This Shattered World

by Amie Kaufman

  My fingers know the way, my brain only half-focused on what I’m doing. One of the men I trained with taught me how to do this, and he learned it from a kid who did this for a living. My old captain, when I was a corporal, let us learn on the sly. You never pass up anything that can be used as a weapon, he said, any way of fighting that doesn’t involve bloodshed. I chafed at the instruction at the time—why would I ever need to learn how to hack into secure files?—but now, I mouth silent gratitude for my old captain and his foresight.

  I try to focus. I can’t stop to think about what I’m doing, because it betrays every oath I’ve ever taken, every order I’ve ever received. It betrays everything I believe in. It’s a violation deep enough to make my soul, whatever shreds of it are left, ache. I’m helping a rebel. A criminal. A person whose friend just killed over thirty people, including someone I loved like a brother.

  My eyes blur with exhaustion, and I have to pause to wipe my sleeve across my face. It leaves behind a darker patch of sweat and grime on the fabric. Now and then footsteps approach the door, but they always continue on past, striding away in time to the pounding of my heart. Still, at any moment someone might pop their head in.

  There—finally. The fourth and final backup. The military always does things in fours—three being the natural number, four to be safe. The system spends a long breath-stealing instant thinking about my deletion command—and then the file vanishes. No fanfare, no sign it was ever there. No trace of the treason I’ve just committed.

  I quickly close down the computer, taking care to erase any record I was ever poking around in there. The monitor closed, the chair shoved back where it belongs, I slip out into the corridor and let the room close behind me.

  Mind blank, ears roaring, I float down the hallway toward the exit, limbs starting to shake. I swallow hard, fighting nausea. I need to get back to my quarters. Have a shower, lie down for a few minutes. Let myself think, breathe. Find a way to get Cormac out, now that we have some time to work with.

  The corridor opens up into the main room, where the techs from the surveillance repository have joined the officers currently on duty. They’re all crowded around one of the monitors, which is no longer split to show the live feeds from the base. Instead it’s playing the same three or four seconds of footage over and over in a loop.

  I take a few steps closer, peering silently past their heads—and my heart stops. It’s the footage I just painstakingly erased. One of the techs must have had it on a local drive so they could keep working while evicted from the repository.

  Because not only is it the footage—they’ve finished cleaning it up and enhancing it. The clip playing over and over again shows him clearly: the handsome chin, the thick brows, the arrogant smile.

  I back up silently, pushing down the impulse to panic. None of the techs notice I’m there, and I slip out into the night. I keep my head down, forcing myself to walk normally, return the occasional nod or salute aimed in my direction as I pass other, equally exhausted officers going about their duties.

  The image is limited to the security office. It’ll take them time—hours, probably—to run it through all the necessary levels before it’s made public. My mind turns over and over, searching for a way to get Cormac out before that happens. No time to think of the implications now. I have to get him out first, and think later about what that means for me.

  And then, abruptly, the PA monitors crackle to life all over the base. White screens pop up on every building corner, shedding an additional layer of light across the paths and intersections. A voice booms into the night, deafening me. I look up—and there’s Cormac’s face, plastered across every screen on the base. There’s one in Molly’s, one in every barracks. There’s one in every office and docking bay.

  There’s one in the hospital.

  I abandon pretense and break into a jog. Who’s going to stop me and ask where I’m going? I’m Captain Chase. I belong here.

  I force open the back entrance to the hospital, startling an orderly into dropping a tray of food all over the floor. I mumble an apology and sweep up the hall, aiming for Cormac’s room. I pause on the way by the laundry, picking up a set of scrubs that looks about his size. It’s the oldest deception in the book, but I’ve got nothing else, and no time to work out a better plan.

  When I burst into Cormac’s room, my eyes fall first on the HV mounted in the corner. There’s Cormac’s face, smiling out at me, hair tumbling just so into his eyes. The second thing I see is Cormac’s bed, the sheets rumpled and half tugged away, a few pinpricks of blood marring the sheets where the IV needle rests, as though it was torn from his skin. The oxygen mask is on the floor, and the monitors are all flatlining, electrodes scattered across the bed.

  I brace myself against the door frame, dizziness sweeping over me with all the force of a tidal wave, my ears ringing as my knees threaten to give.

  The bed is empty.

  Most of the other soldiers are unconscious, but one lifts her head, groggy with pain medication and mumbling something at me that I can’t hear through my panic. She must have seen him run; she’s trying, through her haze, to tell me which way the fugitive went.

  I stumble out of the room and break into a run toward the back exit. Cormac’s injured, and he won’t make it off the base before somebody spots him, now that they know what they’re looking for. And even if he does, he’ll never get back to the rebel hideout without a boat. It would take him hours, and in his condition he’s as likely to drown as he is to reach his people. Though an exhausted corner of my mind shrinks from the idea of heading back out into that swamp, the rest of me doesn’t hesitate.

  I only get a few steps outside the hospital when my mouth abruptly floods with the taste of copper, the dizziness intensifying. My legs quiver the way they did on that marshy island, before I saw the ghost of Cormac’s hidden facility. I blink, hard, as the sibilant sound of whispering surges over the background noises of the base. Separate voices—two, maybe three—but I can’t tell what they’re saying.

  Have to make it to a boat. I grit my teeth, pointing my boots toward the docks. All I know, all I can think of, is that I have to find Cormac.

  They’re always together, the ghost and the green-eyed boy. They’re in her mother’s shop, they’re at her father’s garage. They’re on Paradisa. They’re in the outpost on Patron. He’s one of the soldiers who died in the first few weeks after she transferred to Avon. His face is on every wanted poster on the base.

  The ghost leads her down the deserted streets of November, and at the end of the swath of destruction is the green-eyed boy, with a box of matches and a charming smile.

  “Don’t follow me,” says the boy, reaching out to touch her cheek. “Don’t follow me this time.”

  THE MUD GRABS AT ME to drag me down. My lungs burn, pain knifing down my side with every breath as I force myself to scramble through the swamp. This trek is bad enough on foot at full strength, but I feel like I’ve been hit by a transport. One hour stretches into two, into three, and then I stop counting.

  If I could’ve waited, I would have. But I can still see the footage from the bar, the loop playing over and over on the insides of my eyelids whenever I let them close: I see myself turn in toward Jubilee, smiling, starting to speak, and then it jumps back to the beginning. If I could’ve stolen a boat, I would have done that too. But the docks were crawling with patrols, and while my stolen uniform might have gotten me by, the bar footage was playing on the side of the docking shed.

  I tried to make this journey before, on my own, just once. Then, I didn’t have smoke in my lungs; but I was also only eight years old, fleeing the transports waiting to take me to an off-world orphanage. And I was found only a few kilometers outside of town by Fianna patrols looking for me.

  This time I have no one to help me get home. I shove past a bank of reeds, my breath rasping, ears straining for any sound behind me. I can’t afford to rest for more than a few seconds. My head spins, and for once
I can’t tell if the lights sparking in front of my eyes are wisps or my own hazy eyesight.

  I push on through waist-high muck and sluggish black water. I wade and swim and when I can’t stand I crawl, until I’m covered with mud then washed clean again.

  My numb body knows where home is, and I drag myself toward it. The trodairí have footage of my face. If they catch me—if they recognize my face and scan my genetag—they’ll use me to find the Fianna, and blame them for the bombing and for every other ill that ever graced Avon. And they won’t rest until my people are dead.

  It’s another hour and a half of struggling through the swamp before the black silhouette of the cave complex looms up in the distance. It takes me a long time to register what I’m seeing. Home.

  By now each movement is taking careful effort. I think to myself, I’m going to reach out and take those reeds and pull myself forward, and then, I’m going to push with my foot. My hands are a clammy white, and I’m soaked to the skin, hair plastered against my forehead.

  I’ve never tried to climb up the side of the harbor from the water, only from a currach, and it takes long, gasping, shaking minutes before I manage the scramble. Uneasiness tickles at the back of my mind, and it takes me a moment to realize what’s bothering me: there’s a military launch vessel floating abandoned a few meters from the dock. A flak jacket rests on the bench; this wasn’t stolen and brought here by one of the Fianna.

  I stumble down the hallway, ricocheting off the uneven stone walls and trailing mud and water in my wake. No one has changed the lanterns, and the dark, silent hallways are streaked with something wet. There’s a basket lying in the middle of the hallway, hard bread rolls scattered everywhere.

  The main cavern is silent. The lights are high here, and suddenly the stains on the floor are a garish red; my gaze follows a smear to a bundle of rags dumped on the floor.

  The rags have hands, a head, eyes staring at me—it’s a body.

  The world snaps into focus. The floor’s slick with blood, and there are bodies—four, six, eight—sprawled near the walls. Some seem to have been moved, leaving bright trails of blood on the floor. Their wounds and clothes are scorched, and the air smells of burning flesh; our guns couldn’t do this. This was the work of military weaponry.

  I stagger backward and hit the wall, grabbing at it to steady myself as the world whirls. I can’t drag my gaze away from them, the wounds, the streams of blood. The body closest to me—it’s Mike Doyle, who helped me pull McBride off Jubilee, who had the best singing voice in the Fianna, and the loudest laugh. Then I see it, the way he’s curled around the tiny body beneath him. I see a little hand under his, and as I blink, a small face comes into focus. It’s Sean’s nephew, Fergal.

  I stagger toward them and drop to my knees, the pain of the impact shooting up through my hips to my back. “Fergal, please.” My voice is hoarse and trembling as I reach for his small hand. “Talk to me. Please.”

  But I know as I touch his face, painting his pale skin with my bloody fingertips, that Mike, still curled over him, couldn’t save him. Fergal’s eyes are blank, unblinking.

  “No.” The moan tears out of my throat, horror sweeping through me as my stomach convulses. I push myself away from Mike and Fergal before I throw up, hands pressed white-knuckled against the stone floor. Gulping for air, I lift my head.

  And that’s when I see Jubilee.

  She’s on her knees toward the back of the room, as still as the dead bodies around her. She’s staring straight ahead, one hand resting against the floor, the other holding her gun, dangling loosely at her side. The grip’s sticky with blood, hers or theirs. Her gaze is vacant. If she wasn’t upright, I’d think she was one of the dead.

  Please. Please. The word beats at my consciousness in time with my heart, but I don’t even know what I’m asking for. To wake up from this nightmare. To look again and see it isn’t her. To turn around and see Fergal stand up and run into my arms.

  I drag myself away from Fergal, my eyes blurring as I fix them on the trodaire, her bloody clothes, the gun in her hand. My gaze wants to slide away, refusing to see any of it, and I fall to my hands and knees in front of her.

  “What have you done?” Grief wrenches the words from somewhere deep inside me, somewhere guttural and raw. “I trusted you. I trusted you.”

  Her eyes are blank, the pupils dilated so far they look black. This is their madness, their Fury. She stares at me, frozen like a hunted creature; the soul is gone from her eyes, and I don’t think she sees me.

  “Say something!” My bloodied hand grabs her unresisting shoulder, shaking her until she moans, her dilated pupils unseeing and uncaring. My eyes sweep the cavern once more, still pleading for things to be different, searching for a way out—and they fall on the gun. In this moment, all I want is revenge. Grief and fury warring inside me, I grab it from her unresisting hand, my skin recoiling from its sticky grip, and swing the weapon around to point at the unresponsive soldier.

  Then her eyes meet mine, and finally, through the shock, through the Fury, she recognizes me. Her eyes scan the cavern, falling on the bodies and the trails of blood. Horror sweeps across her features, as raw and real as pain, before she slumps, catching herself on her palms. Only then does she look down and see the blood coating her hands, gluing them to the cavern floor. Lifting her eyes to mine, she sees the gun pointed at her, its barrel shaking and wavering in my hand. I see it in her eyes, the understanding creeping through her, shattering us both.

  The trodaire lifts a trembling hand toward the gun; my mind screams at my unresponsive muscles to pull away before she can disarm me and add my body to those littering the room. But her fingers curl around the barrel, not the grip. She pulls the weapon closer, until the barrel presses against her forehead.

  She closes her eyes, holding the gun steady for me—but not before I see her in there, as broken and shattered as I am, begging for a way out. For any way out.

  I can’t pull the trigger.

  Then pounding footsteps break the silence, and I spin around to face the tunnel. Turlough Doyle is the first into the cavern, and he stops two steps in, so the next man through—Sean—collides with him. McBride’s the last one to appear.

  For an instant the five of us are frozen in place. Turlough shatters the stillness with a shout, stumbling forward to drop to his knees beside Mike’s body, grabbing his husband’s shoulder and turning him over. He gives a broken moan, curling over Mike to bury his face against his shirt.

  Then Sean sees Fergal. My cousin goes perfectly still, suddenly carved from stone. Even in the dim light of the cavern, I can see it when the blood drains from his face.

  When McBride sees Jubilee, he tenses. Turlough’s sobs almost cover the noise of McBride pulling his Gleidel out of its holster. “Move away, Cormac,” he says, his voice low and level, absolutely calm. His face is empty and cold, as though the emotions that ought to be there have fled from the sight in front of him.

  If I can’t pull the trigger, McBride certainly can. I want to drop Jubilee’s gun and push past McBride to get to Sean, but my body’s shaking, won’t listen to my orders.

  McBride moves forward and shoves me aside as though I weigh nothing at all. I hit the floor hard, the jolt of pain coursing through the same path as my grief, eclipsing it for a fraction of a second. McBride stops in front of Jubilee, lifting his Gleidel, mouth curving to a slow, faint smile that only I can see. “Captain Chase,” he murmurs, very soft. Just for us. Angling his gun, ready to put a shot straight between her eyes; she doesn’t move. “Here’s to peace on Avon.”

  His finger shifts on the trigger, and I surge to my feet, lunging at McBride and colliding with him; his shot goes wide, the scream of the Gleidel shattering my ears.

  “Lower your weapon,” I gasp before he can try again. My voice sounds different, my throat burning for each word. “There’s something happening that’s bigger than this—we need her.”

  Recovering his balance, McBride’s start
ing to lose his veneer of calm. “Get away from her before I go right through you.” He keeps the barrel of his Gleidel pointing square at my chest, his other hand coming up to steady it.

  Behind me, Jubilee stirs, her skin scraping against the stone. “Just let him have me,” she whispers, the sound sharp as shattered glass.

  “No.” It’s like someone else is speaking. Someone above this hatred, this grief; someone who doesn’t care that the sound of Jubilee’s voice makes me sick, that her betrayal has broken something beyond repair. Someone who cares only that I need her to save my planet.

  Sean gropes for his own gun, hands shaking violently as he holds it at his side, uncertain. “Flynn,” he calls, hoarse. Straight from his lips to my heart. “Don’t do this.”

  “What did she offer you?” McBride demands, voice thick with disdain. “You’ve always been weak, Cormac, but even I thought you were better than this. To give up your family for a taste of a trodaire.”

  I still can’t take my eyes off of Sean. His chest is heaving, the gun trembling wildly now.

  Hands shaking, I lift Jubilee’s gun, flicking off the safety. The soft whine of the battery powering up fills the cave. For a moment, everything is still. Turlough, hunched over Mike’s body. Sean, standing still, his eyes on my face. Jubilee, eyes closed, waiting for an end. For an endless instant, there’s only the choice I’ve just made.

  Then it’s over. “Traitor,” McBride whispers as I aim it at him, and the word goes through me like a knife.

  I look past McBride, my eyes falling instead on Sean, still standing with his gun at his side. “This won’t bring Fergal back. This wasn’t her, it was the Fury. It’s real. You’ve trusted me all our lives. Trust me now.”

  The world narrows, and all I can see is my cousin’s face, and all the years behind it, the cocky smiles, the shared grief, the quiet moments without any words. He’ll see. He’ll recognize the truth, that the Fury’s real; that our planet is diseased and the madness could come for any of us now, that Jubilee is our only hope to find answers. He knows me. He knows me.