Cold Falling White

by G. S. Prendergast

  When we arrive at Black Lake, Ember sets us down at the edge of the ice. The ominous ship still rises into the sky like some ancient monster. I don’t expect a prolonged farewell from our Rogue pilot. She doesn’t even look back from the cockpit as we disembark, and the transport lifts off practically as soon as our feet hit the ground. I prepare myself for a long wait, but almost as soon as Ember’s transport disappears into the clouds a heavy rumbling from the mother ship begins. Through the haze we watch a thin, dark strip appear in the smooth gray metal, extending the full height of the curved wall, as though it is splitting apart. I lead Mandy forward cautiously as the dark strip widens. Soon we can see that in fact the wall has split open, in a way, sliding back to reveal all the levels: the lowest level at the surface of the lake—its impressive height suggests some kind of hangar—and the upper levels, which are lower ceilinged. Sparks of light hover and drift across the opening, slowing as though turning to look at us.

  Movement on the surface draws my eyes down to a team of Nahx marching smartly toward us. I have a story prepared about getting lost and finding an outpost and convincing them to bring us back here, but as the Nahx approach I see that won’t be necessary. I recognize the damaged face blade on one of them, the thin silver line that seems to draw the Fifth’s expressionless mask into a sneer. Before I can even open my mouth to protest, he’s grabbed me by the neck and wiped my feet out from under me. I could fight. It seems the last year of my life has been a constant stream of decisions about whether or not to fight. But the Nahx soldiers still have an edge on us in strength and size, and if I’m ever to get the answers I want, I have to learn to get along with them better.

  One of Fifth’s colleagues hisses sharply, and Fifth yanks me back up to my feet. His colleague shoves him gruffly aside as she clicks a restraint around one of my wrists, attaching the other loop to Mandy before we are both tugged back toward the dark opening in the ship’s wall, stumbling to keep up with the long strides of the Nahx.

  When we get inside the ship, the first thing I notice is how empty it is. When I was here before, there were crowds of dazed humans lined up or being moved from place to place, Nahx soldiers nudging them along with rifles in their backs. But now the large cargo bay is empty but for a few Nahx sentries standing stiffly near entrances and exits to dim corridors, weapons at the ready, as though expecting some kind of mutiny.

  A long time ago, when I first realized that the Nahx must have their own thoughts, it undid me. I still can’t help but wonder what they are thinking when I see them. Are they as scared as I am? As resigned to their fate? Which of these grim sentinels would be likely to discard their weapons and orders and head west, up into the mountains to join the Rogues? Sky told me she could tell high ranks from low ranks by their posture, but if such distinctions exist, they are too subtle for even my finely tuned mind to detect.

  The sneering Fifth shoves me as we reach the inner exit of the hangar and I go sliding knees first into the snow, pulling Mandy down with me. As we clamber upright, the higher-ranked female berates Fifth with sharp signs.

  Mud head. Touch them again and I’ll crush your neck.

  I have to try so hard not to laugh, my eyes water, and despite my efforts the female Nahx is not impressed with me. She grabs me by the arm, shaking me, signing with one hand.

  We know what you did.

  The blush of shame that crawls over my skin is like something from another life, and I’m suddenly that scared human girl in the park again, a huge police officer crushing my arm with his fingers as he drags me into a police car. I can even smell the smoke of the bandstand burning and hear Tucker’s protests as they drag him off in the other direction.

  “She started it! It was her idea!”

  I didn’t properly hear those words at the time. I was gasping for breath, heart pounding, blood rushing, ears ringing. But my mind captured it anyway and slotted it away. And now that I’m a computer, there it is, as clear as a recording. I can even tell it was Tucker, not Topher, who tried to sell me out. Topher never said a word—not in his own defense, and not in my defense.

  How this moment fits into my vast database of memories is telling. It’s prominent, almost like a flag on the collection of thoughts relating to Tucker. That night in the park in Calgary, the fire he set, and the trouble we all got into because of it—that’s not only his defining feature, but the inciting incident in the timeline that led me here, to my being conscripted into this battle, to Topher being emotionally destroyed. And to Tucker being dead. He started it all with his impulsive folly.

  He didn’t do it to impress me, as Topher once suggested. I know this now. He did it because he was an incorrigible ass.

  I might never understand why we two sensible, intelligent people both let Tucker treat us like that, and what it was that finally caused him to make such a devastatingly unselfish choice for once in his life. My brain will be able to solve many things, I anticipate, but never that.

  As though inspired by his memory, I open my mouth.

  “It was all my idea,” I say. “Mandy had nothing to do with it.”

  “Rave…” Mandy starts to protest, but the female Nahx just sighs, as though selflessness bores her.

  Take that one back to the sand, she signs. The sneering Nahx unshackles us and drags Mandy off without another word.

  “I’ll find you!” I shout after her, though logically, I know that’s unlikely. I’m only happy because if she’s going back to the dunes, she’s not in line for the punishment they have in mind for me, and also that the sneering Nahx won’t be involved in whatever that is. He’s obviously not a fan.

  The female Nahx releases my arm and I tug it away.

  Follow, she signs with a growl.

  We head out into the vast empty stadium that makes up the hole in this doughnut-shaped ship. The snow around us is stamped flat by thousands upon thousands of footprints, each one like a signature of someone who can no longer remember their own name. Items have been discarded among the footprints, hats, mittens, even coats. Most affecting are the eyeglasses, tossed away, broken, trod into the snow. Whatever they did to us, apparently it corrected vision problems.

  Halfway to the center of the arena, the female Nahx leaves me with a curt sign.

  Keep going. She turns and marches back the way we came as I continue toward the center, aiming for the glowing globe. I hardly need to hurry. The emptiness of the previously crowded field seems to press down on me. All those bodies have been reassigned to their “fissures,” to take positions as the “sentinels” that we are. Very few of them will have an opinion on that either way. As someone whose opinions were so frequently at odds with the world, I’m slightly envious that my conversion wasn’t so all-erasing. Then again, if I had lost all my thoughts, would I have remembered to look for August and revive him? He’s safe in the mountains for now. Xander and Topher are on their way to the coast at last to be with my parents. That makes it worth it.

  When I reach the globe, a First is there, standing droop shouldered and silent, staring at nothing. This one is also more humanlike than Nahx, though it’s not the boy with the beaten face. I don’t like to think what became of him.

  This one is slim and sandy haired with a wispy, unshaven face, probably no older than me. He doesn’t react as I approach. The wind gusts across the arena, blowing up snow and rustling some discarded clothes. The First’s shoulders rise and fall as he breathes.

  “Hello,” I finally say, feeling a bit foolish. Who greets their executioner politely?

  The First doesn’t move. I look around, searching the machinery under the glowing globe and the surrounding expanse of white. The walls of the ship are barely visible as gray blurs in the distance. Looking up, I examine the globe again. The lines demarcating Nahx territory don’t seem to have changed, even though their “light prison,” the drone web we destroyed, is no more. The light marking our location in Northern Saskatchewan is as bright as ever. My improved eyes can’t exactly zoom in, but
as I relax, the cells of my retina and optical nerve seem to adjust, and the small light becomes more finely focused. I see that it’s actually a thin filament, like a lightning bolt hovering just above the surface. A crack in the sky. A fissure.

  The other fissures glow at the locations I now know the meaning of. Central Russia. The Mohave Desert. Japan, the South Pacific, and so on. If what I’ve put together is correct, each location is now guarded by an army of sentinels.

  Against what, though? That’s the last remaining question.

  The First sways slightly when I look back, as though the wind in the arena is gently rocking him.

  A tiny vibration tickles my skin, and a second later Blue drifts out of my breast pocket. They dash up suddenly, as though looking around, before zooming back to settle on one of my collar points, their light dimming until they are barely visible.

  As I turn my eyes back up to the sky, some of the stars shift out of their positions, moving toward each other until they coalesce into a dense cloud of tiny lights. They flow down past the globe and swirl around the head of the First. As some of the lights disappear into his nostrils and ears, even underneath his eyelids, he seems to come to life, blinking, his body shifting almost warily.

  After a few moments, while I resist the urge to run and not look back, the First finally turns to me, his awakening face twisting into an exaggerated frown.

  “We are disappointed to see you again, snezjinka.”

  “My name is Raven.”

  First steps toward me, one step. Not menacing, exactly, but as though he’s attempting to establish rank. I hold my ground as he speaks. “Snezjinka do not need names.”

  “Why did you do this to us?”

  “Snezjinka do not need answers.”

  “I need answers!” I shout it, foolishly, but I keep going. The First is advancing on me now. I step backward to maintain the distance between us. “I need to know what we’re fighting before I…”

  We both stop as the First regards me, his face now twisting theatrically from anger to puzzlement. I guess that’s an improvement.

  “What difference will that make?” he asks.

  “I’m not going to kill any old thing you put in front of me.” I figure the longer I babble, the longer I live, so I keep going. “Maybe the other zombies you made will, but ones like me, who can still think, aren’t going to do that. How do we know whatever’s coming through the rift isn’t trying to rescue us?”

  “Rescue you?” First says with a little shake of his head. “Rescue you from what?”

  “You, of course! Help us take our planet back!”

  The lights around his head shift, changing color slightly, and he actually smiles, if you could call it that.

  “Your planet? What makes you think this isn’t our planet?”

  “Because we… were here first.” Even as the words come out of my mouth I know that they’re wrong. Because a million things suddenly fall into place, things I’ve noticed about all of this for the past year and half and not processed. The Nahx are copies of humans. Their signs are human gestures. The Nahx technology has that weirdly familiar smell, like smoke or charcoal—an ancient smell. No one saw their ships approaching earth before the first attacks, not NASA, not the doomed space station. They were just suddenly here, as though they materialized out of nowhere. Or sprang out of the ground.

  Or rose up from under the ice.

  My mouth becomes so dry, I have to pry my lips apart to speak.

  “You’re not extraterrestrials.”

  First shakes his head, the cloud of lights swaying back and forth with him.

  “No. We are not.”

  Why, after everything I’ve seen and done and lived through, am I more scared in this moment than I’ve ever been? I’m not running or hiding. I don’t hear the stomping of Nahx feet gaining on me, nor the whine of their rifles. No one is dead in front of me, turning gray, their eyes staring at nothing. But all is lost anyway.

  We are never getting our planet back.

  This is not our planet.

  The revelation changes everything, providing the answer I’ve been seeking since this started. Why did the Nahx invade earth? They didn’t. I think they might have risen up to protect it.

  “You needed an army,” I say as my mind reorganizes, churning so quickly, I can practically smell the burning friction of neurons rubbing together. “Because you’re so… small. You needed us to protect you? But what are we fighting?”

  The First’s eyebrows creep upward slowly, as though it’s an effort, and he tilts his head to the side. Then suddenly the cloud of lights leaves him so quickly that he stumbles forward, falling to his knees. I have to grab his arm to keep him from face-planting in the snow. As the cloud of lights drifts upward, the First slumps, then regains his balance. He slowly turns his face up to me. His expression is blank, but there is something in his eyes, something so subtle that a normal human with a normal brain might not notice. He hasn’t been completely pithed by whatever the Fireflies have done to him. There are traces of the human boy still in there.

  “I’ll help you,” I say impulsively. “We can get out of here.”

  His eyes roll up, drawing mine back to the globe above us. The cloud of Fireflies is swirling around it, gradually focusing their light into a bright ball over the Gulf of Mexico, which shoots out into the open dark before careening back and slamming into the surface, the pinpoints spreading out in imitation of a huge explosion.

  I recognize this demonstration. It was the most exciting part of a dinosaur documentary I watched obsessively when I was little. My brain spits up the name easily.

  “Chicxulub,” I say. The asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs. I have no idea why I’m seeing it now, though.

  As the mock explosion dissipates, the lights arrange themselves into a jagged filament similar to the other ones around the globe, only bigger. A fissure. It glows brightly, seeming for a moment to gape open before slamming shut. A few lights drift up in its wake and spread around the world. They hover there for a moment as I watch, as though giving me time to process what I’ve just seen.

  I step back as they begin to stream into the First’s body again, and avert my eyes once more from the ghastly spectacle of him being brought back to life.

  “So… an asteroid impact,” I say as he wakes and turns to me. “It opened a fissure like the ones we’re guarding? Like a wormhole or something? To another world?”

  “Correct.”

  “And something came through it?”

  “We came through it.”

  I’m trying to put it together in my head, but it still doesn’t make sense. If they came through a fissure caused by the asteroid impact sixty-five million years ago, that certainly means they were here before humans were. Although we evolved here, which might give us an edge, on principle, as the rightful caretakers of this planet. But I’m beginning to realize that whole issue might be moot.

  “And our nuclear bombs opened other fissures? So more of you can come through?”

  “There are no more of us.”

  “What are you worried about, then? What’s coming through the fissures?”

  The First stops, gazing at me and swaying as the wind buffets us, lifting the snow up and filling the air with white haze. The cloud of lights around his head seems to pulse.

  “We don’t know,” he says. “The world we left was… seething and… dark. Those are not quite the right words. There are no words.”

  But he doesn’t need to explain. I’ve seen what he’s talking about in my visions.

  Firsts don’t show much emotion, at least not in the same way that we do. The color of the cloud of lights changes, but more than that, the body it is operating reacts, his haunted eyes glaring at me, almost as though the ruined human boy left inside understands what we’re talking about, or can see it somehow. Maybe the cloud mind and the human mind are merged or connected. I don’t like to think about it, because I’m worried I might get used to the ide
a.

  One thing is clear, though—both the cloud of lights and the human boy are terrified. I can see it. I can feel it. My heightened senses record everything, and though I’m still figuring out what they mean, my own instincts are familiar enough with the information. I smell their fear. I sense the vibrations coming from the cloud but also coming from the ship, from the lake.

  And from the sky. “You want us to fight whatever it is?”

  The First nods, watching me with watery silver eyes.

  “We meant for the creatures you call the Nahx to fight. But they came out so… flawed. We had to start again.”

  “So you made us? Snezjinka? It means Snowflake, right? In what language?”

  My cells shimmer, and suddenly the answer comes to me via memories of subtitled news interviews, martial arts demo videos, a couple of scenes from 1980s action movies. It’s as though my skin or my muscles recorded it, this other language that should be only vaguely familiar. I can speak it.

  “Russkiy. Ya prav? ” I say. “Russian?”

  The First smiles. But all that does is unsettle me further.

  “Why Russian? Is that where you did this?” Before he can answer, that comes to me too, as other facts and images slot into place. There are twelve copies of each Nahx, and several million Nahx in their army. So they needed humans to start with—to slice up and copy. And where better to find a million humans that might not be missed? In the years we humans were building up our nuclear arsenals?

  “Glavnoye upravleniye lagerey,” I say, though I don’t even know how I know this. Some random, weed-fueled, middle-of-the-night Wikipedia binge, no doubt, now permanently etched, catalogued, and stored along with everything else. “Gulags.” Remote Soviet Russian prison camps. It’s deeply disconcerting to think that the boy August was copied from was once in a prison camp. I wonder if he remembers any of that. I sure hope not.