Arrival
Page 18
“I ride it better than she does,” Chloe said.
“I’m sure you both ride great,” Cub replied, but Kevin couldn’t hear the same interest in his voice as when he talked to Luna.
“How far do you think it is?” Kevin called out by way of a distraction.
“Not that far,” Cub called back with a shrug. “We should be on the outskirts of Sedona soon. I’ll get my dad to pull over so we can work out what we do next.”
He pulled forward, leaving Kevin alongside Chloe and Luna.
“He is such a cool guy,” Luna said.
“Not that cool,” Chloe said. “Not as cool as he thinks he is.”
“You’re just jealous that he doesn’t want to talk to you and give you a jacket patch.”
“I wouldn’t want one,” Chloe shot back. “You know what that means, don’t you? It means you’re his. I don’t want to be owned by someone, by anyone.”
Kevin wondered if he should say something. He wondered what he could say that wouldn’t make things worse. They were fighting about Cub as if he were something amazing, and sure, he’d knocked out Ty like it was nothing, and he was helping them, but it felt like this was too much.
“You like me more, right, Bobby?” Kevin whispered, and the dog barked beside him.
They pulled up on the edge of Sedona, staring up at the ship above the city. Even compared to some of the other vessels sent down from the world ship above, it seemed large—so large that it seemed almost incomprehensible that one vial of virus would bring it down. Small ships flitted from the ground to the ship, buzzing back and forth like angry wasps.
“So, how do we do this?” Bear asked, turning to Kevin.
Kevin did his best to think. “We need to get the virus onto the main ship. I’m immune to the aliens transforming me, so I’m the one with the best chance to do it.”
“Even so, it’s going to be hard to get that one tiny vial all the way up there,” Bear said, pointing up to where the world ship presumably hung in the sky. With the city-sized ship in the way, it was impossible to even see it now.
“Maybe if we can get it onto that one, it will be enough,” Chloe said, with a nod to the ship above them. “Won’t that carry the virus back to the rest?”
“You mean you don’t want us to invade a moon-sized ship all by ourselves?” Luna asked.
“We’re still going to have to get to something the size of a city,” Chloe pointed out.
“We still need to work out how to do that,” Kevin said. “I mean, it’s not like we can just steal one of the small ships… is it?”
“I don’t see why not,” Chloe said. “They have to land somewhere.”
“And we’re not stealing, we’re commandeering,” Luna reminded him with a grin.
“Commandeering, right,” Kevin said. He looked over to the bikers. “Do you think that you can get us close enough to commandeer a spaceship?”
“It’s what we’re here to do,” Bear said. He took off his dust mask, tossing it to Chloe. “So that you have a chance to actually do this without getting changed by those things.”
Cub took his off, passing it to Luna. Kevin kind of wished it could have been one of the other bikers.
“Won’t you need it?” she said.
“Not if you succeed.”
One of the bikers came forward to offer him their mask, but Kevin shook his head.
“It doesn’t affect me.”
That didn’t mean he was safe, though. It didn’t mean that any of them were safe. These were aliens with weapons that could pull planets apart, and armies of converted people whose bodies might be damaged as easily as anyone else’s but who could apparently ignore pain or the limits that most people placed on themselves to stay safe. This was the kind of thing where there was every chance that they might not come back.
“Chloe, Luna,” he said. “Maybe you should stay here.”
“Are you about to say something that’s going to make me want to punch you, Kevin?” Luna asked.
“Probably,” Kevin said, “but… I’m dying anyway, and I know that I’m immune to the aliens, and if this all goes wrong, maybe you’d be safer here.”
“Until the aliens blow up the world,” Chloe said.
“We’re going with you,” Luna said, putting her hands on her hips. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous.”
“We’re going to do this together,” Chloe said.
Luna nodded. “Besides, when else am I going to get the chance to go inside an actual spaceship?”
“This could get you both killed though,” Kevin said. He had to at least try.
“And that’s why we’re going with you,” Chloe said. “So that you don’t get killed.”
Kevin sighed. He could tell when there was nothing he could do, and he would rather face all the aliens there were than talk Luna or Chloe out of something they were this set on. Besides, as much as he wanted to see them safe, another part of him also wanted them by his side when they did this more than anything.
He started his bike again, while all around him the bikers rolled forward. It was time for them to save the world, whatever it cost them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kevin could feel the tension building as they rolled into Sedona. Their little convoy kept its shape, but Kevin guessed he couldn’t be the only one who felt as though he ought to turn around, gun his bike’s engine, and ride for safety. Chloe looked pale with the tension of it. Luna looked determined, but with her that sometimes meant that she was getting angry with the world, because she didn’t like being scared.
There was a lot to be scared by. As tough as the bikers were, the ship above them was the size of a whole city. No one could fight against that with just chains and knives and the rest.
“It’s pretty big,” Kevin said.
“Just remember the virus,” Chloe said. “If we get that to them, we can win this.”
“I don’t care how big it is,” Luna said. “They took my mom and dad.”
Put like that, it seemed so simple. They had to do this; the world depended on it. Kevin had to remember that they had as good a chance as anyone on Earth. They’d managed to find something the aliens should be affected by, after all, and the fact that he was immune to transformation by them had to mean something, didn’t it?
They rumbled through the outskirts, their engines echoing off the flat surfaces of the buildings so that Kevin could feel it in his chest, the power of it thrumming through him. By now, he guessed that the aliens had to know they were coming. It was impossible to ignore the noise of a convoy like this one.
“When we get into the city, keep going,” Cub said, “no matter what happens.”
Kevin nodded. They didn’t need to say what might happen. He could imagine that far too easily.
The streets of the city weren’t as empty as those of LA had been. There were people here, standing still in that way that said they were controlled by the aliens but that their controllers weren’t paying attention right then, silent against the backdrop of the city. They were motionless at first, but then started to turn and stare as Kevin and the others got further in, taking notice of their approach.
“We’d never have gotten in alone,” Kevin said to Cub.
“You might,” the other boy called back. “The three of you have achieved a lot already.”
It was hard to think of just how much had happened to the three of them in the days before this. They’d made it back into NASA; they’d gotten down to LA by boat; they’d crossed a third of the country with nothing but some old maps and older motorcycles. Now they were about to take on the aliens. It seemed impossible to believe that they’d made it this far.
“You still saved us from that gang,” Kevin said. “Thank you.”
“If you want to thank us, save the world,” he said. “That’s what matters now.”
It was the part that mattered, but it was impossible to ignore the danger completely. Maybe there were people who were so tough, or so heroic, tha
t they could charge into danger without feeling a thing. Kevin wasn’t that tough, and he mostly felt scared. Scared of dying here, scared of what might happen to the world if they failed. Scared of what might happen to Chloe and Luna. There were so many things to be scared of here, but no matter how scared they got, they still had to do this, and maybe that was the scariest part of all: that somehow, Kevin was meant to do this, so that no matter how scary this got, it would still keep drawing Kevin into the heart of it.
The people controlled by the aliens kept staring, and now they were moving too, stepping into the path of the bikes as if they could form a barrier just by standing in the way.
“Remember,” Cub said, “keep going!”
Kevin saw Cub’s father wave to the other bikers, and the other members of their gang rode forward, passing Kevin, Chloe, and Luna and then spreading out in front of them in a wedge of moving metal.
They sped up, no longer cruising along in a way they could maintain for hours, but racing at full speed now. Kevin could feel the wind whipping past him, and there was no chance to even try to talk over the noise of it now. He saw Cub look back toward them and raise a hand. Kevin couldn’t tell if he was wishing them luck, reminding them to stay back, or saying goodbye.
They hit the first row of controlled people, knocking them aside like bowling pins, plowing through them without slowing down. Kevin winced at the thought of the damage the impact might be doing to the people the aliens were controlling, but the bikers were whooping as they hit them, enjoying the chaos.
They slammed into another rank of the controlled people, and this time the impact made them slow a little while they recovered their balance. Even shielded by the wedge of bikers, some of them tumbled past, still reaching for Kevin as they fell past him.
“Hold tight, Bobby,” Kevin said to the dog as a body slammed into his bike and bounced off. Kevin had to fight with the handlebars to keep the bike from toppling over, and as he struggled with the vehicle, he realized that the controlled people were doing this deliberately. They were stepping into the path of the bikes to try to unbalance them and bring them down, or at least slow them to the point where they could grab them.
He saw the first biker fall, his bike skidding through to scythe down another half dozen of the controlled people. Kevin looked round, and his instinct was to try to help, but they were already on the biker, grabbing at him. The biker fought, smashing one back and then another with fists wrapped in chains, and for a moment Kevin thought that he might be able to fight his way clear, but then they grabbed him, pulling away his facemask so that they could convert him.
“Don’t slow down!” Bear yelled back from the head of their wedge. “Don’t stop! Getting the kids to the ship is the only thing that matters!”
Another biker fell, and then another, brought down by the controlled people. Kevin saw a big woman with spiked hair dragged from her bike as they slowed from the constant impacts, and she swung a machete around with such force that it nearly decapitated one of the controlled people. They collapsed, unmoving, and Kevin found himself caught between excitement that the controlled humans could be stopped, and the horror of seeing it happen to someone who had recently been just another person. The biker didn’t have the same spectacular success with any more of them, though, because a moment after she took down the first of the controlled people, half a dozen more swarmed her, burying her under a pile of them.
“There!” Bear yelled. “Can you see it?”
Ahead, Kevin could see a broad open space, in which the smaller alien ships were taking off and landing. They came down almost in silence, whatever they were using to propel themselves leaving no trace on the world around them. They came and hovered just a little way off the ground, circles of white light coming down and sucking up supplies into them before they took off again. Next to the larger ship they seemed tiny, but they were still large enough that dozens of people could fit inside, standing there and lifted by the beams. Some of those that landed disgorged more of the controlled people, who went out with a surprising sense of purpose, moving to cars or store fronts, taking things apart and returning to the light beams with whatever they had scavenged.
“They’re taking everything they can,” Kevin said. “They’re like locusts.”
He could imagine them moving from planet to planet all too easily, taking everything: every resource, every material, every person who got in their way. If they didn’t stop them here, they wouldn’t just destroy the Earth, they would move onto another world, and another, doing this over and over again until they were all that was left in the universe.
They had to end this.
Kevin braced himself as his bike caught one of the people stepping into their path, sending them sprawling across the sidecar. They grabbed for it, white pupils gleaming, but Bobby snarled and bit hard, dislodging their grip.
“We’ll make it,” Kevin said. “We have to.”
Then he saw a bigger group of them move into place around the ships, forming an inhuman wall too deep to simply ride through. Faced with it, the bikers slowed, then stopped.
“We can’t just crash through them,” Cub said.
Kevin nodded. “So what do we do?”
“We need to get to those ships,” Luna said.
They looked over to Bear, who gripped the handlebars of his bike tightly. “We draw them away. Be ready, kids. You go the moment it’s clear. Dustsides, with me! We’re going in hard, so stick together!”
He revved his engine, and it was only as he did it that Kevin realized what the big man intended.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“Yes, we do,” Bear said. “If a thing has to be done, then you do it, no matter what it takes.”
“Besides,” Cub added, revving his own engine, “that’s where the best fight is. We aren’t missing out on that for anything. See you when you fix all this.”
“Don’t do this,” Kevin said, feeling sick at the number of people all of this had already cost. The scientists at NASA, the people around the world, his mom… He wasn’t sure if he could keep on watching people taken by the aliens; if he could keep losing them.
“We’re relying on you,” Bear said. He revved his engine again and then sped forward, the rest of the Dustside Motorcycle Club shooting toward the controlled people along with him. They yelled even louder than their engines while they stormed in toward the ranks of controlled people, and for a moment, they reminded Kevin of an unlikely wedge of knights charging into battle.
Then the bikes slammed into them with the hideous sound of metal against flesh, the bikers leaping clear as their machines ripped into the controlled creatures who were waiting. So many of them fell in that first rush that a part of Kevin thought they might even knock a path through their ranks through sheer force, but there were too many of them for that.
He saw the bikers leaping off their bikes as the ranks of the alien controlled held, plunging into the fight together and striking out at them. Some of the alien controlled fell, their bodies too damaged for even alien commands to force them onward. Bunched together like that, apparently used to brawling together as a group, the bikers even stood together, stopping the controlled people from grabbing at them or bringing them down.
“Maybe they’ll win,” Luna said, with a hopeful look.
“Maybe,” Kevin said, although even as he said it, the controlled people were starting to close in on the bikers, their ranks folding round to surround them. Kevin saw Bear punch out at one of the alien controlled, then rear back as they breathed vapor on him, clearly trying to fight the transformation. He went still, then turned to grab at the next of the bikers.
“We have to go,” Chloe said, pointing at the space where they’d all been standing. “There’s a gap, look!”
There was. Where the controlled people had swarmed in to grab at the bikers, they’d left clear space, and a view of the alien landing craft that was tantalizing in the chance it offered to end this.
“You’re right,” Kevin said. “We have to do this.”
He revved the engine of the bike he was on. Luna, however, sat still on her bike, staring over at the fight as though holding herself back from joining it only through an effort of will. Kevin could see Cub there, struggling with two of his former club mates, kicking out at one while trying to pull away from the other.
“Luna, we have to go,” Kevin said.
“I feel like we should help them,” Luna said. “I know what the plan is, but—”
“We can’t help them,” Kevin said. “All we can do is be changed along with them. Or we can stop this.”
Above him, Kevin heard the whine of engines building up power, and he looked up in time to see the alien ship start to light up from beneath, rings of light starting to grow across its underbelly in concentric circles that started to spin with almost dizzying speed.
“I think it’s getting ready to go,” Kevin said.
He hadn’t expected that. With so many of the smaller ships still at ground level, it didn’t make sense for the bigger ship to leave, but that seemed to be what it was preparing to do, and once it did, they had no way of knowing if it would come back from the world ship in the same place. If they had to drive across the country again to deliver the virus, there were too many things that might go wrong, too many chances that they might not make it at all.
Kevin saw one of the smallest ships start to pull back the beam of light it used to pull things in, then rise into the air, heading for the city ship. It headed into an opening and didn’t return. Another followed it, then another.
Meanwhile, on the ground, the last of the Dustside Motorcycle Club were fighting desperately, falling one by one to the vapor, their masks dragged away by their former friends.