by Ramona Finn
I hesitate. My ability to go deeper into the system than anyone else is a touchy subject. It’s a useful skill, but it’s dangerous—and it makes people question whether or not they can trust me. Still, I decide that Alis won’t see this as a problem—rather, a useful asset. “Sometimes I can get into the AI mainframe.” Her eyes widen fractionally. I continue. “If I can do that again, maybe I can search for plans. We can learn what she’s doing based on schematics. Maybe we can even figure out a timeframe—and what she’s going to do afterwards.”
Alis has opened her mouth to respond when the shots come.
Sharp red lasers pierce the air and tear through her arm, and she lets out a cry of pain. Reaching for her, I jerk her back before another laser can hit her in a more vital place.
All around us, the world explodes in a mass of lasers, dust, and pain. The drones have found us—and so have the scabs. Humanlike in shape, but without the skin or the faces to make them familiar, they’re even more effective than the drones. They come at us with spindly fingers that have viselike grips. All the while, the drones shoot at us. They’re close enough that I worry we won’t have time to escape.
“Get to the ATVs!” I scream at the others, but it’s too late.
The drones have targeted the ATVs. Lasers tear through the fragile cages and, when one hits an engine, it explodes. Crow and Pike throw themselves to the ground and away from the fire. Hawk screams and I see him go down. Crow calls after him, scrambling across the desert floor to get to the younger Rogue. They’re both alive, at least.
I rush a drone, but without my gear I’m not fast enough. It rounds on me before I get to it. A laser tears through my shoulder and I’m lucky it didn’t hit a little farther to the right. A cry tears through my chest as I crumple to the ground. I reach for a rock nearest me as Crow calls to me. I throw the rock with impeccable aim, hitting the glowing red sensor on the front. It wobbles and weaves, far enough away still that it’s lasers don’t hit me as they are thrown around blindly in a vain attempt to hit me.=
The Rogues use salvaged guns to combat the drones, and most of the weapons are taken down quickly. Alis is using her gear in an effort to fight off a scab, but it’s so much stronger. She ends up sliding across the ground, badly injured. I realize that we can’t win. We have to retreat. But without the ATVs, I’m not sure we can outrun them. We have to try, though.
“Run!” I yell.
Most do as they’re told. They dodge behind rocks to avoid being hit and shoot back when they can, but their priorities are to run now. To escape. Crow doesn’t run away, though. He comes to me instead amidst a firestorm of shots and approaching mechanical scabs. I’m still on the ground, struggling to get up. His arm slips around my waist and he hoists me up. We start moving together. I don’t have the time or the energy to be mad at him for not leaving me.
We run as fast as we can, dodging beams from the scabs and the drones. A rock explodes beside me. I try not to think how close it was to my head.
“C’mon!” Crow screams beside me.
We run harder.
The others are farther ahead and I hope that they make it, at least—I hope we make it, too. But a scab is hot on our heels. He takes aim and I know this one will hit me in the back. I push myself harder, Crow beside me, but I know that we won’t be able to escape.
I wait for the blow—but it never comes.
I glance back to see what’s going on, which is why I don’t see the hole in the ground in front of me. My foot catches it just right. I go down.
Crow curses and tries to get me up, but we both know that it’s too late. We’re dead. I brace for it. But it still doesn’t come.
“What the—?” Crow murmurs.
We both stare back at the scabs that have been following us. They’ve stopped. They stare at us with inhuman eyes, but they don’t move.
“What’s going on?” Crow whispers to me.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to wait around to find out.”
He nods and helps me to my feet. My ankle doesn’t feel good, but I think I can walk. Crow helps me. As we move away, I can’t help but glance back at the scabs. They haven’t moved. It’s as though an invisible line has stopped them from going any farther.
But why?
…
We don’t make it home until late in the night. We’re a little roughed up, but mostly okay. The return trip is the hardest part thanks to my wounded leg, but I manage thanks to Crow’s support. We have to take breaks frequently, which is why it takes us so long to get back to the tunnels. When we climb down the rope into them, Wolf is there, pacing.
“What happened?” Wolf demands when he gets close to me. His eyes take in Crow’s support and my injured leg. His eyes narrow.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. They spotted us. I don’t know how. We weren’t any closer than the other times and they’ve never noticed us before.”
Wolf makes a grunting sound, then lets his gaze make a quick trip over the lot of us. “Get yourselves to Croc. We’ll talk about this when you’re well enough to do so.”
Crow helps me to Croc’s where the doctor tends to our injuries. I get about an hour before Wolf comes in to check on me. “How are you?” he asks. Crow and the others have been dismissed already, but my injuries—namely my leg—have kept me a little longer.
I nod. “I’m okay. My leg’s a little banged up, but I’ll make a full recovery.”
He falls quiet for a moment, then says, “You can’t go back.”
I sit up, ignoring the pain from moving my leg unintentionally. “We have to! The AI is building still and we need to know—”
“I am aware of that!” Wolf snaps at me, his anger mixing with his worry for me. “But we need to pick a different spot. Clearly, the AI spotted you. That means it knows you keep coming back to that spot. We need a new vantage point.”
My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. I fully anticipated him forbidding us from going back at all. He clears his throat when I say nothing in response. “And I know you don’t like it, but you’ll be on the sidelines until your leg’s healed. No arguments.” He gets up to leave, but then he pauses. Over his shoulder, he adds, “I’m glad you’re okay. And next time, I’m going, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Croc told me to give it a week or so to heal. My ankle isn’t broken, but it’s sprained, making it almost impossible to walk on. I have to lean on someone for support or use a crutch. It doesn’t make me happy—specially since I feel like we’re wasting time. The laser injury isn’t as bad as it looks, though Croc gives me some of the antibiotics we’ve retrieved on our supply missions. He packs it full of herbs he’s ground down and made a paste out of. It stings, but it takes away a lot of the immediate pain. He says the burn will scar, but otherwise heal.
During my downtime, I let myself wonder what happened out there. Why did the drones and scabs stop? I’m sitting in the main room with Wolf. He’s been spending more time with me these last few days. The worry for me is written across his normally stoic features and it makes me feel good to know that he cares so much. Others don’t appreciate the sentiment he’s showing, though.
Crow seems agitated or angry a lot of the time when he sees Wolf. Others whisper that his attachment to me is proof that he isn’t prepared to lead anymore. It makes me think that I should shove Wolf away, but I don’t. I’m selfish, because I want him to stay close to me.
“Croc says you’re healing just fine,” Wolf comments. We’re sitting with our backs to the wall, close enough that our shoulders touch.
I nod my head. “Yeah. I feel much better. I can probably walk on it, I think, but Croc says to give it a little bit longer. Just in case.”
“Probably a good idea,” Wolf agrees. “Crow wants to send out another group soon, though. If you’re feeling better, I was thinking we’d schedule for the end of the week.”
I’m surprised he seems ready to let me go out again, but I remember that he said he would
go with us the next time. I think this has a lot to do with it. It should make me feel better; it doesn’t. In fact, I feel a trickle of cold fill into my stomach. I don’t think it’s safe to go back out there—I’m not sure it ever will be. I know that I have to go back. To rescue Raj. To stop the AI. To get my answers. But that doesn’t mean anyone else should be put at risk, does it?
The uncomfortable, nervous feeling makes me wish that no one had to go. I still think about how the drones found us—and how they stopped at that line. Meaning, they would have kept coming, except that they were stopped. By something that wasn’t us.
The AI must have stopped them… but why?
I’ve been thinking about it since we got back. Why not keep coming after us? I think it must be some sort of safeguard. The AI doesn’t want us getting too close. The drones and the scabs were clearly ready to kill us, but once we reached a certain point, they stopped. I can’t figure why they would do that, unless the AI stopped them because it only wanted to make sure that we didn’t get too close. Like maybe the AI didn’t want to waste resources chasing us, as long as we’d been gotten rid of.
Which means that the AI has limited resources.
This should make me feel better about trying to get a better look at the AI, but it doesn’t. Instead, I think that it’s more dangerous than ever. The AI is now like a mother, protecting her nest. She won’t let us get close and she knows that we’re trying to.
“I… I don’t know about the end of the week,” I hedge. Wolf glances at me in surprise. “Um, I just mean that we still need to come up with a better plan after last time. And I want to make sure my ankle is in good shape before we dive back in.”
He nods. “You’re right. Alis has a couple of ideas about what happened, but nothing concrete.”
I look over at him with raised eyebrows. “Alis talked to you about it?”
He shrugs his large shoulders. “Well, maybe not talked to me about it. But she mentioned it while I was there. She thinks it might have to do with limited power supplies. Or maybe programming that’s more focused on building rather than chasing us.”
I consider both ideas. They’re not bad guesses, and I wonder if they’re right, as opposed to my thought that the AI is concerned about losing resources. Or maybe all of the theories are linked.
“Maybe,” I concede. “But it could be that the AI doesn’t want to lose more scabs and drones. After all, she needs them to build, right?”
He nods. “Maybe.”
“Either way, we need to get back out there.”
Wolf agrees with me. “We’ll get a plan put together. I’ll set it for the end of the week. If you’re not up for it then, don’t worry. You can go next time.”
Fear trickles through me. It’s because I don’t like the idea of them going without me, but it’s more than that. I’m scared. Scared that they won’t be careful. Scared that the scabs are more dangerous out there right now—bigger, stronger. The ones around the Norm are focused on building, but can I really trust that there are no other scabs out there? Ones that are programmed as they were before: to hunt down and kill us?
No, I can’t trust that. And if that’s true, then we can’t afford to be out there doing dangerous things. Because I don’t think we can win against them.
“I’m sure I’ll be better. Just give it some time,” I mumble, hoping that it’s true.
…
I wish I could say that I slept soundly that night. But I didn’t. I tossed and I turned. My dreams were filled with visions of the scabs and the drones. Of my friends dying. Of the AI standing over them, walking towards me. She looks like the doctor and I can’t deny how familiar she is. How I feel as though I know her.
But she’s not real. She’s not—
I finally jerk awake, my body covered in sweat, my heart racing. My hair is matted to my forehead. My eyes sweep the room to see if anyone else is awake, but no, it’s just me. I’m shaking with fear, the dream having shaken me. I worry that my friends will die. That the AI will win.
And that somehow, once again, I’ll be a part of it all.
I fall back against my cushions, but if I think I’m going to sleep, I must be crazy. Sleep won’t come. And even if it could, would I want it? Not after that dream. Not after realizing my fears.
I let myself lay there quietly for several long minutes, but I quickly decide that I can’t do it. The images are fresh in my mind, tormenting me. Pushing myself up, I pull on my cargo pants and then tiptoe through the mass of beds. I move as quietly as I can so that I don’t wake anyone else.
I’m not really sure where I’m headed. Part of me wants to go outside for some fresh air, but I know that’s a bad idea. It’s dangerous out at night—more so than in the day.
Deciding to stay inside, I end up wandering. And thinking. I find myself by the baths, sitting along the edge with my feet in the water. The heat helps to ease some of the tension out of my body, but I can’t ignore my dream.
Was this Bird’s vision? Were my body and mind finally trying to tell me something?
Maybe, I admit. Or maybe the vision has yet to come.
But I do come to one conclusion: I have to get into the Norm soon. And I have to do it alone. No team, no scouting. Just me. Because I think that’s what the dream is trying to tell me. If I go alone, I can make it. The AI won’t stop me. She wants me there as much as I need to be there. It’s a scary thought, but I think that’s what my dream means.
I stay at the baths the rest of the night, thinking up plans on how I’m going to leave without anyone knowing—and whether or not I can somehow survive.
…
I wait three more nights. Just long enough to be sure that my ankle is healed. During those three nights, I dream each time of people dying and of the AI walking towards me, bidding me toward her.
I don’t tell anyone about the dreams, though I almost talk to Bird about them. The last thing I want to do is share anything with her, but if these are dreams and not visions… If they are dreams, then she might be the only one who can help me decipher them.
Ultimately, I decide not to tell her, though. I can’t. All I remember is how she blames me for Raj—and how I’m not sure that she’s wrong.
On the fourth night after that night I spent at the baths, everyone else goes to sleep just like always. But I stay awake. I lie down and pretend, but I keep my eyes open and stare at the roof of the cave. I don’t want the dreams to take me tonight. I can’t afford to waste time like that. So I wait. When it finally sounds as though the whole room has dropped off into sleep, I start to get up. I look around and see that no one is moving. Their chests rise and fall, and that’s it. They’re asleep.
I get up and get dressed. Then I quietly move between the beds until I reach the mouth of the tunnel. I pause just long enough to send a glance back at the people who have taken me in. Some have welcomed me; some have ostracized me. But for the good and the bad, they have become familiar enough to almost make me feel like this is a home.
Whether or not they could ever truly be family, I don’t know, but I admit that I’ll miss them.
Turning away, I hurry down the tunnel before someone wakes up and notices me. I head down to the supply room and pack lightly, taking a little bit of water and some food. I don’t know how long I’ll be in the Norm—or if I’ll even get that far—but I want to have enough energy to at least have a chance of getting through it.
Next, I stop at the Tech Room. I look down at my gear. If the nightmares are my visions, then it no longer matters, right? But if they’re not… Deciding to take the gear, but only wear it if I have to, I stuff it into my bag quickly and then leave.
I finally move to the exit, tension tightening my body and making me jumpy. I’m halfway down the hall when I hear something behind me. I swivel around, and come face to face with Wolf.
“I—”
“Don’t bother lying to me,” he tells me, shoving past me and continuing down the hall.
I win
ce. I had been about to lie to him. To tell him that I was maybe going to the Empties or something else. Anywhere else. “What are you doing?” I ask instead, hurrying after him.
He glances over his shoulder at me. I can see the tightness around his eyes telling me he’s angry. “I’m coming with you.”
Swallowing, I ask, “Where?”
He stops abruptly, turning to face me. I slam against his chest and he catches me by the arms, holding me about six inches from him. “The Norm.”
I consider lying, despite him telling me not to. But then I realize how stupid that is. I sigh and ask instead, “How did you know?”
He lets me go, then shrugs. “You’ve been weird lately. Not as eager to go on missions, encouraging me to put off the next mission. Even though I know you’re better.” His dark eyes flicker to my ankle, then back up to my face. “It’s not like you. I had a feeling that you were planning something. And where would you go besides the Norm?”
I offer an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I—” I break off. I’d been about to tell him that I was going to tell him goodbye or that I would have been back soon. But I know that the first wasn’t true, and I don’t know if the second would have been, either. So instead I just shake my head and apologize again.
He purses his lips tightly together. After a moment of silence, he asks, “Is there any convincing you not to go tonight? To just wait and get a team together—”
He stops speaking when I start to shake my head. “No,” I tell him honestly. “I can’t ask anyone else to go.”
“Because we’re not just doing a reconnaissance mission, are we?” he guesses.
I shake my head. I hope that by telling him the truth about my plans, maybe he won’t go. “No. I’m getting into the Norm tonight.”
He curses. “That’s suicide. How does you dying in the Norm help anything?”
“It’s not suicide,” I say immediately, though it might be. I just hope it’s not. I hesitate for a fraction of a second, and then I just tell him my reason for going. “Because I think Raj is still alive. If he is, then I need to save him. Because it’s my fault he’s there.”
