by Scott Sigler
He can barely meet my eyes—he’s ashamed. At the hole in the wall, he panicked and he knows it. He wanted to protect me, but I sent him into the tunnel first, exposing myself to danger so he could get away.
He tilts his head toward the shuttle door. He wants me to go inside. He needs to be the last one out here.
“Bishop, we should talk about what happened at the waterfall.”
“What happened is we were stupid,” he says. “We were selfish, only worrying about ourselves. People could have been hurt.”
As if I didn’t feel guilty enough about that already.
In at least one way, Bishop and I are the same: we have a need, an urge to protect everyone. I don’t understand why sometimes I can’t think straight when I’m around him—or O’Malley, for that matter. What I do know is that my selfish actions almost got our friends killed.
I glance up at the shuttle, out to the vine ring—no one else is here. I reach out and take his hand.
“We just have to be smarter,” I say. I think about him kissing me. I want him to do it again. “We won’t do anything like that around other people.”
He stares at our hands for a moment, fingers intertwined. He gives me one short, firm squeeze, then pulls away.
“We won’t do anything like that, period,” he says. “We’re fighting to keep everyone alive, Em. I can’t lose sight of that, not even for a second.”
When we kissed, there was this look in his eyes—he couldn’t get enough of me. That look is gone. I feel like everything is ruined.
I trudge up the ramp.
This is what happens when you let your emotions control you? Well, never again.
At the shuttle door, O’Malley is waiting for me. He’s wearing black coveralls. A scabbard hangs from his waist, the jeweled handle of his knife sticking out. And…he has boots. My leg hurts so much I’d almost forgotten about my poor feet, beat up from the long hike, punctured by dozens of thorns. A Mictlan patch—just like the symbol on our ties—is stitched in metallic thread on O’Malley’s left breast. He’s holding a black blanket. When I stumble in, he wraps it around me.
“Welcome home, Em.”
He’s clean. His hair is combed, glossy black and perfect. It surprises me how good it feels to see his face.
I glance back down the ramp at Bishop, notice the contrast between the two boys: one scrubbed and neatly dressed, as if our living nightmare never happened, the other shirtless, bloody and bandaged, a walking testament to what we just endured.
O’Malley’s smile fades. “Bad news. Aramovsky got into Deck Four.”
His arm around my shoulders, he guides me into the coffin room. I see the familiar faces of Gaston, Beckett, Smith, Visca and the others. I see Zubiri, Walezak and the kids we found wandering the halls of the Xolotl.
I also see faces I don’t recognize. Hundreds of them. No, not hundreds, I already know the exact number—168.
Aramovsky, godsdamn him…he opened the coffins.
Little faces on little bodies. Kids dressed in clean, perfectly fitting white shirts, red ties, and black pants or red and black plaid skirts.
More mouths to feed.
Everything catches up with me in a crashing wave of despair that washes away the last of my strength. The room spins. I’m tired, so tired.
“O’Malley, get me out of here. Take me to Smith.”
I don’t care what she does to me, as long as she gives me more of that gas and puts me under.
My eyes flutter open. I’m lying on firm padding. I see something white, close above my face…too close—I’m in a coffin again.
I am trapped. Someone put me in here Matilda put me in here she won’t take me she won’t I’ll fight and have to get out have to get…
No. It’s not like that. I think I remember people putting me in here. O’Malley. Yes, that was it. And Smith. I’m not trapped, but this tiny space is squeezing in on me.
“Um…can I get out?”
“Yes, hold on.”
Someone is nearby. Such a relief. I close my eyes and take deep breaths, try to control myself. So confined in here, so tight.
The white above my face splits down the middle, slides away to the sides. Spingate grins down at me. She’s dressed in black, just like O’Malley.
“Hello there, Sleeping Beauty!”
Someone else leans in next to her, smiling at me. It’s Smith, the skinny circle-cross girl with the short brown hair who was in Bishop’s group back on the Xolotl. She’s also wearing the black coveralls. Her gray eyes are so pretty.
“Your leg was badly wounded,” she says. “Spingate did a good job binding it, but there was only so much she could do in the field. You lost enough blood to make you dizzy. Or maybe you were just exhausted and stressed.”
“Leaders don’t get stressed,” I say.
Smith sighs. “As you like. How do you feel now? Better?”
I do. I take a deep breath. I don’t just feel better…I feel great. They help me sit up.
Cloth against my skin—I’m wearing black coveralls. I stretch my arms out, look myself up and down. The coveralls have long sleeves and many pockets. New black socks on my feet. Except for my face and hands, I’m completely covered. For the first time in my few days of life, I’m wearing clothes that fit. My hands are clean. I touch my face: also clean. And the big bump on my head…it’s almost gone. I tenderly try out my split lip—healed.
Smith and Spingate steady me as I step onto the floor. The room marked MEDICAL is small and white. There is a second coffin, open and empty. Both coffins are dark brown, glossy and clean. They are free of intricate carvings, but other than that, they look just like the one I fought my way out of on the Xolotl.
Off to the right, a single white pedestal with a red circle-cross engraved on the stem.
Smith taps the coffin’s edge. “Put your foot up here.”
She sounds as confident as Gaston does in the pilothouse. I do as I’m told.
She slides my pant leg up to my knee, touches my calf. She leans in, checks the area that was wounded. She squeezes the muscle and I wince.
Smith’s smile is full of pride.
“All better, Em. See for yourself.”
My calf is slightly bruised. There’s a thin pink line that shows me where the tear was, but it looks like the wound happened years ago.
“That’s amazing,” I say. “How did you know what to do?”
“Gaston said you wanted me to come in here and learn all I could. As soon as I started, some of those blank areas in my head filled in. I remembered medical classes, people teaching me things, and how to use the medical system. The machines perform most of the work, I just use the pedestal to ask questions and make a decision as to what needs to be done.”
Another person with recovered memories. Some, anyway, and these particular memories are critical to our survival. It feels good knowing that Smith is ready to take care of us.
She opens a cabinet, hands me a pair of black boots. It’s all I can do not to squeal with delight. As I put them on and start tying them, I look up at Spingate.
“Was I asleep long?”
“All night and half the day.”
That’s a long time. Too long.
“Has the spider shown up?”
Spin shakes her head. “Not yet, anyway. O’Malley made everyone stay inside the shuttle. He said that if it can stop attacks from the Grownups, it can probably stop the spiders.”
I finish tying my boots. I stand, put weight on my leg, bounce on it. My calf is sore, but feels so much better.
“Smith, you’re amazing.”
She blushes. She can be as modest as she likes, as long as she keeps fixing us up.
“Hey, where are my old clothes?”
Spingate’s face wrinkles. “Incinerated, I hope. Em, we stank.”
O’Malley brought me down here. My face flushes hot as I think of him seeing me naked.
“Who, um…who undressed me?”
“Don’t worry,
the med-chamber did it,” Smith says, gesturing to the gleaming coffin. “It removed your old clothes, cleaned you up, treated your wounds, fed you intravenously, handled your waste and fixed your hair. It even put on your new clothes for you.”
She calls it a med-chamber? I like that, although I suspect she’ll be the only person to use that term. This thing “handled my waste.” Disgusting, but it explains a lot. I was in my original coffin for years—centuries, according to Brewer. The coffin took care of me.
Some of the Xolotl’s coffins broke down. The kids inside of those died.
If things break down here, what will happen? Smith can use this equipment, but can she fix it if it stops working? Same thing with Gaston and flying the shuttle, or Spingate and the bracer. Knowing how to use technology is not the same as knowing how to make it, or how to repair it.
Spingate puts a hand on my shoulder. “Time to go up. Everyone is waiting for you on Deck One.”
“Why?”
“The meeting,” she says. “O’Malley said when he brought you down here, you told him as soon as you woke up you wanted a meeting about the food situation.”
Other than O’Malley putting that blanket around me and showing me the new kids, I barely remember talking to him. I must have really been out of it. Still, a meeting is exactly what we need.
“So many people to feed now,” I say. “Aramovsky’s stupid act might mean we starve. Godsdamn him.”
Smith’s eyes narrow. “Because you’re in charge, you think you can curse like that?”
Because you’re in charge…so close to what Coyotl said at the waterfall. Do people think I’m abusing my position as leader? Well, someone has to make decisions, and I have every right to be angry at Aramovsky.
“He shouldn’t have woken them,” I say. “They were in those coffins for centuries. A few more days wouldn’t have hurt. How did he wake them up, anyway? Did his progenitor know how to operate the coffins?”
Spingate looks down, takes a small step away from Smith.
Smith glares at me defiantly.
“You,” I say to her. “You opened the coffins.”
She crosses her arms. “Aramovsky asked for my help. He said the gods willed it. The pedestal had instructions for waking them, just like it had instructions for healing you.”
I remember Spingate’s words in the pilothouse, her worry that the kids might already be overwritten.
“Spin…are they like us?”
She nods quickly, instantly understanding my concern.
“O’Malley and Gaston said the new kids didn’t know who they were or where they were, just like when we woke up. The kids were terrified.”
There is anger in her voice. Like me, she understands how much trouble we’re in now that our numbers have doubled but our food has not.
I wish I had my spear. I’m so mad I could almost use it on Smith. I’m hot in the face and chest. It feels the same as when I lost my temper with Spingate—the difference is Smith did do something to deserve it.
“You woke them up, Smith,” I say. “Can you put them back to sleep?”
She juts out her chin. “You don’t have the right to do that, you—”
“Answer my question.”
Something in my voice makes her take a step back.
“It’s not safe for them,” she says. “Once someone comes out of a coffin for the first time, they’re alive. Putting them back into deep sleep could kill them.”
Her words, or Aramovsky’s?
“You’re lying,” I say.
I have no idea if she is, or if she’s telling the truth. I’m just so frustrated.
Smith sneers. “You think you know everything. Well, you don’t know anything about this. If you’re smart, you’ll believe me.”
I want to hit something. We’ve worked so hard, sacrificed so much, and now everything is at risk. My fury isn’t going to fix anything, though, not when our survival is at stake. Calm plans can keep us alive—decisions driven by anger could move us closer to death.
A knock on the room’s metal door.
Smith walks to it. The handprint there—of course—has a circle-cross in the palm. She presses it and the door slides open.
O’Malley. Holding my spear.
He enters, smiling that lovely smile of his. He hands me the spear.
“Em, you look much better.”
He glances at Smith and Spingate.
“Can Em and I have a quick moment alone?”
“Sure,” Spingate says. “I have to test some of the shuttle’s food stores before the meeting anyway, make sure the mold hasn’t gotten in. Smith, come help me.”
Smith looks like she would rather go anywhere than with Spingate, but follows her out.
O’Malley waits a moment to make sure they’re too far away to overhear.
“Everyone knows about the spider, the food warehouse and the mold,” he says. “They are afraid. They need to hear from their leader that we’ll find a solution.”
I’m sure people are scared. I’ll do what I can to make them feel better.
“Thank you,” I say. “But…I don’t remember asking for a meeting. Did I?”
He shrugs. “I figured you would want to talk when you woke up, so I told everyone you called a meeting.”
That seems like odd behavior.
“Why didn’t you just say it was your idea?”
“Because people listen to you. You’re the leader. Ready?”
I’m not happy he lied. I’m also not happy that I left him in charge, and came back to chaos.
“We’ll go in a minute,” I say. “First, what happened while I was gone? How could you let Aramovsky open up the coffins?”
The question angers him.
“I didn’t let him do anything. Gaston never left the pilothouse. I had to control the kids from the Xolotl. They were getting into the food, going outside, running around. While I was busy watching them, Aramovsky slipped away.”
I notice the cut on O’Malley’s cheek is almost gone. It’s just a pink line, barely even a scar.
Smith healed him, too.
I point to the coffins. “Did Aramovsky and Smith let the new kids out while you were in one of those?”
He reactively touches his cheek. I’ve caught him in a second lie.
“Yes,” he says. “I didn’t think Aramovsky would try something while I was in there. How could I have known he would?”
It makes sense now. With me, Spingate and Bishop gone, with O’Malley unconscious, with Gaston learning about the shuttle, no one was watching Aramovsky. Someone always needs to be watching him.
“Em, I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”
He did. I’m so angry at O’Malley. He always seems to think things through, but this time he didn’t.
“Sorry won’t keep us alive. The next time I tell you to do something, do it. Do you understand what this does to us?”
That familiar, blank expression settles over him.
“I get it,” he says. His voice is thin, his words clipped. “Are you finished yelling at me?”
I can only hope I’ve made my point.
“I’m finished. Let’s go.”
Deck One’s coffin room is packed. People sit or stand on closed coffins, sit on the black floor in the aisles, lean against the red walls. Almost three hundred faces—most of which I’ve never seen before—stare back at me. White-shirted little kids whisper to each other, pointing at me as if I’m an ancient myth come to life.
Everyone my age is dressed in coveralls and boots. Okereke and Johnson, Borjigin and Beckett, Bawden and Farrar. Even Bishop, who stands by the shuttle door, red axe at his side. They all wear black. I can’t help but think of the Grownups we left back on the Xolotl.
Gaston is standing on a small stage made from empty food bins. He sees me and steps down.
As I walk toward it, people close in behind me. I’m surrounded. I step up on the stage. For once, I am taller than most of the people here.
I
look out at the mass of faces. They’re waiting for me to tell them what happens next, that everything will be fine. I see everyone except Spingate. Where is she? I’d feel better if she was here.
“Uh…thank you all for coming.”
First thing out of my mouth and it’s so stupid. Where else would they be? Silence makes me nervous, so I fill it.
“Hello to you new kids. I know this is scary, but I was just like you not long ago—frightened, confused, no idea of what was happening. Try to relax, you’re with us now. See the people in black? They’ve been through far worse than this. We—”
A little hand goes up: Zubiri’s.
“Yes?”
“Food,” she says. She puts her arm down, stands. No smile this time. She’s as serious as Bishop. “What are we going to do about food?”
That’s something we’d all like to know.
“We’re working on it. There are animals here we can eat, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to catch them. And we haven’t even started looking at plants yet. It might be—”
Aramovsky raises his hand. I know he’s going to try and cause trouble, but I just answered Zubiri’s question—I can’t have people think I’m ignoring only him.
“Yes, Aramovsky?”
“Who built the fire? Other than having us cower in the shuttle, what have you done to protect us from this threat?”
He’s doing it again, asking me questions to which he knows there are no answers. He’s trying to make me look bad.
“We don’t know they’re a threat.”
“You didn’t find any food,” he says, not hiding his disgust. “Now the fire-builders—whoever they are—probably know we’re here. Sounds like your trip was a failure.”
“We found water,” I say. “Without fresh water we’d all die. Does that sound like a failure?”
“Water we can’t get to is the same as no water at all. How are you going to kill the spiders that guard it, Em?”
Why does he have to be so difficult? I hate him.
“We don’t know yet,” I say. “We will find a way. Now, about our food situation. Gaston, assuming we eat small meals, how long will the shuttle’s supplies last?”
Gaston glances across the room, at Borjigin, the half-circle wisp of a boy with big teeth and straight hair as black as his coveralls. When I left for the warehouse, he and Opkick were doing inventory on the storerooms.
