Where the hell did they go? The two transports touch down on the hillside between us.
Xander crashes to the ground next to me, his rifle fixed on the ships. “Did you see where they went?” I shake my head. “Right,” he says, gritting his teeth. “Shoot or run?”
The door of the first transport opens. Two shadowy figures appear in the doorway. Human shaped, but too large, armored in dull, deep gray. Everything about them is like a living weapon, hard, metallic, and lethal. My insides turn to Spam, which threatens to come back up. We can’t cover Topher and Felix if we can’t see where they went.
“Run,” I squeak. “Run!”
Xander leaps to his feet, yanking me up after him.
I hear the hiss of the other transport door open and the clatter of armored feet on the gangplank.
I’m lost. Despite our weeks of survivalist games, neither Xander nor I have any proper combat training. I have no idea about strategy in a situation like this. If they go after Felix and Topher, we might as well say good-bye right now. But we can get over the top of the ridge and head back down into the valley. We would have the advantage of being out of sight for a minute or two. That might save our lives. But what about Topher? What about Felix?
Xander lets go of my hand as I stumble to a stop. I spin around and point my weapon in the general direction of the squadron of Nahx gathered at their landing site.
“Are you crazy?”
Well, yes, I think. Yes, I am.
“Get behind me!” I scream at him.
I fire into the center of the group of Nahx. Unbelievably, I think I hit one. It spins around and seems to shove one of its colleagues to the ground. I’m pretty sure the bullet just bounced off the armor, but now the whole group of them turns as one and starts barreling back up to the ridge.
“Oh Jesus, we’re going to die,” Xander says. I pull him, diving over the ridge and running full speed back down to the river, which glistens in the sun like an emerald necklace. It feels like only a few seconds have passed when I hear a high-pitched whining noise.
“Paintball!” I yell to Xander. He gets my meaning right away. All the kids from the dojo played paintball at least three times a year. We both know the best way to avoid getting hit is to run like a convulsing lunatic. He veers away from me.
A dart zings past my head as I begin to weave in and out of the burnt tree trunks. Xander ducks and leaps like his shoes have springs. A tree splinters next to me as another dart misses its mark. The Nahx behind us aren’t even running. I have heard they can move at inhuman speeds, but they are calmly marching, their weapons whining and firing. Bizarrely, one is walking with a hand on another one’s shoulder.
Another dart whizzes past. Ahead of me Xander tumbles and rolls.
“Xander!” I shout, but he leaps back up to his feet on the other side of a cluster of burnt logs. When he reaches the riverbank, he turns and raises his rifle.
“Get down!” he screams.
Clearly, he’s even crazier than me. I dive to the ground and roll toward him as he fires off rounds. A glimpse of the Nahx tells me his tactic is not slowing them down even a little bit. Two darts zing past his head, and he ducks. I use the momentum of my fall to keep rolling, clutching my rifle to my chest as Xander keeps firing. I stop rolling, leap up, and tackle him. We both fall off the riverbank, crashing to a small muddy outcrop below. Xander lands in a heap on top of me.
The river’s edge is a tangle of mud and roots from the trees on the riverbank above. I know we have seconds before the Nahx reach us, seconds to do about the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. “Take a deep breath and hold on,” I say, grabbing Xander by the shirt and rolling into the river.
The water is frigid and instantly knocks about forty points off my IQ, but I manage to stick to my plan and pull us both under, reaching out to the roots under the surface for something to hold on to. Worse case is I will let go, and the river current will pull us back into the lake we left a day ago. That would epically suck, so I wrap my arm around a large root, pop to the surface to take another breath, and slither deep into the water.
My brain freezes to the point that I barely take in the fact that Xander is still with me, also clinging to roots, his cheeks puffed out and eyes wide. We are a good five feet under the surface, with a healthy current of murky water flowing over us, dressed in dark clothes and making a point to look like a couple of rotting trees.
Above the water, however, the bright sunlight allows me to see three Nahx appear on the riverbank over the outcrop. Damn it, that was stupid. I should have let us drift downstream a bit. We are hiding in the river directly under the spot where we rolled off the bank.
Beside me, Xander twitches. My lungs feel like they’re going to pop like two balloons. The Nahx up on the bank show no sign of leaving. We could let go and drift away, but the Nahx might notice the movement despite the murkiness of the water. I need to breathe. I need to breathe. My vision starts to turn black at the edges.
Above us, the Nahx move back and disappear from view. Xander and I shoot to the surface and gasp in gulps of air, still clinging to the roots and pressed into the river edge. Stars twinkle in my eyes, and my teeth start to chatter. Shaking my wet hair from my face, I see something, a smudge of shadow on the opposite shore. Xander sees it too. We both spin our heads around.
“Oh fuck,” Xander says wetly.
Instinctively, I pull him behind me, pressing him into the weeds.
A single Nahx stands on the bank, looking at us, its dart rifle hanging at its side. It tilts its head for a second, then reaches down for its rifle. I don’t waste time.
“Let go!” I yell. Xander obeys, and together we are sucked out into the river, sailing downstream with the rushing current. I struggle to keep my head above water, expecting the Nahx on the far shore to start running, chasing us down the river, but it just watches, rifle still raised, as we tumble away.
EIGHTH
I never considered that the next human I saw would be a girl. I don’t know why that made me hesitate.
When I stepped out from the trees, I had a clear shot to where she clung to the river’s edge. I could have darted her, I think. But it seemed a shame. She was so brave, the way she pulled that other human down, and she succeeded where I failed. She protected her Offside.
I think I admired her too much to fire my rifle.
Admiration. I don’t even have a sign for that. I would make one up but . . .
The soldier on the other shore sees me and signals for me to wait. Lost, I sign, and one of them nods and signs.
Wait there.
They are higher ranked than me, or even Sixth, I think. The one who nodded to me might even be a First. They are so regimented and controlled. Nothing fazes or distracts them. Sixth would have stomped in frustration about losing the humans in the river, but these ones just turn and march back over the ridge. Sixth would have blamed me and called me stupid, shoved me away and refused to talk to me for days.
I wait, the fingers on my left hand seeking something to hold on to. I wonder whether I shouldn’t slip back into the trees, go up higher, and disconnect again. I don’t trust these high ranks. I know what they think of me. What happens if they find out I’m defective?
But how would they know? We are not decorated in any way. We all look the same, especially in our armor. It is behavior that indicates rank. The higher ranks think all the Eighths are defective, and the Ninths and Tenths even worse. Even I’m scared of the Elevenths and Twelfths. Mostly, they disappear and are never seen again. But if I can manage to act like a higher rank, then what’s to stop me going with these ones? I can watch them and do exactly as they do. I can be regimented and controlled like them, not become entranced with green things, or distracted by the smell of baby wolves or spiderwebs.
I can’t be a First, because I’m a boy and the male Firsts are all still on the ships. I can’t expect to be as perfect as a Second—a Second would never get lost, for starters—but maybe I could make
a convincing Fourth. Then I would be higher ranked than she was. Sixth would like me as a Fourth. If she’s not dead.
My fingers reach, reach, and find nothing there.
One of the transports takes to the sky and skims over the water to collect me. I would tremble if I could. My apprehension makes me forget the girl in the river for the moment. I think of Sixth instead, and reach for her.
RAVEN
When Xander pulls me out of the river, I am so cold my limbs feel like seal flippers. We are both battered from rocks and other debris crashing over us as the river twisted and turned. Xander finally managed to haul us toward the shore and drag himself up into the tangled rocks and roots. I clung to his legs as he gathered his strength to tug me up after him.
He lets me fall in a heap on the shore and collapses down beside me. We lie like two dying fish, gulping and gasping for breath. Soon we are both shivering. With the lateness of the day and the season there is little hope of warming ourselves up without a fire.
“I don’t s-s-s-suppose you have m-m-m-matches,” I stutter.
Xander snorts, and coughs up river water.
So no hope at all, then.
“We have to get back to the others.”
Xander looks at his divers’ watch. “We have about two hours. We should run.” He clambers to his feet and, offering me a hand, tugs me upright. “Shall we race?” he asks with a cheeky grin. “I’ll even give you a head start.”
I show him my middle finger.
If there’s a feeling as desperate as running in wet clothes and sloshing boots along a muddy riverbank with the threat of being killed by a hostile alien around every corner, I don’t know what it is. Running, with no food in your belly, a half-frozen brain, clumps of river-drenched corkscrew curls slapping you in the face, and a lukewarm commitment to actually not lying down and letting a bear find you and eat you. With no hope of ever reaching anywhere good. It’s hard to muster up enthusiasm for a run like that.
After twenty minutes of straining to keep up with Xander’s long-legged, loping pace, tears are streaming down my face. Barely slowing down, I turn to the side and vomit about eight cups of river water onto the roots of a sick-looking sapling. Xander stops and looks back at me as I stagger on.
“Break?”
I shake my head, wiping my mouth on my damp sleeve. I’ve done longer runs than this, though I’ve never enjoyed any of them. I’m not one of those girls who run for hours every day in the hopes of being skinny enough to fit into some sexy dress. I hate dresses anyway, and I never wanted to be as skinny as I am right now. Ten weeks of rationing food has moved all of us down in the weight categories.
I have no concept of how long we’ve been moving, when I begin to feel almost warm again. When sweat drips into my eyes, it is a reprieve. We reach the burnt forest just as the sun dips below the valley ridge. We pause there, making sure the way is clear.
“We can walk from here,” Xander says. “It’s only about another half hour.”
The light is fading though, and our last encounter with the Nahx was in this exact spot in broad daylight, so I can’t say that I think slowing down is a good idea. My legs disagree. I heave them, like lead pipes filled with concrete, dragging one after the other. When I realize that my clothes are nearly dry but still freezing cold, I begin to giggle.
“You’re losing it,” Xander says with a smile.
“Oh, you noticed?”
Past the burnt forest we finally veer away from the river, up toward the dense scrub where we left our camp. I turn back and take a last look at the rushing current, now dark and brooding in the dusk rather than emerald and sparkling. My eyes drift to the other shore, and my mind to the solitary Nahx that stood there, watching us but not shooting. There is something more to think of that, but I can’t quite connect with it.
As we lose the light, every tree and branch becomes a shadow. By the time we reach the campsite, my nerves have unraveled like an old sweater, expecting a Nahx or some other horror with every footstep. Somehow, I end up walking ahead of Xander, so I’m the one who hears the distinctive creak of a bow being drawn back and finds an arrow pointing in my face.
“Boo,” I say halfheartedly. Emily lowers her bow, squinting in the dark.
“Bloody hell, we thought you were dead.”
“Don’t look so disappointed.”
For my part, I’m flooded with relief, relief that they waited longer than six hours, and relief because in the darkness behind Emily, I can see Topher’s shocked face. Among the others the news of our survival is greeted with restrained jubilation until we confess we lost two rifles in the process. Then Sawyer is furious again, but lucky for us, he takes it out on Topher. I have a few things I want to say too.
“You left without me,” I say, plopping down beside him.
“Are you all right?”
Suppressing the urge to punch him makes me grind my teeth. “Cold, bruised, but unbroken,” I say. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“There was a firebreak, a trench. I was going to lure them into it and then . . .”
A question forms in my mind. Something like Have you taken leave of your senses? But then I realize there is no real reason to ask it. It’s clear he has.
We stare out into the dark together, a dark so deep it’s hard to tell if my eyes are open or closed. I blink, and in that blink see the lone Nahx on the shore, not shooting, letting us float away. Its shape, blurred like an indistinct shadow, is like a photograph of a moving object. The memory of that instant stretches out like a slow-motion film. It tilted its head to the side before it raised its gun. It didn’t shoot. It thought about it. The Nahx think? What was the Nahx that killed Tucker thinking in that moment? What do they think of us, the occupants of this planet that they have taken by force?
The strength of these questions derails me. It’s as though I’m able for a moment to see the world through their eyes, see myself through the eyes of that lone Nahx on the shore. What did it think of me when it decided not to fire? The idea of it thinking about me at all is repellent and violating. Topher senses my unease. He has the same infuriating sixth sense that his brother had. Always able to tell when something was the matter, never able or particularly willing to do anything about it.
“If you have something to say to me, say it,” he says, as though I’ve been sitting there thinking about him the whole time.
“This isn’t about you,” I say. “No one here is going to let you disappear into the night. Everyone is just stupid enough to get themselves killed going after you. So . . . wait, okay? Wait until we get everyone somewhere safe. Then you can go off on your vengeance quest.”
“So you don’t want to come with me?”
“God, Topher, the days of being allowed to want things are over. We’re running on absolute nothing left to lose, we’re dead-unless-something-miraculous-happens desperation here. Maybe I’ll go with you to kill some Nahx. What’s the alternative? Wander around, freezing, starving? Waiting for them to find us?”
At least the more I think about it, the less likely it is that I’ll let Topher go off on his own.
He doesn’t speak again for a long time. Behind us we hear the murmurs of our friends, the rustle of sleeping bags, the rattle of a plastic wrapper. They seem like normal noises, but nothing about this is normal.
“We all thought you were dead,” Topher says. “When you fell into the river, we thought they must have shot you and you were both dead.”
“So I heard,” I say. “How did you feel about that?”
I don’t even know why I’m asking this. I suppose to make the commitment to go on a murderous vendetta with someone, or to make their salvation your life’s project, you should really know how they feel about you, or something. Or maybe I’m attempting to strengthen our bond, so that if I go off with him, eventually I might be able to convince him to abandon his vendetta and head west.
There’s another long pause, during which I get slightly nervous, like I�
��m about to hear something I’ll never be able to unhear.
“I don’t think I could explain it,” Topher says cryptically. “Even if I wanted to.”
That answer is not unexpected. Topher was always the one who kept his feelings in check. But those hours we spent together next to Tucker’s body and lying by his grave tell me there are depths to Topher that are rarely plumbed. Depths to his capacity for grief anyway. Perhaps if I was really dead he could explain it. Perhaps one day I’ll die in front of him just to get to the bottom of his emotional repertoire.
Maybe Topher got the brains and Tucker got the soul. Wouldn’t that be perfect?
EIGHTH
I crouch in the back of the transport, next to the ammunition storage. The First pilots, meticulously searching the dark landscape below, while her Offside, a Third, faces me, silently watching.
Rank? he signs at last. I was beginning to think he would never lower himself to speak to me. But I lose my nerve somewhat, tapping my left thumb with my right index finger.
Sixth.
Third nods and does the sign for “good,” a palm flat on the chest, so fast that the sarcasm is painfully clear. I’m beneath him and the First, and he’s not happy to be stuck with me. I sense his suspicion, too. There is no trust among my kind. Maybe he can tell I lied about my rank. He might think I’m a Rogue, searching for others like me, an Eleventh or Twelfth bent on desertion and disobedience.
In our signs “disobedient” is the same as “defective.” I remember Sixth snapping it at me angrily.
What are your directives? Third asks.
I reply without hesitation. Dart the vermin. Leave them where they fall. Making the sign for “human,” I read my own hands as “vermin.” Sixth used this sign for a nest of mice we found once and for large insects I wanted to eat.
Vermin. Human. I suppose they were the same to her.
Have you received revised directives?
No.
Is your transponder malfunctioning?
Zero Repeat Forever Page 5
