by Amie Kaufman
Mori doesn’t move, doesn’t even acknowledge Alexi. Her eyes are on the townie boy—all the animation has left her face. The hairs begin to rise on my arms, on the back of my neck. Something’s wrong.
“You’ll tell us where you’re going,” says Mori. Her voice is cold. No way this is the same girl who minutes before was joking and laughing. “And roll up your sleeve, we’ll need to scan your genetag.”
“Corporal,” I interject. “Leave him. Let’s go.”
The townie’s noticed the shift in the air. He doesn’t know Mori like we do, but he’s no idiot, not living where he does. He can read the change in a crowd. He takes a step back, glances over his shoulder. There’s a small face pressed to the glass of the window in the house. With a jolt, I realize the boy’s looking back at his little brother, who’s watching the whole thing. No wonder he’s trying to act tough.
I can see the boy fighting the urge to back down, to play it safe. I will him to go home. Walk away.
Then his jaw clenches. “Yeah, well you can suck my—”
Gunfire rends the quiet, and for a half second I’m blinded by its laser flash. I launch myself backward, my own gun leaping into my hand. I’m searching for the shooter for what feels like an eternity before I see the townie drop to his knees. Before the sound of the brother inside screaming hits my ears. Before I see that half the boy’s face is gone. Before I realize Mori’s hand is holding the gun, and it’s pointed at where the boy was standing.
The next few seconds are a blur. I leap for Mori, Alexi throws himself down by the townie’s body as the townspeople nearby start to run—some toward us, some away. Somewhere there’s a woman screaming. I can smell burned hair.
Mori’s staring straight ahead, her face calm, her eyes blank. I shake her once, twice—then I slap her hard. Her face jerks to the side with the impact of my blow, but her expression doesn’t change. I fumble for the flashlight on my belt and shine it at her face. Her pupils are dilated so far her eyes look black, unchanging when I shine the light directly into her eyes.
No. There were no signs—there wasn’t any warning. Where were her dreams?
Alexi abandons the body in the mud and lurches to his feet. “Lee,” he gasps, “we’ve gotta get out of here. It’s going to get ugly, we need to be gone.”
Then Mori wakes up. I’m the first thing she sees, and she blinks at me once before she speaks. “Hey, Captain. What’s up?”
I’m frozen for half a breath before instinct takes over, and I’m jerking her away. I half march, half drag her back down the street while Alexi brings up the rear, Gleidel in hand, making sure no one’s out for immediate revenge.
Mori’s baffled questions halt abruptly. When I look down, I see her eyes fixed somewhere behind us. And I know she’s seen the slumped, motionless form lying in the mud.
The shop’s bell chimes, and the girl lifts her head from her reader. Don’t, she thinks. Wait. This one’s different.
“Welcome,” her mother calls. The girl, under the counter, watches her mother’s legs as she turns toward the customers. “Can I…” But her mother doesn’t finish.
“Hello, Mrs. C.” The voice is light, but the moment she hears it, the girl’s heart freezes. “Had some time to think about our offer?”
The girl puts her eye to the crack in the plastene. She sees her father coming down the stairs, watches as he pauses.
“We told you we weren’t interested,” the girl’s father says, slowly moving the rest of the way down the stairs, putting himself between the customers and the girl’s mother.
“Noah,” the girl hears her mother whisper. “They’re on something—look at their eyes.”
Through the crack in the counter, the girl shifts her eyes toward the men in the doorway. Their eyes look like dolls’ eyes, like black marbles with no pupils.
THE WIRE AT THE BASE perimeter where i got in last time has been repaired, but the same weak spot repeats a hundred feet along, and this time I take care to wind the ends of the fencing back together more carefully and hide my tracks. It looks like they’ve increased their security since the shooting in town, but a few extra guard patrols won’t be enough to stop McBride—especially when they don’t know he’s coming.
I hate that I’m here. My ill-fitting uniform, stolen off the back of a resupply shuttle a few months ago, feels itchy and coarse on my skin. No matter how many times I remind myself that this isn’t a betrayal, that I have to warn the base if I’m going to avoid shattering the ceasefire and dooming my people, it feels like I’m a traitor. It was horrifying enough to discover the munitions cabinet was ripped open and McBride and his followers are armed. With this new killing they have the excuse they’ve been waiting for, and that means I’ll be whatever I have to be, tonight.
I duck my head as I pass one of the patrols and hurry down a makeshift alleyway. For once I’m glad for the rain, which started back up as I poled my way here; it means no one’s looking too closely at anyone’s faces.
I shouldn’t know where Captain Chase sleeps at night, but our intel on the base is better than the trodairí realize. They don’t have the personnel to staff the base entirely with soldiers, so some of the people living in town get work here as cooks and stockers and janitors. Nothing high-security, nothing anyone could use against the base—except that janitors are invisible and they’re allowed to go anywhere. We’ve got a pretty good map of this place.
Most of the officers’ quarters are makeshift arrangements. Jubilee is stuck out in one of the temporary sheds, and I’m pretty sure her bedroom used to be a storage area. There’s no real window, only an air vent they’ve enlarged a little and covered with clear plastene to let in some light.
The fear is sitting deep in my gut that if McBride has his way, this could be the day we’ve been dreading. The day the body count gets so high that TerraDyn and the military launch an all-out assault. That this could be the day we lose too many of our people, they lose too many of theirs, and Avon descends into the chaos that’s been waiting for her for years.
I don’t know how to stop it, so now I’m about to crawl through a window in the middle of a base full of soldiers, looking for the one ally who might have enough sway to help me hold our people apart.
It only takes half a minute to yank the covering off. I grasp at the sill, swinging myself up and ignoring the complaints of shoulder muscles sore from poling through the swamps. The room inside is sparsely furnished, exactly what I’d expect of a trodaire’s quarters. My eyes go first to the pale gray combat suit hung neatly on the wall, standing like a ghostly sentry over the sleeping soldier nearby. If she’d been wearing it outside the bar, it’s unlikely my bullet would’ve even scratched her unless I got lucky. I try to swallow the anger that wells up, a well-conditioned response to the sight of those suits. They get state-of-the-art armor as thin as cloth; we get nothing but smuggled munitions and heirloom pistols.
Jubilee sleeps on her side, one long brown leg curled up on top of the covers, one hand in a loose fist under her chin, the other tucked up underneath her pillow. I can see her dog tags against the sheets, hanging on the chain around her neck. She even sleeps in military khaki, though it’s just a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. At rest, she looks gentler. I grip the sill and whisper her name. “Jubilee.”
She comes to life, making it clear why she sleeps that way—her hand comes out from under her pillow gripping her gun, her legs kicking free of the covers as she sits bolt upright, lifting the weapon as she blinks away sleep. A second later she spots me, her mouth opening in shock. I actually see her finger tighten convulsively on the trigger, though not quite enough to shoot. “Cormac.” She gasps my name. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m alone,” I tell her. “And unarmed. Don’t shoot me, you’ll have a hell of a time explaining what I’m doing in your bedroom.”
The seconds drag out as she stares at me. Then she grunts assent, lowering the gun—though she doesn’t let go of it. She keeps a wary eye on me as I slither t
hrough and drop to the floor. If she has a comment for my stolen uniform, she doesn’t make it.
It’s a small room, furnished only with a narrow bed, a clothes press, and a rickety bedside table holding a framed photograph. It’s the only personal touch I can see in the entire sparse room. In the faint light through the window, I can make out a man, a woman, and a child I suddenly realize is a tiny Jubilee Chase. The man who must be her father is tall and lean, his skin much darker than Jubilee’s, and her mother looks Chinese—I can see her features reflected in the face of the daughter who stands arm in arm with her in the photo. In the face of the girl watching me from across the blankets. I wonder what her parents are like and what they’d make of the two of us, tense and silent.
I break the quiet first. “What the hell happened last night?” I don’t mean the words to sound like a jab, but I can’t take them back, and they hang there in the silence between us.
“It was the Fury.”
Always hiding behind their so-called Fury. I can’t hide the doubt in my expression. She sees it, her lips tightening. Her gaze slides away from my face to fix on the wall. A guilty reaction. “I didn’t move fast enough.”
That hits me like a lead weight. “You were there? That was an innocent civilian who died, he didn’t have anything to do with—”
“I know that,” she snaps. “I don’t need one of your speeches, Cormac. It shouldn’t have happened. I should’ve stopped it.” There’s strain in her voice.
Our truce is shaky at best; I shouldn’t be provoking her. Slowly, reluctantly, I mutter, “You didn’t pull the trigger.” No, you just stood there and watched it happen.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s my fault when it’s my man blowing someone’s brains out.” She shakes her head. “She’d only been here a few weeks, she wasn’t reporting any of the dreams yet.”
“What do dreams have to do with anything?”
“They’re the only warning the Fury gives us that someone’s about to snap. If we get them off-world in time, they’re fine. But every soldier posted to Avon gets them eventually, except—” She stops, but I know what the end of the sentence is. Except me. Even the Fianna know her reputation for being the only unbreakable trodaire on Avon.
Jubilee closes her eyes. “This time there was no warning, it was over in seconds. She didn’t remember what happened, afterward.”
How could she not remember? I sink down onto the edge of the bed and notice how tired Jubilee looks; there are circles under her closed eyes that weren’t there that first night I pulled her out of the bar. Her eyelids are puffy, face drawn. With grief. She’s telling the truth. Or what she sees as the truth
“What’ll happen to her?” I ask finally.
Jubilee’s jaw clenches as she opens her eyes again. “She’s already on her way to Paradisa. Desk duty, most likely, until she retires.”
How convenient. No trial for that soldier, no punishment for outright murdering a teenager. They hide her away somewhere quiet, and no one will ever know what she did. I want to scream at Jubilee that her side has it wrong.
But what if she’s right? She seems so sure. What if the Fury does exist, and it isn’t just an excuse for the military to persecute and murder civilians? I’m reminded abruptly of what she said when locked in a cell in the bowels of our hideout: There are never just two sides to anything.
“Cormac,” she sighs, breaking into my thoughts. “Why are you here? Felt like a little chat with your favorite hired gun?” Her voice is bitter as she echoes the words I used.
“I’m sorry I said that.” And I find I am. There’s more to her than that. “I came to warn you.”
“We know the ceasefire’s on shaky ground,” she replies, her voice shifting to that slow, dry lilt that conveys absolutely nothing. “Don’t need you telling us this makes things worse.”
“It’s not about the shooting.” I lean forward, reaching down the collar of my stolen uniform for my sister’s key. I draw it out for her to see. “This is the key to our munitions cabinet. The bulk of our weaponry was locked up there. Keeping it that way was our way of ensuring nobody took action without agreement.”
Jubilee’s expression shifts a little. “Was?”
She could turn me in, she could demand I tell her base commander. She could pull her gun on me again. I swallow. “Someone destroyed the lock and broke in. The guns, the explosives, the ammunition—it’s all gone.”
Her expression freezes; only her lips twitch, revealing the same wash of icy fear that swept over me when I discovered the door half blown away. It takes Jubilee only moments to come to the same conclusion I did. “McBride?”
I nod, trying not to look down at her gun, which is still in her hand. “It has to be.”
“How many supporters does he have?” Her voice is tight and cold, quick as gunfire.
“At least a third of us,” I reply. You’re doing the right thing, my brain reminds me, even as the rest of me recoils from sharing this information. “More, now. After your escape and the boy in town.”
“I need names,” she replies, voice swift and decisive.
“No names.” I clench my jaw.
“If we know who we’re looking for, we could start grabbing them before they’ve got a chance to—”
“No names,” I repeat more sharply. “You find McBride out there, you can have him with my blessing. I’m not ready to give up on the rest of them yet.”
Jubilee lets her breath out slowly. “God, Cormac. This is—why are you telling me? If we’re ready for them, your people are only going to end up dead.”
My stomach twists, guilt stabbing through it. “He’ll come at you from the town side of the base. He’ll come at you from the town side of base, but not tonight. It’ll take him some time to get organized, which gives you time to increase security there, put out some more patrols, bulk up armaments on the perimeter in a visible way…If he sees you’re anticipating an attack, he won’t risk it. He wants a fight, but he’s not suicidal.”
Jubilee doesn’t respond immediately, pinning me in place with a long, even stare. Then her chin drops a little and she closes her eyes. “Smart,” she admits, lifting her empty hand to rub at her forehead. “Does anyone know you’re here?”
“Hell no.” I try for lighthearted, but in the quiet, in the dark, I just sound small. Every inch as small as McBride claims I am. “I’m not suicidal either.”
Against all odds, I spot the tiniest lift at the corner of Jubilee’s mouth—the tiniest hint of a grin. It’s gone immediately, though, as she sucks in a quick breath and exhales it briskly. “I’ll speak to the commander about security, but you should get back.”
I hesitate, my chest heavy. “I didn’t just come to warn you. Jubilee—”
“It’s Lee,” she replies, her voice sharpening.
“Only when you’re a soldier,” I mutter. “I’m hoping today you’ll be something else.” When I look up, she’s frowning at me. But I have little choice, and I push on. “Look,” I start slowly, “you need to talk to your people. Figure out some small thing that you can give us. Something I can point to and say, ‘See, they’ll talk to us.’ Otherwise McBride’s supporters will only continue to grow.”
“Cormac,” she begins, exasperated, “even if I had the power to do anything about your situation, I wouldn’t, not now. There are reasons behind everything we do. Real, honest security risks we’re trying to avoid. The regulations are there to protect you as much as they are to protect us.”
“Closing the schools? Limiting medical access? Shutting down the HV broadcasts?”
“We didn’t do that,” replies Jubilee quickly. “Avon’s atmosphere interferes with the signals.”
“But you’re the ones who changed all the access codes to TerraDyn’s retransmission satellites. We can’t send or receive a signal at all now—we’re totally cut off. If you could just give us that—not even newscasts. But movies, documentaries, any window beyond this life to show our children.”
&nb
sp; Her hand tightens around the grip of her gun. “Do you know how they organized on Verona ten years ago, Cormac? It was clever. They used a kids’ HV show, broadcast across the galaxy. Coded messages out of the mouths of animated mythological creatures.”
“I don’t even know where Verona is,” I retort. “And we’re paying for it here, a decade later, light-years away. We have no sun, no stars, no food or medicine, no power or entertainment for relief, and no one will tell us if it’s ever getting any better. They’ve swatted a fly with a sledgehammer.”
“A fly?” She’s fierce, every line of her tense, holding herself in check with an effort. “That’s what you call the largest rebellion in the last century? They chose the slums of Verona, where people were most crowded. Where there’d be maximum damage. They smuggled guns, dirty bombs, you name it. When the uprising came, whole cities from November through Sierra were up in flames before anybody knew what had happened. Those the rebels didn’t kill, the looters and raiders did. Thousands. Tens of thousands of people—they can’t sing or tell stories at all now.”
I feel like something’s pressing down on my chest and preventing me from taking a proper breath. I can’t imagine a single city that size, let alone half a dozen of them on fire.
She waits for me to respond, and when I don’t, she gives a quick, tight shake of her head. “There are reasons behind every rule, whether you see them or not. Perhaps some of them are too harsh—that’s not my call to make. But if you could spare one child the loss of her parents by swearing an oath, by upholding the law no matter what it took…” She swallows. “Wouldn’t you?”
To hear a trodaire speaking of justice, of protecting people—it makes my head ache. McBride would say she was lying. Sean would say she was blind. Watching her in the meager light from the window, I don’t know what I would say, except that there’s a pain in her words as deep as ours. She’s silent, and as I watch, her features are returning to that neutral composure everyone else is so used to seeing. But an awful certainty is starting to solidify in my thoughts. “Where are you from, Jubilee? Your homeworld?”
