by Wesley Chu
Six weeks later, France fell and my host committed suicide. For some reason, suicide has afflicted many of my hosts. I fled Europe and returned to the safety of the United States, where I had found success nearly a hundred years prior. I intended to make one last attempt to leave my mark on history.
* * *
Ella barely had time to throw on some clothes and sheathe a couple of knives before Cameron practically picked her up and carried her out the back door. No sooner had they exited to the back alley, he nudged her to his right. “Crash course. You’re right-handed, right?”
She nodded. “Manish trained me to be ambidextrous. I can throw knives–”
“Whatever. Listen, I want you to stay two steps behind me at all times to my right, so you can tell me where to go and throw your knives. If we get jumped, stay safe while I take care of it. And, hmm, are you sure you don’t want a gun?” He put his hand on his pistol at his waist.
She shook her head. “I’ll probably end up accidentally shooting you. Besides, no guns in Crate Town.”
“Why is that?” he exclaimed. “That’s ridiculous in our line of work. Anyway, talk about that later. We have to go.”
He pulled out the electronic device she recognized as the thing he and Fab had haggled aggressively over. Cameron fiddled with its controls and then turned it on. At first, Ella saw nothing, and then she saw different colors floating all around them. Layers of yellows, reds, and green lights, some thin lines, others blobs covering an entire wall. A few blue and purple colors were undulating waves that passed right over her head. It was very pretty, but almost blinding.
Cameron punched a few more buttons on the console and then looked around the alley. Nothing changed. He tapped the console with his fingers and then, visibly frustrated, tapped its side. He pulled an earpiece out of his front pocket and hooked it on. “Nabin, you read this? The visualizer. I can’t read it. It’s in Indonesian or something. No, Tao can’t read it. He doesn’t know every language in existence. He’s not a universal translator.”
While he was talking, Ella saw purple squiggly marks shoot out of the earpiece and into the bathhouse wall. A similar purple mark would shoot back moments later. Her curiosity was interrupted by a crowd shouting at the end of the alley near the main street.
“Um, I think we should get going. You can play with your toy later.”
He brushed her aside. “Third dial? I’m twisting it. Nothing is happening. Oh wait, that third dial. Come on, I read left to right.”
The riot of colors surrounding them faded one by one until the alleyway was completely dark again. Ella took two steps to the other end of the alley, which led to a residential section of the slum when Cameron grabbed her arm. He shook his head and held up a finger.
“Don’t move until I’m done. This is important.” He returned to his conversation. “Well, I see nothing now. Which color did you assign to the Penetra frequency? Custom setting? Wait, brown? I don’t care if all the other frequencies have defaults. I can’t see brown. Everything in this dump is brown. How do I change it?”
A cone of light flickered down the alley from the main street. A few more joined it and waved up and down along the walls. Ella tapped Cameron once more and pointed frantically. This time he noticed, and they ran down the alley.
Where will you go? The Genjix have Penetra scanners. There is no place to hide.
“Hush, alien. This is Crate Town. There is always a place to hide.”
It was so dark that Ella could barely tell open space from container wall, but she had run these streets thousands of times. They ran across streets, down narrow alleys, and into tiny wedges that Cameron had trouble slipping through, all while moving toward the quiet, away from the noise and screams and footsteps of the soldiers.
A few times, they got turned around and had to backtrack away from suspicious figures or sounds. Once, she miscalculated the side alley and nearly stumbled into a clash between a group of neighborhood residents and soldiers. Another time, the police nearly ran them over as they chased one of the street rat gangs directly into them. Three of the police had broken off their pursuit of the kids and come after them when Cameron pulled her behind a set of tents. That was bad for the officers. The Adonis made short work of them.
Ella and Cameron continued running through the maze of Crate Town for two more hours, hopping along roofs and going through the hallways of some of the larger clusters. By now, it was closer to dawn than not, and she was beginning to tire. Cameron still seemed as alert as ever, and he half-carried her through the broken, twisty streets. Along the way, they passed by angry women wielding clubs and scared men guarding their homes. Children peeked from behind curtains and doors. Ella could not remember a time when Crate Town was so on edge.
He finally came to a stop in a small opening in the middle of an alley where three clusters formed a fissure. “Ten minutes.” He took out his flask and handed it to her. Ella gulped the water and would have emptied the flask if he hadn’t taken it away from her. “Sharing is caring,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Never mind. Something my dad used to say to me when he wanted a slice of my pizza.” He looked down both sides of the alley and leaned against the wall. She didn’t realize how exhausted he was until she saw his face and his slumped shoulders. He closed his eyes. “Wake me up in ten.”
Just like that, Cameron was asleep. He was even snoring, softly, but loud enough in this dead silence to make her worry. She reached out to pinch his nose and squawked when his eyes opened and he grabbed her wrist.
“You’re snoring up a storm,” she said. “You’ll give us away. How did you do that anyway?”
“What?”
“Go from a snoring sleep to all killer robot.”
“You need to learn how to leverage your Quasing better.”
“Io?”
What do you care? Not like you listen to me anyway.
“My Quasing is pouting,” she said.
I am not!
Cameron checked the time. “Nine minutes.”
Ten seconds later, Ella could hear the soft, even snores hanging in the air again. She kicked off one of her sandals and rubbed her sore feet, and then checked the soles of her shoes. They were worn nearly through. She’d need to visit that Italian shoemaker at the end of Rubber Market. Technically, he wasn’t a shoemaker, just a retired soldier who made a living cutting up old tires and using the treads to make sandals. Now that she thought about it, he wasn’t even Italian. He was an Armenian or something.
Ella was putting on her second shoe when she noticed a small brown dot on the far wall. At first, she didn’t think anything of it. It was probably a smudge or a patch of dirt. Then it grew larger, and became a weird circular hump that expanded directly outward.
Was she seeing things? Ella wasn’t quite sure. She was pretty tired. Maybe she was asleep already and was dreaming. Maybe her brain had finally broken from all this stress. Maybe this stupid alien in her head had melted whatever sanity she had left. But there it was; the brown thing grew again until it almost enveloped half the entire far wall. Ella stood up and took a hesitant step forward. She reached out with a finger to poke the expanding bubble.
“Ella, no!”
The warning came too late. No sooner had she poked the bubble, it expanded more until it encompassed her. She took several steps out of the bubble and looked at him. “What is this thing?” Cameron swept her up and carried her, running as far away from the bubble as possible. She looked back and saw the thing chase after them. “What in gods is going on?”
“Frequency visualizer.” Cameron patted the device in one of his pockets as he continued to run. “Brown is tuned to the Penetra scanner frequencies. If that light ever catches up with us, that means we’ve fallen into the scanner’s range.”
They turned the corner, but the ever-expanding brown sphere seemed to be chasing them.
“Is it alive?” she said. “Because it looks like it’s smart.”
&nbs
p; “They detected a host when you got in their range. They’re just heading in our general direction.”
“So what do we do?”
“We keep running.”
The two began a new race through the Crate Town maze until they hit the northern waterline. Ella dragged Cameron west. By now, they were exhausted, and the brown sphere appeared to follow them regardless of which direction they went. Ella changed directions all of a sudden and dragged him through a series of interconnecting containers partially buried in the ground.
“What are these for?” Cameron asked.
“There is a pasture just to the southeast,” she replied. “Livestock had to cross too much traffic to get there, so they linked these containers together and the animals crossed in underpasses.”
She made several turns at the container tunnels, hoping to throw off this crazy brown blob chasing them, although she knew that really didn’t make sense. As long as she continued west, she knew she was running away from it. They reached a three-way intersection near the end of a long corridor. Directly ahead was a flow of sewage out into the gulf. The right turn was an exit onto the Tapi River beach.
Ella picked what she felt was the less disgusting route and turned right, and ran straight into a group of darkly-dressed men holding rifles.
“Uh-oh, wrong way,” she said, pushing Cameron in the other direction. “Sewage system it is.”
Cameron drew his pistol, but she pulled him away. “No guns in Crate Town.”
“Why?”
No sooner had they turned the corner, the men opened fire. The echoes from the gunshots were ear-shattering, and the resulting soundwaves in such a tightly enclosed space knocked both of them to the ground. It took her a few seconds to get her wits about her, and she blinked away the ringing in her head. She looked up and saw Cameron, one hand holding a pistol, the other on his temple. She could hear groans coming from around the turn. She staggered to her feet and peeked over the side. Three of the six men were on the ground writhing in pain.
“Come on, let’s go,” she said.
“What?” Cameron tapped his ear.
She dragged him along toward the sewer system. They exited the tunnel a few seconds later, and she motioned for him to rest. Her hearing was slowly returning through the constant ringing.
“That’s why there are no guns in Crate Town,” she said. “You fire a gun in these metal cans, and that happens. Also, most of these containers are from the war, so they’re bulletproof. Bullets ricochet like crazy. I once saw a bullet take out three men at the Cage. Those idiots must have fired fifty rounds between them. I bet half those bullets bounced right back into them.”
“Point taken,” Cameron said, putting his pistol away.
“Come on, that brown blob is still behind us.”
Ella led him down to one of the main drains into the ocean. Cameron protested every step of the way, but the bubble did not follow them after they were approximately seventy meters in.
“That must be the range,” he muttered. “That, or they don’t want to follow us in here. Hell, I’d almost rather fight them than wade in here.”
“No one knows the slum better than me,” Ella grinned. “Who owns Crate Town? I do.”
He scowled. “We’re knee-deep in shit.”
She shrugged. “You can wash off in the river, though it’s probably not much cleaner. Come on, this way.”
They reached Metal Mountain right before dawn. She brought him to one of the containers deeper inside, past dozens of others piled together haphazardly. Most of the containers were still intact, but some were crushed or cut up. Cameron began inspecting some of the container walls, and signaled for her to stop at a particular container that was tilted a little steeper than she was comfortable with.
“It levels out further down,” she said.
He pointed at a faded marking of the letters “Pb” on the wall. “Most of the containers here are like the ones in Crate Town. This one has lead shielding. They were used during the war to cloak hosts from Penetra systems.”
“Does that mean we’re safe here?”
“Tao thinks so, or at least they’ll have to be really close to detect us.”
“Fine, we’ll stop here. Even if they know we’re here, they’ll never figure out how to get to us.” Shivering, Ella lay down on the ridged floor and huddled into a fetal position to stay warm. The inside of this metallic mountain was freezing and damp. The sun was rising, but it didn’t make a difference so deep inside. Back when she had lived in here, she had survived by wrapping herself in half a dozen blankets. Neither of them had that now. It was going to be a miserable day.
Cameron came over and took off his jacket. He wrapped it over her shivering body and lay down next to her.
“What about you?” she asked.
He shrugged. “This isn’t too bad. I don’t mind.”
It wasn’t long, however, before even the tough guy in only a thin layer of thermal clothing began to shiver. Ella crawled a little closer to him and moved his jacket until it partially covered both of them.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Sharing is caring.”
The last thing Ella heard before falling asleep was Cameron’s snores echoing throughout the entire mountain.
* * *
Tao opened Cameron’s eyes and watched as Ella got to her feet and struggled to stand on the slippery ribbed surface of the container. The girl put a hand on the wall for balance and moved up the slanted floor one wobbly step at a time. After four or five steps, she slipped and lost her balance, and then slid backward, losing half her progress. This slow crawl continued until she neared the end of the container.
Tao sat up. “Going somewhere?”
Io looked back. “Tao, I am going to the surface. There are some things near the dock I want to verify. I have an idea that may prove useful. Do not mind me. Your host is exhausted and needs rest.”
“You probably should not try to control Ella in here,” said Tao. “Your control of her body is poor and this would not be a good place to have her fall and break something.”
“No, I will be fine. I will be back soon.” Io reinforced her words by slipping on the floor and falling to her knees. She slid halfway back down the container. She tried to stand again. This time, Tao reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Do not break the girl’s neck because of this foolishness, Io. Besides, the girl has made it clear she does not wish you to control her while she is unconscious.”
A guttural sound crawled up Io’s throat. “Mind your own business, Tao. She is also my host and my responsibility. I will decide how best to manage her.”
Tao kept his grip on Io. “No, Io. No, you will not. Respect the girl’s wishes and stay put.”
“Or else what?”
Tao pulled out a plastic tie from Cameron’s satchel and held it up.
Io’s eyes flared. “You would not dare.”
Tao smiled. “Let the girl rest. It will be a long day tomorrow for both of them.”
She lay down on the cold metal floor. “You are preventing me from doing sensitive and necessary work, Tao.”
Tao closed his eyes. “I am sure I am. Good night, Io.”
Forty
Scouting
Once back in the United States, I joined with a young Major Karl Bendetsen who worked on the administrative staff of the Judge Advocate General, one Major General Allen Guillion. We were tasked with protecting our growing Prophus presence in the United States against outside forces, especially the rising Genjix-backed power of the Japanese Empire. It was then that Karl and I became the architects of Japanese-American Internment.
That was an even worse disaster than the Maginot Line. I still defend Karl to this day. Both our intentions were good, just misguided. Pearl Harbor had just shocked the country, and we reacted harshly and unfairly.
* * *
For most of the next day, Cameron and Ella laid low in Metal Mountain. The military had moved in during
the middle of the night and set up a blockade surrounding the entire slum. What started out as a lockdown of the slum and a house-to-house search had escalated into a full-blown internment. Guards now wandered the markets, checkpoints were set up at all the major entrances, and guards with dogs patrolled the perimeter fence. Penetra scanner squads walked the streets at all times of the day.
They had even brought in the navy.
Ella and Cameron lay on their stomachs in a slanted crate facing the water and watched as the large vessel floated past.
“That’s a big boat with really pointy guns,” she said.
It is a ship. You might as well begin her operative training now, starting with proper terminology.
“They’re ships, not boats,” Cameron said next to her. “That one is a frigate, I think.”
Another even larger ship passed. “Wow, that’s an even bigger boat.”
“I think that one is a destroyer? I’m not caught up on my naval terms.”
Come on, Cameron. That one is the INS Kalam. That ship saw heavy action in the Gulf of Aden. Twice crippled during the war. Would have been scrapped if the captain was not the vice admiral’s son.
Cameron relayed Tao’s information.
“How does Tao know what boat it is and what it’s done?” Ella asked.
It is a ship!
Cameron shrugged. “My Quasing enjoys reading after-action reports. He has the worst hobbies. What about Io? What does Io do for fun?”
“She enjoys framing me for treason.”
I assume she is joking. If so, her delivery is on the dry side.
The girl was struggling as a host, which wasn’t unusual, but it had to be even more frustrating for someone like Ella, who had been on her own from such an early age. It was an easy transition for Cameron. He couldn’t remember a day in his life when he didn’t have Tao. In fact, he would probably freak out if Tao disappeared from his life.
