by Caryn Lix
I bit my lip. How in the system, with all my love for Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5, had I never realized I was living in a corporate nightmare? That I had missed out on everything—friendship, freedom, agency—that made her life worth living? Or maybe I had realized it. Maybe that was why I loved the series so much: it reminded me of what I lacked.
Yang strode down a hall and deposited the three of us in a small room with a table and four chairs. “Wait here,” she ordered.
“Hang on a second!” I cried, bounding after her. One of the guards drew a gun, and I skidded to a halt. “What about the ship?” I demanded, enunciating each word as carefully as possible, my eyes trained on his weapon. My mouth went dry, but I forced myself to continue. “Commander, that ship is broadcasting a signal to an alien race you do not want to meet.”
“It only took a handful of those things to kill everyone on Sanctuary,” Cage added softly. “Trust me. They’d destroy Mars in hours.”
“I’ll return shortly and hear what you have to say.” Yang fixed each of us with a steady, penetrating stare. “Until then, the best thing you can do is wait patiently.”
Cage started to speak, but I shook my head at him. I knew how corporations worked. There was no point arguing with red tape. As much as I wanted the ship destroyed, I didn’t think a delay of an hour or two would make much of a difference.
At least I hoped it wouldn’t.
The door closed. I sank onto a chair awkwardly, with my hands manacled behind me, and raised my eyebrows at Cage. “I should have known better than to trust Mia and Alexei’s idea of a distraction.”
He flashed me a smile, jumping onto the table and resting his feet on a nearby chair, quick even without his powers. Even without his hands. “When you ask Mia and Alexei for a distraction, their first instinct is fire. The bigger, the better. Everything okay, meimei?”
His tone was deceptively casual when he addressed Rune, but something in it caught my attention. I twisted to find her standing in a corner, staring at the ceiling with an expression of intense concentration on her face. She ignored Cage entirely, maybe hadn’t heard him. Her gaze traveled across the ceiling, down the walls, sliding over us like we weren’t even there.
Cage and I exchanged worried looks. “Rune?” I asked.
She shook her head as if waking from a dream. “Two cameras,” she announced, gesturing with her chin. “One in the right corner, one in the left. They’re almost certainly wired for sound, but there’s a microphone under the table, too. Maybe more I can’t see.”
Of course. Even without her powers, Rune was a technological powerhouse. She’d been scouting for surveillance, exactly what I should have been doing. Instead, Cage and I had just given away Mia’s and Alexei’s names, and given Mars Mining usable evidence to prove we had planned the distraction. I kicked myself inwardly. A few weeks out of Omnistellar and I’m already forgetting my training? I expected more from myself.
I cut off the voice that followed—my mom’s voice—telling me Omnistellar expected more. Omnistellar no longer mattered, and Mom . . . Mom was dead. The events of the last few weeks, losing my mom and Rita, the horrifying alien attacks, Sanctuary’s destruction, still weighed on me. It felt nice to have the excuse to dwell on them, and that made me wary. I couldn’t afford to indulge in nice feelings. Unless I wanted to spend my life in prison (and it would be a very short life, since the aliens would no doubt arrive to end it before long), I had to be at the absolute top of my game. I studied my scuffed boots, remembering how one of my camp trainers had yelled at me for failing to polish them. At least I’d never have that problem again.
We settled to wait in silence. Rune sank to the floor, apparently exhausted, and stared straight ahead. Cage and I sat against the opposite wall. Part of me longed to drop my head on his shoulder or at least eliminate that last inch so our arms touched, but I didn’t do it. There was no sense alerting anyone watching to the nature of our relationship. Whatever that was. Actually, maybe I should alert them. Maybe they could help me figure it out. A semihysterical giggle welled inside me, and I promptly swallowed it, putting iron in my spine and following Rune’s example, fixing my gaze ahead. I forced myself to focus on the alien threat. I still had a father on Earth. I had to keep him safe. Him and the rest of humanity.
I spared a thought for the other kids. Had they escaped to Mars City safely? I particularly worried about Anya, the youngest member of the group. But Imani had taken charge of her, and if there was anyone I trusted to keep her safe, it was Imani. She had lost her little sister, who was about Anya’s age. I knew she would protect Anya with her life. I just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
We didn’t have to wait long after they realized we weren’t going to drop any more information. Commander Yang returned in the red jacket and black pants favored by Mars Mining, their logo emblazoned on her left breast pocket. Like everything on Mars, her uniform had seen better days, but she wore it with pride. Three other guards in similar uniforms entered behind her. “Let’s get you a little more comfortable,” Yang said, taking one of the chairs. She nodded and one of the guards approached, recuffing our hands in front of us. The other two stood by the locked door, weapons trained, alert for any sign of movement, especially when they uncuffed Cage. They must have taken the time to look up our files.
“Can I get you anything?” Yang asked as the three of us settled into the chairs across from her and the guards took positions by the door.
“Yeah,” said Cage. “Proof you destroyed that ship.”
Her lips quirked into a thin smile. “I meant more like a glass of water. This might be a long conversation.”
“We don’t need anything,” I said. “And you don’t have time for a long conversation.”
Yang examined us thoughtfully, then turned to Rune. “You’re very quiet.”
Rune shrugged. “If you won’t listen to them, you’re not going to listen to me.”
“All right.” Yang slid a security stick onto the table between us and set it to record. “Tell me everything.”
There was no point arguing with corporate policies. She wasn’t going to take any action without knowing the facts, and part of me understood corporations well enough not to blame her. As quickly as I could, with the occasional input from Cage, I told her what had happened on Sanctuary. As I described the events, my voice echoed back at me as if through a tunnel, hollow and disconnected. Everything made sense: the distress signal, Rita’s absence, the prison break, the alien attack. But the words seemed devoid of life. Even as I recounted how the aliens tore through the station’s hull like paper, even as I listed the dozens, the hundreds of dead, none of the fear and terror and urgency came through. It sounded like I was composing a story for a particularly boring English assignment.
Obviously, I didn’t explain everything. I didn’t mention my sense of betrayal at learning that my parents had chipped me to disguise my own powers. I didn’t mention how many prisoners had survived to escape into Mars City. And I sure as hell didn’t mention the moment when my shot went wide and killed Matt. The thoughts followed close on the words, though, threatening to break through the wall of detachment I’d created. I forced myself to turn to the problem at hand, which offered plenty of fuel for emotion all on its own. “Those things are on their way here right now. They’re following that beacon, and it’s going to lead them right to you.”
“Of course, I understand your concerns,” Yang said smoothly. “We’ll do our very best to find and eliminate the signal.”
Find and eliminate the signal . . . My heart plummeted right through my feet. My lips moved, forming soundless words until I realized I wasn’t breathing and sucked in a gasp of air. “You’re not going to destroy the ship,” I managed, my voice little more than a whisper.
She smiled thinly. “Kenzie, be reasonable. That ship is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It represents billions of credits on its own, not to mention the potential advances to weaponry and space travel. Do you really th
ink the corporation would allow me to destroy it?”
Fear surged over the border into anger. “You lying little—”
“I suggest you don’t finish that sentence.” Steel entered her tone. “I promised you nothing. My subordinate had no authority to bargain, and I won’t be held responsible for his words. And even if there was an agreement in place, you voided it with your stunt outside. Now tell me, Ms. Cord: Exactly how many anomalies are running loose in my city?”
Cage snorted. “I thought you were going to round them all up in a matter of minutes. Not as easy as you anticipated?”
She leaned forward, pushing the security stick aside and resting her elbows on the table. “Do you three understand exactly how much trouble you’re in here? Omnistellar Concepts has been alerted to your presence, and they are very interested in speaking with you. Your crimes are going to warrant a lot worse than a cushy stint on a prison like Sanctuary. You have maybe twenty-four hours before they get an operative here, at which point it’ll be beyond my power to help you. Think on that for a while.” Abruptly, she pushed back and nodded to the guards. “Take them to their cells. We’ll see how they feel in a few hours.”
Reality settled over me like a blanket. She was leaving. She was going to walk out that door and not destroy the ship. It would keep broadcasting its signal, because if Rune couldn’t find it, Yang and her team sure as hell wouldn’t. I scrambled for words, but darkness descended around me, claws and screams and terror. “You have to destroy that ship!” I shouted, all of my carefully laid plans of earning her trust and convincing her vanishing in a surge of adrenaline. I had no idea how far away the aliens were or how fast they traveled. Memories assaulted me, the creatures screaming in triumph as they brandished Tyler’s mutilated body, the thud of my own heart as I dodged their flashing claws. “They could be here before Omnistellar, do you understand? If they can destroy a space station, they can destroy a colony!”
“If you’re telling the truth about what happened, and if these so-called aliens are on their way, a prepared Mars security force will be more of a match for them than a station full of unarmed teenage delinquents.”
If only that were true. She didn’t understand, and it was my fault. I couldn’t communicate it. Even with my power, I couldn’t have explained the terror of becoming prey, stalked on our own station, knowing that every step might lead to an alien shriek and a claw tearing through your flesh. And before I found the words to describe it, Yang turned her back and walked away.
“Yang!” I roared, lunging after her. I didn’t know what I was going to do, only that I had to make her listen. We couldn’t let what had happened on Sanctuary happen here. I’d die first. “Wait! There’s more to—!”
The guard grabbed me and shoved me. I rebounded and chased after her. The guard jerked his stun gun into play, aiming it straight at my chest. Agony tore through me as my muscles spasmed, sending me twitching to the floor, my teeth snapping shut on my tongue. A sea of blackness surged against me as two of the guards grabbed my elbows and hauled me to my feet. I struggled to speak, but my brain responded sluggishly, fighting the aftereffects of the stun.
Dragging me between them, they prodded Rune forward, leading us in one direction—and Cage in another.
The call is made. It is not answered. It is and it isn’t and the mind is and isn’t and rises and falls, and more awake, more arise, uncurling and unfurling and spreading.
There is no one. The hive is all. The hive is calling. A ripple tears through it. Pain and fear. Unfamiliar. Unpleasant. Unwelcome.
Follow. They have found it. They have set their sights.
Harvesters are gone.
Hunters awaken.
There will be no escape.
SIX
I NEVER ACTUALLY LOST CONSCIOUSNESS from the stun gun blast, but I must have come close. The world swam around me in a disorienting mess. The next thing I knew, I was huddled on a hard bench, Rune crouched beside me, terror in her eyes. “Kenzie!” she cried, her fingers sunk into my neck as she prodded for my pulse. “Come on, Kenz. Talk to me.”
I swallowed painfully. “I’m okay,” I said, or tried to. It felt like I had a mouthful of bloody cotton. A few years earlier, I’d had dental surgery. The laser seal went wrong, and they sliced part of my mouth. All the damage was repaired before I opened my eyes, of course, but they’d packed my cheeks with cotton to absorb any blood, and I’d awoken with this same awful sensation.
Rune vanished, reappearing momentarily with a glass of water. I fumbled for it, but my fingers were sluggish and clumsy, and she had to hold it to my lips. The first few swallows tasted of copper, and the taste didn’t improve as the blood washed away, but at least the dry, swollen feeling dissipated. “Thanks,” I said, sitting up. Rune caught my arms, helping me ease myself to the edge of the platform. I leaned against her, accepting her support even as her worry washed over me. My stomach gave a sickening lurch. Would Rune hold me like this, give me that gentle smile, if she ever found out what I’d done to Matt?
We were in a holding cell, even worse than the one on Sanctuary. There was only a single bench. An exposed toilet and sink sat at the back of the cramped space. Rune held a plastic tumbler. Clear reinforced bars separated us from a series of other cells, but I didn’t see any guards, or any other prisoners. “Cage?” I asked. My voice sounded steady, but inside I reeled. This was my first time on this side of the prison bars. My hands trembled as I gulped the rest of the water.
Rune shook her head. “I tried calling for him and got no response. Either he can’t hear me, or he can’t answer.”
I digested those possibilities. Rune leaped to her feet and paced back and forth across the room. “Your hands are free,” I said, and in the same breath realized it was true of me, too.
She nodded toward the hallway outside our cell. “Massive dampeners in the ceiling. No one’s powers will work in this area. Not even a comm device will function unless it’s on a special channel. Standard security in a lot of prisons that don’t have Omnistellar’s fancy chips. It wouldn’t be practical to keep prisoners cuffed indefinitely.”
I dropped my head to my hands. This plan had failed abysmally. The ship was still broadcasting its signal, Yang didn’t recognize the hell descending on her planet, and Cage, Rune, and I were all in prison. “Will Mia and Alexei come through?”
“I . . . yes. Yes, they will,” said Rune.
My head shot up at the hesitation in her voice, and I winced as pain ricocheted through my skull. “But?”
“But how long will it take them to realize the corporation isn’t following through on its word? And how long do we have?”
I closed my eyes, my worst fears surging to life. Every second of that hell on Sanctuary—I might have to live it again. And the chances of the exact circumstances that had allowed our survival happening again were almost nonexistent. “Even if the aliens don’t get here before Mia, Omnistellar might. They’ll have advanced weaponry, elite soldiers . . . Mia and Alexei will never get through them to free us. At best, they might destroy the ship. And that’s if Omnistellar doesn’t buy it and transport it off planet.”
Rune climbed onto the bench beside me, drawing her knees to her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs. Once again, she fixed her gaze on her feet. “Do you think we activated that signal when Mia vented the aliens into space?”
I winced. I’d been avoiding that possibility. Mia and Cage had made the decision to send hundreds of sleeping aliens to their deaths. I hadn’t agreed with them, but I’d understood their logic. Rune, on the other hand, considered their actions little better than murder. “Maybe,” I allowed. “But maybe not. Maybe the ship activated the signal for some other reason. A remote call, for instance. Or it could activate automatically if the ship goes so long without checking in. We can’t know.”
Rune nodded. “I’ve never been mad at Cage for this long,” she said softly. “I hate it.”
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye
. The words I didn’t want to say hovered on my lips: Then why don’t you just forgive him? Then again, why couldn’t I? I bit them off, but she heard them anyway. “It’s not only that he was willing to kill them,” she said, resting the side of her head against her knees to look at me. “It’s the way he talked to me. The way he yelled at me. Like I was a child who couldn’t understand what needed to be done. Cage has always been protective of me, but he’s never treated me like an incompetent before.”
I sighed and stared at my fingers, the skin dry and splintered after weeks in space. Rune gave me her confidence so easily, with such trust. Did I dare return the favor? I wanted, so badly, to tell her the truth about what had happened with Matt. If anyone was going to believe me, it would be Rune. She didn’t have a vengeful bone in her body.
Or . . . did she? Cage knew his sister better than I did, and he thought she’d take it as a betrayal. There had been something between her and Matt, too, something more than friendship. I examined her out of the corner of my eye and made a decision. I would tell Rune the truth. She deserved it. But I would wait until we could afford her anger, until a fight wouldn’t tear us apart. And that meant getting out of here and stopping the aliens.
Still, I could at least try to patch things up between her and Cage. “I don’t claim to know much about how Cage thinks, but I can say for sure that he does not think you’re incompetent.” I sighed. “He loves you, Rune. He wants to make things better, but he doesn’t know how.”
“I know.” She forced a smile. “I do know that. But Cage, he . . . he’s good, Kenz. He really is. But we grew up hard, and it took a toll on him. Sometimes he forgets how to be human. He gets so busy scheming and calculating, he forgets that he’s dealing with people, not strategies.”
