The Lifeline Signal

by RoAnna Sylver

  “I’m Stefanos Argyrus,” the big man said, golden eyes traveling over both of them. “And if you’re friends of hers, you’re already friends of mine.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Aliyah turned away from Annie for the first time to face the pair of them. She paused almost imperceptibly, and Shiloh had the feeling she was sizing them up very quickly behind her dark glasses. She must have liked what she saw, because her smile came back quickly. “Aliyah el-Khalil. Very pleased to meet you both. If Anh Minh’s carted you thousands of miles, she must think you’re quite nice indeed.”

  “We think she’s pretty cool too,” Indra said. He seemed to be feeling slightly better, because he gave her a winning smile back. “Call me Chan…Indra. I’m Indra.”

  Aliyah didn’t answer right away. Instead she removed her sunglasses and both Indra and Shiloh tried not to jump, stare, or otherwise be rude as hell. Aliyah’s eyes were entirely black, no white sclera, even around the edges. “Are you really?”

  “I think so,” Indra said a little faintly. Both as in volume and because he looked like he might faint. “Is that…good?”

  “It’s very good,” Aliyah answered, explaining nothing but seeming satisfied just the same. “And you must be Shiloh.”

  “Yeah, that would be me,” xie said, watching both of their faces for another reaction. Aliyah and Stefanos looked at each other, sharing a grin at the name, and then back. “How’d you know? Are my parents here?”

  “No, I’m sorry.” Aliyah truly sounded like it as she watched Shiloh’s face fall. “Fortunately, your uncle tells us we’re headed in the same direction. We’re bound to meet up with them sometime.”

  “My uncle Jay?” xie asked, feeling another small flutter of hope.

  “Indeed. Says we’re right on track following your mother’s guideline. Most of us can’t see the thing, but he tells us it’s bright and shiny right overhead. Sounds quite pretty.”

  “It’s leading around the beacons?” Shiloh asked. Xie wasn’t sure why xie was surprised. Maybe just because xie expected it to be harder.

  “Seems to be,” Aliyah nodded. “Or at least pointing to the next one.”

  “You’re halfway done, right?” Annie asked.

  “That’s right. Five beacons down, five to go.” Aliyah gave a slightly annoyed click of her tongue. “Should’ve gotten more, but we ran into a truly, exceptionally nasty storm, nearly all died, ran into some Eyes up in the Sky, nearly all died again, shield generator bit the dust at last, and now we’re running naked. Quite nippy even in this heat.” She said all this so casually it was as if she were commenting on some mildly inconvenient weather. “So we’ve been stuck here a bit until we can dig up a new shield. Besides, seemed like we could all use a couple days’ shore leave after that. And real showers.”

  “Your shields broke down too?” Annie looked troubled by the very concept.

  “Indeed they have. Wait, what do you mean ‘too?’”

  "Ours got—mine was damaged so badly we had to stop at Radiance HQ to pick up a new one. Lakshanya gave us a better replacement, but we were ‘running naked’ too for a while.”

  “Well, now I’m even more grateful you made it back in one piece,” Aliyah said as Stefanos headed a short distance away, raising his metal hand to his ear as if he were making a call on a cell phone. Xie couldn’t hear much of what he was saying, but caught ‘tell Rowan it’s Annie. No, he’s…’

  “Yeah,” Annie said, but she didn’t meet Aliyah’s eyes. “So how long are we staying here?”

  “No word yet, I’m afraid. Ship-sized shield generators are apparently a hot-ticket item, because we haven’t seen a single one. We’ll try for a couple more days but after that we may have to brave the storms without shielding.”

  Annie didn’t answer or seem to notice Aliyah had stopped talking. She was hanging onto the shark tooth necklace again and biting her lower lip. She seemed to struggle to find the right words even more than usual and Aliyah waited patiently until she did. “I…did Kari tell you about… where’s Rowan?”

  “Back at the ship,” Stefanos said, coming back to stand beside Aliyah. His voice was lower than it had been, softer, and straight to Annie as if it were meant for her ears only and everyone else was just listening in. “They’d be here, but we thought it was better if somebody met you and called ahead.”

  “They’ll be so happy you’re all right,” Aliyah said as Annie’s eyes went back to the ground. Shiloh didn’t know what painful ground they’d stumbled onto and xie wasn’t about to ask. “We all are. Turning that corner to find you standing there? That was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. Wasn't sure I'd ever see it again.”

  “Yeah, me…” Annie stopped, looking puzzled. “Wait. You knew I was coming back with the data, though. You had to. How else did you know to wait for me?”

  Aliyah hesitated, then seemed to recommit to whatever she planned to say and just powered through. “We knew one of you was coming back. But not which one.”

  “Oh.” Annie stared at her, eyes wide. Shiloh recognized the look on her face; whatever she was seeing, it wasn’t any of them. “How did… how’d that happen?”

  “Kari picked up a weak signal,” Aliyah said, glancing quickly at Stefanos. At least it looked like she did; her eyes made it a bit hard to tell. “A SkEye frequency. Someone reporting in, saying they’d sighted a motorcycle outside Meridian. And shot one of the two riders.”

  Annie didn’t reply. She had the now-familiar expression of looking but not seeing and it took her a second to come back. “Is Jay around?” she asked at last, as if the last exchange hadn’t happened. “I know he’ll want to meet Shiloh first thing.”

  “Also back at the ship,” Stefanos said, after just a moment of hesitation. “He’s with Rowan.”

  Again, Annie didn’t answer. Instead, her eyes slipped back out of focus, as she slipped back into her reverie.

  “So you guys keep talking about a ship,” Shiloh had to ask, despite the heavy mood, or maybe because of it. “Are you the captain?” Stefanos reminded xir of a storybook pirate, like he would have been right at home striding across a pitching deck in ocean spray.

  “Me?” Stefanos looked down at Shiloh with a slightly surprised smile. “No, and it’s a good thing.” His golden eyes went down to Aliyah, smile turning warm and fond. “The FireRunner’s in much better hands than mine.”

  “That’s right, captain-ing would be my job,” Aliyah said with a proud nod. “And I love it. The job, though, not the title, please don’t call me ‘Captain’, just Aliyah would be lovely.” She glanced up at Stefanos. “People always think you’re the captain for some reason, don’t they?”

  “I wish they didn’t,” he returned. “I wouldn’t last a minute doing your job.”

  She seemed to like that answer, but her smile faded into something more serious as she focused on Indra and Shiloh. “Now, unless there’s anything else, why don’t we walk and talk? We’ve hung around here too long already—and there are several people on the ship who’ll want to see you ASAP.”

  “The ship’s right here?” Shiloh asked, realization and confusion dawning for the first time. “I didn’t think there was even a lake around here. Everything dried up in the Tartarus Blast.”

  Captain Aliyah grinned, white teeth and black eyes flashing. “Won’t keep me from sailing.”

  * ☆ *

  “Some ships sail upon the ocean. Some go blazing off through space,” Captain Aliyah explained, hands clasped behind her back and leaving them all hurrying to keep up, even the towering Stefanos. Annie walked her bike along behind the small group as they followed. “And some are made to cross this new toxic nonsense splattered across the country, delivering basic medical supplies and clean water to places that don’t exist anymore. Technically.”

  “Technically?” Shiloh panted, taking three steps for each one of the captain’s long strides. “You mean Parole, right?”

  “Of course.” Aliyah shot a grin back at Annie. “Woul
dn’t be much point in bringing water to a smoking crater in the ground. Our operations are dangerous, but strictly anchored in the realm of sense and practicality.”

  “Sense. Yeah, that’s the word I’d use to describe us.” Stefanos shook his big head of black hair, golden eyes glinting with what might have been a smile. It was hard to tell sometimes under all the hair.

  “Well, I can think of several more, yes,” Aliyah conceded. “But why not let our guests decide for themselves?” She raised one long hand as they rounded a corner. The tents and prefab buildings gave way to the ‘docks’, loading bays jutting out not into the ocean but the desert. And just beyond them, standing tall and impressive even on dry land, was the ship. “Say hello to Water Transport Carrier 359. We call her the FireRunner. Or just ‘Home.’”

  The FireRunner gleamed a dull bronze in the setting sun and was nowhere near as elegant as its name might suggest. Once, the enormous craft might have been something out of a storybook. Its four masts had sails tightly furled around them and must look majestic fully opened. The rest of it told a different story. One of being torn apart and rebuilt many times over many years. It was a jigsaw puzzle of replacement parts salvaged from other vehicles and entire sections that looked like small houses. Its metal hull was pockmarked and scarred from slashing winds, rough sand, and what looked like huge, deep claw gashes. It was a patchwork quilt of a ship and had clearly been through its share of storms, but it was still floating. Even with no water within a hundred miles. The FireRunner and all its scars silently hovered about ten feet in the air.

  “Technically, the FireRunner is an official Radiance ship,” Aliyah said, looking at the vessel, mismatched and repaired and gleaming in the sun, as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world. “Tasked with relief efforts organized through Lakshanya Chandrasekhar.”

  Shiloh only half-heard. Suddenly xie felt lightheaded from a now-familiar sense of impossible recognition. Xie had seen this ship before. Drawn it--xie'd carried its image all this way in xir sketchpad. Been inside it, walked around in it. In a dream.

  “Yeah, she said she assigned you guys when we were at Radiance HQ,” Indra said, looking as awed by the ship as Shiloh felt. “Guess she’s really serious about helping Parole.”

  “You might call us independent contractors.” Aliyah grinned. “But yes. She’s been instrumental in its survival. Thanks to her, Parole isn’t a smoking crater where a city used to be. Well, less of one. The situation is—complex. We’ll speak more later.”

  “Come on.” Stefanos gently prompted them, stepping forward. An electronic whirring gave his voice a metallic quality. “All aboard.”

  Leaving the motorcycle parked beside the ship, they climbed a long metal staircase that looked like it might have once been a building’s fire escape and stepped onto the lower deck. Up close, the FireRunner’s improvised construction was much less obvious. It might have been largely or even mostly salvaged but whoever had actually done the repairs had fit everything together well; actually standing on board, nothing felt out of place or ominous. Rather, Shiloh couldn’t say why, but felt somehow reassured the moment xie stepped on board. Even the harsh sun overhead seemed less painful.

  “The hovering deal? That’s Radiance tech right there, even I know that,” Indra remarked excitedly, looking around with an eager gleam in his eye. Although, judging by the sheen of sweat on his forehead, his eyes might have been glassy from fever, Shiloh realized with some concern. “My mom’s people developed that a while ago. Or, uh, maybe that was your mom, Shiloh.”

  “The engine design was Rishika’s,” Aliyah supplied when Shiloh hesitated. “The shielding was Maureen’s—as it was meant to be used, to withstand toxic atmospheres and ballistic assaults, not to box thousands of people in over an inferno. But the FireRunner herself is all mine.” She grinned. “The world’s been through a change or two, but I’m still captain, this is my ship, my home, and that means…” Aliyah let out a huge sigh of relief, stretching her arms to the sky as if it were the first time she’d been allowed in a week. Then, something else stretched out behind her that made Shiloh gasp out loud. Sprouting from her upper back was an enormous pair of golden wings. She’d been hiding them under her loose poncho-like top layer and must have been keeping them folded very tightly across her back, because now they exploded out with a sound like a huge umbrella opening. They were the biggest wings Shiloh had ever seen and actually looked large enough to lift a human being, certainly the small Aliyah, off the ground.

  “Please don’t say the ‘A’ word.” Aliyah grinned at the looks on their faces as she folded up the poncho and adjusted her hijab—which stayed exactly where it was. “Unless it’s my name. Or Kari’s alias. I’ll never understand the idea of people with halos sitting on clouds playing harps all day. I’ve got much more important things to do, anyway.”

  “Speaking of ‘A’ words,” Stefanos cut in, looking Indra over carefully. “Antitoxin. The infirmary should be your first stop. I’m surprised you’ve been on your feet this long.”

  “Aw, I feel fine!” Indra protested, earning him several skeptical looks. “We just got here! I want to see more, just a little!”

  “You’re not going to see much more if you pass out or have another attack.” Aliyah’s firm voice allowed no argument. “You feel fine now, but in a minute? Heaving your guts out over the side and that’s if it goes easy on you. Now, you only got a breath and we’re catching it early, you’re lucky. Don’t waste that luck. A lot of people haven’t got it.”

  “Okay, I hear you.” Indra’s smile faded, and once it was gone they could all much more easily see the way his eyes slipped a bit out of focus, how he wavered slightly on his feet. “Um, yeah. Maybe that’s not a bad, um… idea.”

  “Of course.” The captain shot Stefanos a glance and a nod toward Shiloh, then stuck out a wing to guide Indra along as they kept moving. “Sickbay’s a bit of a hike, walk and talk.”

  Shiloh watched them go with rising concern. Indra had so much performer’s charm and charisma, xie’d almost forgotten he was sick—then it all came back in a rush and Shiloh immediately felt terrible. The truth was obvious the moment Indra stopped making what had to be a monumental effort to simply appear normal, fine, functional. Something Shiloh deeply understood, or at least thought xie did. If he felt half as bad as he looked…

  “He’ll be fine,” said a rumbling voice and xie turned to see Stefanos smiling down at xir and Annie. “Tartarus tries to pick us off. But we’ve got it beat.”

  “You can treat the infection, right?” Shiloh asked, grasping for a glimmer of hope that had been rattling in the back of xir brain for some time. "Annie said you had a prototype antitoxin?"

  “Have it? Who do you think developed it?” Stefanos let out a deep chuckle. “Half of Radiance’s best tech and medicine comes right out of Parole. Don’t worry about Tartarus on this ship—or the sun.” He held up his metallic hand, and it should have flashed in the sun, but the reflection wasn’t blinding. Actually, the entire ship wasn’t unbearably hot like one might expect from all the reflected heat from metal surfaces. “The blast ten years ago punched a new giant hole in the ozone layer. That much raw UV light is deadly, so we’ve had to improvise.” They looked up to see that it was suddenly twilight. Or that’s how it appeared.

  “Dampening fields,” Stefanos said almost lazily, as shade fell around him like a translucent curtain. It reminded Shiloh of the Aurora Borealis, but instead of being iridescent light, it was soothing darkness. When his golden eyes glittered, they looked a bit like stars. “Which help cut out the worst of the sun. Nobody dies of heatstroke on this ship.”

  “Always a good thing.” Shiloh adjusted xir glasses, trying to smile and shake off some of the nauseating worry from a few moments ago. “Me and bright light aren’t friends.”

  “Remember how I hid my bike along the way?” Annie said with an excited smile. “Same deal, bending the light. Good for hiding things. Not really invisible, but hidd
en unless you’re standing right next to it.”

  “Yep,” Stefanos’s voice resonated with pride. “They can’t hide something as big as the FireRunner if you look out a window, but they can mask it from radar and most other sensors. And keep us all from frying like eggs out here. Jay did good work.”

  “I hope he can open my mom's disk too,” Shiloh said quietly.

  “If he can’t, not sure who can. CyborJ’s got a bag of tricks that’s saved Parole more times than any of us can count over the years, including him, probably.”

  “I can’t wait to talk to him.” Shiloh’s heart was pounding but this time it wasn’t from fear; xir cheeks ached from smiling. “In person, I mean.”

  “You will. And he’ll talk to you. A lot. And you’ll probably only understand about a third of what he says—part of it’s techno-babble, part of it’s just Jay being Jay—but the important part is he’s glad to… see…damn it!” Stefanos grimaced in sudden pain as his mechanical hand began to jerk and twitch as if it were having some kind of spasm. He glared at it in frustration. “Not again. This is fine, just a little Tartarus corrosion.”

  “Oh no,” Annie said quietly, blood draining from her face. She looked about to continue, but suddenly, a nearby metal door burst open.

  “All right, nobody panic, I’m here!” A lanky man strode out, his gait reminding Shiloh of xir mom’s clanking steps descending the stairs, except that he wore black sneakers instead of steel-toed boots. He made a direct beeline for Stefanos, single-minded focus entirely on him and his malfunctioning hand, as if he didn’t quite notice anyone else was on deck.

  “Nobody’s panicking.” Stefanos sighed at the dramatic entrance. He always did know how to make one. “This is just a little corrosive buildup.”

  “Good, keep not doing that.” A thick pair of goggles with purple lenses covered the top half of his face, but his visible skin had the same coppery tone as Maureen’s and he wore his long black hair the same way: tied back in a ponytail, keeping it out of his face and quick movements. He glanced up at the sky—to where the shining trail was still visible—and Shiloh realized his goggle lenses must allow him to see ultraviolet light. Then he flicked the side and the lens opacity lowered until they were mostly clear, giving him a better look at Stefanos’s seizing synthetic hand.