The time slips, Beacon realized. They had happened near the perimeter of town. Could they have been side effects of the alien technology? An unexpected rush of relief washed through him. He’d been starting to think he was losing his mind.
A streak of movement jerked Beacon from his thoughts. Nixon ducked, spun, and before Everleigh could react, grabbed the guard’s discarded wrist device from the floor and pointed it straight at Everleigh.
“Drop the baton,” he ordered as he strapped the device to his wrist without breaking his aim.
“What is this? What are you doing?” Everleigh cried. Beacon and Arthur screamed at Nixon to put the weapon down, but he didn’t budge. Didn’t blink. Didn’t waver for even a second.
“Drop the baton,” Nixon repeated.
Everleigh’s jaw tensed with fury. “That thing’s broken anyway,” she said.
In reply, Nixon pressed a button on the device. The two blue lasers winked to life inside the cylinders.
“Drop the baton,” Nixon repeated.
Everleigh gritted her teeth. The baton landed on the concrete floor with a dull thud.
“Now take a step back,” Nixon commanded.
“What?” she said.
“Just do what I say,” he said. “Please.”
Maybe it was the pleading tone, but Everleigh stepped back. The moment she moved, Nixon scooped up the baton and jumped behind Jasper, retraining the baton on him.
“What are you doing?” Beacon asked breathlessly.
“I’m making you escape,” Nixon said, “because apparently none of you will do it unless I force you.”
Understanding dawned on them. He was sacrificing himself.
“Come with us,” Everleigh said.
“They’ll kill you,” Arthur added.
“They’ll reprogram me,” he corrected. “Now go. I mean it. I’ll hurt you.”