The Fall

by Laura Liddell Nolen

  I briefly considered whether I’d been drugged, but dismissed the idea. I probably wasn’t. And it didn’t matter, anyway. The damage was done. Past. I’d have to live with it now. That thought was familiar, too.

  “Ah, ah,” came a voice. Its tone carried a light warning.

  I twisted my head toward it, and my vision followed a split second later. An orderly was reading my vitals off a screen.

  “You cannot escape. We’re ready this time.”

  See? Predictable. I rolled my eyes—a huge mistake, it turned out; my brain pulsed in pain—and then stopped. As far as I could remember, I’d never escaped from a hospital before. Or from anywhere on board the EuroArk. How could I? The guards here loved their guns as much as the Commander ever had, and they’d never taken any chances with us on lockup. I couldn’t even see the people who’d fed us.

  “This time?” I asked innocently. If I could get him talking, maybe I could find out what happened to the North American Ark. And Eren.

  But he wandered away, ignoring me.

  My next opportunity arrived with the doctor. I heard her voice before I saw her. She was talking to another patient, then an orderly, in a muffled tone before rounding the corner to my bed. She had a tight blonde bun and clear blue eyes. In contrast to the orderlies around her, she wore a tailored white coat over a sea green uniform.

  “We have a lot of questions about you,” she observed in a flat tone. She sounded Irish, but I wasn’t sure. Maybe she’d lost some of her accent during her training. Her voice was naturally soft, but her tone carried enough confidence to give her an easy air of authority. “But none that cannot wait,” she finished crisply. “Follow the stem with your eyes.” It slid back and forth before me, and I obeyed. “Not quite there yet. I do not approve of their methods,” she tutted, “but in your case, perhaps we were justified.”

  “What methods? Locking us up? Drugs? Did you drug me?”

  She observed my anger without much of a reaction.

  “Look,” I said. “I know about the city. I’m sorry. All those people. But we had nothing to do with that. That was—”

  “Adam. Yes, we know.”

  I stared at her. “Then why have I been in a jail cell for the past week?”

  Her eyes lingered on my face, then slid to the screen in her arms. “Week?” she said neutrally. The stem scrawled over the screen, out of my view.

  “Yeah. I’ve spent at least a week locked up in your jail, and I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  She pursed her lips, as though she couldn’t agree with that assertion, and took a breath. “You’ve been locked up for months. They’re waiting for the story to die down. And to be honest, they don’t exactly know what to do with you.” Her head cocked to the side, and she continued her exam, shining a light in my eyes, pressing back my fingers. Examining my right arm, running a firm finger over the amputation scar, which had lightened considerably over the last five years. “No fluid retained. Vitals are fine.” She plopped the screen down onto the bed next to me and tossed the stem on top of it.

  I forced my eyes not to follow it. If I were going to steal it, as I certainly intended to do, I had to help her forget it existed first. “If you’re wondering whether I’m working with Adam somehow, let me clear that up right now. Help me find him, and I’ll kill him myself.”

  “On this Ark, you are not necessarily considered a killer, Miss Turner. But he had you under his control for years. He made your mind weak. We can’t discount the possibility that he turned you.” Her voice was as tight as her bun. I bit a lip and reminded myself that I should probably try to sound as far from crazy as possible.

  “I’m not working with Adam,” I said. “I tried to bring him to you. He tried to kill me as soon as I got here. He’s not dead, either.”

  “That’s not what the deck vids show.”

  “And you’re right. I’m not a killer, either. But in his case, I’d make an exception.”

  “So what are you, Charlotte Turner? Are you a rebel? A hero?” The words mocked me. She folded her arms, letting the question hang. “Little of both? We’ve all heard about you disarming your Ark. And the stasis.”

  “Then you know why I had to leave. Adam is a monster. Worse than a murderer.”

  “That’s as may be. But you brought him to us, Turner. You brought your killer tyrant to our peaceful Ark. And then you set him free.”

  I gave her a long, considered sigh. “To be fair, I thought you guys could handle him. I mean, he was unconscious, as far as I knew. And unarmed.” I paused, letting my voice trail off a little. “And outnumbered… and tied up. And you had your own little army, all set to go as soon as we got here, but hey. My mistake.” I broke the gaze to look away, then snapped back. “Wait. How do you know that?”

  “How, what now?”

  “How do you know any of that?” I demanded.

  “We know about the disarmament because there were Tribune officials on every Ark, including the Asian one. And they talked,” she said casually. “We know about Adam the same way. We know you brought him here because your arrival was recorded. Everything here is. And we know all of the above because our officials don’t hide information from us.” Her voice slid down a tick on the last bit, as though to point out the differences between her government and mine.

  “That you know of,” I muttered. She ignored that. “Wait. What do you mean, were? There were Tribune officials on every Ark? Where are they now?”

  “No one knows. No one cares. The Treaty of Phoenix has been held in abeyance since the city-sphere blew up. It’s been on shaky ground since your Ark fell to Adam anyway. He’s not exactly the rights-to-the-people champion we’d be comfortable dealing with. The Tribune has no power here. Or anywhere else.”

  I stared at her, trying to grasp the implications of what she was telling me, all thoughts of the screen stem abandoned. “So, it’s every Ark for itself?”

  She nodded tersely.

  “That’s—but that’s a disaster. I mean, it’s fine for you. For Asia, even. But what about the Arks with no weapons?”

  “We are peaceful. And Asia won’t attack anyone who’s not a threat. So far, the only warmongering Ark out here is yours.”

  “What happens when we get to Eirenea?”

  She took a moment before replying, and then another. Finally, she popped a lock on the bottom of my bed, and I realized that it was on wheels, like a gurney. The bed began to roll toward the door.

  “Field trip?” I asked.

  In response, she pointedly grabbed the screen—and the stem—off the bed, placing them well out of my reach. I sighed, but it wasn’t much of a loss. I had one arm, and it remained handcuffed. My odds of escape weren’t exactly high, at this point.

  “Seriously, where are you taking me?”

  We reached the end of the white room and slid out of the exit, turning sharply to the right. I didn’t know enough about the inner layout of this Ark to figure where we were relative to the spikes or the spheres, but a massive hologram came into view at the end of the hall in front of me. The doctor pressed me forward, faster and faster, until we reached the glass, and I gasped. It was breathtaking: an absolutely enormous curved surface, spinning slowly and surrounded by stars. I stared, speechless, and felt my mouth open.

  “That’s—that’s—” I stuttered finally. “It’s not a hologram, is it.” The deep, reddish-gray surface slid past the porthole, only miles beneath my feet, and I gripped the rail of the gurney without thinking. It was like falling around a planet.

  Or a planetoid, actually.

  “That’s Eirenea,” the doctor whispered. “We achieved planetary orbit while you were out.”

  I swallowed, soaking in the sight before me. Humanity’s new habitat. Eirenea was our hope for a future, and it was beautiful. Dark, like slate, with shallow craters. A few cracks, where maybe one day, we could build rivers. I’d heard rumors there were scientists who could synthesize water and soil from other compounds, and I gasped at
the thought. We could plant trees. We’re going to have lakes again, and roads.

  We’re going home.

  “We did it,” I breathed. “We actually made it.” I twisted around to look at the doctor. Was it like this every time? Was it as beautiful to her now as it must have been a month ago? Her face was tight, like mine, but her mouth pulled into a bitter frown.

  “We’ve done nothing. One month in, and they can’t even decide where to start. No Ark wants to make planetfall. People say it will divide our resources too much, leaving the Arks vulnerable to attack. Even if they did land a ship, we can’t terraform without an electromagnetic field.”

  I looked back to Eirenea, breathing it in. “So let’s build one.”

  “We don’t have the power. The Treaty was designed to make us interdependent, to keep us from going to war. Every ship needs something from the other ships. But so far, all it’s done is cripple us.”

  She turned the bed to wheel it away, and I twisted in my sheets, willing us to stay put. “Wait! Don’t make me leave. I just want to watch for a little while.”

  Her face softened, and I thought I saw a twinge of regret. Or sympathy. But the gurney moved quickly back to sick bay. “I have to get back to work,” she said. “I’m on duty.”

  I looked at her. “Please. Let me stay out there. It’s not like I can go anywhere.” I rattled my cuff at her.

  “I’m afraid it’s almost time for the shift change,” she said, punching the door pad and wheeling us through. “I have to transfer custody. It would not go well for me if I left Charlotte Turner sitting in the hallway.”

  “No. It wouldn’t,” said a voice.

  I jerked around, facing forward. Bright red hair split the pasty walls and white curtains of the bay, and my face lit up in a smile. Marcela. Mars. Alive. And here, in the flesh.

  In a tailored white coat, too, and a sea-green uniform under that. “Thank you, doctor. I can take it from here,” she said calmly.

  The two doctors exchanged codes, waiting while their screens shared information, and the blonde doctor nodded and prepared to leave.

  “So. Charlotte Turner,” said Mars, watching her go. “What are we going to do with you?”

  Thirteen

  “How are we feeling today?” Her eyes slid down to the screen, then back to mine. Her voice was calm. Clinical. And undeniably Polish.

  Okay.

  “I can’t believe you’re here! This is—How did you—”

  Her eyebrow raised a tenth of a millimeter—barely at all—and I clamped my mouth shut. Not my smartest moment.

  “They did mention you had the brain fried,” she said lightly in her new accent, pursing her lips to suppress a smirk. “Sorry for that.”

  “Sure you are. I’m feeling fine, doctor. Thanks for coming to see me.” I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could make my brain work faster. It was harder than it should have been. Mars was actually a doctor. But she was more of a soldier than a doctor, I reasoned, thanks to her training at the Academy. Either way, she was the kind of girl who knew exactly what she was doing, even when everyone else stayed a step behind.

  None of that explained what she was doing in the sick bay right then.

  “Don’t mention. Really.” Her tone was nearly bored, and like I said, Polish. Just, so Polish. “Dr. Karam may have told you,” she said, her accent trilling the words, “but we’re anxious to assess the extent of the ongoing influence the drugs have on your mind.” A hand slid down the screen, then back up again. Her short nails were as red as her hair. She tapped the stem against the edge of the screen and repeated the whole process. I frowned. Mars wasn’t one to fidget. As far as I knew, she rarely wasted a motion.

  But then again, she also wasn’t Polish, so what did I know?

  “You can’t seriously think he turned me,” I ventured, more careful now.

  “As I said. We look forward to making sure. A few more tests, maybe a personality profile. And then we take closer look.” Her accent was absolutely grating by now, but I ignored it, picking up a sinister edge in her tone.

  “Closer… how, exactly?”

  “Oh, do not worry; it doesn’t hurt. We shave the back of the head and make small incision, then remove part of skull. You will be awake the whole time! Save you many hair-brushing!” she said brightly, then frowned. “Well. It would. If you did that already. We should have everything we need by third or fourth extraction.”

  “Ex—what?! No. No, no, no.”

  “No?” she said, glancing up from the screen. The stem hit the bed, inches from my hand.

  “No.”

  “Ah. Okay. We move to Plan B, then. Is more my style, anyway.”

  I wet my lips, and visions of razors and mind control danced through my head. She’d never been particularly fond of me, but I hoped for my brother’s sake that her next plan would involve significantly fewer scalpels. Assuming they were still together. I swallowed. Assuming he was still alive, even. “And… what might that be?” I asked timidly.

  Her face split into a smile, and I saw that she’d been concealing a laugh for a while now. She turned and slammed a hand into the alarm button on the wall near my bed. “Duck and cover, Turner. Now.”

  I blinked, and time slowed.

  Mars reached across the bed to grab my hand in hers. With her other hand and the rest of her body, she slammed the gurney sideways, flipping it onto its side.

  I hit the floor on my hip, less painfully than I’d expected to, and she came flying over the top of the bed.

  “That was the duck?” I muttered.

  She pulled the mattress over our heads and nodded, finally speaking in her usual voice. “This is the cover. Should have seen your face, though.” She laughed. “Classic. Hang in there, Charlotte. You’re doing great!”

  “Should have heard your accent, though,” I muttered. I fiddled with the stem, trying to unlock the cuff around my wrist, and she pulled a face.

  “Well,” she amended slowly. “You’re doing fine, anyway.”

  The cuff rattled louder, and I fumbled the stem, then tried to catch it with my other hand.

  Which had been amputated five years earlier.

  The stem hit the linoleum and rolled away, just out of reach. At the same time, my side of the mattress slid down, exposing us.

  “Well,” she said quietly, as though to herself this time. “You’re not dead yet, anyway.”

  “Ugh, sorry, sorry,” I muttered, yanking against the cuff in frustration. I tried to straighten the mattress with my unchained arm, but lacking a hand on that arm, I couldn’t keep it from sliding right back down. Mars watched, a look of silent disbelief on her face. Across the room, obscured from our view by the sideways gurney, the door slid open, and a red light began to flash. I sucked in a breath, frustrated. That had to be a silent alarm, and judging by the number of booted footsteps, we weren’t alone in the room any more.

  “Be warned. You are under arrest. Release your hostage. Hold your position with your hands in the air.” The admonition was punctuated by a smatter of what sounded like rubber bullets against the exposed bottom of the gurney.

  Beside me, Mars pulled a mouth filter out of her coat pocket, shaking her head, and placed it between her teeth. Then she bent over her watch as though counting the seconds.

  There was a bang, followed by a crack of smoke, and my throat began to close. Mars shoved a second filter into my mouth, and I bit down, sucking in clean air.

  When the smoke spread, she threw herself out onto the floor under its cover and grabbed the stem. My handcuff popped open a second later, and she yanked me by the wrist, pulling us to our feet. The smoke doubled in volume, and then doubled again. It was so thick that I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. The bullets stopped, but the footfalls didn’t.

  We made our way to the side of the room, where the smoke was thinner. Mars pressed me forward, but a soldier appeared to my left. I made to hit him on the jaw, but he was wearing a masked helmet, and I struck plast
ic, effectively disabling my only hand. Great.

  I ducked back into the smoke, dodging his outstretched arm, and grabbed his gun. Old habits, and all that.

  He stumbled, and I hit him over the head, intending to knock him out.

  Again, I struck plastic. He ducked into the smoke.

  “Honestly,” said Mars, shaking her head again. She rapped against the wall frantically, then turned back to me. “Aim the gun at me this time.” She gestured meaningfully to the smoke, where the soldier appeared again.

  “Sorry,” I grunted, and pointed it at Mars. He froze. It was light in my hands, probably due to the nonmetal bullets, and I smiled. “Turn around and start walking, or I shoot her,” I said to him, my words garbled by the filter. I was sounding a lot more upbeat than I meant to. It was good to be armed again. And free, for the moment. The guard complied.

  Behind us, a panel slid off the white wall, revealing the outline of a man. Dark glasses. Dark skin.

  Mars popped the filter out of her mouth in an irritated jerk to speak to him. “Just—just take her. Please.”

  Hands, warm and sure, grabbed me around the waist, pulling me close and pressing me through the panel. I breathed in, then pulled out my filter. “Isaiah.”

  “Hello, little bird.”

  “Isaiah.”

  “Yes.” His hand found mine. He was dressed as a Guardian. I hadn’t known they had those on this Ark.

  “Ise—” I began a third time, but he cut me off, smiling.

  “We’ll catch up later, what say?”

  I swallowed and tasted sulfur. He pressed me through the panel and into a crawlspace. From there, we skimmed along a wall and into an adjacent room. An office, from the looks of it. Mars and Isaiah ran for the door, which was on a different wall than the one in the sick bay. I followed as fast as I could. It led to a new, open hallway, free and clear. For now, at least. We broke into a full sprint, Isaiah first, and me trailing several steps behind, winded. To my surprise, Mars was about as slow as I was, and breathing about as hard. When we were halfway down the hall, the flashing red lights broke out again.