Cold Falling White

by G. S. Prendergast

  Sky lets me walk with my hand on her shoulder as we pick our way down the path to her cabin. Her Offsides meet us at the tree line. Ash greets me with a nod, but the girl, Thorn, pointedly turns in the other direction. I don’t think she likes me. It’s possible she’s jealous—Ash and Sky have been spending a lot of time with me, bringing me food and making me eat and drink water and reminding me to put my armor back on when I start to wheeze. I’m not a baby. I know I can take care of myself, but it’s as though thoughts that should come naturally need some force to be drawn out, like a blade rusted into its… I can’t think of the word. My mind is sharpening, but it’s happening too slowly.

  When the trees clear again and Sky’s cabin becomes visible in the distance, she stops me, letting her Offsides trail ahead.

  The humans are coming with us, she says.

  Yes, I know.

  The changed humans too. The Snowflakes.

  Yes.

  And Raven.

  Yes.

  She leans back, studying me, frowning.

  Scabbard, I think, the word coming to me at last. I’m like a disused rifle that needs to be cleaned and oiled and reloaded. But all my weapons are as lost as my thoughts.

  Raven has a bond with the Snowflake Tucker, Sky says. She signs his name as Hard Boy. I know she means impermeable or tough, but when she says it I think the word “unkillable.” I would never tell her that, though.

  You are not to harm him, she says. Her hands snap together sharply.

  I won’t.

  You should stay away from him. From both of them.

  I’m grateful for my mask then. I wouldn’t want Sky to see the expression on my face. I flick my shoulder away from her and bend, pretending to dislodge a piece of ice from my boot. When I stand, I glance back up the path we’ve left, into the trees, beyond which is the wide steep plain up to the stone hut. There is only one thing in the world I want more than to go back up there and fall asleep again—to help Dandelion and her friends, even though I’m on the outside of her circle now.

  That’s my own fault. I can’t blame her.

  I’m worried, I say to Sky. Won’t I be a… ? But then I can’t think of the word. Not the sound of it or the sign. My mind rolls over like a boulder in mud.

  Burden? Sky suggests.

  Yes. I will be too slow. I will put the others in…

  Danger?

  Yes, danger. Sometimes the Rogues use signs I don’t know, but this is one I should never have forgotten. It’s a sign we used in training, for battles. A sign Sixth and I used often.

  Sixth. I don’t like to think about her. It’s as though sometimes I can see her shadow in the corner of my vision, lingering just out of sight, watching me. I twitch as the shadow moves.

  Sky puts her hand on my arm again.

  Would you want Raven to go without you?

  My skin gets hot under my armor.

  No. I would not.

  And could you stop her? Sky is smiling now, which makes me want to smile. I flick my head back.

  No.

  She squeezes my arm, which I feel through the sensors in my armor as tingling warmth.

  You are unusually sensitive for an Eighth. I wonder if that’s really your rank.

  Bizarrely, I take this as an insult and have to fight the urge to defend myself. But then I’m not sure why. Is it good or bad to be sensitive? Once I would have been ashamed to be seen as a lower rank, and fantasized about pretending to be a Fourth so I could be above…

  Mud. Sixth appears before me like magic, in armor but for her helmet. She bares her teeth. I lurch back and…

  Sky is holding my wrist, keeping me upright. She signs with her other hand.

  Your mind is playing with you. Ignore it.

  Yes. Yes. But my heart is galloping, making me want to cough.

  Past the cabin, on the plateau, the engines of the repaired transport rumble. I try to shake off the vision, following Sky and her Offsides as we head in that direction. Sol and Luna emerge from the ice tunnel and join us.

  You are strong, Summer King, Sky says to me as we board the transport. Your body is strong and fast. Use your mind to watch me and do as I say.

  She makes it seem so simple. But then, that has always been my main directive, the whole scope of my first mission.

  Follow orders.

  Do what Sixth tells me.

  I don’t know why I’m thinking of her so much. I wish that would stop.

  Raven boards with her friends and the tiny glowing creature who constantly hovers around them. It seems ridiculous to be afraid of them—Blue, Raven calls them—but they make me uneasy. I remember these creatures from the big ship. As friendly as Blue seems, others like them I have encountered have been…

  Something. Worse than unfriendly.

  Toxic. Like poison. It’s reassuring to know the others like me feel the same way. Sky, Ash, Nova, and the rest. They avoid Blue too.

  When everyone is aboard and the hatch is closed, a sudden lull overtakes us. The past two days have been a hum of activity, which I spent most of either clenched with anxiety or fast asleep, senseless in a dark void or running from nightmares. Now that we’re on our way to the dam, every preparation in place, there is time to rest. The others like me stand in the hold, clinging to the metal loops on the wall. We are all in complete armor, and I wonder if the others are doing as I do, replaying certain thoughts and words to help keep me focused, to prevent me from sinking into the mind-dulling sludge.

  Once I thought of Raven when I felt myself slipping away, of her strong shoulders and firm jaw, the way she tilted her head back defiantly even though I could see how scared she was. Her eyes would blaze; the sun would light up her hair. It was so… magical. She was magical, like some kind of medicine.

  But now when I look at her, she’s different. And though my feelings for her haven’t changed, the way she makes me feel has, if that makes sense.

  Maybe because she needed me, because my people were so hostile to her and I could protect her, that made it so I was…

  Something. I can’t find the word.

  Not a monster. Not monstrous. What is the opposite of “monstrous”?

  Sky joins me in the hold, looking over my shoulder to where Raven and her friends are sitting between the weapons racks.

  I know what you’re thinking, she says.

  You do? I reply. That’s good, because I don’t.

  Sky and the Rogues flick their heads back to laugh like I do, but they also huff out little breaths as they do it. There is a lot of laughter in the mountains where they live. They are so happy. It makes me wonder that any of them agreed to come on this mission at all.

  We met long ago, you and I, Sky says.

  Yes, I remember now. I wish I had joined them then as she asked. But if I had, and other things had gone as they did, then Raven would have been killed in the city and I never would have known. I wonder if I would have continued to dream of her.

  Did you know Raven then? Sky asks.

  Muddy death, she does know what I’m thinking.

  Yes. I didn’t know her name.

  She nods with another huff of breath. You are not the first of us to become entranced with a human. Likely not the last, either.

  I turn to look back at them, because Raven can understand our language. But she and the boy clones are deep in conversation. I don’t… I can’t… I shouldn’t feel the way I do about that. The fluid of the armor flows through my veins, washing away the softness Raven created in me. Normally I might resist it, but this time I just let it happen, let the gray sludge sharpen my insides, turning me back into a hard, cold machine. Softness doesn’t destroy dams. It doesn’t win battles.

  I don’t want her to be harmed, I say, because I find I can’t help it. The way my memory works, some images fix themselves like photographs, and one of them haunts me—Raven, Dandelion, in my arms, broken and nearly dead, covered in blood—my body gets so hot, it’s painful. I have to clench down on the mouthpi
ece of my breathing tube to make it stop.

  It would be very hard to harm her the way she is now, Sky says.

  And maybe the one thing that makes me not a monster or machine is gone now too. I don’t say this, of course. I doubt Sky would understand.

  When I glance back, Topher, the human twin, is laughing, and strangely I feel a sudden…

  I can’t think of the word.

  Connection? Sympathy?

  Affinity. Understanding. I feel like I can understand him, because I would like to blow up the dam too.

  And I don’t care how many of my kind are killed.

  RAVEN

  Blue, you have to wait with the transport.”

  They zip angrily from side to side. No!

  “Why can’t they come with us?” Mandy asks. “They could be useful if we run into trouble. The Nahx are scared of them.”

  Blue bobs excitedly. But Topher, thinking logically as usual, backs me up.

  “If we do things properly, we won’t need to encounter any Nahx. And even if we do, we can fight back. Yes, we’re going to try to steal another transport, but if that doesn’t work and we lose this one, we’re screwed.”

  The transport is partially concealed by some scrubby trees outside a deserted town east of the dam. But Topher’s right. We can’t take chances.

  “Please, Blue,” I say. “It’s important, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  They flare for a moment before flicking into Topher’s forehead, making him stumble back. He recovers as Blue disappears back into the transport.

  “Your friend is a real asshole,” Topher says.

  “Well, I’m used to that,” I say.

  We hike from the town up to an elevation high enough for some of the Rogues to take their armor off. The plan is to rest here overnight and infiltrate the dam at dawn.

  When Topher and Xander bed down, with the Nahx surrounding them for warmth, they are soon asleep, exhausted from the long, steep hike. Mandy checks on them and quickly draws me aside, with Tucker following. I’ve been expecting it.

  “Did you feel it?” she whispers, glancing back to make sure the Nahx aren’t listening.

  About halfway into our voyage, Tucker stumbled in the transport. Topher caught him before he fell, and Tucker claimed he tripped on the corner of the rifle rack and lost his balance. But Mandy and I knew the truth. If not for the fact that we were sitting down at the time, we would have stumbled too.

  “It’s because we’re farther north now? Closer to the fissures?”

  It was like being cut open with an ax, or a dark swath of night suddenly erasing every thought in my head. It lasted only a second and I don’t think anyone else noticed, but it was enough.

  “The dart toxin programmed us somehow,” I say. “It wasn’t real. It was just in our mind, trying to get us to go back to fight.”

  “Maybe,” Mandy says. “But it felt like a migraine or a stroke. What if the next one is worse? Maybe they build in strength until they kill you.”

  “That seems… extreme,” Tucker says. I have to remind myself that Tucker hasn’t seen half the things I have.

  “Comparatively, it’s not,” I say. I don’t elaborate. What Tucker doesn’t know can’t hurt him. Or send him careening into insanity the way I sometimes feel I am.

  “We’ll just do this and then we can head back to the dunes,” Mandy says. Her strange eyes have grown slightly wild-looking. They flick around like a trapped animal’s.

  “What about Xander?” I ask. “Or Topher?”

  Tucker stands. “I’m not leaving him!” he says, loud enough for one of the Nahx to turn and look at us. It’s August, I realize. After a second, as he turns away, he bends to adjust Xander’s blankets, tucking them carefully around his feet.

  August barely acknowledged me when I got onto the transport and has ignored me for the whole journey. I don’t know why I thought things would go back to the way they were when he regained consciousness, back to our kind of easy companionship that defies description. Things are different now. I’m not even human anymore. But Xander is. Maybe the protective affection August had for me has simply transferred. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. With the computer churning in my head, I should be able to focus away from the pain or archive it or delete it. But the pain remains.

  “So we’ll do this, then we’ll talk properly about it,” Mandy says tightly.

  Tucker ignores her and, moving over to where the boys are sleeping, shoves one of the Nahx out of the way so he can sit next to his brother. The Nahx, Sol, simply takes a new position, standing behind him like a bodyguard.

  “What are you thinking?” Mandy asks.

  I’m actually thinking of how much I miss being first on someone’s list, how intoxicating that was—before Jack came along and it was just me and Mom, when Tucker and I first got together and were so obsessed with each other. And August. Those weeks with August when it seemed like he would do anything for me, that I was the center of his universe. It feels selfish to think that now, though, when thousands of lives are at stake, millions. I’m certainly not going to share it with Mandy.

  “I’m wondering whether any of this is worth saving,” I say instead.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  Reaching down, I take a handful of snow and pine needles and let it sprinkle into the space between us.

  “Have you ever seen whales in the wild?” Mandy asks. It’s a non sequitur, but I’m quite happy to have the subject changed. She stretches her legs out and crosses them, leaning back to look up at the dark sky.

  “Yeah.” I imitate her posture and, through the treetops, watch the dense blanket of stars as they move. Imperceptible to normal human eyes, of course, but I can see it. “I have an aunt who lives on Quadra Island. There are a ton of orcas around there.”

  “Nice,” Mandy says. “I saw belugas when I was in Nunavut.”

  “Like in the song?”

  She laughs. “Yeah. Remember when we sang that at the base?”

  I can’t help but laugh too. It’s a nice memory. One of the few I’ve made in the past two years.

  We stare at the stars for a long while, the forest around us quiet but for the Nahx and their buzzy breathing. A thin cloud wisps across the sky as Mandy breaks the silence.

  “This thing that’s coming, this fissure or whatever it is, I don’t think it’s just a threat to humans. Or Nahx. Or us.”

  Ah. Not a non sequitur after all. Mandy was planning to be a nurse, but I think she would have made a good shrink.

  “No. In my visions it tore everything apart. Like, even at a molecular level. If that’s what it is, how can we fight that?”

  “I don’t know,” Mandy says. “It might not be that. Maybe it’s like… dreaming. Maybe that’s just how our minds interpret something we can’t understand.”

  “I don’t see how that’s better.”

  “No. Me neither. But this is worth saving, don’t you think?” She waves her hand around at the trees, the sky and stars, the Nahx and the boys. “All this?”

  I take a cleansing breath of the cold night air. “It is worth trying to save. I don’t know what chance we have. But yes, it’s definitely worth it.”

  I flick my eyes back to August and wish that I could curl up and sleep beside him too, warmed by him, guarded by his shadow. He is worth saving above all, at least to me, even if his feelings for me have changed.

  Sky rouses the boys at the first sign of light on the eastern horizon. We pack up in total silence in the near dark, waiting while Topher and Xander bundle into a few extra layers of clothing. It’s dangerously cold, and even though I know the cold won’t harm me, it’s annoying—just another thing to think about.

  August and Aurora stay close to them as we approach the summit, the morning sun now shining on our backs. We lie down in the snow, passing binoculars along the line so we can get an idea of what we’re up against.

  The dam is still at least a mile away, but luckily, th
ough the day is clear, there’s enough tree cover to enable us to approach stealthily, maybe even not be seen until we are literally breaching the perimeter.

  “Will we climb the fence?” Topher asks.

  Sky shakes her head. Human fence. Easy to cut.

  I think she’s probably worried that Topher and Xander couldn’t make it over, bundled up as they are.

  The power station itself is contained within the Nahx web, as is the landing field where the transports are parked. We suspected that would be the case and planned for it, but it is disappointing. If it had turned out we were wrong about that, this whole plan would be easier to pull off.

  Single file, we creep along the ridge of the summit until we can disappear under the safety of the trees. There’s a rutted track to our south but we keep off it, veering back north along a steeper descent. It’s a more difficult path, and Xander and Topher have to be helped down some inclines the rest of us can easily jump, but it’s safer. We’re less visible. If the Nahx realize we’re coming, they could launch a full-scale counterattack, and that would be the end of our mission.

  We approach the dam grounds via the southwest, where the craggy riverbank provides some cover. After we wait in the trees for a few minutes, it becomes clear that the sentries neglect this part of the perimeter.

  Sky was right about the fence; it’s a surprisingly flimsy chain-link embarrassment that the Nahx and Tucker simply leap right over. Mandy and I wait with the boys while Sky easily unravels the wire enough to create a narrow opening.

  “You’re not too cold?” Mandy asks. Being made superhuman hasn’t dulled her motherly instincts.

  “No.” Xander jumps on the spot, lifting his scarf to cover his nose.