The Lifeline Signal

by RoAnna Sylver

  "Home..." Rowan paused for a few seconds. Then there came a loud thump as they rolled out of the hammock and dropped down into the grass below.

  "Yes, home." Aliyah shot them a nonplussed look. "I thought you'd be jumping to get back there, start putting our lives back in order.”

  “Home’s not there anymore. The library burned to the ground, like the rest of Parole. But even if it were still there it wouldn’t be home without Regan, or Zilch, or…” They’d begun to pace around in a small circle, but now they stopped and looked back at Aliyah. “No, I'm not just devastated that it's gone. I am, of course, but it just doesn't make sense!"

  "You and Jay, same coin, I swear, not even different sides..." Aliyah murmured under her breath, then raised her voice. "This has to do with Regan's disappearing act, I'm guessing?"

  "He barely left the library except for Runtime! And now he left Parole? He's out here somewhere, alone, in a world that hates—no, in a world that doesn't even know who or what he is!"

  "Yes. It's terrible. Doesn't bear thinking about," Aliyah said in a tone that clearly suggested she tried not to. She shut her eyes and wondered when the last good night's sleep she—or any of them—had enjoyed.

  "It's not just terrible, it's impossible!" Rowan's aggravated noise indicated just as clearly that they could do nothing but think. "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen him leave on that recording! Because he wouldn't do it! Not if he was acting of his own free will!"

  "Even an agoraphobe will leave the house if that house catches fire," Aliyah said slowly and studiedly patient. "And Parole's been on fire for some time."

  "No. Not Regan. Not without a note or a sign or just—something explaining at least part of what he was doing! He wouldn't just disappear, with nothing, not if it was his choice! Or if he had any other choice! Ever!"

  Aliyah stared at the dark ceiling for a moment, then shook her head and sighed. "All right, I'll bite. You sound quite sure of that, much more than I would be in your sh... hooves. Why?"

  "Because that's not how his mind works. He gets scared if you do something without telling him and then without telling him why. He doesn't like being kept in the dark. So I don't do that, nobody who cares about him does that, we always tell him what's going on, so he knows we're safe and he's safe. And he does the same for us, not because we need it, but because that's what we do for him. If someone left him like that, he'd..." Rowan stopped. When they didn't continue, Aliyah looked over to see them staring into space, with no apparent intent to go on.

  "You know him pretty well," she said, annoyance gone. Now she tried to smile and had some success. "Understatement, I suppose."

  "Of course I do." Rowan still wasn't looking at her. Even if they had, she doubted they'd see her. "Better than myself, some days. Especially these days. That's the other reason none of this makes sense. He'd never leave... It would be like me doing this to you, Aliyah—well," now they looked at her, some of the pain dropping off their face, replaced with something near embarrassment. "Not exactly like—Queerplatonic and romantic relationships, they're just—I'm not saying one's more or less important, that's not it at all, they're just different, they're on a different frequency, almost, and Regan was my first-"

  "Oh my—Rowan, stop!" Aliyah almost laughed, then turned it into a very unconvincing cough. "We've been over this. Several times. In any case, you don't need to explain any intricacies while you're mopping your heart up off the floor."

  "Okay, I just don't want you to think..." They sighed, words failing. "You're important to me."

  "I believe we've been over that before too."

  "Regan's just..."

  Her smile turned a little wry. "You love us both, but you want to kiss his fool face and marry him under the stars while you shake him for putting you through this mess."

  "Not even shake him. Just ask him why. I don't like being in the dark any more than Regan does. Not when it's him that's in danger." They sank back down onto their spot on the tree root. "Kiss him though, yes. Hold him, wrap both of us up, warm and tight, so his eyes are the last thing I see as we fall asleep. Marry..."

  When they didn't continue, Aliyah looked over with a quick smile. "Well, now you've got my attention. You've actually been thinking about it?"

  But Rowan only met her eyes briefly and without any answering excitement. "No. Not even when we were all... no, we weren't."

  "Why not? Parole doesn't give a fig. Not about most things but it really doesn't about who marries whom, or in what combination. Ask anybody to name a highlight of the past ten years, nine out of ten'll agree—Evelyn, Rose, and Danae tying the knot and the concert-party thereafter. There's a few good women right there." She gave her wings a little flutter as if she were shaking off the temporary glow of rare, good Parole memories. "It's really none of my business and I don't know the first thing. But I know you. And I know how you are with Regan and Zilch. Some things do make sense."

  Rowan seemed to relax as she spoke, warmed by thoughts of home and the people who survived its fires every day. Now they did try to return her smile, but it faded quickly. "You know, I've been trying to remember the last thing I said to Regan? Or what he said to me? I can't. Zilch either."

  "That had to be over a month ago." It was hard to state such a sad fact in a reasonable, reassuring tone, but Aliyah managed it.

  "Regan was six weeks tomorrow." Rowan abandoned their botched attempt at optimistic agreement and resumed staring into space. That seemed to come a lot more naturally. "I can't remember if I told him to be careful going out that night. Or kissed him goodbye."

  "Well, I wasn't there, but knowing the two of you, I can make an educated guess."

  "So can I," Rowan conceded. "And I hope we're right. It's just... I can remember the smallest, most random details—how he shakes out his frill and scratches under it a certain way and, like clockwork the next day, he'll start shedding scales. But I can't remember if I told him I loved him."

  "He knows," Aliyah said firmly. "Even if you didn't tell him that night. You didn't have to."

  "And I can't even remember," they continued, as if they hadn't heard. Their voice grew increasingly bitter with every word. "Exactly where I last saw Zilch. Because by then it was chaos. We were all in such a panic, in and out... looking for Regan. I have no idea what I said to them. Or what they said. Or when they were gone. And then—the collapse. We were gone. Even if they came home... I was gone."

  "Listen." Aliyah flared her wings in a fast whoosh and dropped down to a lower branch to look them more closely in the eye. "What Regan knows, Zilch knows, and they know you'd go through Hell and back for them—oh! Look! Look at what we're doing right now, us sailing across Tartarus as we speak. And if our luck holds and all goes as planned, you'll get to tell them again."

  "The plan was to forget them," Rowan said, more pensive than downcast. "We agreed on that eight years ago. Even in a city that doesn't exist, we don't exist. And if one or more of us disappears... whoever's left moves on. The others were never here."

  "Rowan."

  They looked over into her doubtful, concerned face and shrugged. "It was the safest way. You have to understand what their—our lives were like. They were constantly being hunted by SkEye—"

  "You think I don't know that?" She almost laughed. "You don't need to explain this to me. It's not that I don't understand, it's that I think it's utter nonsense. You don't just cut off part of your life like that and move on like nothing happened."

  "You do if you want to survive," Rowan said slowly, patiently, as if it were something they'd repeated and rationalized hundreds of times, if not more. "And we were all more valuable to Parole alive than dead. And if we wanted to stay alive, we needed to stay secret. So no significant connections, no evidence that could be used against anyone, no... nothing. We loved... we love each other. But we still had to plan for the worst."

  "And what's that they say about best-laid plans?" Aliyah sighed, shaking her head and turning back to her now re-mus
sed feathers. She'd have to start again, but it was worth it. There was nothing like a good wing-flap for emphasizing a point. "You can plan all you want, but it doesn't work like that, does it?"

  "No. It doesn't. I can't just forget them." The change in their voice was so clear it made Aliyah turn and look right back. Rowan sounded hard, determined, as if they'd just come to the most important conclusion of their life. "So I won't."

  "Well, good.” She nodded, a little bemused but pleased. "Fighting for the ones we love can only help us win the day and save Parole."

  "No," Rowan said again, sounding just as resolved but further away. "Not Parole. I can't go back. Not without Regan. And not without Zilch's heart.”

  “You can’t save everyone. I can’t save everyone. Saving myself is hard enough.” Aliyah spoke every word deliberately, as if trying to imprint them on her own heart as well. “We try. We do the best we can, we keep as many alive as possible, and we love them with all our hearts. And when we lose them, we carry on—”

  "Maybe we can't save everyone. But we can save some of them. And I have to at least try-"

  “Rowan, this is a war.” Her voice was hard, left no room for argument. “A secret one, a quiet one, but it is! And in a war, you have to look at the entire map. Focus our attention where we can do the most good.”

  “I know!” Rowan almost shouted. “I know we have to focus on the greater good, Parole, thousands of people, the mission, the beacons, Tartarus, all of it. But I can’t—I don’t want to see the bigger picture if Regan and Zilch aren’t part of it!” Rowan stopped to catch their breath; suddenly it seemed like they’d just made a breakneck sprint that left them exhausted.

  “I know it’s hard.” Aliyah kept her voice level and didn’t let herself echo Rowan’s increasing desperation, but this was getting harder too. Especially after everything she’d just said about remembering, honoring the past. She believed it wholeheartedly—but it was the future that worried her now. “But we simply must stay objective. We knew this day would come, when we’d be scattered to the winds, forced to choose between finding one another or moving forward. There’s only one way we survive this, and it’s by focusing on the mission and getting it done. If we don’t, it won’t matter if we’re together or not. There’ll be no together. There’ll be nothing left at all.”

  “I have nothing left if they’re gone,” Rowan said, every bit as unyielding. But there was a plea in their voice instead of steel. “I’ll forget them when they’re really gone, but right now I don’t know that for sure, they could still come back.”

  “Yes they could,” Aliyah said quietly. “A lot of things could happen. But we need to—”

  “They’re not gone yet,” Rowan insisted. “And I can’t give up on them until they are. Not while I’m still here.” Now their eyes narrowed, as if they’d just realized something even worse. “Or while he is.”

  “Sharpe.”

  Rowan didn’t answer. Instead they slowly nodded, fear and pain in their face slowly transforming into a cold fury Aliyah couldn’t remember ever seeing before. She never wanted to see it again, either. It didn’t look right on their face.

  “Which is it?” she asked at last.

  “What?” Rowan was lost in a reverie again, a much darker one than before.

  “Which is more important? Finding Regan and Zilch’s heart, or taking Sharpe down?”

  “I… both. We have to find them, and we have to kill him. Neither one are even options.”

  “Suppose you could only pick one. What’s the priority—rescue or revenge?”

  Rowan’s eyes widened, then narrowed again. "Would it change anything? Would you say yes to either one, even if I was being, what—one hundred percent objective? Fine,” they continued before she could answer. “Objectively, Sharpe is a... danger that has to be addressed. And Zilch and Regan are allies we have to recover. That's all true."

  Aliyah said nothing.

  "So if we take emotion out of the equation, why doesn't it add up?" Desperation came back into Rowan's voice immediately. "We've never lied to each other, don't start now. Please. If you won't let me go, then is there any chance we could stay out here just a little longer before going back? Just a few days, not even a week, to look for Regan? And Zilch's heart? We know they're out here, we have proof. Can we just... try?"

  She shut her eyes and didn't speak for several seconds. She almost kept them closed, but some answers, with some people, you had to hand down looking them straight in the eye. "No."

  “Why?” Rowan didn’t shout. She almost wished they would. “Why won’t you let me go at least?”

  “Do you really want to know the answer to that question?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Because you are too valuable an asset to lose,” she said, voice sounding about as exhausted as she felt, but still unwavering. “You’re one of our only medics left. You will save hundreds, thousands of people with those skills alone. You and your prototype antitoxin. And we need you to contain Tartarus. That’s thousands more lives right there. I cannot allow you to risk your life, because it risks all of them. They outweigh anything else, including my feelings.”

  “And Regan and Zilch?” Rowan asked in a whisper.

  “We don’t know where they are. We don’t even know if Regan is alive, not for sure. We do know that thousands will suffer and die if we break off to save two.”

  “So that’s it?” Rowan stared at her. They gave a short laugh, but it wasn’t a happy one at all. “It just comes down to math?”

  “There is no other way of looking at this. Chances, risks, loss and gain, we have to think like this if we’re going to survive. Or I do, rather.” She gave just as sardonic a smile in return. “I think like this so you don’t have to. Or that was the plan.”

  “We’re really doing this? Writing them off because they’re too big of risks, with not enough reward? And what about Sharpe?”

  “Also just one man. A venomous, treacherous man, but only one.”

  “He does enough damage for a hundred. And he will never stop.”

  “Maybe not. But we’re not the ones to stop him.”

  “He killed Ash,” Rowan said, in the coldest tone she’d ever heard from them. Maybe from anyone. It sounded wrong in Rowan’s voice. “And he almost killed Annie. Now he’s after Regan. The odds are good that he has Zilch’s heart. This is my family, Aliyah. I need them safe—and I need Sharpe gone.”

  “And so do I,” she said with every bit of conviction she could muster. “I need it for you, and for me, and for them, like I haven’t needed much else in my life. But that is the problem. We need. Not ‘they.’ Not Parole. The difference is too vast. The risks are too great. And the odds were never on our side. I’m sorry.”

  Rowan didn’t retort or challenge her again. They didn’t say anything at all. Silence stretched between the two of them like it never had before.

  Suddenly, the lighting changed dramatically, making both of them jump in surprise. They looked up and out a high window in time to see another flash of lightning streak across the sky.

  “A storm?” Rowan gaped outside, where the previously-bright afternoon suddenly looked dark as night. “Right now?”

  Lightning flashed again almost before they’d finished speaking. They both jumped, scrambling to get around each other and up the hill to the door. Just before they hurried through, Aliyah caught Rowan’s arm.

  “We’re not done here! This storm is a temporary reprieve, that is all.”

  “Fine,” Rowan agreed. “Bookmarking the breakdown for later.”

  Aliyah took a deep breath and readied herself. “Right, let’s go batten down some hatches.”

  * ☆ *

  The FireRunner came to a halt in the lee of the next beacon tower. Its looming shape gave them some shelter from the high winds and the reassurance of having their backs against a solid wall. When the sky cleared, they’d light it up. But for now they had bigger concerns.

  When a storm rolled in
, ghosts came with it.

  It was nowhere near sunset, but when the FireRunner crew, including Toto-Dandy, came above deck, it was almost dark. The storm front blotted out the sun and trail of light, forming a solid wall of dust. The oncoming mass traveled over Tartarus’s dry desert like a tidal wave. Dark, ghostly shapes flitted in and out, leaping and diving like porpoises in sea swells. And dipping toward the ground, reaching down like a sea monster’s tentacles, were dozens of thick, swirling cyclones of toxic air.

  “You’ve heard me say ‘no orders except in a pinch,’” Captain Aliyah shouted to be heard over the growing noise, talking fast. The wind howled; they could all feel it in the bones of their chests and the soles of their feet. “Well, it is indeed pinch time! But don’t fear, follow Captain’s orders and we’re all going to be fine! Have you got that?”

  When the affirmative came back over the wind, she gave a sharp nod and moved briskly on. “Right, then! Changes today are as follows: One! We’ve got two new recruits learning the ropes!” She cast a wide grin at Shiloh and Indra, who huddled together, slightly excited and very nervous. Shiloh nodded anxiously and Indra gave a nervous grin and salute. “Shiloh, you’re with Jay. Eyes on the oxygen tanks and lines, very important job, making sure we all don’t die!”

  “Yes ma’am!” Xir voice didn’t shake, but the rest of xir certainly did.

  “Good. Indra, I want you with Stefanos, making sure every air vent and water gate is completely airtight and uncontaminated!”

  “Got it.” The big man with the golden eyes waved for Indra to follow as he headed toward the railing. Then he held up his other hand, the synthetic one, and gave it a nod. “I’m also in charge of dampening cover from the flashbangs and any ghosts that get too close.”

  “Flashbangs? Ghosts?” Indra repeated as he followed, looking a bit seasick. Dandy followed after him and Stefanos at a bouncy trot, seeming excited about all the activity. Shiloh wished xie could trade some of xir rising tension for that unworried, doggy happiness.