United

by Melissa Landers

  Both her parents’ gazes snapped up. Mom flashed an ordinary smile, as if a legion of ships weren’t on their way to annihilate the human race. “Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty.” She pursed her lips and chided, “Someone didn’t go to bed when I told her to.”

  Cara laughed dryly. After the countless all-nighters she’d pulled in high school, Mom chose now to put her foot down? “Where is everyone? What’s going on?”

  “You didn’t miss anything.” Dad lifted an empty mug toward the backyard. “They’re taking inventory of the shuttle supplies.”

  Cara spun toward the back door and stopped, then swiveled toward the basement door and stopped again. There was so little time. What should she do first: visit the clone, check in with Aelyx, contact the Earth Council, or brush her teeth?

  Hygiene won. While she ran up the stairs two at a time, her stomach rumbled and she added eat brunch to the list. On her way back through the living room, she snagged an apple from the fruit bowl and jogged to the shuttles in the backyard.

  Shielding her eyes from the high sun, she bit a chunk out of the apple and cringed as its sweetness clashed with the leftover toothpaste in her mouth. She noticed her brother and Elle kneeling on the lawn, where dozens of gadgets were arranged in tidy rows. They held a clipboard between them and inspected each item to catalog it. Syrine sat cross-legged nearby, taking stock of David’s things, and Aelyx and Larish were scouring the rear hatches, probably searching for hidden compartments.

  When Cara reached them, Aelyx poked his head out of the hatch and greeted her with a genuine smile that crinkled the skin around his eyes. At once, the tension unwound from her jaw, and all was right in her world.

  “Before you yell at me for not waking you up,” he said, and paused to kiss her cheek, “let me mention how breathtaking you are when you’re asleep.”

  Cara laughed, remembering the drool that’d glued a sheet of paper to her face. “Stunning, I’m sure.”

  “Any progress with the clone?”

  “Well, I progressed in making her hate me more. Does that count?”

  He didn’t say I told you so, which was one of the reasons she loved him. “Want to help us identify some foreign objects from Aisly’s shuttle?”

  “Sure, I’ll give it a shot.”

  But when she knelt on the lawn and studied the gadgets, she couldn’t make heads or tails of them. There were six items, presumably of Aribol origin, all cast from the same strange material that felt like plastic, but with the patina of aged metal. They ranged in shape from spheres to cubes and even one thin baton the size of a riding crop. Each was lightweight and cool to the touch with no visible buttons or hinges.

  Cara tapped the rod against her palm and then gave it a gentle shake. Nothing rattled inside. “Add this to the list of things the clone could explain … if she didn’t want all of us to die in a fire.”

  “Have you seen her today?” Elle asked.

  “Not since the sun came up. I didn’t want to start my day with failure.” Cara tossed the baton into the grass. “So much for that.”

  Syrine placed the lid on her box, having repacked her mementos. “Want me to come with you?”

  “No. She’ll think we’re ganging up on her.” Cara recalled the items she needed to accomplish before the power grid failed. “Will you call the Earth Council for an update? I’m going back inside to have another crack at her shell.”

  Ten minutes later, she descended the basement steps with a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal in one hand and a bottled water in the other. Her stomach dipped when she spotted Rune’s empty cot, but then a toilet flushed, and she noticed the thin chain leading from the cot to the bathroom door. Cara placed her offerings on the floor as Rune shuffled out from the bathroom, dragging her chain behind her.

  Their gazes met, and Cara stopped breathing.

  Rune had aged again, but that wasn’t what paralyzed Cara’s lungs. It was how she’d aged. The hard press of her mouth had softened, and her upper eyelids rested sleepily atop vivid, blue irises, giving her a peaceful expression that Cara recognized from her most treasured childhood memories. Emotion thickened her airway, and she could almost smell the perfume of gingersnaps and arthritis ointment.

  “What?” Rune demanded.

  Cara cleared her throat. “You remind me of someone I used to know.”

  But it was more than that. While the logical side of her brain understood Rune was an individual, unique, with a spirit all her own, they shared the same DNA, and that connected them in a way that transcended science. Warmth swelled inside Cara’s ribs, and in that moment, she knew what she had to do.

  “I’ll be right back. There’s something I want you to see.”

  She ran upstairs and returned with Mom and Dad. Both of them had confessed to sneaking a peek at the clone, but neither had spoken to her, or more important, given her an opportunity to know them. Rune tensed when she noticed them approaching, so Cara encouraged her parents to hang back while she sat beside Rune on the cot.

  “This is what I wanted to show you.” Holding Mom’s phone between them, Cara swiped through the photo album and tapped a picture of her grandmother in front of a Christmas tree, toasting the camera with a cup of eggnog. The image was grainy, but the gleam in Gram’s eyes shone loud and clear. “You have her eyes.”

  Rune leaned in only far enough to glimpse the screen. “Who is she?”

  “Your grandmother on the O’Shea side. But there’s a lot of Sweeney in you, too.” She scrolled through the album and enlarged a picture of her dad’s mother when she was a twenty-year-old fiery redhead with a siren’s smile. “I don’t remember her. She died when I was a baby. But I can tell she had a fierce spirit.”

  “She was a force of nature, all right,” Dad said.

  “Just like both of you.” Mom pointed at him and Cara.

  As Cara translated, Rune scooted an inch closer. Her gaze moved over the screen for a long while, until she caught herself and her walls went up again. “Why are you showing me this? It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter.” Cara selected another photo, a three-generational shot of herself as a little girl, wrapped in the arms of her mother and her grandma. “I don’t care how you were created or what Jaxen put inside your head. We have the same DNA. That might sound clinical, but it’s not when you put a face with the genetics.” She pointed at Dad. “Your temper comes from him, and he inherited it from his mom.”

  “My granny was a fireball, too,” Dad said.

  “And the loyalty you feel for Jaxen, even though he abandoned you,” Cara went on, “that comes from our mother’s side of the family. The O’Sheas have always loved blindly. One of them left her country behind and moved halfway across the world to be with the man who stole her heart. That’s how we ended up here instead of Ireland.”

  Rune chewed the inside of her cheek and stared into her bowl of oats.

  “That thing you’re doing right now,” Cara said, pointing at Rune’s cheek. “I’ve done that ever since I can remember. By the way, you have two baby molars on the left side of your mouth with no adult teeth under them. You inherited that from Mom, too.”

  When Rune flicked a confused glance at Mom and Dad, Cara reached into her pocket and pulled out the key she’d liberated from the guard station. She knelt on the floor and unlocked the shackle around Rune’s ankle. “You’re not an animal on a leash, or a nut that needs to be cracked. You’re one of us, and it’s time to start acting like it.”

  Cara stood and extended her hand. “Want to meet our brother? Sometimes his brain gives him the silent treatment, but he’s got a good heart.”

  Rune tipped her head at Cara as if trying to decipher a line of hieroglyphics. In the end, she didn’t take the hand offered to her, but she stood up from the cot and let Mom and Dad lead her to the stairs. Together their bizarre, dysfunctional family moved out of the dark basement and into the light.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Through the living room window, Aelyx wa
tched the last point of sunlight wink above the horizon and descend into darkness. He closed his eyes and held on to the image for a while, replaying the spectacular blood-orange brushstrokes that had painted the sky moments earlier. Ordinarily, he didn’t notice the transition from day into night, but this sunset was special.

  It might be his last.

  The others felt it, too. He could tell from the holes in their conversations. No one had vocalized their fading hope, not once during the entire day, but it had shadowed each of their failed experiments and punctured theories. The truth was they’d run out of ideas. Aelyx would fight to the end—that hadn’t changed—but at this rate, his metaphor of flinging pebbles from the street was bound to turn prophetic.

  Eileen called out from the kitchen and drew him from his thoughts. “Anyone who expects to eat this dinner had better come help put it on the table.”

  The scent of braised meat and buttered potatoes lifted Aelyx’s spirit as he filed behind the group into the kitchen. She’d made his favorite—pot roast. k'12

  Flanked by an assortment of covered dishes on the counter, Eileen pointed at Cara, Syrine, and Elle and delegated, “You girls fix a plate for the soldiers outside.” She handed Larish a pitcher of iced tea. “You can fill the glasses while Bill sets the table.” Wiping her hands on her apron, she peered around the kitchen until her gaze landed on a cutting board by the sink. “Aelyx, hon, why don’t you finish dicing the tomatoes for the salad?”

  Everyone set to work, except for the clone, who sat on a chair she’d dragged to the corner of the kitchen, as far from human contact as possible. She hadn’t spoken a word since her liberation from the basement, but her body language said enough. She folded both arms in a shield across her chest while casting a mistrustful glare over the group.

  Let her stay there. Aelyx didn’t want her help.

  He moved to the cutting board, which was piled high with neatly-chopped tomatoes, and picked up the remaining fruit to dice it. He couldn’t find the paring knife Eileen had used, so he pulled a new one from the drawer and finished the task.

  When the group gathered at the table, Eileen insisted they join hands and observe the human custom of blessing the meal. Aelyx waited patiently to hear amen, and then he speared a chunk of beef and eagerly lifted it to his mouth. An automatic smile formed as he chewed. The roast tasted like l’ina, a staple from home.

  “What’d the Earth Council have to say?” Bill asked Cara while extending a plate toward the clone. Rune refused to budge, so he set the plate at her feet and returned his attention to his daughter.

  Cara used her fork to push a potato across her plate, focusing on the Aribol gadgets Larish had brought to the table. “Not much. The government bigwigs are underground. I guess it’s every man for himself now.”

  What she failed to mention was that every nation in possession of nuclear missiles had agreed to launch a simultaneous attack on the Destroyer, ensuring that any pockets of humanity fortunate enough to survive the shockwave pulses and the ground invasion would later die from radiation poisoning. The Council claimed it would be illogical not to use every available defense, but the decision reminded Aelyx of a child intentionally breaking his favorite toy so no one else could have it.

  Cara lifted one of the Aribol cubes and tilted it to and fro. “If this is anything like the probes that landed on L’eihr, maybe it responds to language.” She brought it to her lips and spoke a series of commands. “Power. On. Go. Open. Obey.”

  The cube remained quiet, but a husky giggle broke out from the corner. Rune balanced her plate on one hand, struggling not to laugh, while using the other to point at Cara. “You’re wasting your time. All of those are accessories to the Nova Staff. They’re useless without it.”

  “Of course. God forbid we catch a break for once.” Cara tossed the cube onto the table, and Rune flinched so hard she spilled food on her lap. Cara noticed the clone’s reaction and pointed at the square. “This one’s a weapon, isn’t it? I scared you when I dropped it.”

  Instead of replying, Rune shoved a carrot in her mouth.

  Troy reached across Elle and picked up a sphere. “I wonder what this one—”

  The lights abruptly died, enveloping the room in total blackness. Everyone held their breath. No one moved. In an instant, the air thickened with the most absolute silence Aelyx had ever heard. No motors droned, no watches ticked, no fans whirred, no vehicles hummed.

  If death had a sound, this would be it.

  There was a rustle of fabric nearby, followed by a scraping noise, and a flame appeared in Bill Sweeney’s hand. “Already planned for this.” With a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, he extended the lighter to a pair of candlesticks in the center of the table. “Now we can dine in style.”

  “Maybe it’s a normal outage. A downed power line.” Cara dug her cell phone from her pocket and swiped the screen. It failed to wake. “Could be the battery. Try yours,” she told her brother.

  Troy and Bill each pressed the buttons on their phones while Eileen stood quietly from the table and checked the landline for a connection. All three of them shook their heads to communicate what nobody wanted to say. This wasn’t a normal power outage.

  Fear quickened Aelyx’s heart. He shared a sideways glance with Cara.

  It will start with a global blackout, Jaxen had told her. Anything powered by generators or batteries will cease to operate. Humans will be trapped in their communities with nothing to do but wait for the fleet to arrive.

  Cara swallowed audibly. She had to be thinking about it, too. Aelyx shifted his gaze to the kitchen window. Part of him wanted to check for a massive ship blocking the moon, but his legs seemed glued to his seat.

  “So what now?” Troy asked.

  They all knew the answer. Now they waited.

  Eileen raised her glass to propose a toast, but her hand shook, and she set down the tea. “Now we finish eating. I worked too hard on this meal to let it go to waste. Bill, pass the butter, please.”

  Aelyx couldn’t eat. His stomach had turned to ice, and he wasn’t the only one. Knives and forks scraped against porcelain, but nobody raised a bite of food to their lips. At least nobody at the table. From the corner, Rune nibbled on a dinner roll while watching the rest of them with the rapt attention of a moviegoer. When her gaze settled on him, he shot her a burning look, which she reciprocated before glancing away to study another waxen face.

  They should’ve left her in the basement.

  Each minute that passed felt like an hour. Eileen tried to enliven the table with news of a recent sporting event—a team called the Yankees had lost a game, which typically brought Bill and Troy great joy—but their answering smiles were wooden, and the conversation died as soon as it began. It went on like this, awkward silence punctuated by clinking ice cubes and occasional coughs, until Cara jumped in her seat as if stung by a wasp.

  Nine sets of gazes jerked in her direction. The whites of her eyes grew, and she frantically patted down her pockets. “My com-sphere works. Someone’s calling me.”

  A thread of hope lifted Aelyx’s heart. If the blackout hadn’t affected their com-spheres, maybe the rest of their L’eihr technology was operational, too. Maybe even the shuttles.

  “The outage targeted electricity, batteries, and generators.” Larish’s face brightened. “But L’eihr technology is powered by—”

  “XE-2,” Aelyx finished with a grin. The element was so powerful a single grain of it energized a com-sphere for years. “The same element that fuels our transports.”

  Elle gripped Troy’s forearm, leaning forward. “What about the shuttle engines? Are there battery components inside?”

  “I’m not sure.” Larish stood up so quickly he knocked back his chair. “I’ll reinstall the cables and find out.”

  He bolted from the room at the same time Jake Winters appeared on the table in miniature holograph form, standing between the salt and pepper shakers. “We made it,” he told Cara. “We’re on the Ar
ibols’ home world.”

  While Cara blinked in shock, Aelyx searched the hologram background for a glimpse of enemy territory. There wasn’t much to see. The ground beneath Jake’s boots and all around him seemed scorched.

  “I thought you were going back to the planet of humanoids,” Cara said.

  “We almost did. I told the commander we had permission to do whatever we wanted, so he called a ship-wide meeting and presented our options. He said he would listen to our concerns and weigh them before making his decision.” A distant voice called to Jake, and he waved the person over. “Most of the crew wanted to turn back, but I argued for finishing the mission. I said if there was the smallest hope of saving our people, we owed it to them to try.” A young L’eihr female moved into the image and clasped Jake’s hand, causing his cheeks to redden. “Ayah agreed with me, and then others followed. I can be persuasive sometimes.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Cara said with a grin. “What’ve you learned?”

  “The oxygen saturation here is comparable to Earth’s, but it’s crazy humid. It’s like breathing soup. And it’s hot here, ninety-six degrees where I’m standing. The planet’s sandwiched between two suns.”

  “What are the Aribol like?”

  “That’s the thing.” Jake mopped his forehead with one sleeve. “We can’t find any. The whole place is deserted.”

  Ayah spoke to Cara in L’eihr. “There was a society here, but most of it has been destroyed. I can’t tell if it was caused by weaponry or a natural disaster, but it must’ve happened a long time ago, because there are no bodies. We can’t find a single trace of bones or other organic remains.”

  “Wait a minute.” Cara lifted a hand. “Jaxen told me the Aribol use nanites to dispose of their dead. He said he’d seen them in use on their home world. Whatever this big disaster was, it could’ve been recent.”

  Aelyx followed her logic trail. “Recent enough to coincide with alliance negotiations between Earth and L’eihr?”

  “I’ll bet that’s it,” Cara said. “That’s why they insisted on separating us. Their numbers are low, and they’re afraid the combined power of two Noven races might threaten their hold on the universe. If we team up against them, they won’t be able to play god anymore.”