by Amy Cross
“No!” I scream, at the exact moment that she pulls the trigger.
The blast blows her head apart, spraying nearby trees with blood and bone and brain matter. Her body falls back and slumps against the forest floor with a section of her spine poking out through the top of her neck's bloodied stump, and her right hand twitches for a moment before falling still.
Blood is dribbling down the side of the trees, as the whine from the recently-fired gun finally comes to an end.
And then, right behind me, there's a huge explosion that knocks me down to my knees.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Iris
A massive explosion rocks the beach, sending me tumbling down against the sand. Landing hard, I roll onto my side and immediately get back up, but in that split second I've already lost sight of Nissa.
“Iris!” she screams suddenly, and I turn to see her waving at me from the other side of some burning metal. “I've got a plan!”
Stumbling toward her, I come to a halt after a few steps as I realize that the huge warship is coming this way. The beach is shuddering beneath my feet, and for a moment I can only watch in horror as the warship rumbles across the sand. There's more and more smoke rising from burning debris all over the beach, but a moment later the smoke clears slightly and I'm just about able to make out the silhouette of Nissa running.
She's not running toward me.
She's running through the smoke, across blood-soaked sand.
She's running toward the warship.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Asher
“Get down!” I scream. “Get -”
Suddenly the ground explodes beneath my feet, sending me slamming through the air in a shower of dirt and shattered roots. I slam into a nearby tree, with enough force that I instantly hear my armored suit absorbing as much of the impact as it can manage, and then I slump down to the ground as more soil comes raining down all around.
Damn.
I didn't even hear that strike coming, not until it was too late.
Pausing for a moment, I listen to the sound of gunfire in the distance. People are shouting and screaming, dying as loudly as human beings can die, and the ground is trembling beneath my hands and my knees and my feet. Something's wrong, there's something I'm missing, but right now all I know is that the sound of warfare is making my skull rattle.
I have to fight.
Struggling to my feet, I dust myself down and look around. It's too dark to see much with the naked eye, so I lower my helmet's visor and tap the button on the side of activate enhanced vision. When that doesn't work, I try several more times, but I can already tell that the mounting is slightly broken. A moment later, however, I realize that my fingers seem to be slipping through the space where the visor should be, as if it's not really here at all.
“Asher!”
Startled, I turn just as another heavily-armored figure stumbles toward me, holding a Mag-Gun. She raises her visor slightly, and I see that it's Mads.
Mads?
I haven't seen Mads in so long. I thought she was...
“Now what?” she asks breathlessly.
“That thing isn't stopping any time soon,” I point out, watching as the circle of lights starts slowly turning this way. The warship is on the move again, crossing the beach. Beach? Shouldn't we be in the forest? “It can't be any more than half a mile away.”
“Point four, to be precise,” Mads replies. “What's wrong? Is your unit glitching?”
“Just the -”
“I'm dead, Asher.”
I turn to her, and I see the cold, blank look in her eyes.
“You have to break out of this,” she continues. “Asher, you're not at Talton V, not anymore. You have to remember where you really are.”
“I'm in the war,” I reply, although I can hear the uncertainty in my own voice. “I'm fighting, I'm -”
“That was a long time ago,” she says firmly, interrupting me. “Asher, there's something else you need to do.”
“No,” I reply, “I -”
Suddenly I spot a dead body on the ground nearby. Staring at the bloodied pulp of bloodied meat around the body's neck, I realize I remember watching Doctor Phillips shoot herself in the head. For a moment, all my thoughts seem to be colliding in my head, smashing against one another. I feel dizzy, but I know I have to stay on my feet.
“You know what you have to do,” Mads says, and when I turn back to her I see that she's reaching up to touch her own face. “You're a lot of things, Asher,” she adds. “You're sure not a coward.”
With that, she starts scraping her face away, ripping the skin and flesh from the bones to reveal an augmented skeletal frame that was buried deep in her body a long time ago. I've seen this happen before, I know that now, and suddenly I realize that I'm not back at Talton V at all.
I'm on the island.
“Save them,” Mads says, as blood pours from what's left of her face. “Save Steadfall.”
I blink and she's gone, replaced by the sight of the warship rumbling across the beach.
“I surrender,” I whisper, before feeling a rush of panic in my chest.
Looking around, I realize that I don't have long left. I set off through the forest, racing between the trees as I desperately try to get to the group of soldiers taking cover at the far end of the beach. The ground is rumbling harder and harder beneath my feet, as if the entire island is in danger of being shaken apart, and almost every other step is a stumble or a fall. Finally I reach the edge of the forest, and I tumble down a sandbank before running again, this time past burning war machines and pulverized bodies.
I can see a group of soldiers ahead, and two of them have already turned to train their weapons on me.
“Stop!” I scream. “I surrender!”
Waving at them frantically, I come to a halt just a few meters from where the soldiers are standing. I can't see their faces, since they have their visors lowered, and I know that at any moment they could decide to shoot. My only hope is that Doctor Phillips was telling the truth, and that somehow the soldiers will recognize me. It seems insane to believe that they came all this way just to fetch me, that I could in any way be important, but a moment later one of the soldiers lowers his gun and then – seconds later – the other does the same.
I hear the crackle of radios, and then General Alistair Lennox steps into view.
“I have the code,” I tell him breathlessly. There are tears streaming down my face, and I'm terrified, but I know I have to do this. “Phillips is dead, and the code you want is inside me somehow. I don't understand how, exactly, but that's what she told me right before she died.”
I wait, but Lennox seems unconvinced.
“My name is Asher,” I continue, “and -”
“I know who you are,” he spits back at me. “I just don't know whether I believe you:”
“They're here for the code too,” I reply, turning and pointing toward the warship that's rumbling this way. “Between your army and theirs, this island is never going to survive this battle. So I'm telling you the truth now.” I turn back to him. “I'm what you're after. I'm the one.”
He pauses for a moment, and now I think I can see a flicker of doubt in his eyes.
“We intercepted some communications between Nicole Phillips and an unknown agent,” he says finally. “These communications do seem to indicate that the code is hidden in the body of somebody on the island. Given the few other scraps of information we've obtained, and some messages we've picked up from the other side, I'm inclined to believe that you might be telling the truth.”
“Sir,” a soldier says, hurrying over to him, “we've just confirmed that there's no signal from Phillips' implants. She appears to be dead.”
“I told you,” I say firmly, “I'm what you want. So take me away from here before the island gets ripped apart.”
I wait for an answer, but Lennox still doesn't seem entirely convinced. For a few seconds, I'm actually convinced that he m
ight order my execution.
“We're getting out of here,” he says suddenly, before turning to two nearby soldiers. “Restrain this prisoner and prepare for immediate evacuation. We're taking her back to the city.”
The soldiers hurry over and grab my arms. My instinct is to fight back, to fight and scream, but that's an instinct I have to ignore. Right now, my only option is to hope that Doctor Phillips was telling the truth.
“Just so you know,” Lennox continues, stepping closer as the soldiers prepare to load me into a heli-mag carrier, “I'll find out if you're lying. I'll make sure that every part of you is checked and double-checked, scanned and re-scanned. If we have to tear you apart to find this code, that's exactly what we'll do.”
“I know,” I reply, as I realize that Doctor Phillips might have been right all along. “I'd expect nothing less.”
“Get her onboard,” he sneers to one of the soldiers, “and when we get back to the city, scan her into the system. She looks half-feral after all this time on the island. I wouldn't be surprised if she's barely even human anymore.”
With that, I'm shoved toward the carrier. I can feel a gun poking against my back, and voices are yelling all around me as the soldiers prepare to leave. Once they're gone, the other side should leave too. Whatever happens to me – whether Doctor Phillips' insane plan was real or not – at least the island should be left alone. Turning and looking over my shoulder, I see that the beach is now a war-zone, but I'm certain that Iris will have taken Nissa somewhere safe.
Maybe I'll get back to the island one day. Maybe I won't. But so long as Nissa can live here without being troubled by the outside world, this will all have been worth it.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Iris
“I'm going to block the engines!” Nissa screams, grabbing twisted pieces of metal and hauling them toward the side of the rumbling warship. “I'm going to throw things into the engines to make the whole thing explode!”
I try to grab her arm and pull her back, but she's too quick for me. I try again, but she's already scurrying across the sand.
When I cry out, all that emerges from my mouth is a kind of garbled groan.
All around us, the air is shimmering thanks to the immense heat of the warship. I can barely see Nissa up ahead as she struggles to drag more metal toward the machine's path, but at this rate she's going to get herself killed. Struggling forward, I try desperately to reach her, but the ground is shaking beneath my feet and I can barely manage to stay upright. The noise is deafening, and finally I feel a sharp pain in my left ear as the drum bursts. Dropping to my knees, I briefly cry out, but I quickly force myself to get back up.
I have to save Nissa.
Suddenly I hear the roar of the warship's engines as they change tone, and I look up just in time to see that the vast ring of guns is starting to turn. Shocked, I look along the beach and see several carriers taking off, and I realize that the other soldiers are starting to leave. I still don't quite understand why they were here in the first place, but either they've decided to give up, or they've got what they wanted and they're taking it away.
I should be relieved, but deep down in the pit of my belly I've got a bad feeling about this.
“I did it!” Nissa yells. “Iris, I made them go!”
Turning, I see that she's running toward me. Behind her, the warship is turning and aiming its guns toward the carriers, and it's clear that it's no longer interested in attacking anything on the island.
“Iris, did you see?” Nissa shouts. I grab her as she reaches me. “They're running away! It must be because I was going to destroy their engines!”
I want to tell her that she's crazy, that she's completely deluded, but right now all I can do is watch as the warship starts firing at the carriers. The idea that a little girl could stop a weapon of that size is ludicrous, but I can't fault Nissa for having a lot of confidence. At the moment, all that really matters is that the soldiers – from both sides – leave the island and never, ever come back.
“What are they doing?” Nissa shouts suddenly, her voice filled with panic. “Where are they taking her?”
I look over my shoulder, toward the retreating line of the army at the shore's northern end. At first I can't work out what Nissa's talking about, but then I spot several soldiers leading a figure toward one of the last carriers, and I'm shocked to realize that I recognize their prisoner.
“Why's she letting them take her away?” Nissa asks, struggling to break free as I hold her tight. “Why isn't she fighting?”
I have no answer. All I can do is watch as Asher steps obediently into the carrier. Her head is bowed, and even from this distance I can tell that she seems to have accepted her fate. The old Asher – the Asher I've known for the past fifteen years – would rather go die than submit to this kind of treatment and leave the island, yet now I can see that she's calmly letting the soldiers do whatever they want. None of this makes any sense, and all I can hope is that she has some kind of plan.
“I have to save her!” Nissa yells, suddenly slipping out of my grip and racing along the beach.
I set off after her, dodging piles of burning machinery and bloodied corpses, as more carriers roar overhead and race away from the beach. The warship is still firing at the carriers furiously, but it's not managing any direct hits, while ahead there's only one carrier left.
“Don't go!” Nissa screams as I try to reach her. “Don't -”
Before she can finish, a damaged defense drone explodes just a few meters away. An explosion shakes the beach and sends a fireball bursting across the sand, and I'm immediately blown off my feet and sent slamming into the side of a burning truck. Slumping down against the sand, I feel a rush of heat against the back of my neck, and I find that my legs are shaking as I force myself back up.
Barely able to walk, I start making my way toward the defense drone's burning wreckage, but there's no sign of Nissa anywhere. She was much closer to the explosion, and thick black smoke is making it almost impossible for me to spot her. I limp as close to the flames as I dare, but the heat beats me back so I stumble around to the other side and finally I spot Nissa on the ground.
I hurry over and drop to my knees, just as she lets out a faint groan and tries to sit up.
One side of her face is covered in blood, and I see to my horror that the skin seems to have been blown clean away. She clearly took the brunt of the explosion on her left side, where her tunic has been left tattered and her arm is clearly broken in several places.
“Iris?” she stammers, her voice trembling with shock as she looks down at her injuries. “Help me...”
I reach under her battered body and lift her up, somehow finding the strength to get to my feet and start carrying her away from the flames. I can feel her blood soaking through the arms of my tunic, and a moment later she reaches up with her undamaged right hand and clings to my shoulder. She's not even sobbing; instead, she seems to be in complete shock, although her shoulders are starting to tremble and finally I realize I can hear a faint whimpering sound coming from her lips.
I want to tell her that everything will be okay, but there's nothing I can say.
Suddenly hearing the roar of a carrier's engine, I look along the beach and see that the final machine is preparing to rise up from the island. The door on the side is still open, and I watch with a growing sense of disbelief as I realize that I can see Asher being chained to a railing on the main flight deck.
“Where are they taking her?” Nissa asks, her voice still trembling. “Why isn't she fighting them?”
I stumble forward, and a moment later I make eye contact with Asher. She stares at me, and I can see the fear on her face as the carrier shudders slightly and finally starts to rise into the blue sky.
“Where's she going?” Nissa screams, trying desperately to get out of my arms as she reaches her undamaged hand toward the carrier. “Come back! Don't go with them! You have to come back!”
Asher simply s
tands on the flight deck and looks down at us as the carrier rises and rises.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Asher
They look so small down there on the beach, surrounded by the burning wreckage of war. Nissa seems hurt somehow, but she's alive and I know Iris will look after her.
Suddenly the carrier's door slides shut and I feel the engine rumble as we swing out across the beach. I instinctively pull my wrists against the chains, but I quickly remember that there's no point fighting back. All I can do now is hope and pray that Phillips was telling the truth, and that the island – without me – will be left in peace.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Iris
“She's going to be okay,” Olivia says as she comes out of the hut, with blood on her hands. “It's not going to be pretty, but the injuries will heal. She might have limited use of her left hand and leg, but she'll survive.”
“The beach is covered in metal and bodies,” Ripley mutters darkly, turning to me. “There's a split of opinion here. Half the people think we should scavenge again, and half think we should push it all into the ocean. Personally, I'm sick of everything that comes from the outside world. I want to get rid of it all.”
I raise a hand, indicating that this is something we can discuss later. I know that over the next few days we'll have to make some important decisions, but at least the war machines never quite made it as far as Steadfall. The town is a little damaged, and people are shaken, but fundamentally the place still stands. We need to figure out what to do next, but we have time for that. Right now, there's something else I need to be doing, although I don't know where to begin.
***
“She was a warrior,” Nissa whispers, keeping her voice uncharacteristically quiet as she struggles to speak. The left side of her mouth is badly cut, and I can see the shock and fear in her eyes. “Why didn't she fight them?”
Sitting with Nissa in the darkness of the hut, I can't help thinking that even if I could speak, I'd have no idea what to say. I saw the look on Asher's face as she was flown away, and that sight has been haunting me ever since. Over the past twenty-four hours, I've been trying to figure out what she was thinking. I never once saw Asher back down from a fight, yet she seemed to submit to the soldiers without a fight. I have all the same questions as Nissa, but no answers.
