The Rogue World

by Matthew J. Kirby

  “You think it’s smart to lie to me?” Hobbes said.

  “I didn’t,” Finn said, groaning. “They were on the plane.”

  “Do you know what I can do to you, boy? What I can do to your daddy?”

  “You want me to just make something up?” Finn shouted. He gestured in a different direction than Eleanor and the others had gone. “You want me to just tell you they went that way?”

  Hobbes narrowed his eyes. Then he turned toward Betty.

  She only sneered at him. “I got nothing to say to you.”

  Hobbes took one more look at Consuelo, and then turned toward his men. “Load them up. I’ll take them back, but the rest of you keep searching. Take this plane apart, and get back up in the air. They can’t have gone far.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A peacekeeper grabbed Finn by the shoulder and dragged him toward one of the helicopters, while another brought Betty. Hobbes marched alongside them and took the seat opposite them after Finn and Betty had been shoved on board. The rotors whined louder, and the helicopter lifted off the ground into the gray, overcast sky.

  Finn wondered where Hobbes was taking them, but hoped it might be the same place as his dad. The crash in the airplane had done something. The alien ship had done something, too, and the situation felt very different now. The Freeze had been a very gradual threat. A danger off in the distance, creating the sense that there would be time to figure something out and survive. But there wasn’t anything gradual about the alien ship, or getting shot out of the sky. Finn could have died, without seeing his dad and Julian again.

  Below them, the English countryside heaved and rolled. Finn saw abandoned farms and villages, windows empty and dark, streets overtaken by weeds. But ahead in the distance, he saw floodlights blaring, like a stadium, and as they flew closer, he saw it was a temporary camp. A military camp.

  As the helicopter landed, Finn saw columns of assault vehicles, tanks, and armored trucks with heavy artillery mounted to them. There were numerous tents, with satellite dishes in and around them, and peacekeepers marching in formation. Finn had been intimidated by the G.E.T. facilities, but this was something else. It had only felt like war before, but this actually looked like it. The world had finally woken up.

  “Out,” Hobbes ordered.

  Finn and Betty climbed out of the helicopter, after which the peacekeepers ushered them toward a tent with posted guards. Finn noted the guns in their hands and in the holsters at their sides as they saluted Hobbes, and then pulled the tent flaps open.

  “Inside,” Hobbes said.

  They pushed Betty in first. When Finn entered, he saw the kind of setup he’d expected. Spare walls and a floor of rigid plates, with a metal table and metal chairs at the center. The peacekeepers guided Finn to a chair and handcuffed him to it. They did the same to Betty on the opposite side of the table, and then they took up positions around the edges of the room. Hobbes stood at the head of the table, looking down on them.

  “Maybe you’ve started to size up the situation you’re in,” he said.

  Finn looked at the table. It was made of stainless steel, with thousands of minuscule scratches crisscrossing its surface.

  “You fired on a civilian aircraft,” Betty said. “With children on board. That’s the situation I see, and it doesn’t look good for you.”

  Hobbes ran his fingers through his bristly hair. “That wasn’t even my order. It came from the top. The RAF jets flew out of New Brize Norton, where I don’t exactly have jurisdiction.”

  He seemed to be saying the Royal Air Force had authorized their jets to shoot Consuelo down. If that was true, then maybe Finn and Betty didn’t understand the situation after all. Betty seemed to realize that, too. Finn saw her swallow, but she tried not to show it.

  “So what is your jurisdiction?” Finn asked.

  “Ground security for the ship site,” he said.

  “Why you?” Betty said.

  “Because I handled security for the G.E.T., and I’ve spent more time around alien technology than anyone except Watkins.”

  “Guess you know everything, then,” Finn said. “Why do you need us?”

  “I only need you for information,” Hobbes said. “I need to know where the others are, and what they’re planning to do.”

  “You would be smart to just let them do it,” Betty said.

  “Actually,” Hobbes said, “I’d be pretty stupid, considering the job your little team has done so far. Most people think your activities are what brought the alien ship down in the first place.”

  “Actually,” Finn said, deliberately echoing him, “you don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “Fine.” Hobbes folded his arms. “Enlighten me.”

  “Sure,” Finn said. “I’ll just spill our whole plan all over this table, and then you’ll change your mind, and then we’ll all live happily ever—”

  Hobbes slammed the metal table with the palm of his hand, and the bang made Finn jump. “You are trying my patience. This is a world security threat. You think you matter?” Hobbes leaned in close and whispered, “You think I can’t do whatever is necessary to get you to talk?”

  Finn’s adrenaline reached his arms and legs, turning them cold. His heart beat faster with the flood of it, and his scattered breathing stayed shallow.

  “I see you’re starting to get it.” Hobbes moved an inch closer, and Finn held still. “So tell me. What are the others planning to do?”

  Finn bit down hard to keep himself from talking. Hard enough he thought his molars would shatter.

  Hobbes leaned away, and then snapped at one of the guards. “Bring in Dr. Powers.”

  Finn’s eyes widened.

  “You thought I was lying, didn’t you?” Hobbes smirked.

  Finn had assumed that, yes. But it seemed they had his father, after all. That made sense, now that he considered it. When he had gone with Eleanor, during the riot in Cairo, he had left his dad in the vehicle convoy with Hobbes.

  A few moments went by, and then the tent flap opened. Finn tried to stand up, but hit the limits of his handcuffs and fell back in his chair. Then his dad stumbled in, pushed by one of the guards, and the bottom fell out of whatever hope Finn had left.

  His dad had a swollen black eye and a bloody lip. He walked with a slight limp, his hair and beard unkempt.

  “Finn?” he said, looking through his one open eye.

  “Dad!” Finn said.

  His dad rushed toward him, but Hobbes stepped in between them, cutting him off.

  “Get out of my way,” his dad growled. “That’s my son.”

  “I know that,” Hobbes said. “And you can go to him when I say you can go to him.” Hobbes turned and looked at Finn over his shoulder. “If he’s still in one piece.”

  “You dare to threaten my boy?” his dad said.

  “That depends,” Hobbes said. “Do you dare to defy me?”

  “I will rip you apart. You won’t—”

  “Dad.” Finn didn’t want Hobbes or anyone to hurt his father more than they already had. “I’m okay. Don’t—I’m fine.”

  “And he’ll stay that way,” Hobbes said. “If you both cooperate.”

  Finn’s dad looked like someone had taken the supports out from under him. He sagged and shook his head. “What do you want?”

  “That’s better.” Hobbes led Finn’s father over to the table and seated him in one of the chairs. Finn wanted to reach out and hug him, but they were both restrained. Instead they looked at each other, and nodded, and smiled.

  “Now,” Hobbes said. “I need to know what the others are planning to do with the alien ship.”

  Finn found it hard to form the words that would betray his friends. But he couldn’t let them hurt his father any more. “They—they want to kill it.”

  “Kill it?” Hobbes said.

  “There’s an alien artificial intelligence on board the ship. They want to kill it.”

  “Who is they?”


  “Eleanor and Watkins,” Finn said. “But the others are helping them.”

  “And how do they know there’s an artificial intelligence on board the ship?” Hobbes asked. “We’re not getting any readings from it. We can’t even get inside it.”

  “Because they made contact with it,” Finn said. “Eleanor can connect with the Concentrators, and with the ship. That’s how she shut the others down.”

  “Eleanor made contact with the ship?” Hobbes snapped his fingers at one of the guards again. “Bring me the girl’s mother.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s why you should just let them do it,” Betty said. “They’re trying to help, and they’re the only ones who can.”

  “That’s not the way I see it,” Hobbes said. “That’s not the way the UN sees it. What if they fail? What if they dismantle the energy network, and we all slowly freeze to death? Or what if they end up bringing a fleet of those ships down on us? This is the entire world we’re talking about. It isn’t their decision to make.”

  “Yes, it is,” Finn said. “Just like you made the decision to threaten us—”

  “Where are they now?” Hobbes asked.

  That was a question Finn could answer honestly without betraying his friends. “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me, or I’ll break your dad’s—”

  “I don’t know!” Finn shouted. “I have no idea where they went after they left the plane. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not with them.”

  “But they’re heading toward the ship,” Hobbes said. “Correct?”

  Finn imagined himself punching Hobbes in the mouth. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to.

  The flaps of the tent opened again, and this time, Eleanor’s mom came in. She didn’t appear to be injured in the same way Finn’s dad was. But she looked just as haggard. Her hair flew about her head in wisps, and she had dark circles under her eyes.

  “Finn?” she said. “Betty? Is Eleanor with you?”

  “No,” Hobbes said. “That’s why I need you.”

  “For what?” Eleanor’s mom asked.

  Hobbes walked over so that he was standing right in front of her. “You’re going to help me find your daughter. And then she’s going to help me get on board that ship.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  ELEANOR STOOD IN THE SHADOW OF THE COPSE OF LEAFLESS trees, listening for the circling helicopter that had them pinned down. The next place where they could find cover, another stand of trees, was too far away to make the run. The helicopter hadn’t made a pass for several minutes, but she assumed that meant it would fly overhead at any moment. They’d probably have to wait for nightfall to move any farther.

  “Since we’re stuck here,” Uncle Jack said, “explain to me how this works, Watkins.”

  “How what works?”

  “This ability Eleanor has. I get the DNA part. But how does she . . . connect?”

  Watkins gestured toward Dr. Von Albrecht. “We’ve discussed this actually. My theory is that the alien species, a type of zooid, has developed a way to interface its neurology across its component organisms. Some method of communication between its different minds. Perhaps electromagnetic in nature.”

  That matched Eleanor’s experience, though it didn’t match anything she knew about the way nature worked. But life on earth could have evolved very differently than it had on the alien home world. She remembered what Dr. Powers had said about the Concentrator upon Eleanor’s first glimpse of it. The way it defied her ability to perceive it, the way it seemed to deflect her eyes. Dr. Powers said they had been created by minds that perceived the universe very differently than the human mind.

  Eleanor had caught a glimpse of that kind of mind.

  “I don’t hear the helicopter,” Luke said.

  Eleanor strained to listen, and heard nothing.

  “Do you think they’ve given up?” Uncle Jack asked.

  “Changed tactics might be a better way to put it,” Dr. Watkins said.

  “Should we risk running for it?” Luke asked.

  Eleanor peered through the trees, down the stone fence, to the next grove. She listened again, and heard nothing but the wind. “Let’s give it another five minutes. Then we run.”

  So they waited.

  No helicopter.

  She didn’t know what new tactic they might employ, but it seemed they’d given up their aerial search. “Let’s go, before they come back,” she said.

  They crept from the trees, and then broke into a trot along the pasture’s edge. Watkins moved the slowest, so they kept pace with him. Out in the open, Eleanor tried to find the sun, but the overcast sky kept it hidden. The clouds would bring on an early night, a rare, fortunate turn for them.

  A few minutes later, they reached the edge of the pasture and entered the trees. Most of them looked dead, tricked into a permanent winter. But there were a few pines that had clung to their needles, and Eleanor inhaled their weak fragrance.

  They rested a few minutes, and then looked ahead.

  “That’s a village,” Uncle Jack said.

  “Looks abandoned,” Luke said.

  Uncle Jack nodded. “Might be a good place to spend the night.”

  “Might be,” Watkins said. “Let’s assess that once we get there.”

  Eleanor led the way, and they crossed another series of pastures, until they got to the edge of town. At that point, Uncle Jack stepped forward and scoped each doorway and window before they passed in front of it. They saw no one, and nothing moved. Hardy weeds had sprouted up between the bricks and cobblestones that lined the street. Roofs had caved in. Doors had fallen from their hinges.

  “What do you think?” Luke asked.

  “Now that we’re here,” Watkins said, “using this town for shelter seems preferable to setting up camp out in the open.”

  They all looked at Eleanor.

  The place felt eerie to her, but she did her best to ignore that. It did make more sense to stay here. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s pick a building.”

  They crept up and down a few more streets until they stumbled on a place that seemed to have been a tea shop. The furniture had been taken, but a long glass case still stood along one wall, empty of the pastries and scones Eleanor imagined had once tempted people from inside it. A layer of dust covered the black-and-white checkered tile floor, which would be a hard surface to sleep on, but the roof overhead looked sound.

  “It will keep us dry at least,” Eleanor said.

  “Looks good enough to me,” Uncle Jack said.

  They rolled out the little bedding they had packed with them from the plane and ate the little food they’d brought.

  “How many miles do you think we covered today?” Eleanor asked.

  “Three,” Luke said. “Tops. We’ll go a lot faster tomorrow, assuming the helicopter stays away.”

  “But the closer we get to the ship,” Dr. Von Albrecht said, “the more likely it is we’ll run into ground security.”

  “We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” Eleanor said, getting tired of hearing herself say that.

  “I think this was probably a lovely establishment,” Watkins said, looking around the shop. “I imagine it smelled wonderful. Full of nice village folk talking and enjoying their Earl Grey. The clink of china cups on saucers. Warm scones with clotted cream.”

  Eleanor closed her eyes and tried to imagine it, but that world had never really existed for her. She knew the kind of place Watkins described only from TV and movies.

  “It sounds rather frivolous, doesn’t it?” Watkins said. “With everything we face, who cares about tea anymore?”

  Dr. Von Albrecht sniffed. “I think if we let ourselves stop caring about that, we lose the reason why we’re fighting.”

  “What are you fighting for, Professor?” Uncle Jack asked.

  “I suppose . . .” Dr. Von Albrecht took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I suppose I want Christmas again. As a boy
, I looked forward to the snow. We went to my grandfather’s house in Bavaria, and we ate food and told stories. We huddled around the fire, and we celebrated the turning of the season. I suppose a piece of that celebration was the knowledge that spring would arrive.”

  Eleanor turned to Uncle Jack. “What about you?”

  “I don’t know what I want for myself,” he said. “But I want the world for you. I want you to be able to do anything you want to do, and be anything you want to be.”

  “You don’t want to be a chef?” Eleanor asked. She turned to the others. “Uncle Jack is the best cook in the world. He can take whatever ingredients you give him and turn them into something delicious.”

  “Don’t make promises I can’t keep,” Uncle Jack said. “Next thing you know, they’ll hand me sardines and chocolate.”

  “Ew.” Eleanor laughed. “But seriously, don’t you want to go back to being a chef?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t think about it that much.”

  “Well, start thinking about it,” Luke said. “I think the professor is right. The harder this gets, the more we need to remember why we do it.”

  “What about you, Mr. Fournier?” Watkins asked.

  Luke rubbed under his nose. “Before today, I would’ve said I want to fly nothing but private island hops in the Caribbean. But now, I’d settle for having Consuelo back.”

  That brought them back to where they were, in a cold and empty tea shop, in a forgotten town, at the edge of the world.

  “I’m sorry,” Eleanor said.

  Luke nodded. “She was a good plane. We’ve been through a lot together. Even before I picked you up in Phoenix.”

  “You didn’t pick me up. I stowed away.”

  “I knew you were there, remember?” Luke shook his head. “I shoulda thrown you off, but kid, I’m glad I didn’t.”

  “Even with everything that’s happened?” Eleanor asked.

  “Because of everything that’s happened,” he said.

  Eleanor sighed and lay down on the hard floor. The tea shop didn’t feel so cold anymore, and the tiles warmed up a bit as she lay on them. Unlike the others, she couldn’t say what she wanted back, because the world of the Freeze was all she’d known. For her, the hope of ending it was simply the hope of something better.