Cold Falling White

by G. S. Prendergast

  “Are they dead?” I ask, pointing to the body in the snow. “How can you tell if they’re dead?”

  Feel cold, the limping Nahx says. He lays his hand over the other one’s head, chest, and thigh.

  I kneel and do the same. The dead one’s armor is frigid, even colder than the surrounding winter air, if that’s possible.

  The limping one reaches over the body and touches me gently, with another question hand.

  Who are you?

  “Raven,” I say. “What’s your name?”

  No, he says. Then, Tenth.

  “That’s your rank, right?” He nods. “Don’t you have a name?”

  No, he says again. Then he makes my sign name.

  Night color bird.

  “That’s right. Raven.”

  Blue swirls between us, as though to say Pay attention to me! Tenth recoils when they get too close, stumbling backward.

  “They won’t hurt you,” I say. “I think they just want to be introduced. Blue, this is Tenth, I’m Raven, and apparently the three of us are reenacting Milton’s Paradise Lost.”

  Tenth tilts his head again, raising a question hand.

  “Sorry. My mother is an English teacher. Paradise Lost is an epic poem about… oh, never mind.”

  Tenth shrugs and reaches back down to the dead one, clicking something on its helmet. There’s a slurping noise, and a gush of oily fluid pours out around its head. Tenth pulls the mask away, revealing the Nahx’s dead face.

  A girl, I think, though I suppose when you’re a mind-controlled soldier with only one goal, what does it really matter? Her features are quite delicate, with an upturned nose and small, pursed lips. Blood or tears dribble from her nostrils and half-opened eyes; their irises are milky gray. Her eyebrows are heavy, glossy, metallic, and fixed in a stony frown, and she’s a bit gaunt, as though malnourished. She looks nothing like August, which is both a relief and a mystery. Whoever these creatures are, whatever they are derived from, it’s human; that is obvious. What kind of human, though? Where did they come from?

  She looks young, which makes me sad.

  Tenth wrenches on her mask, pulling the plates apart and removing a small pin-like object. He wedges it into his own mask with some force around the jawline. Seconds later, the defensive blades flick out on his face before retracting. He flicks them out again, feeling his face with his hand. I turn back down to the dead girl.

  “Why did she die?”

  He shrugs, standing. After a second he holds a hand down to me and hoists me up. Then he turns and walks away. His limp seems to have improved. I follow him, feeling bad about leaving the dead girl, but I suppose there’s nothing I can do for her now. Blue zips along beside me.

  The wind whips through the long green dress as I stumble over the dunes. Catching up, I notice Tenth’s breathing. He is wheezing heavily.

  “This is too low for you, right? The elevation? The air is too thick or something? Where are we?”

  He shrugs without stopping, tromping along, leaving deep footprints.

  You wanted to ask a question? he signs.

  “Yes! Have you seen a… another one. One like you. His rank is Eighth. He has a star-shaped scar here.” I tap my shoulder, then my chest over my heart. “And another one here.”

  Tenth shakes his head.

  There are no Eighths here.

  “Where would the Eighths be? Somewhere special?” I turn to Blue. “A ship or another place?”

  Blue draws a large slow circle in the air.

  Repeat me, Tenth says. I don’t know. He shakes his head with a little sigh and starts moving again. We trudge on in silence, passing many more fallen Nahx—I check each one for August’s distinctive scars but don’t find them. We see quite a few dead humans too, or what passes for humans. Tugging Tenth to a stop, I bend to examine one, an older woman. She’s cold and, like the dead Nahx, has silvery fluid dripping from her eyes and nose, even her ears. Blue buzzes around her head, as though examining her. When I touch the dead woman’s face, her skin crumbles into fine metallic powder under my fingers, like a sand sculpture.

  “Oh God!” I recoil so quickly, I tumble back. Tenth helps me to my feet.

  “What happened to her? Are they all like that? All these dead ones?”

  Cold falling white broken, he signs. Dead.

  “Snow? Snowflakes? Why do you call her a snowflake?”

  You are a Snowflake too. Different. Not a clone, like me.

  “Oh! We’re Snowflakes because we’re each unique?”

  Yes.

  “ ‘Snowflake’ is kind of an insult. Or it used to be. It meant someone who thinks they are special. Or delicate.”

  Blue seems excited by this. They flicker and bounce. Are they laughing?

  Broken fast easy? Tenth says.

  “Delicate, yes.”

  He flicks his head back a few times. Humans are delicate but Snowflakes are not delicate. You are not delicate. You fell and now you’re walking.

  “Yes. I suppose that’s true.” I’m not sure I like being put in a different category than humans. “I felt kind of delicate for a while after I landed.”

  He flicks his head back again, laughing with me as he resumes his inexorable trudging. I follow him, thinking of August and one of the last things he said to me: Maybe snowflakes will rise and time will stop moving. Is it possible I misunderstood him? Was he talking about this? Trying to warn me? And something else slots into place. I think of what the First called us on the ship: snezjinka. I think that must mean “snowflake.” But in what language?

  Why are you looking for the Eighth? Tenth asks.

  “He’s my friend.”

  Tenth tilts his head to the side again. You and Eighth are friends?

  “Yes. It’s complicated. He saved my life. More than once.”

  Eighth helped a human?

  “Yes.”

  Tenth lets out a hard, disapproving puff of breath. And Blue’s light dims, as though they agree.

  That is forbidden, Tenth says.

  “Neither of us was much for rules.”

  He puts one hand on top of his head, appearing to think about this for a moment. Blue hovers in front of his face.

  It is not forbidden to help Snowflakes, he signs at last.

  Blue bobs in agreement.

  “Well, that’s good, I guess. I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble.”

  I will help find Eighth.

  I’m starting to see the sign for Eighth as August. Now I wonder who I should be looking for. Something happened to me between dying in August’s arms and waking up on the dunes. My clothes were changed. Tucker was dug out of his grave under the tree and shackled to me. And we were moved to wherever we are. Who arranged all this if it wasn’t August? And if he left me with Tuck, doesn’t that mean…?

  Isn’t Tucker the person I should be looking for? And when I find him, then what? He doesn’t remember who I am.

  Abruptly, Tenth turns and heads into the trees, flicking on a light when the dense branches draw darkness around us. Blue lingers close to me, floating over my right shoulder. We emerge after a few minutes, back on the shore of the lake.

  “I need to get back to… I was in this place,” I say. “It was very large, with thousands of Nahx and transports taking off. Where is that?”

  I don’t know.

  “Blue? Do you know?”

  They zip from side to side.

  “No? Where are we going, then? I was following you!”

  Humans, Tenth says. It’s a distinctive sign. I saw August say it enough times.

  “Where are humans? Around here?”

  He points across the lake.

  “Last time I tried to cross the lake I went for an unscheduled swim.”

  It’s colder now. The water is hard.

  I’m extremely reluctant to go through the ice again, but curiosity gets the better of me. If there are humans here somehow, then they’ll know where we are. They might know where the Nahx bases ar
e.

  We set out. Tenth was right; the surface ice is solid, and so clear in some places that I can look into the murky water below. Tenth walks surefootedly, his segmented boots easily finding purchase on the ice, while I keep to the patches of snow as much as possible. These boots that August picked out for me are comfortable, even fashionable, but not designed for ice. As for Blue, they seem unsure too, and settle on my shoulder, flickering there like a rhinestone.

  It’s slow going. My bones and muscles are still burning from my healing injuries. I’ve had broken bones and torn muscles before, but the healing process for those was just intense pain, followed by slowly abating ache. This is more like heat than pain now, almost like the feeling of mixed pleasure and sting you get from slowly sliding down into a too-hot bath. It’s something to do with my new blood, with the darts and the way we’ve been changed. “Practically immortal” is how the creepy First described it. I should be thrilled, but all I can think about is that if we need to be practically immortal, whatever they’ve got in store for us must be practically unstoppable. The cataclysmic rifts from my vision threaten at the edges of my churning thoughts.

  Darkness falls, and a few hours later a full moon rises. Our moon. The relief I feel that I’ve confirmed we’re still on earth is so palpable that it’s practically intoxicating. I can’t help giggling. Then I’m shaking, my peals of laughter ringing across the ice. Tenth turns to look at me, one of his hands upturned.

  “The moon,” I say. I’m wiping tears from my cheeks by this time. “It’s a relief to know we’re still on earth.”

  Where else would we be?

  Blue floats up and flickers, casting their light in a pale blue circle around us.

  “On another planet, of course. On your planet.”

  This is my planet. Tenth points down at the ice as he signs. God. I’m suddenly reminded of the countless conversations with strangers I’ve had: “Where are you from?” “Calgary.” “No, I mean where are you really from?” “Calgary.” “No, but where is your family from?” And so on. I was about to clarify that I was referring to whoever created him. His family, so to speak.

  “Never mind,” I say instead.

  The sky begins to lighten just as the opposite shore comes into focus through the ice haze. As we get closer and it gets lighter, I start to realize my vision must have been enhanced along with the rest of me. I can’t zoom in or do anything cool like that, but I can pick out a lot of detail on the distant shore, even in the low dawn light. As I muse on this, I become aware of my sense of smell too, and how I’m able to process a multitude of smells in detail. The slightly fishy smell of the ice at my feet, the distinctive way the Nahx smell, like charcoal or ashes. Beyond that I smell a wood fire and something cooking. A thin wisp of smoke just past the shore confirms it. There are humans there.

  Tenth leads us directly toward the smoke, while I wonder if it’s such a good idea. Humans and Nahx are still at war, aren’t they? And in my changed state, whose side am I on? Each hour that passes, I feel less human. I’ve been walking for hours on bones that were smashed to pieces a few days ago and I’m not tired. Even the burning sensation has gone away, replaced with a kind of electricity. I want to run, actually. I want to leap and break things.

  And I have a tiny alien perched on my shoulder. That’s not normal either.

  The lake ice merges with a jumble of driftwood and rocks on the shore. Tenth scrambles over them, pulling himself into the trees, and Blue floats after him while I catch up. I don’t bother to scramble, though. I simply bend my knees, feeling a shimmer of energy spread out from my mind and coil up in my muscles and bones. Then I leap, a good twenty feet up to the thicket. Tenth steps out of the way as I land. I feel like I deserve praise for nailing such an extraordinary jump, but neither Tenth nor Blue seems impressed. Tenth turns and I follow him farther into the trees, with Blue drifting behind us. A few minutes later I smell something new, a recognizable smell. It’s a human.

  I haven’t met a new human since Liam brought us to the base in the mountains months and months ago. There were over two hundred of us there, and though I resisted becoming close to more than a few of them, I knew them. But this is someone unfamiliar.

  Tenth curls his fingers around my arm, stopping me.

  “Blue, maybe you should hide,” I say. I feel them settle behind my ear with a low buzz.

  One human, Tenth signs.

  Whoever it is, they’re stupid for being out in the woods by themselves.

  “You’re not going to dart them, right?”

  Tenth slows. The smell of campfire and human and cooking food is strong now, almost cloying. I can smell death on this human, decay, mortality. They smell imperfect.

  “Don’t take another step. Don’t you even move.” A young woman’s voice. I’m relieved to hear English and a familiar accent. She sounds a bit like one of my Métis stepcousins. The crunch of a rifle bolt being pulled back is less reassuring. I can hear it so clearly over the light wind rustling the bare branches that it’s almost musical. When I turn, Tenth has disappeared. I mean he vanished without so much as a whisper. I glance down at the snow, just to confirm to myself that he was even there. His footprints just stop. Did he jump? Where is he?

  A young woman emerges from the trees, pointing a rifle straight at my head.

  “I know what you are. I saw you with that Nahx on the lake.” She spits down on the ground between us, cursing in French. “And that ghost fly or whatever it is.”

  I put my hands up. “I just need some help.”

  “Help? You’re one of them.”

  “You’ve seen others? Like me? Where did they go?”

  She takes another step toward me, coming out of the shadows. She’s about my age, with short, choppy brown hair and a ruddy face smudged with dirt.

  “Have you been up here since the invasion?”

  “We’ve always been here, freak.”

  She’s shaking so hard, she can barely hold the rifle.

  “You don’t need to be scared. I’m not going to hurt you or anyone. I just need some information.”

  “I’m not telling you anything. Shipwaytay. Get off our land.”

  I’m starting to feel impatient with her, and I actually have this thought: Humans are so irrational. And that scares me a little. I’m not ready to be done with being a human. And yet I am. Humans are unreasonable, weak, petty. And I’m something else. I don’t feel superior—far from it. But I feel removed.

  “Where did the others go? The others like me. Did you see them?”

  There’s a noise from behind me, causing the girl to twitch her aim over to a blur of gray. Tenth dives for her rifle, grabbing it by the barrel. She fires it as he pulls it away. I don’t even think; I veer backward, my hand flies up reflexively, and when I look back, Tenth has the rifle aimed at the girl, she’s kneeling down with her hands up, gasping, Blue is angrily buzzing between us, and I have a bullet in my hand.

  Like, I’m holding a bullet.

  I caught it.

  The heat of it, the smell of gunpowder, the feel of the metal, and the tingling of my cells give me focus. We need to move on, get off the girl’s land as she insisted. I turn back to her, unmoved by the terror in her eyes.

  “East,” the girl spits. “In Black Lake. There’s some kind of ship in the lake.”

  “In the lake? The ship landed there?”

  “No…” She looks uneasy, her eyes darting between us. “It’s just kind of parked in the middle of the lake. It’s huge, like five miles across.”

  I turn back to Tenth. “Does that sound right?”

  He nods. Blue bobs up and down.

  “How far is it?”

  “About a hundred miles. Follow the lake to Stony Rapids, then take the road south to the Black Lake Nation. The ship is east of the community.”

  “There are people still there? In the community?”

  The girl nods.

  “Why didn’t they get darted if the Nahx are right there
?”

  She stands slowly, her hands still raised. “I don’t know. And you don’t want to fuck with them either. They don’t play. Not with Nahx, and not with whatever you are.”

  I feel my impatience turning into anger, and I know I need to get away from her. Next to me Tenth has started to growl deeply, a low rumbling that resonates out of his armor. This is part of who we are now—perpetually fed up with humans.

  I yank the girl’s rifle out of Tenth’s hands, unload the rounds onto the frozen ground, and toss it back down at her feet.

  “Do you have communications?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “Are you going to survive here? Do you need anything?” I look around. Now that the day has brightened I can see buildings through the trees. Not quite a town, but shelter for a few people. “Are you here by yourself?”

  She doesn’t answer, instead snatching up the rifle and starting to load it with rounds she has in her pockets.

  “We’re going,” I say, backing off. I pull Tenth along with me. When we’re fifty feet away I turn back. The girl is still there, barely visible through the thick trees, rifle raised, watching.

  “Fuel!” she shouts. “We need fuel!”

  “I’ll see what I can do!” I shout back, grateful for the chance at a friendly exchange with a human being, maybe my last one.

  The next time I look back, a few minutes later, the girl is gone.

  XANDER

  After breakfast, unexpectedly, Garvin recruits me to the team that’s going with him up to the transmitter. I only watched the video of Dylan getting his hand amputated once, but from the exuberant way the other boys talk about it, I’m not surprised that Garvin expects it to be one of his biggest hits. Now that he’s edited it into a nice downloadable size, it’s time to send it out into the world.

  Rugged up like arctic explorers, we hike east for two hours, skirting the town and heading uphill, first on a snow-covered gravel road, then via a narrow track through the trees. It’s quiet in a way only snowy mountain paths can be quiet. There are no birds—they have flown south, unhindered by the new rules about travel passes and permits. Though it’s bitingly cold, there’s very little wind, and our footfalls are muted in the soft snow.