Alight

by Scott Sigler

  Not forever, I know, but there is enough to last us years. This will give us plenty of time to learn farming and hunting. It’s hard to control my excitement. I want to dance and shout, I want to celebrate.

  Coyotl walks down the long center aisle, craning his head, looking left and right, trying to take it all in.

  “The gods provided for us,” he says. “Aramovsky speaks the truth.”

  The mention of that name almost spoils the moment. Of course Aramovsky will attribute this to the gods, when clearly it was people who built this city and made this food.

  Coyotl pulls a bin from the rack, sets it on the floor and opens it. “Hey, cookies!” He tears open a pink package and pulls out a small black circle. The sight of it makes my mouth water; Matilda had treats like that when she was little. But we don’t know if it’s safe to eat.

  “Coyotl, put it down,” I say.

  He looks at it wistfully, then sets the cookie and the package back in the bin.

  Farrar drops his shovel and sprints to the bin. He pulls out the same cookie that Coyotl held. Farrar’s smile is so bright it could light up the entire warehouse.

  “Finally—sweets!”

  Before I can tell him to drop it, he pops the whole thing into his mouth and crunches down.

  “The gods provide,” he says, chewing and grinning.

  Coyotl is frowning. He stares at his fingers like there is something wrong with them, flicks them like he’s trying to shake off a bug.

  Movement on my left. Bishop, wiping his hand against what’s left of his pants, a worried look on his face.

  “My fingers are tingling,” he says. “They sting a little.”

  I hear a sharp beep: the sound comes from Spingate’s bracer. The jewels all flash a bright orange—an obvious color of warning.

  She stands quickly. “The red powder is mold. It’s toxic.”

  The word stabs through my chest.

  I drop my spear, sprint to Farrar.

  “Spit it out! Spit it out!”

  Still chewing, he looks at me like he doesn’t understand what I’m saying—then I realize he’s not looking at me at all. His eyes are glassy, unfocused.

  “These cookies taste awful,” he says in a sleepy voice, then stumbles backward. I try to catch him as he falls, but his weight drags us both down. I scramble to my knees, hearing feet slapping against the floor as the others run our way.

  Farrar gags. His eyes roll up, showing only whites that gleam ghostly in the flashlight beams.

  Spingate slides down next to me, grabs Farrar’s face, jams her fingertips and thumbs into his cheeks, forcing his jaw open.

  “Em, get it out of his mouth before he swallows!”

  I reach in with my fingers, scoop out half-chewed cookie and throw the black mess aside. I slide fingertips between his lips and gums, under his tongue, fling more poison away—my skin is already tingling.

  “Coyotl, water,” Spingate barks. She turns Farrar’s face to the side. “Wash out his mouth!”

  Coyotl aims his container at Farrar’s open mouth and squeezes—a jet of water splashes across Farrar’s tongue, dribbles onto the dirty floor.

  Farrar starts to twitch. He convulses, body contracting violently—his forehead smashes into Spingate’s cheek, sends her sprawling.

  Bishop locks his arms around Farrar’s upper body, holds him tight.

  All our flashlights are on the floor, except for Coyotl’s, the beam of which dances madly across Farrar’s face.

  Spingate is there again, blood coursing down her cheek. She’s looking inside the white case Smith gave her, trying to find something specific. She removes a small white device barely bigger than her pinkie, presses it to Farrar’s throat.

  I hear a small snikt sound. She pulls the device away, drawing a thin metal needle with it. She injected him with something.

  Farrar’s body lurches hard, then relaxes all at once. His eyes flutter open. I can see his irises. His chest heaves.

  Spingate holds his face again, but gently this time.

  “Farrar, it’s Spingate. Can you see me?”

  His eyes widen, focus on her. He nods.

  I feel my held breath rush out: he’s okay.

  Farrar looks at me, confused, then at Bishop.

  “What happened?”

  “You ate the cookies,” Bishop says. “Everyone, make sure you do not eat the cookies.”

  Bishop is so solemn and serious—I start laughing. The sound is awkward. I shouldn’t be laughing, because there’s nothing funny about any of this, but I can’t help it.

  —

  Spingate examines her twentieth bin. Bishop and Coyotl have been bringing them back from all over the warehouse. Coyotl even climbed up high to grab one, somehow managing to get all the way back down while holding it under one arm.

  We watch the bracer on Spingate’s wrist as she waves her hand over the bin’s contents: a dozen dark-pink boxes that tease us with simple names for food.

  The jewels flash orange.

  I look over at Farrar. He’s sheened with sweat. It’s been maybe an hour since he ate the cookie, and he’s still breathing hard. Spin thinks he’ll be fine, but when we get back to the shuttle I’ll make sure Smith takes a look at him.

  Spingate closes the bin she just examined. The jaguar’s jewel eye sparkles. She looks at Bishop.

  “You’re sure this was from farther away?”

  He points down the warehouse’s main aisle. “I got it from the end, next to the far wall. And I looked inside probably a hundred bins along the way—they all have the red powder.”

  Spingate shakes her head. “The powder is a microorganism so small it can get into the containers, even get through the wrappers and right into the food. If we hadn’t acted as fast as we did, Farrar would be dead.” She looks up at me. “Once the mold contaminates food, there’s nothing we can do to make it edible again.”

  She looks down, as if it’s her fault that we’re in a building full of food, yet we can’t eat any of it.

  At least we have the shuttle’s supplies. We have time to figure out other answers.

  I remember Brewer’s strange words back on the Xolotl—Hopefully you can break the mold. If you can’t, that was one very long trip for nothing.

  Break the mold. He knew. One long trip for nothing…

  “The mold,” I say to Spingate, “how does it spread?”

  She stands up, brushes off her hands and shrugs. “My guess is the microorganisms probably make little eggs. No, that’s not quite right…they make spores, little bits so small they float on the air. They land on things and the process starts over.”

  If it spreads through the air…

  I grab her arm. “Could these spores get into the shuttle’s stores?”

  Spingate’s eyes widen. “Yes, they could.”

  A few minutes ago, we thought we had enough food to last for years. All we have is what’s on the shuttle—if that goes bad, we’re doomed.

  Spingate looks at her water container. She turns it upside down; two drops come out, then nothing. She emptied it—and Coyotl’s as well—further cleaning out Farrar’s mouth. I emptied mine washing my hands until they stopped stinging. Bishop did the same with his.

  Just like that, we’re almost out of water.

  Spingate stares at the empty container.

  “If the water in this city carries the same spores, we can’t drink it,” she says. “We’ll die of dehydration long before we get hungry. We have to find fresh water and test it.”

  She looks at me, and I know what she’s thinking: the river. I remember the pilothouse map.

  That waterfall isn’t far from here.

  We stop and stare. The distant waterfall’s soft roar echoes through the streets, but no one is paying attention to that.

  Coyotl breaks our silence.

  “Those are some big godsdamned doors.”

  I glance at him, annoyed. Does he need to curse? I can’t remember much of school, but Matilda’s
memories give me the sense that cursing brought discipline. The paddle. Or something even worse…I vaguely remember a phrase…the rod.

  He sees me staring, stares back. He raises an eyebrow, daring me to correct him.

  In school, he’d be in trouble. But we’re not in school anymore. And I have to admit, he’s right—those are some godsdamned-big doors.

  We stand in the middle of a wide street, facing east. The waterfall is somewhere off to our left, to the north. Buildings and ziggurats flank us, reaching up to the sky. Far ahead of us, the street ends at an archway set into a massive, vine-choked wall. The wall is as tall as twenty of us standing on each other’s shoulders. Towers spot its length, each of them rising up even higher than the wall itself.

  In that archway, metal doors half as high as the wall. They look like they swing outward. No vines on them, although a few dangle down from the arch above. Maybe plants can’t grip metal like they can stone.

  I see a sliver of yellow between those doors. The door on our right looks slightly open. I remember Gaston’s map—that yellow must be the vine-choked ruins that lie beyond.

  We’ll have to explore that gate soon, but first we have something more important to worry about.

  “Let’s go,” I say. “We need to find the waterfall.”

  We turn north. We follow a narrower street, moving toward the river’s roar.

  —

  It looked a lot smaller on the map.

  The waterfall soars above us, white froth crashing down into a clear pool. The red sun is just above the waterfall’s edge—only a few hours until nightfall. Spray hangs in the air, catching the afternoon light. Brightly colored blurds dart in and out of the hanging mist.

  A set of switchback steps carved into dark stone leads up the waterfall’s right side: ten steps to the right, sharp turn, ten to the left, and so on, all the way up.

  Vine-draped boulders, each as tall as my chest, line the pool’s edge. A ring of smaller rocks runs along the outside of the boulders. A second ring—glistening wet from the water that splashes against them—runs along the inside. Vines cover the flat ground. Buildings and ziggurats rise up all around us. Perhaps this place was a plaza of some kind, open and welcome to this lost city’s forgotten residents.

  Coyotl hops onto a boulder. His covering of caked ash is almost gone. He’s more filthy than fierce now, a dirty boy with reddish skin and taut, fluttering muscles. He looks into the pool, then raises his thighbone high and whoops.

  “I’m going swimming!”

  “No!” I have to shout to be heard over the water’s crash. “We don’t know if it’s safe!”

  Coyotl rolls his eyes. “You think because you’re in charge you can just boss people around. Aramovsky was right about you.”

  “Shut up,” Bishop says. “Farrar almost died from eating something. That water could be just as poisonous.”

  Coyotl glances at the water—that commonsense thought hadn’t occurred to him. He sighs, sits down on the big rock.

  I’m grateful that Bishop supports me, but my thoughts stick on what Coyotl just said. Aramovsky has been talking about me behind my back? I’m the one that got us off the Xolotl, I’m the one who got us to Omeyocan—it hurts that Coyotl would think badly of me.

  Spingate tries to climb up a boulder. She’s not sure how to approach it. Bishop grabs her by the waist and lifts her like she weighs nothing at all. She squeals in delighted surprise as he sets her on top.

  She’s so much prettier than I am, especially with the sun blazing off her red hair. She makes me so mad my skin prickles, a cascade of tiny needle-pokes washing down my cheeks, my neck. I wonder how pretty she’d be if I punched her in the mouth, gave her a split lip to match the one I got fighting the monsters. Selfish Spingate deserves it—she already has Gaston, and now she wants Bishop, too? My chest tightens, feels solid, like it’s made of rock. I’ll show that girl, I’ll punish her, I’ll…

  I shudder. Where did all of that come from? I feel the rage spreading through me, already dissipating but still strong, still vile and repulsive. Theresa Spingate is my friend—I would never hit her. My face flushes hot with embarrassment again, but this time I’m ashamed of my own jealousy. That tightness in my chest, it relaxes, releases. My temper…it’s bad. I have to be careful.

  Is that how Matilda took over the Grownups? Did her temper control her, let her control them?

  Farrar climbs atop a big boulder, then drops down to the inner ring. He looks much better; the walk did him good. He helps Spingate down, his big hands on the bare skin of her narrow waist.

  Does everyone want to touch her?

  Stop it, Em—she’s not doing anything wrong.

  Spingate kneels, gets to work examining the water.

  Coyotl stands up again, the urge to jump in radiating off him.

  “Don’t,” Bishop says sharply.

  Coyotl sighs. “Okay, Dad.” He sits down. He looks at me. “Okay, Mom.”

  He clearly hates being told what to do. Aramovsky’s influence, or Coyotl’s normal personality?

  Spingate stands, pats her chest as if to still a racing heart.

  “No mold,” she says with audible relief. “There’s some rotten plant material mixed in, though. We could drink from this pool in a pinch, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” She points up at the waterfall. “Probably cleaner up top. If we can collect it from there, we won’t ever have to worry about water.”

  I breathe out, releasing a tension I hadn’t realized I was carrying. This city is so large, there must be a system of pipes to bring water to all the buildings. If that system still works, and we find clean water closer to the shuttle, fine. If not, at least we have this waterfall. I may have to move everyone here. We could live in the buildings surrounding this plaza.

  At any rate, we will have to move somewhere—we can’t stay in the shuttle forever. We’re already packed in there like chickens in a coop, and if we open the coffins on Deck Four, it could be much worse. Eventually people will need their own space.

  Coyotl stands atop his boulder, sets his thighbone down.

  “Spingate did her testing. Can I do mine?”

  I look at her, silently asking if it is safe. She nods.

  “Swim away,” I say. “But I bet you can’t do a perfect dive!”

  Coyotl leaps far; his thin body slices into the pool with barely a splash. He stays under for a few seconds. When he pops up, wet dust is running off his skin.

  “The water is great!” He rubs hard at his face and hair, ducks under, pops up again. Clean, he looks like a different person. On the Xolotl, he was an ash-covered gray warrior fighting to keep us alive, fighting to set us free; on Omeyocan, he’s a young man barely out of his teens—flawless, perfect, innocent.

  I see Farrar help Spingate step into the water. She laughs in surprised, openmouthed shock.

  “Coyotl, you liar, this is freezing.”

  She slips on the wet rocks, shrieks, grabs Farrar’s round shoulders as she goes down—they splash into the water together. Spingate stands. Her shirt was far too small to begin with. Now it hugs her like a transparent second skin. Either she doesn’t know, or it doesn’t bother her.

  Bishop steps closer to me.

  “Em, can we go in, too?”

  Dried blood, ash smears and dirt cover him head to toe. More of the same crusts in his blond curls. Coyotl looked beautiful when the water washed away his filth—Bishop will look even more so.

  And he’s not the only one who could use a bath. I’m still coated in dead-person dust, still caked with grime.

  “Sure, let’s go.”

  He reaches halfway toward me, pauses, as if he wanted to take my hand, then didn’t know if that was wrong. I could take his, but I don’t—the awkward moment hangs there, neither of us knowing what to do, then he turns and sprints toward the boulders. One powerful leg launches him to the top, where the other powerful leg sends him sailing out over the water. He arcs through the air, a dirt-covered mixture
of grace and muscle. It looks like he will knife into the water just as Coyotl did, but at the last second Bishop tucks into a tight ball. When he hits, he sends up a big wave that splashes Spingate—she goes rigid and squeals with laughter.

  I use my spear like a cane, balancing myself as I climb over a tall boulder to stand on the wet rocks lining the pool. I look into the water. It gets deep fast, but the shallows hide jagged rocks. Are my friends all crazy jumping in like that?

  Bishop bursts from the surface. Water cascades down his now-clean skin, sparkling in the sunlight. I flash back to the Xolotl, to the talk with Brewer, when I was staring at the gnarled creature and thinking, I don’t know what a god is, exactly, but if gods do exist they don’t look like this thing.

  No: if gods exist, they look like Bishop.

  I squat down on my heels, cup my hand and fill it with cold water. I rub it on my face; it feels amazing. I am so unclean. Should I take off my shirt, be bare-chested like Bishop and Coyotl and Farrar?

  The thought of that embarrasses me even more than seeing Spingate in her see-through shirt. I’ll keep my clothes on—I don’t want these boys to see my body.

  At least, not all the boys.

  I try not to stare at Bishop as I stand and look for a safe place to dive in. My foot suddenly slides off the wet rock and plunges into the water. I cry out in surprise—off-balance, I drop my spear and whirl my arms trying to stay up, but my other foot slips as well and I start to fall.

  Bishop catches me before I go all the way under.

  His arm is under my back, his hand on my hip. His body feels solid, so strong. His arms have the power to crush the life out of anyone, yet he holds me so gently.

  He’s so close. His skin is so warm.

  Bishop opens his mouth to speak, then stops, as if words have escaped him. He lifts me, sets me back on the rock. He’s still standing in the water. For once, I am taller than he is.

  Water drips from my ripped skirt. The bottom of my shirt is wet—it clings to my ribs, drips down my exposed belly.

  Coyotl and Farrar are laughing, splashing, oblivious to anything other than whatever new game they’ve concocted. Spingate, however, is looking right at me. My eyes meet hers. She smiles slightly, one corner of her mouth ticking up. She turns to Coyotl and Farrar.