Glyph

by T. M. Catron

  “I didn’t love her, Mina. I didn’t. And after she turned in my best friend Morse, I cut off all ties with her that weren’t related to the invasion.”

  “Morse was the hybrid who married a human, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Why were you on that plane?”

  “I would like to say fate, because you were there. But since I don’t believe in it, I’ll have to give you the boring answer.”

  “And that is?”

  “I wanted to be in the US for the invasion. I told them to wait until I got there. But when we landed, the crowded tarmac delayed getting off that plane. I was caught just like you were. Mina, you complain about me saving your life—”

  “I don’t complain about it. I just feel guilty that I can never repay you.”

  “You saved my life on that plane," he whispered. "And you don’t even remember it, do you?"

  “What?”

  “In the first attack, something flew through the cabin and hit me in the head so violently it knocked me out. I heard you coughing next to my chair. It woke me, but I was dazed. I grabbed your arm, don’t know why. Instead of pulling away, you unbuckled me and pulled me out of my seat. Out of the smoke. I woke up for real after that. The smoke was so thick you were almost unconscious. If you hadn’t done what you did, when you did it, I don’t know that I would have got out in time. The plane exploded shortly after. You got me out of the seat in time for me to realize what was happening. I grabbed you and forced my way out just before the explosion.”

  Mina sniffed. It sounded like she was crying. “And you don’t believe in fate?” she asked after a bit.

  “No, fate implies we don’t have a choice.”

  “We all have choices.”

  “Yes.”

  They didn’t say anything else for a long time. Doyle listened to Mina’s breathing, making sure she stayed awake. But she didn’t drift off. Carrying her in his suit was awkward, but the alternative would wear her out completely.

  “It’s surprisingly terrible to cry inside a sealed suit,” she said at random. “I can’t wipe my nose on anything.”

  Much later, the adarria glowed brighter than they had yet. Doyle put Mina down.

  “We didn’t go through this one already, did we?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Do we have time?”

  “No, we ran out of time as soon as I saw Calla.”

  But he pushed through it anyway. Mina followed.

  They didn’t fall this time but stepped into a warm, glimmering room.

  Large glass chambers were filled with clear liquid that glowed blue like strange alien aquariums. The blue light bounced off the stone walls, making the room look like it was underwater.

  Why did the adarria want them to come in here? Doyle walked around the chamber. The tubes were empty.

  “Doyle, come look.”

  Mina was standing behind one of the tubes, looking at the wall. When he stepped around the glass, he came face-to-face with a young woman. From the absence of adarre on her body, a human woman. She was short and petite with dark hair and pale skin. Her body floated in a tank, her face obscured by a mask that was fed by another tube going up to the top of the water. She looked like a pickled specimen in a jar, but other than that, she looked uninjured.

  “She’s alive,” Mina whispered as Doyle came to stand beside her. “She’s breathing.”

  The girl’s chest rose and fell in a slow, rhythmic way, like air was being forced into her lungs.

  Doyle looked at the wall around the tank. The adarria here were newer than in other parts of the ship.

  “How do we let her out?” Mina asked.

  “Let her out? Why would we do that?”

  “She’s obviously human. We can’t leave her.”

  “We can, and we should. We don’t have time to figure this one out.”

  “Doyle—”

  “Mina! At this very moment, Calla is looking for the Nomad. I’d bet my life on it. I don’t know why she’s here, but for whatever reason, it isn’t good.”

  Mina planted her feet and crossed her arms. “Then why did you even come in here?”

  Doyle glared at her, but she had a point. He’d been curious. But he hadn’t expected to find another human to rescue. “We’d have to use the adarre.”

  “I know.”

  “They could signal the Condarri at any time.”

  “Do you really think, after days of wandering through the ship and leading us to the exact location, the adarria will betray us now?”

  “I don’t assume anything, which is why we’re still alive.”

  “I won’t leave her.”

  “You will if I pick you up and carry you out of here!”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  Doyle sighed. They were wasting more time arguing than if they’d just grabbed the girl and run. “Get your blanket. We’ll need to wrap her in something.”

  Mina smiled and hurried to unpack her rolled blanket. Doyle took a sip of water and glanced around the room again.

  And almost choked in surprise.

  A man was in another tank further down. This one didn’t look like he was in as good shape. Huge scars ran the length of his body. Doyle moved closer, looking at the mask that covered his face.

  He was a hybrid, the adarre spreading across his chest covered by so many scars he almost didn’t have any symbols left. Doyle gaped at him. He knew this man.

  Morse.

  And he was alive.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mina watched Doyle put his hands on the glass of another tube. The blue light glowed out and shone in his black eyes.

  “Your mouth is hanging open,” she said. She’d never seen Doyle look shocked.

  When Mina saw what he was staring at, she gasped. The scars covering the hybrid’s body were so extensive that she thought he must be dead. But the dead didn’t heal from their wounds. Nor did they form scars.

  The hybrid’s chest rose and fell like the young woman’s, slowly but with a steady rhythm. Mina put her hand on the glass next to Doyle’s. Then she pulled back quickly, stung by the intense cold.

  The hybrid had dark hair and a medium build, not unlike Doyle but with a gentler face. At least what she could see of it.

  “Who is it?” she asked finally. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I have,” he said without taking his eyes off the hybrid. “This is Morse.”

  “Your friend we spoke of earlier?”

  “Yes. He’s still alive.”

  Mina peered closer at him. “If you can call that alive. What happened to him?” She asked the question but wasn’t sure she wanted an answer. Mina had no doubt that Morse had been awake when those scars were inflicted.

  “It looks like…” Doyle trailed off before glancing at Mina. “It looks like he was taken apart and then put back together.”

  A wave of nausea hit Mina. She fought against it. She’d asked, after all.

  “Are you going to get him out?”

  Doyle dropped his hands and whispered, “That could be me in there.”

  Mina shuddered in horror. “No,” she said emphatically. “You would never let yourself be captured.”

  Doyle took a deep breath and turned to Mina. “But I would walk right into the center of Condar with a human. If that’s not asking for trouble, I don’t know what is.”

  Mina half-smiled. She hoped he was joking, but his mood was so odd that she frowned soon after and looked back at the hybrid. “Speaking of trouble, we don’t have time for you to stand here and gawk any longer. Get him and let’s get out.”

  Doyle paused.

  “What is it?”

  “I left him to die,” Doyle said quietly.

  “Did you bring him here?”

  “No, Calla did. But I might as well have.”

  “Are you going to leave him again?” Mina’s tone was sharp. They didn’t have time for him to ponder his guilt.

  It was ex
actly what Doyle needed.

  “No,” he said emphatically. Then he looked at the walls around them. “We’ve got to find the controls.”

  He walked around the room. Mina did too and passed the young woman again. She had no idea how they were going to get them both out, but if the adarria had led them here, Mina knew they would find a way.

  The room had coils of dark, twisted metal strewn about like leftover pieces to some project. What the project had been, Mina couldn’t guess. None of it was covered in dust, but none of it was laid out like it was in use.

  “Do you get the feeling that Condar is somewhat abandoned?” she asked. Doyle crossed her path, now feeling along the walls.

  “Yes,” he said. “But I assumed that was because they have all been on Earth.”

  “Lucky for us, anyway. You can’t open the chambers with your adarre?”

  Doyle shook his head. “I tried. Nothing happened. Too risky to try it again.”

  Mina’s gaze fell on a long pole of the same kind of metal laying in coils. “I suppose we could do it the human way,” she said.

  Doyle looked puzzled.

  Mina went over and hefted the pole. If it had been too much heavier, she couldn’t have done anything more than drag it. But Doyle wouldn’t have a problem with it.

  “We can bust them out with this.”

  Doyle’s confusion changed to admiration. Then he smirked. “Would you like to try, or do you want me to do it?”

  Mina held out the pole.

  Doyle took it and carried it to the young woman’s tube like a javelin.

  “Wait,” Mina said. “Won’t she go into shock if she just falls out of it? How do we know she’ll come out of her coma?”

  Doyle nodded to the hose attached to her mask. “Maybe there’s some chemical running through there to keep her comatose. Once we remove it, maybe she’ll wake up on her own.”

  “That’s a lot of maybes.”

  “We’re taking a chance, I’ll admit. But it’s that, or leave her here.”

  Mina took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  Doyle nodded and shifted his grip on the pole like he was wielding a baseball bat.

  Mina stepped back, out of range. She admired his strength for a brief moment, allowing herself to indulge in watching him lift the heavy tubing like it was a feather.

  His first hit reverberated through the chamber with a loud thwack. Mina cringed. If they were discovered, she and Doyle would eventually end up in these tubes, as well. And then who would rescue them?

  Doyle struck the tube a second time. This time, a deep crack ran through the glass at the point of impact.

  He hit it again, and again.

  The first jet of liquid spewed out of the crack, coating Doyle’s suit and mask in a clear, watery substance.

  “This is it, I think,” he said. Then he pulled back and struck the tube with every bit of strength he had.

  It shattered.

  A roar of glass and then the liquid poured out, rushing through the new opening. The young woman slumped down inside, but the mask still held her. She dangled from the hose by her head.

  Mina slogged through the thick, draining liquid and wrapped the blanket around the woman while Doyle removed her mask. Together, they hauled her out of the tube, careful not to slide her across the jagged edges.

  They set her down in a dry space near the door. Mina hurried to wrap her more fully in the blanket while Doyle went to get Morse. His strikes sounded even louder from the other side of the chamber.

  When Mina checked for a heartbeat, the young woman’s skin was cold to the touch. She had a faint pulse, but she wasn’t breathing on her own. Mina wondered if it were due to the cold or whatever drugs had been pumped into her body. Fortunately, the chamber was relatively warm compared to the Core of the ship. Mina wrapped her arms around the girl, but her suit wasn’t going to allow much heat transfer.

  “Come on, wake up,” Mina whispered. “You’re safe.”

  Doyle dragged Morse over covered in his own blanket. Neither sleeper moved.

  “How long will it take?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think we should do CPR?”

  Doyle knelt down and felt Morse’s neck. “He has a strong pulse. Give him a minute.”

  “She doesn’t.”

  “It’ll take a minute,” he said tersely. The lines on Doyle’s forehead looked deeper than normal, his face more haggard. If Doyle looked tired, Mina knew she must look like death. She hugged the woman and rocked her a little.

  Doyle removed his helmet and unclipped the breathing unit from his suit.

  He passed it to Mina. “I can do without it a while.”

  Mina put the helmet on the woman’s head and made sure the oxygen unit was turned on. Then she rubbed the woman’s arms.

  “Come on, girl. You can do it.”

  “Talking to her won’t help.”

  “You don’t know that!” Mina regretted snapping at him, but Doyle didn’t seem to need an apology.

  Then, a small breath. Mina held her own breath, to be sure. Yes, the young woman took another. Morse still wasn’t breathing.

  “You need to do CPR,” she said. “Now, Doyle.”

  But Doyle hesitated. Always so clinical, he regarded the hybrid laid on the ground like he was something to be studied. “Why didn’t he wake before her?” he asked.

  Exasperated, Mina nudged the hybrid with her foot. She was unwilling to let go of the girl. “Because no one is talking to him! You were his friend, right? Help him. He’s still part human, or have you forgotten?”

  Doyle shot her a dirty look, but he sat next to Morse and shook him roughly on the shoulder.

  “Are you talking to him through the adarre?”

  “Yes, hush.”

  Aggravated, Mina sighed and concentrated on talking to the woman in her arms. She told her anything that came to mind. The sun. Earth in Spring. The green scent of the forest. After being stuck on a spaceship for days, those were the things Mina craved herself. There was no telling how long the young woman had been there, but Mina had the impression it had been years.

  With her words, the woman’s breaths became stronger, and she moved an arm. Mina stopped talking and waited. Then, her eyelids fluttered.

  Beside them, Morse took a deep, gasping breath. Doyle sank back, relieved. His face was as white as Mina had ever seen it.

  “Why didn’t you just do CPR?” Mina asked.

  “He had to choose to come back,” he whispered.

  The woman in Mina’s arms opened her eyes. They were green with brown flecks in them. The confusion in them quickly turned to panic, and her eyes went wide.

  “Shh! No, it’s okay. You’re okay!”

  But the woman didn’t relax. Instead, she instinctively pulled the blanket around her before reaching up to touch the mask on her face.

  “Leave it alone, or you won’t be able to breathe.”

  “I’m cold,” the woman said. Her voice was so hoarse it came out as a cracked whisper.

  “I know,” Mina said. “What’s your name?”

  She struggled for a minute. Her brow furrowed as if she were deep in thought, as if she couldn’t remember. Then, her eyes turned bright, and she made eye contact with Mina.

  “I’m Alice… Peters.”

  “Alice, I know you just woke up, but you’re going to have to walk again right away.”

  Then Mina looked at Doyle in a panic. “They won’t be able to walk after being in those chambers for so long.”

  “Yes, they will,” Doyle said, watching Morse struggle for his breath. “It’s a trick of the technology. That fluid they were in contained an electric current to keep their muscles somewhat conditioned. They won’t be running anytime soon, but we’ll be able to get them to their feet.”

  “Yours?” Alice asked, looking at Mina.

  “I’m Mina. This is Doyle, and that’s Morse. Morse was in one of those tanks too.”

  Alice
finally relaxed a bit and closed her eyes.

  “No, Alice, we can’t let you sleep. I’m sorry.”

  Alice opened her eyes again and looked at their surroundings. “Are we still in the mine?”

  Mina and Doyle exchanged glances. “No,” Mina said. “We’re somewhere different.”

  “It looks like the old mine. Have you seen Charlie?”

  Alice spoke with a strong Southern accent. She sounded like some of the refugees who had lived at the Springwater Creek Lodge in West Virginia, only from a different era.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Mina said. “I haven’t seen Charlie.”

  “That’s okay. I think I was taken away from him. It’s better he wasn’t here.”

  The sadness in Alice’s voice made Mina’s heart wrench. What had this girl endured?

  “Doyle.”

  All three looked over at Morse, who was no longer struggling to breathe but staring up at the blank ceiling like one who looks without seeing.

  “How long?” he asked.

  Doyle took a deep breath. “Five years.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Morse whispered. “You don’t have to feel guilty.”

  Morse turned his gaze onto Mina and Alice.

  Mina looked at Doyle and wondered what exactly he’d said to Morse to get him to wake.

  “Get up,” Doyle said, his tone returning to its usual terseness. He stood and held out a hand for Morse.

  Morse laid there another minute.

  “Doyle, maybe we should wait,” Mina said. Neither Morse nor Alice had shown the ability to sit up, let alone stand.

  Doyle looked at Mina. “We can’t wait. Up, Morse,” he commanded.

  Holding his blanket with one hand, Morse grasped Doyle’s outstretched hand with his other. In one powerful movement, Morse stood on his feet. He wobbled a minute but didn’t ask for help.

  Seeing Morse rise, Alice sat up slowly. Mina helped her.

  “Am I going to have to hold this blanket?” she asked.

  Mina thought a minute. It was going to be extremely impractical for both of them to keep the blankets wrapped around them on the way to the Nomad.

  “No, you won’t. Doyle, hand me some rope.”

  Doyle fished some out of his pack and passed it to Mina. The blankets were generous. Alice’s would trail behind her when she walked. Attempting to keep Alice covered at the same time, Mina found the center of the blanket and cut a hole in it with Doyle’s knife. She slid the blanket over Alice’s head like a poncho. Then she used pieces of rope to tie it around her waist.