Survival

by K. A. Applegate

>

  Yago could see out of her eyes? Tate blinked slowly and rubbed her eyes. She — she didn’t know how she felt about that. She — she would think about that later What she needed now was to put her head down somewhere. No, to actually lie down and take a little nap. Tate sat down against the wall of the corridor and stretched out. She was so sleepy….

  <>

  Yago’s taunts continued, but Tate drifted off.

  Tate dreamed.

  She was flying through space, Earth spread out below her like a great gray marble. She could see the Dark Zone, the Light Zone, the strange misshapen lumps that had come from the impact with the Rock.

  Then something happened. Something began to spread over the gray like mold. Tate experienced a moment of fear — what was this new assault on Earth? Then she realized the something was green.

  Plants, Tate thought luxuriously, knowing she was dreaming and enjoying the dream. She watched until all of the gray patches were covered and the gray marble had become a soft fuzzy sphere. Her vision zoomed in.

  Now she was walking through a garden, surrounded by apple trees and grass green enough for a golf course. A gentle breeze rippled though a clump of orange daylilies and Queen Anne’s lace. She put out one hand and ran it through the leaves of a bush growing along the pathway. Soft.

  Children were playing hide-and-seek. She could hear their high-pitched squeals of laughter.

  Her attention was drawn to a little girl with brown hair and Jobs’s distracted brown eyes.

  Jobs’s daughter.

  Somehow she knew the little girl’s name was Tate.

  Then the garden was gone and Billy was standing before her. With a strangely distant smile, a benevolent smile, he reached out and handed her something.

  Tate looked down. It was a birthday card. The front of the card showed a pink cake topped with blazing candles. Tate could see her own brown hands opening the card.

  Inside it read: Three elements: The Source, the five embodied in me, and —

  The dream-Billy abruptly screamed, his voice sounding like a siren. “Wake up! Wake up!”

  Tate sat up fast and felt her dream world spin away. The lovely garden was gone. She was back on Mother. With a very nasty taste in her mouth.

  The overwhelming sleepiness was gone, but she still felt sluggish. Her head was pounding, she couldn’t quite catch her breath, and — and her arms and legs were twitching uncontrollably.

  What now? Tate wondered wearily. Was she having a spasm? A seizure?

  Tate’s right arm violently jerked up in the air like a puppet’s and then fell limply at her side.

  <> A puppet…

  Yago! Yago was trying to control her body! Terrified, Tate watched her hand jerk a few inches to the left. She thought of the Baby, the eyeless horror that had controlled Tamara. Poor Tamara … it’d been a long time since Tate had even had a moment to think about her. Hard to grieve on the go.

  Tate’s hand twitched again. Angrily, she crossed her arms, pinning her hands under her armpits.

  “Stop it, Yago!” she said shortly, aware of how ridiculous she would look if anyone could see her. The simple act of talking made her breathless. “Go ahead and — and haunt me if you must but have some respect for my body. Please.”

  <> Tate felt deeply uneasy talking to a voice in her head. She had enough problems without dealing with — with schizophrenia. Or whatever this was. She had to figure out what was going on. Maybe she could hear Yago’s voice because she felt bad about what the Mouth had done to him….

  “Just — just quit it, okay?” she whispered edgily.

  <> Yago challenged bitterly <>

  “Hurt myself,” Tate said immediately.

  <>

  “Try me.”

  There was a pause. A long one. Long enough for Tate to hope Yago was gone for good. But then —

  <> Yago said. <
  The Troika has plans for your sweet little cells, remember?>>

  “I’m not sure I can walk,” Tate said.

  <>

  With effort, Tate fell forward onto her hands and knees. She forced herself to move a leg, the opposite arm. Blood pounded in her veins. She moved a few inches toward the elevator. Then a few more. The pain in her head made her nauseous. She gagged, paused for a deep breath, moved forward again.

  <> Yago seemed unaffected by her physical distress. <>

  “How long before they — hatch?” Tate gasped.

  <>

  Another few inches. Tate had crawled a few feet now. The elevator looked slightly closer

  “Can they — grow — without more cells?” Tate asked.

  <> Yago said forcefully.

  <>

  “How do you know?”

  <>

  Tate had to admit Yago had been right to get her moving. Maybe he was right about the Troika, too. Maybe she would be wise to trust him — at least a little bit.

  She crawled up to the elevator and pulled herself into a shaky stand.

  <> Yago demanded. <>

  “I’m — I’m thinking maybe we should get rid of the Troika now,” Tate said. “While they’re helpless in those webs. If we could find some sort of weapon or make a fire —”

  <> Yago said.

  “How do you know?”

  <> Yago insisted. <>

  Tate tried to think. Yago was a coward. That much had been clear from the day they’d all gathered at Cape Canaveral, back before the Rock hit. And she didn’t see what good it would do to hide away in the basement. Amelia would find them eventually. And, even if Amelia wasn’t helpless now, she was bound to be stronger after she hatched.

  They needed a plan.

  Now.

  CHAPTER 5

  “I’M HERE, MOTHER.”

  To keep Yago quiet, to buy time, Tate stepped into the elevator and took a too-fast ride down to the basement. The air was much clearer there. Tate could think again.

  Thanks, Yago, she thought. He was pretty good at looking out for her skin now that her skin was his skin, too. Honestly, she felt pretty good. Her hunger was completely gone. Because

  — because she’d just had such a big meal. The thought made Tate’s head spin. She would stop thinking about it. She had to.

  The plan.

  Forget this situation with Yago.

  Think about what to do next.

  Tate started to slowly walk across the basement.

  What if she went Mouth? Could she destroy the Troika? Dicey. The mutation was too unpredictable. What if it didn’t appear when she needed it? They needed a more reliable weapon.

  “What happened to your gun?” Tate asked out loud.

  <> Yago said, sounding oddly amused. <>

  “Nothing…”

  <>

  “Fine. Okay.”

  Maybe Yago is right, Tate told herself. Maybe fighting the Troika was pointless. But hiding was pointless, too.

  <> Yago said suspiciously. <>

  “Nothing. Just trying to decide where we should hide.”

  <now what you’re thinking? Don’t you think I deserve to vote on our next move?>> Well, no. But it wasn’t as if Tate could keep a secret from Yago for long. “I’m thinking we should — toss in the towel. Leave the Troika to their destiny.”

  <> Yago repeated derisively.

  “Yago,” Tate said wearily. “Calling me names isn’t going to make a big impression at this point.”

  <> Yago said irritably.

  <> Tate knew Yago was setting her up. Stop the Troika from doing what? She didn’t want to take the bait, but — “What is Amelia planning?” she asked reluctantly.

  <> Yago said. <>

  “So?”

  <>

  “More recycling?”

  <>

  This news deeply depressed Tate. She didn’t want to play the hero. She just wanted to —

  rest. Give up. Obviously, on the off chance that Yago was telling the truth, that wasn’t happening. She couldn’t die and leave the Troika cruising the universe. Who knew what kind of trouble they’d cause?

  “We could breach the hull somehow,” Tate said. “Let the atmosphere out.”

  <>

  Tate stopped walking.

  The answer was right in front of her Okay, not right in front of her. It was off to the left and about two hundred yards away. Close enough. A pit fitted out with several oddly proportioned chairs. Chairs where the aliens who had built this ship sat and connected with their über-computer.

  Alberto had been the first among the Remnants to discover what the chairs really were. He’d been the first to hear Mother’s voice.

  Back on Earth before the Rock, Alberto had been an engineer. He’d designed the solar sails on the Mayflower. He was a brilliant man and one with enough political savvy to get himself and his son two seats on the only ride off the doomed planet.

  Connecting with Mother had driven him mad. He didn’t live for long after that.

  Yago’d had a go in the chair next. He’d been arrogant enough to think it would be no big deal. He’d barely survived. But, since then, he’d had long periods when he insisted he was like a god, alternating with periods when he seemed to forget his divine status.

  Only Billy had been Mother’s match. And Billy— Billy was not entirely human. He was something — more.

  Tate was no Billy.

  She was no Alberto even.

  But — but… if she could somehow connect with Mother and control her — then she could do anything. She could destroy Amelia and Duncan and Charlie and go back to Earth just to make sure her friends weren’t waiting for her.

  And — if it didn’t work, she would end up like Alberto … completely insane.

  Having so little to hold her back made her bold.

  But she was still afraid.

  “Do it fast,” Tate whispered to herself.

  Yago immediately figured out what she had in mind. He’d seen her looking toward the not-too-distant pit. He might be in a slightly weird situation, but he wasn’t stupid.

  <> he said forcefully. <> Tate had never heard Yago’s voice so lacking in posturing or artifice. He sounded completely and honestly terrified.

  “Shut up,” she said tonelessly. She walked quickly toward the pit, ignoring the steady stream of begging that Yago was letting loose. She hopped down into the pit and approached one of the chairs.

  <>

  “I wonder which chair is a good one,” Tate mused out loud. “Some of the connections to Mother are broken, aren’t they?”

  <>

  Tate ignored Yago’s pleas. She cautiously approached the closest chair and gingerly lowered herself into it. Maybe it won’t be so bad, she told herself shakily.

  <> Yago screamed hysterically. <>

  “I’m here. Mother,” Tate whispered, her voice hoarse with fear “Let’s you and I have a little chat, shall we?”

  Tate braced herself for Mother’s reaction.

  Nothing. Tate might as well have been back in LA., sitting in her grandfather’s La-Z-Boy.

  <> Yago pleaded tensely.

  Tate’s body twitched with nerves. The silence stretched on. She began thinking about Alberto. About the way he’d drooled and babbled.

  “Maybe — maybe this isn’t such a good idea….” Tate tried to get up and found her muscles wouldn’t move.

  Yago began to whimper low. <> he said. <>

  There came a sudden noise — like a freight train in the distance, coming closer fast. The sound grew in intensity until it blossomed into a screaming wail that threatened to burst Tate’s eardrums.

  Tate felt something like a pinprick in her head. She tried to relax, tried to show Mother she was a friend by thinking friendly thoughts, but — the sensation was growing in force, setting her teeth on.

  Mother was poking at her brain. This — this wasn’t what she’d imagined. She’d expected a deluge of data She’d •expected – it was hard to explain, the presence of a rational consciousness. She’d expected to somehow have a conversation with Mother Bargain with her Negotiate.

  But Mother didn’t seem rational. She wasn’t efficiently accessing Tate’s memories — she was banging around like a tired child having a screaming fit in a filing cabinet.

  Brutal scenes flicked to life for a split second — a bloody battlefield strewn with dead Riders, Amelia disintegrating into a puddle of decay — before Mother tossed them aside.

  <> Yago said. <> Different scenes now. More personal. Lasting longer

  Tate’s mother weeping at her mother’s funeral.

  A small, scabby-kneed Tate hugging a lamppost as Jennifer Taylor Smith’s parents packed their meager belongings into a U-Haul.

  A goldfish floating belly up in a slimy-looking bowl.

  Tate got the message: grief, loss, abandonment. Billy. Mother missed Billy. Tate understood. She hoped Mother knew she was innocent — she had done nothing to take Billy away from her.

  But Mother wasn’t into subtlety.

  Or perhaps she just didn’t like suffering alone.

  She did something to Tate’s body and suddenly Tate was overwhelmed by a sadness that was like a wet cloth dragging down on her head. She dwelled on all she had lost to the Rock: her home, her family, her dog. Poor innocent Lily. She’d never hurt anyone.

  She was powerless to control the sobs racking her body. Yago was weeping, too. A pitiful sound.

  The grief finally drained away.

  Mother toyed with Tate’s mind. Called up another emotion.

  Anger.

  Now the adrenaline pumping through Tate’s veins was accompanied by images of all the bullies who’d made her long life miserable — playground bullies whose names she had forgotten, the Meanies, 2Face, Yago. How she hated them! Rage consumed her until —

  It was replaced.

  Replaced with pain.

  CHAPTER 6

  TIME CEASED TO EXIST.

  Mother knew pain. She enjoyed pain, appreciated it. She slowed her frantic march through Tate’s emotions, seemingly having found a theme she wished to dwell
on.

  She dredged up memories from Tate’s mind one by one, turning them over, examining them carefully, playing them out in lavish detail. They say the human mind cannot remember pain. Tate was sad to learn this was apparently not true —

  Bright lights. The orthodontist who smelled strongly of mouthwash tightened Tate’s braces.

  Twist, twist, twist with his glittering metallic instrument — until Tate could feel the roots of her teeth all the way up into her sinuses. Until the weight of her tongue resting against her bottom front teeth was enough to make her weep and she was scared to close her mouth —

  High-pitched giggles and a huge pink-and-white object rushing toward her face. Tate had just enough time to identify it as her little cousin Gaby’s pink Stride Rite sandal before it smashed into her nose with enough force to send blood fountaining, her nose instantly ballooning, the pain making her whimper. It had been an accident. But it had hurt.

  The gravel-covered ground came rushing up as she flew over her twenty-speed’s handlebars and landed awkwardly on her side. An audible snap as her forearm splintered.

  Why?

  Was Mother sending her a message?

  Tate may never have puzzled it out on her own. Not under these circumstances. But Mother seemed to feel her question. She wanted Tate to understand.

  The pain drained out of Tate’s body. She went limp as Mother put an image into her mind.

  An image of Duncan doing something behind a flipped-up control panel. The image meant nothing to Tate — she wasn’t even sure if it was real or meant to be a metaphor for something

  — but Mother made sure she got the message.

  Duncan had infected Mother with a virus designed to degrade her into a simpler, easier to control operating system.

  He’d given her a lobotomy. Mother was mad. And she was going to make Tate pay because Tate was the only one left.

  Time ceased to exist.

  Tate lost herself.

  She forgot Yago.

  Days passed while Tate sat frozen in that chair. Or years. Or perhaps it all flashed by in seconds. It didn’t matter. It was an eternity.