by Laura Pohl
“I don’t get it.”
“Okay,” I say. “Take Snow White. Sweet and soft and kind. Put her in the middle of nowhere. Take everything from her. Then tell her that, for all she knows, she’s the last human being on the entire planet.” I glance over and see that Adam isn’t smiling anymore. “Does Snow White make it or does she break it?”
He doesn’t answer because, really, there’s no point. We both know what happens.
“Is that really how you felt?” he asks.
I nod my head.
“How did you do it?”
“There wasn’t much to it,” I say. “Put one foot in front of the other. Hold your gun to your head a couple of times.” I shrug. I still don’t know I did it. “Life goes on.”
He doesn’t say anything for a while. But the question he comes up with next almost makes me smile.
“What do you have here, then?” He taps the left side of his chest.
I know the answer to that one.
“This little red organ,” I tell him. “It’s called a backup brain.”
Adam smiles, like he knows a secret. Like he knows that whatever I say about how tough I am, it isn’t 100 percent true.
Chapter 20
When we get back, Violet is waiting for me.
She has a look of pure fury on her face that I haven’t seen before. Her eyes are filled with an icy anger that freezes everything around me, and she barely gives me time to get out of the truck before she’s on me.
Adam moves to follow me, but Violet shakes her head. He steps back, and I follow Violet in silence.
We reach an area of the base that I haven’t been to before. At the end of the corridor, she opens a door that leads to an impressive-looking office. It must be part of her personal quarters.
“In.” She gestures, and I don’t hesitate.
She closes the door and I look around. This office has fancy chairs that match a cherrywood desk with detailed carvings of leaves. The lush green carpet sinks when I step on it, and I wonder if I should take my boots off or if doing that would make Violet think that I’m not taking this seriously. Leaving them on, I sit in one of the chairs in front of the desk as Violet sits down behind it.
I know I’m about to have a serious talking-to, a sermon to rival our priest’s back in Montana. I used to sit in church on Sundays and hate having to listen to the pastor talk about some old Bible passage.
I complained about it to Abuela once, and she only had one thing to say: Take it up with God.
So I did. That’s how I used to spend my time during Sunday mass. That’s why I whispered to Abuela’s rosary after she was gone, talking to the one person who was supposed to hear me. But talking to God always felt an awful lot like talking to myself. There’s only silence in response.
Maybe the aliens have taken Him, too.
“What were you doing?” Violet asks, and I snap back to attention. Her voice is surprisingly calm.
“You told me to convince you that we can fight back,” I say. “This is me convincing you.”
“I told you to blend in!” Her voice rises, her words unflinching. “I told you to stay put. That you were welcome here. And you repay me by putting us all in danger?”
“I knew what I was doing.”
She barks a laugh. “Funny how that doesn’t take into consideration everyone else here. You’re not alone anymore, Clover. You can’t just do whatever you want. There are more people to consider. We are eight.” She breathes in, trying to calm herself. “The last eight. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
I breathe, too, steadying myself. Adrenaline is still rushing through my blood. A few hours ago, I was up in the sky, where no one had the power to stop me. Where I truly belong.
“It does,” I finally say. “But I don’t want to just sit around here and waste my days away. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in this compound doing nothing, just waiting and waiting and waiting, until we die off, one by one.” I take a deep breath, steadying my shoulders. “Violet, I can be the bait. We might not know what these aliens are, or why they came here, but I can be the bait. They’re predictable. They don’t attack cars, but they do go after anything that’s airborne. They’re looking for something. And we can set a trap, so that when they come looking for me, we can capture them, and then we’ll find a way to win this fight.”
My voice breaks as I finish, my throat parched. I’m exhausted to the bone. I don’t want to keep fighting.
But it’s the only thing I know how to do.
I’m not looking for redemption, for some kind of forgiveness for having survived while others had not. I don’t need to atone for my sins. Abuela taught me to believe in many things, but what she always said the most was to never regret anything. Maybe that has made me a bad person; maybe I still have to suffer for the things I’ve done. But I know how to pick my battles, and I can’t let regret keep me from doing what needs to be done.
“You’re in the safest place on earth right now,” I say, indignation seeping into my voice. “The last remaining sanctuary. You have technology and electricity and goddamned hot showers. Stuff that’s been in my dreams for months. Don’t tell me that you don’t have tech or resources. Don’t tell me that you don’t have any advantages on your side.”
I look at her, breathless. Everything that I’ve been holding in for months after the invasion has come pouring out, spilled on the table like hot coffee.
“Clover, this is not some sci-fi movie. We’re not in some magical reality where Will Smith comes sweeping down from the sky and saves us all.”
I don’t want to give up. I’m not allowed to.
An idea creeps into my mind. I take out my gun and lay it on the desk for a few seconds. Picking it up, I click the safety off, and a bullet slides into the chamber. For the first time, it doesn’t feel heavy in my hands. I put it against my temple, then lay it on the desk again, pointing the barrel at Violet.
“There are easier ways to give up,” I say.
Violet looks at the gun with widened eyes and then back at me. All I can do is offer her a simple choice, a choice between surviving and living. Because at the moment, we’re not doing either.
“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” I say. “You’re putting a gun to your head, but you don’t want to pull the trigger.”
Violet keeps staring at me, half-stunned.
“Ask me how many times I’ve put that gun to my head.”
Her eyes are wide and blue.
“I’ll tell you,” I say, when she doesn’t speak. “Nine times. Nine times I’ve loaded that gun and waited. But I couldn’t pull the trigger.” She doesn’t blink. “You might think it’s because I didn’t want to do a disservice to my grandparents, after everything they sacrificed for me, or because I thought I was the last human left.” My voice catches in my throat, and I breathe. “I don’t pull it because I’m a coward, and that’s the only thing stopping me.”
I click the safety on again and slide the metal barrel back into the place where it feels more comfortable. Violet keeps her eyes on the gun the whole time.
“What I’m asking you is this,” I say. “Do you want to die a coward like me?”
She doesn’t answer.
“I’m not a leader, Violet. I’m just some random girl who showed up on your doorstep. All I’m saying is, please, let’s give ourselves a chance.”
On our own, we are nothing. Together, we’re the Last Teenagers on Earth. Together, we are Earth itself.
I get up and walk out before the tears come.
Chapter 21
“Rise and shine!”
This is the first thing that Brooklyn shouts as she comes into the dormitory. I frown at her, still half-asleep. Andy pointedly ignores her, continuing to play a game in her bed. None of us move.
“Come on, let’s go!” Brooklyn
shouts, like a PE teacher on a cold winter morning.
There are protests all around the room, but we get up all the same. She leads us to a room that I recognize immediately: the war room. It’s large, with high ceilings and a huge metal table set up for meetings. Behind the biggest chair is a map of the world that covers the entire wall.
Brooklyn sits next to Avani, which doesn’t go unnoticed by me. I sit next to Andy. The boys are already here. Rayen is the only one who seems relaxed, but that girl isn’t afraid of anything. Sputnik sits with her head on my lap, and I pet her absentmindedly. After last night, I’m not sure I’m in the mood for whatever this is.
“Good morning,” Violet says as she strides through the door, making all of us jump. “Thanks for coming.”
“It’s not like we have anything better to do,” Brooklyn mutters.
Violet throws her a pointed look. “So,” she starts. “Before we begin, is there anyone who would like to say anything about yesterday?”
Violet gives us time. Flint looks at me and shifts uncomfortably, while everyone else avoids my gaze, except Adam, who offers me a small smile.
Andy’s hand shoots up.
“Yes, Andy?”
“I couldn’t find the powdered milk. It isn’t in the pantry.”
Violet gives her an exasperated look.
Andy shrugs. “What?”
Violet ignores her. “Fine, if we’re all settled, then we can proceed. I have big news. You might be wondering why I called you to the war room for a meeting.”
“Not really,” says Rayen, which earns her a glare of her own.
What a bunch of idiots. I wonder if the Universe regrets leaving Earth to us.
“This is serious,” Violet says. “I know that we’ve been asking a lot of questions, and we still don’t have the answers to most of them. And I need to ask for your forgiveness.” She looks at me. “Instead of looking for the answers that we needed, I shut them out. I made a mistake, and I apologize.”
The whole room seems stunned by this, myself included. I didn’t take Violet for the apologizing type and, apparently, neither did the others. That probably makes her a better person than I took her to be.
She looks at me again, nodding slightly, like I owe her something. But I owe her nothing, and I don’t want her to think that I do.
Brooklyn, as always, is the first to express herself. “Are you actually saying that you were wrong, or did we just end up in some kind of freaking apocalypse?”
No one laughs at her joke.
Violet doesn’t look amused, but her face is a picture of placid calm. “Are you done?”
“I am. Please go on, Your Bossiness.”
“What I’m trying to say is… Maybe we’ve been sitting in here for too long. And Clover is right. Maybe it’s time we find a way to fight back.”
The room is silent.
Andy turns to me, alarm on her face. “You can’t mean that,” she says, turning back to Violet. “We’re safe here.”
“We’re safe here,” Violet repeats, and for a moment, I think she’s going to forget everything she just said. A shadow passes over her face and then clears. “We’re safe. But maybe not for long. I think it’s time we use what we have around us, the resources that we’ve been left with. It’s time we fight for our world. Or die trying.”
There’s silence again.
Then Brooklyn starts clapping, a smile on her face. “Great speech. Not keen on the dying part, but other than that, very good. I give it an A-plus for effort.”
“It doesn’t need a grade.” Beneath her irritation, Violet is smiling. “All I need to know is whether you guys are with me.”
We all exchange looks. There’s no need for me to say I’m in. And as I look around at these people, so different from one another, I can tell that they’re in, too. Andy is the only one who looks uncertain.
“I’m in,” Flint says.
“I’m in,” Avani echoes.
Rayen shrugs. That means yes.
Adam nods.
Brooklyn responds the only way she can. “Hell yes.”
We’ve all lost something along the way. But among this group of strange misfits, I can’t help but feel like we’ve found something else. Something that’s worth fighting for.
Earth, I guess, reflects us. We’re broken and, frankly, beaten. But we’re also still standing.
So I say, “Count me in.”
Violet smiles. “Okay, that’s eleven percent of a plan,” she says briskly. “But before we go further, I think we should follow this age-old advice.” She looks at each of us in turn. “Know your enemy.”
Chapter 22
Violet presses a button, and a large screen rolls down in front of the wall with the map. It’s absurd how easily I’ve gotten used to things like this again, after surviving for months without electricity. Area 51 is a fully equipped government facility, and it looks like we’re finally going to see what kind of resources it has to offer.
The screen lights up, and Violet starts typing on a keyboard.
“I’m gathering the archives that are stored here,” she tells us as she pulls up a hard drive. “We should be able to get more information about the invading alien force.”
The way she says it sounds so professional. When I say it, it sounds like something out of a bad Tom Cruise movie.
“Here goes,” she mutters under her breath, and several different windows pop up. A warning message appears, blocking them, and my heart sinks as I read it: access denied.
Violet looks over at Andy. “Come on, Andy,” she says. “Open it up.”
Andy makes no move to help. “You told me we wouldn’t have to,” she says. “You told me we would be safe—”
“You are safe,” I cut her off, and Andy turns her widened eyes to me. “But for how long? We can’t hole up here forever.”
Andy looks like she’s about to argue but stays quiet.
“This was not Clover’s decision,” Violet speaks up, glancing quickly at me. “This is my call.”
“But—”
“This is an order from your commander. Open it up.”
Andy finally seems to grasp the urgency of the situation. She starts connecting cables from underneath the table to her laptop, and in a matter of minutes, she gets a progress bar going. Everyone seems to hold their breath as the bar slowly reaches 100 percent. The warning disappears, and an instant later, a new message pops up: access granted.
I’m not prepared for what happens next. Hundreds of folders appear, full of files on research projects, experiments, prototypes, and who knows what else. Within a few minutes, it’s obvious that it would take a team of professionals years to sort through all this information. We’re just eight teenagers who are running out of time.
The amount of data overwhelms everyone in the room, and even Violet looks shocked as the hard drive continues to vomit its contents on the screen, opening more and more folders by the minute.
The sight makes me sigh wistfully because there is so much here that I wish I had the time to read. It’s simply too much, and I know that we won’t even be able to get through half of it. That would be impossible. My heart sinks again, knowing that we’re going to need more luck than I thought.
“Okay.” Violet recovers, and she’s back in command. “Look for any relevant information, starting with the most recent files. We’re looking for archived reports, charts, satellite images, anything that can give us some insight into what we’re dealing with. Stick to your areas of expertise.”
A few people grunt in response, and the table lights up as a screen appears in front of each of us. I don’t have a specific area—I’m not a genius like half of these kids seem to be—so I’m not sure where to start. I’m good enough at math, good with physics, and I liked history. But I’m not an expert on anything, except for the one thin
g that they’ve taken from me forever—flying.
I settle down to my new challenge: digging deeper into the lives of the things who stole mine.
* * *
It’s hours later when we start fidgeting in our seats. Flint is the first one to break, yawning loudly, which earns him one of Violet’s looks.
Unperturbed, Flint yawns again, starting a chain reaction of open mouths all around the room.
Then Brooklyn lets it all go. “Do you know what I would really like?” she asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. “A magical robot that could filter all this data and give us the answers. I’d just say, ‘Hey robot, do you know how to defeat these aliens?’ and the robot would be like, ‘Yeah, sure thing. Throw eggs at them.’”
Avani makes a face. “Eggs? That’s your idea?”
“Yeah. Why not? Have you tried throwing eggs at them?”
“No.” Avani rolls her eyes, pursing her lips in disdain. “But it doesn’t seem plausible.”
“They’re aliens—everything is plausible,” Brooklyn points out. “It’s a theory. We should at least test it out.”
“A theory requires a scientific hypothesis.”
“Okay. Hypothesis: aliens might be vulnerable to eggs. It’s formulated.”
“That’s not scientific at all!”
“Of course it is. I’ll write it down and everything.”
Avani looks like she’s about to retort, but a glance at Violet stops her.
“Cut the bickering,” she scolds both of them.
“Are you sure that NASA doesn’t have one of those robots stored somewhere?” Brooklyn asks.
“They don’t.”
“Pity.”
Brooklyn turns back to her reading, but she’s distracted now and, consequently, everyone else at the table is, too. Then she looks up again. “What about a bomb?”
Violet sighs loudly. “They’ve tried bombs. We have video footage of it, if you want to see it. Bombs are useless, except for hurting us. They don’t hurt them.”
“But the aliens still survived,” Flint responds. “Bombs don’t work.”