by Amie Kaufman
“Jules,” I manage. Single-word sentences. I swallow, tasting bile and fear, and try to pull myself together. “We can’t just bail yet, we need Jules.”
“Look, I know you want to help your friend.” Javier’s keeping his voice low, eyes scanning each end of the corridor. “And we will. But we don’t even know where he’s being held. We’ve got to get out of here ourselves first. He’s the valuable one—they’re not going to kill him because we escaped. We get out, we find more gear, we survey the place, we get intel…then we’ve got half a chance of rescuing him.”
My throat’s like sandpaper. “If we get to a shuttle, you’re telling me you’re going to come back for Jules?” I don’t believe it for a moment—I can barely even blame them—but it still feels like a punch when Javier looks away, won’t meet my eyes.
“He kept you alive,” I say, trying to force strength into my voice. “He made them keep you alive. So you could just leave him?”
Javier and Hansen exchange a glance, and Javier’s the one who speaks again. “Kid, if he were here, Jules would tell you to run,” he says quietly. “Save yourself, if you can.”
And perhaps he would. I’m sure he would. But that’s exactly why I can’t.
I stare at Javier and Hansen, thoughts spinning. They just want to get out of here alive, and I can’t blame them. Javier just spared me having to kill someone at point-blank range. He’s got no practical reason to bring me along on this escape attempt of theirs, a girl with no training, an extra mouth to feed with whatever supplies we can steal on our way out.
He’s not a bad man, but I can’t go with him. I can’t leave Jules. Slowly, I shake my head. “He’s in here somewhere,” I say quietly. “I have to find him.”
Javier’s shoulders drop, but he doesn’t look surprised. “We’ll head along this hallway,” he says. “It’s the best way out, and it’ll get you closer to their command post. If you can listen in on their plans, maybe you’ll get a handle on where they’ve got him. We’ll stay together as long as we can. And if we can wait for you at the shuttles, we will.”
I nod. Then, trying to forget the image of the guard’s body slumped in the dark next to her blood-soaked jacket, I fall into step behind Javier, with Hansen bringing up the rear. We don’t have a lot of time.
The IA’s only been in the ship a day, so most of the corridors are untouched by footprints or trekked-in snow or other signs of humanity. We try to stick to less marked-up hallways, but we have to follow the footsteps—the more there are, the more likely it is the hallway will lead to weapons, or an exit, or for me, some kind of command post I can eavesdrop on for hints on where to find Jules.
We dodge soldiers in the maze of corridors, navigating as best we can by the frequency of footprints in the dust, until my head starts to spin. Maybe it’s the concussion still, or dizziness from trying to mentally map this place, or just plain exhaustion. If we can wait for you at the shuttles, we will, Javier said.
A day ago these men were my enemies, and now the thought of leaving them to fight on my own again makes me want to crumble. But I can’t. We’re coming up on the exit to the ship, and the moment when we’ll part ways. And I’ll be left alone, without any kind of a plan, hiding on an alien ship, dodging soldiers and trying to save a boy I didn’t know a few weeks ago. I told Jules that the ability to make snap decisions is what keeps a scavver alive, but I’ve never been less sure what to do.
Suddenly a door a ways up the corridor creaks open and a handful of people pour out into the corridor. We’re too far from the last junction to hide. And there are only three of them. Javier’s already got the rifle to his shoulder, moving to stand between me and them.
“Wait!” My heart’s leaping and I’m darting forward to grab at Javier’s arm. Because not all the figures are wearing the black of these soldiers. One of them is wearing head-to-toe khaki, and though it’s as dirty now as if it’s been through an entire excavation season, I’d know it anywhere. “Don’t shoot—it’s Jules.”
I FREEZE IN MY TRACKS, my escorts pausing half a second later as they register the others down the corridor. I’m staring at the gun, and it takes me a long moment to realize it’s Javier behind it—and that Mia and Hansen are behind him. Mia’s alive, Mia’s still alive.
In the same instant I’m gaping, the soldiers are lifting their weapons, the guns level with my face, and I realize I’m standing between them and Javier—whoever shoots, I’m in the line of it. I hold perfectly still, heart hammering, searching his face for a signal, wondering if I’m dispensable to him.
Then there’s a deafening crack and I throw myself to the ground, and a soldier’s hitting the ground beside me, eyes wide and staring, a red, bleeding spot directly between them. Oh god, he’s dead. He’s dead, that’s a bullet hole.
His vacant eyes are fixed on my face, and I’m biting down hard on the inside of my cheek, suppressing the urge to retch, and Javier points his gun at a place over our heads that must be where my other guard’s standing. I can only assume she’s aiming hers right back at him.
Wait, Mia’s not behind him. I drop my gaze, and she’s at my level, crouching on one knee, trying desperately to pull Hansen’s arm around her shoulders and drag him backward. There’s blood all over his throat, running down his chest, his eyes huge.
Javier and the soldier still standing must both have fired at once.
But Hansen took the bullet meant for Javier.
Mia’s cursing under her breath, her voice frantic and terrified, and I don’t dare move, lest I get a bullet in the back of my head, and everyone’s frozen in place, Javier and the soldier standing with weapons trained on each other.
Then noise explodes all around me, the soldier’s gun firing somewhere above my head. Javier spins back to slam into the wall, and with a crash, the soldier hits the ground behind me, her gun clattering from her hand. I lunge for it, fumbling, trying and failing to wrap my fingers around it, and in desperation I give up and just swing at it, sending it skittering along the floor, back and away toward Mia and Javier and Hansen.
But the soldier doesn’t even try to stop me. She’s dead.
Everything’s silent.
Mia’s the one who breaks it, her voice hoarse. “Shit, shit, Hansen, no!”
I spin around, scrambling to my feet to stumble toward her. Javier’s pushing away from the wall, his right hand clamped against his left arm to stanch the flow of blood from a new wound, the rifle hanging from his shoulder by its strap. Mia and Hansen are on the floor now, her hands, covered with blood, trying to stop the bleeding at his chest. The flow of blood is slowing—but it’s because Hansen’s eyes are blank and still, staring into the nothingness beyond her.
“We have to go,” Javier says, swaying on his feet.
“But Hansen—” Mia chokes.
“We have to go,” Javier repeats. “Now.”
“Dammit,” Mia shouts, slamming her palm down onto the floor beside Hansen, leaving a bloody handprint and staring down at the man who died in her arms. This is the guy whose hand she threatened to remove if he groped her again—and now she’s got tears in her eyes, shock coursing through her and making her shake.
“I’m sorry,” Javier says softly, and I have no idea if he’s apologizing to Mia or Hansen. I’m not sure he knows either.
I want to break down, just seeing Mia here. Charlotte made me think they were torturing her, that they were willing to do anything to her to gain my cooperation. And here she is, alive. Unhurt, as best I can tell, but for her anguish.
I crouch down beside her, pulling my handkerchief from my pocket and offering it to her. Wordlessly she takes it, doing her best to clean her hands, dragging it along each finger in turn until it’s soaked red, then setting it on the ground beside Hansen. I reach for her hand, ignoring the fact that it’s sticky with blood, and turn it over so it’s palm up. Then I dig in my pocket and pull out her multi-tool. I’ve been carrying it since we parted ways, like a promise to myself that I’d see he
r, and give it to her.
And now I do, curling her fingers around it and squeezing her hand. Restoring this small seed of who she is to her, though I don’t know how much it can mean, surrounded as we are by such horror.
But she looks across at me, face white, jaw clenched, her eyes a little more focused than they were before. Fixing on me, seeing me.
Then she nods, and together we rise to our feet.
“Javier’s right,” I say. “We have to go. There are more of them coming. These two were just my escort. And—Mia, everything’s gone wrong, we need to—”
“Hansen was our pilot,” Javier says quietly, ripping off the sleeve covering his injured arm so he can inspect the wound. “We need somewhere to hole up. We can’t take a shuttle now.”
“We can’t just hole up,” I snap, my voice cracking. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. They—they made me show them. How to turn on the power core. They’re going to start up the ship.” I did it to save you. I can’t say it out loud. Charlotte called my bluff.
“They what?” Mia breathes, my own horror mirrored in her face. “You said there’s no way to know what will happen—what if the whole thing just explodes?”
I meet her eyes, and I know she sees my own fear. “Then we lose all hope of understanding what the Undying wanted with us, or what this ship was for.”
“This explosion,” Javier says, eyes flicking between us. “About how big do you think it could be?”
Jules shakes his head, hollow-eyed. “I have no idea. But given the raw power the Undying were capable of creating…for all I know it’ll take out half the planet.”
Javier sniffs, scrubbing a hand across a couple days’ worth of stubble on his jaw. “I’m thinking let’s go steal that shuttle.”
“But Hansen—” Mia’s voice shakes on the dead man’s name.
“Look, I can get it into the air. I can’t fly it through the portal, but I can get it off the ground. I’d rather be on a shuttle we barely know how to fly when this thing blows up than sitting in a makeshift cell a few yards away from ground zero.”
I take a deep breath, shaking my head. “We can’t just leave. If they manage to get this ship running and it still flies, they’ll take it back to Earth. An explosion in orbit would be the biggest disaster since the extinction of the dinosaurs.”
Mia suddenly leans forward, grabbing my arm. “Not if we warn someone. Mink’s not listening, but if Javier can get a shuttle moving, we don’t have to be able to fly it back to Earth—we just have to get far enough away from the poles for us to send a transmission without it getting scrambled. We broadcast through the portal.”
I glance from her face to Javier’s. He nods, approving the plan—and I swallow my fear. “Let’s get moving.”
A quarter hour later we’re half a dozen floors down and two sectors over. Javier holds up his good hand to signal a pause, and we all stand in silence, straining to listen. No sounds of pursuit, at least not yet.
“This way,” I say, pointing to the left, into uncharted territory, where no footprints lie. No snow has been tracked this far in, no dirt mixed with dust to show where the soldiers have been. We’re looking for a way out that won’t be covered by the IA guards, a place we can slip through unnoticed on our way to the rows of IA shuttles.
“Are you sure?” Javier asks.
“No,” I admit. “But I think these symbols here are talking about movement. I think they mean an exit.”
“We have nothing better,” Mia points out. “Go, I’ll handle the footprints.”
She peels her jacket off, and as the three of us make our way along the hallway, she uses the back of it—the front’s bloody—to carefully wipe out our tracks, until we’re beyond the vision of anyone who might stand at the crossroads looking for signs of where we’ve gone.
Just as I did when I was finding the way to the control room, I’m following the vibe of this place. The glyphs I’m watching become more prominent, promising my goal is closer. Out, or door, is the best translation I have for the characters along the wall.
I force my mind to remain on the goal. I can’t think of Hansen behind us, of the dead soldiers, of Charlotte and everything she’s done, and forced us to do, to find this ship. I can’t think about the fact that our best hope is a million-to-one long shot that then hinges on someone back on Earth listening to reason. We have no other options, except surrender.
We make our way down a flight of stairs and along another corridor, and when I stumble out of tiredness, Mia grabs my hand again.
“We’re close,” I say. “I think we’re close. I…”
My words die in my throat as we round the corner. The hallway ahead of us stretches into the distance, ending at a blank wall. The beams of our torches reflect off black patches in the walls at perfectly even intervals. Otherwise, the corridor’s bare, devoid of glyphs, devoid of anything. A dead end.
“This isn’t a way out,” I say stupidly, staring. How did I get it wrong?
Mia and I walk forward together to the nearest black slab, about twice the width of a door. It looks like black, polished rock. It looks familiar, but I’m so tired my brain can’t place it.
“What is it?” asks Javier from behind us, keeping an eye on the corridor leading here.
“It’s the other side of a portal,” Mia says, lifting her free hand to brush her fingertips across it, keeping her other hand wrapped firmly in mine. “This is what it looked like out there, after we came through from the temple.”
“These are all portals leading here?” Javier sounds nervous.
I look again, remembering the other black shadows along the hallway, and this time I know what I’m seeing by the beam of my torch. Black portals, evenly spaced, running down both sides of the corridor all the way to its end.
“It didn’t mean ‘exit,’ ” I say slowly. “It meant ‘a way through.’ That’s what the movement was. That must be the glyph for portal.”
Beside me, Mia makes a noise in the back of her throat. I know that sound, and my heart’s sinking before I’m even turning my head. She’s seen something, something important. Her eyes are on the corridor ahead of us, though, and aside from the lack of exit at the other end, I can’t see what’s caught her eye.
“No footprints leading this way,” she whispers, eyes still on the corridor ahead. “We saw all the footprints stop, back the way we came. No one’s been up here since the Undying a bazillion years ago, right?”
“Right.” But I know her voice, I know the answer isn’t going to be that simple.
“Then what left those?” Mia’s lifting her arm, so that her LED flashlight sweeps across the corridor before us. It’s subtle, and some of the dust has obscured it, but when I glance back to look at our own path, it’s impossible to deny what she’s pointing at.
There are tracks in the dust.
“TELL ME THOSE ARE BAZILLION-YEAR-OLD tracks.” Javier breaks the silence first, and though I can’t take my eyes from the smudges on the floor in front of us, I can hear the metallic click and squeak of a strap that tells me he’s tightening his grip on his stolen rifle.
“I…” Jules is looking at the tracks, which aren’t exactly clear, so it’s impossible to make out what shape of foot made them or even if it was a foot at all. But then, our tracks behind us aren’t exactly clear either. What we do know about the smears in the hallway ahead—what matters about them—is that they’re in a corridor that had no tracks leading to it. Which begs the question: how did whoever or whatever made them get here?
Jules swallows hard and tries again. “I’d have to do a study on the weather patterns, on—on how much snow makes it inside the ship on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis…” His voice is betraying him. And though it’s been only days—god, can that really be true?—it still feels like I’ve known him my whole life. He’s freaking out, and I don’t blame him. Either something else, yet another intelligent species, followed the same trail we did and found this ship, or…
“Never mind.” I keep my voice firm, commanding. At least there’s one thing I can take away from Liz’s reign over her thugs—I’m channeling her voice now as I speak. “It doesn’t matter. This clearly isn’t what we’re looking for, and we can worry about what all this means when we’re not wanted fugitives lost in an ancient alien spaceship that might explode as soon as someone flips a switch.”
“Right.” Jules swallows hard, and I can almost see him forcing away the thousand questions he has. It’s just another piece of one huge, confusing puzzle—one that began with the Undying broadcast, continued in the temple, and hit a whole new level when we found all the languages of Earth surrounding the portal. “We’ve got to get out of here first. Figure out what all of it means later.”
But then, as if on cue, a shudder runs through the stone beneath our feet. It’s small, barely enough to make the soles of my feet tingle inside my boots, but then it comes again. Unmistakable. Vibrations.
Jules’s head snaps up, looking first at Javier, then at me. For a moment all three of us are still, waiting for the vibrations to die out—waiting to realize they were from the excavations outside, or some part of the ship collapsing, or anything other than what we know it is: the ship powering up. The switch being flipped. The eons-old power source beneath our feet coming to life.
A row of lights, spaced evenly and built into the rounded edges of the corridor ceiling, flicker on. I flinch away, half expecting them to burst like lightbulbs in a power surge, but they just glow a calm blue, illuminating the corridor and us.
“Okay,” I manage, my feet still tingling—but now with the urge to run. “I vote we get the hell out of here.”
We’re sprinting back, following our own tracks the way we came to renew our search for a way off the ship.
I’m about to round a corner when a hand grabs the back of my collar and yanks me backward—the fabric cuts off my air, turning my shriek of surprise into a quiet gurgle. I stumble back to find Javier holding Jules back as well, and once I meet his eyes he lets go of my shirt in order to press a finger to his lips.
