"Goodbye," he whispered. "I'm proud of you. I love you. Always. You're going to be amazing."
He pulled back slowly, their bodies parting until only their hands touched, then their fingertips, arms reaching out as if neither could tolerate breaking contact, and when their fingertips finally parted, it was like breaking electrical circuits, like light and heat and air fading, like a perfect machine collapsing, like civilizations dying, like realities fading into emptiness. His last vision of Kemi was her standing in the doorway in her Hendrix shirt, hair disheveled, lips trembling, her fingers still reaching toward him.
He walked down the street at sunset. The radios crackled in the storefronts and apartments all around him, a tunnel of deep, calming serenity. All was clear. All was clear.
CHAPTER THREE
At sundown Marco stepped into his home, the apartment above the city library, only for a beast to leap onto him and knock him down.
He banged his hip on the floor. Weight shoved against him, pinning him down.
"Marco Emery, you son of a bitch!" The shout rang in his ear. One strong hand twisted his arm behind his back, and knuckles rapped against his head. "Are you ready to kick scum ass with me tomorrow, you filthy alien killer?"
Marco groaned. "Get off!" He shoved her away. "Addy, for chrissake. That hurt."
Addy grinned, her blond hair wild, her blue eyes bright. "Good!" She rose to her feet and placed her hands on her hips. "You need some pain. You need to toughen up. We're going alien hunting tomorrow morning, my friend." She drew the gun at her hip, pointed it at him, and pulled the trigger. It clicked and she laughed. "Don't worry. No bullets. Yet."
"Damn it!" He stood up and shoved her gun away. "You don't do that. You pull that shit in the military, they'll toss you into the brig."
Addy breathed heavily through her grin. Seven years ago she had saved his life, pulling him away from the scum that had slain his mother and her parents. Since then, Addy had lived with Marco and his father here above the library. The scrawny eleven-year-old kid with skinned knees had grown into a tall, wild woman. She wore cargo pants, heavy black boots, and a white tank top that revealed a blue maple leaf tattoo on her arm—logo of her favorite hockey team. A hockey stick hung across her back, the same one she used on the ice every day, playing for a local team—and spending most of her time in the rink punching her fellow players.
Marco sighed. Seven years of living here above a library, the adopted daughter of a studious librarian, had done nothing to soften Addy. She was still as fierce as the girl who had saved Marco, just taller, stronger, and armed.
"Oh, don't worry, little brother," she said. "Once I'm in the HDF, I'm going to point my gun only at scum. I'm going to blast them away."
She holstered her weapon, pulled her hockey stick off her back, and swung it wildly. Marco leaped back, and the stick slammed into a shelf, knocking over a jug. Marco caught it before it could shatter.
"Careful!" he said.
Addy ignored him, swinging her hockey stick. "That's right, little one. Pow!" She swung the stick at a plush scum on a shelf, knocking the fluffy centipede onto the floor. "I'm going to kick their asses." She kicked the toy, and it squeaked.
"I'm not sure they have asses," Marco said.
Addy shrugged and kicked the toy. "Then I'll kick them in their . . . thoraxes. Better?" She spun toward him, grabbed his arms, and hopped up and down, grinning wildly. "We're going to be soldiers tomorrow, little brother. You and me! We're going to finally have vengeance." Her eyes shone. "We're going to blast those fuckers off the face of the galaxy."
Marco sighed. Addy was two days younger than him, which didn't stop her from referring to him as her "little brother." For years now she'd been talking about joining the HDF, about avenging her parents. When she and Marco had received their draft notices earlier that year, her excitement had only grown. They were to be drafted on the same day, along with hundreds of other youths across the city. But while Marco had spent the year afraid, Addy had spent it beating up toy scum and firing unloaded guns at anything that moved.
"Get out of the way, Addy." Marco tried to shove past her. "I'm going into the kitchen to find some food."
But she blocked his way, arms crossed. Addy was as tall and heavy as him, and she spent her days slamming into men twice their size. Marco wasn't going anywhere unless she moved.
"Wait a minute." She frowned. "You were out all day. Did you see . . . your girlfriend?" She sniffed him, then gasped. "You did! I smell her perfume. Did you finally sleep with her?"
"Addy!" He shoved her. "For God's sake. Shut up."
She covered her mouth, then leaped up and down. "You did. You did!" She leaped onto him, twisting his head, and mussed his hair so violently he thought his scalp would tear off. "I'm proud of you. You're a man now. A man who fucks girls and will kill scum and—"
"Enough!" He shoved her with all his strength, finally knocking her off. "I don't want to talk about Kemi. I don't want to talk about scum. Just . . ." He sighed. "Please, Addy. Give me some space tonight."
But she slung her arms around his neck, jumping up and down. He trudged toward the kitchen with her hanging off him like a tenacious monkey.
The kitchen was small, its cabinets cracked, its counters cheap laminate. An animated painting hung on the wall, depicting a hand cracking an egg over a frying pan, only for a chick to emerge and flee. Over and over, millions of times, that chick kept emerging and fleeing, only for the egg to seal itself up again. Which came first? read a caption below the animation. Marco hated that painting. He knew that his father hated it too. His mother, however, had delighted in kitsch, and they'd never had the heart to throw out her belongings. Her cat clock still hung on one wall, tail and eyes moving, while a golden statue of Michael Jackson and his pet chimp, Bubbles, stood on a shelf. Every time Marco stepped into this kitchen, he winced to see the awful artwork, then smiled to remember his mother.
Marco's father stood in the kitchen, frying burgers. Even in the hot kitchen, he wore corduroy pants and a woolen vest. His hair was shaggy, his mustache bushy, and round spectacles hung on his nose. Marco's hair was shorter, his face smooth, his eyes sharp, but many people said he looked like his father. Certainly he was more like the rumpled librarian than his mother. Grace Emery had been a ray of sunshine, red-haired and silly, while Marco had his father's brown hair and somber eyes that loved to gaze into books.
"Where's the beer?" Addy yanked the fridge door open, nearly tearing it off, and began tossing out tomatoes and apples. "Junk, junk—ah! Here we go." She pulled out three beer bottles, pulled the tops off with her teeth, and slammed them onto the table. "Drink with me, boys."
Father slid the burgers onto buns and placed three plates on the table. He looked over the tabletop at Marco, saying nothing. Marco stared back, silent. They rarely talked to each other, but they communicated volumes with their silence. It had been so since Mother had died.
It's funny, Marco thought. I'm writing a novel, and Father is steward to billions of words, yet we can barely string a sentence together to speak to each other.
Addy raised her bottle. "To kicking scum ass!" she said.
Marco and Father raised their own bottles. They drank. Father had always preferred rye or wine to beer, but tonight he too drank. Molson beer. Addy's favorite. Both she and Marco were too young to legally drink, but Marco figured that if tomorrow they were old enough to fire machine guns and starship cannons at man-eating aliens, a beer wouldn't hurt them.
When their bottles were empty and their plates clean, Father finally spoke.
"It will be all right." His voice was soft, calm, but Marco knew that the librarian was struggling to keep it steady, to keep his eyes dry. "I survived it. I did my five years, and I was fine. I still have some friends who have friends in the HDF. If you get stuck in some hole, in Ganymede or Titan or North Africa, I'll make calls. I'll—"
Addy snorted. "We'll be fine, Carl. Marco and I aren't going to be stationed in some shit
hole like Ganymede, guarding latrines for five years. No, sir." She brandished a knife. "We're going to fight on the front lines, both of us—right there in the Scorpius constellation. We're going to fly right at those scum and fire our bullets into their stinking thoraxes." She slammed the knife into the tabletop. It stayed standing, quivering.
"Addy, this table is real oak," Marco said. He turned toward his father. "We'll be all right. We'll have fun. I want to do this."
He was lying. This was not all right. This was not what he wanted. He had left his heart in Kemi's apartment, he had left his soul in the bloody snow seven years ago, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl down into the library, to feel the comfort of the books around him, to read, to work on the next chapter in Loggerhead, to drown himself in ink and paper and other worlds. Old worlds. Worlds better than this one where giant bugs rained from the sky, where lavender poison polluted your balls and made your kids born deformed, where healthy kids got carted off to war, where every day that soothing voice on the radio spoke of those who had died. It was all wrong. It was nothing he could change. It cracked him apart.
"Don't worry, pops." Addy slung her arm around Marco's neck, pulling his head against her. "I'll look after him. If he does anything incredibly stupid, I'll save his ass and win a medal." She nodded, growing somber. "This war's about to end, boys. We're going to win it. I'm going to be the one to fire the winning bullet and slay the scum emperor."
The food soured in Marco's belly. He had eaten too much, and only one bottle of beer spun his head. He rose from the table, excused himself, and went into his bedroom. He closed the door.
The room was small and comfortable. A window above the bed showed a view of treed residential streets behind the library, and three of his paintings hung on a wall. Several books rested on his bedside table. They told him he wouldn't have time to read in the army, wouldn't have room for books, but he would take just one, just one, small enough to squeeze into his pocket. He picked up a paperback in his room, a copy of Hard Times by Charles Dickens. He had read a few Dickens novels this year—David Copperfield was his favorite—and had been meaning to read this one, but he'd always found himself stuck on the first chapter. He nodded.
"This is the one. Hard Times." He smiled thinly. It was a bit melodramatic, perhaps. But he wanted this book less for its title, more for what it meant. It meant home. His old life. The authors he loved. He placed the book on his desk atop the pile of notebooks where he was writing Loggerhead, his first novel. He didn't know if the HDF would let him keep the notebooks, didn't know if he could fit them into his backpack, but if he could, perhaps he would spend the next five years writing. At least when he wasn't dodging scum claws, and worse—dodging Addy.
His eyes strayed toward the framed photograph on his desk. It showed Kemi last summer, leaning against a lion statue, one eyebrow raised and a smirk on her face. Kemi had always hated the photo, claiming Marco had caught a silly facial expression, but Marco loved it enough to have framed it, to look at it every day. To him, this was Kemi—quizzical, cynical, intelligent, both silly and smart.
Now, looking at the photo, he wanted to smash the glass, to rip the photo, to toss it out, to forget her. He lifted the frame, clutching it so tightly he thought it would shatter. Finally, delicately, he pulled the photo out from the frame, then slid it into his paperback copy of Hard Times.
He stripped down to his boxer shorts, turned off the lights, and lay in bed. For a long time he stared up at the ceiling, thinking about tomorrow, uncertain what to expect. His father had been born with a heart murmur; he had avoided boot camp and combat duty, instead spending his service in the HDF archives. Marco hadn't grown up hearing tales of war. Kemi's brother had been a great soldier, but he had died before Marco could meet him. As the apartment and city outside grew silent, as the night stretched on, Marco couldn't silence his mind. Again and again he saw Kemi reaching to him, eyes damp, saw Addy firing her blank gun, saw the pods raining down toward the lake, saw his mother in the snow.
Finally he drifted off into a dream. He was back in the kitchen, staring at his mother's animated painting of a chick emerging from the egg, at the cheeky Who came first? caption. But in his dream, when the egg cracked open, a centipede emerged, its body black and segmented, each segment sprouting two claws. The creatures kept fleeing the painting, more and more of them each loop in the animation, covering the floor, filling the pots, and Marco tried to fight them, but they kept climbing his legs. They all had his mother's face.
A sound roused him. A soft light fell on his face.
Marco froze, lying on his back. He opened one eye and saw his door creak open, revealing light in the hallway. Addy stood there in her pajamas, her hair pulled into a ponytail. Marco stiffened, ready to leap out of bed, to defend himself if she tried to bend his arm again, to knuckle his head, to wrestle him. But Addy only tiptoed into the room, closed the door, and stood for a long moment over his bed. Marco lay very still, eyes narrowed to slits, pretending to still sleep.
Addy was shaking. A tear glistened in the moonlight that streamed through the window.
As Marco lay very still, she climbed into bed with him and wrapped her arms around him.
"I'm scared," she whispered, her tears dampening his cheek. "I'm scared, Marco. I'm so scared. I'm so scared."
He remained with eyes closed, feigning sleep. He knew that in the morning Addy would be her old self, swinging her hockey stick and vowing death upon her enemies. Or no, perhaps not her old self, not her true self, but the old mask, the old armor. With his eyes closed, Marco rolled to face her, and he slung an arm around her. She nuzzled close to him, crying softly, and he held her against him until she slept. He slept only fitfully until dawn, her breath soft against his neck.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was unusually hot the day Father drove them to the HDF spaceport. The sky was pale blue, and the sun beat down even as dry leaves still fell from the maples and oaks that rose among the city's skyscrapers. They took the 404's lowest level through the urban jungle. The second, third, and fourth layers of the highway stretched above them, rattling under the weight of their own cars. Marco rode shotgun while Addy sat in the back, legs stretched out and slung over the gearbox, a cigarette dangling from her lips. The family car was a dented, rusty Toyota Feline, a model that had gone out of style the moment it hit the assembly line. It stank from tobacco, and the floors were still stained with last winter's salt and sludge, but Marco would miss riding here. He stared ahead, watching the soldiers in the armored jeep before them, machine guns slung across their backs. He could barely believe that in a few hours he'd be a soldier too.
Nobody spoke.
Once past the downtown core, the highways spread out into a single, flat, massive road. They drove now through the industrial complex, the sprawling machinery that operated the city. Factories, warehouses, airports, and row after row of barracks rose around them, a hive of concrete, barbed wire, guard towers, and smog. No more trees grew here. A fighter jet flew overhead, so low over the highway that Marco could see the pilot as the plane tilted. Its fuselage displayed the symbol of the Human Defense Force: a flaming phoenix rising from ashes, symbolizing Earth rising from the Cataclysm. The jet soared with a sonic boom that rattled the windows and elicited honks from the thousands of drivers.
"I've always loved that logo," Addy said from the back seat. "The phoenix. Fierce."
"I've always thought they should just show a picture of the Earth," said Marco.
Addy snorted. "It's the Human Defense Force, Poet. They defend humans everywhere in the galaxy, not just Earth. But if you like, you can just serve in Earth Territorial Command and stay here planetside. But not me. I'm going to blast scum in space. I'm joining the STC, the Space Terri—"
"I know what STC means," Marco said.
Addy was talking too fast again, bragging and puffing out her chest, a sign of her fear. Marco was afraid too, but he preferred to deal with his terror in silence. He checked his ba
ckpack for the hundredth time. He had bought only a couple of days' worth of clothes, a toothbrush, his book with the photo of Kemi inside, pens, and a few notebooks—one with the first few chapters of Loggerhead, the rest still empty. Addy hadn't even taken a backpack, just a toothbrush and pack of cigarettes in her pocket, and she had spent the morning scoffing at Marco and telling him that the HDF would give them everything they needed. Marco didn't need much more than reading and writing—and perhaps Kemi, but that was a part missing from him now, still painful like a phantom limb.
He could see the spaceport in the distance now. Fifty-odd rockets rose like skyscrapers, their surfaces shimmering in the sunlight, dwarfing a complex of warehouses, offices, and scuttling cars. Traffic slowed them down as hundreds of cars waited to enter the port. While Addy chewed bubblegum and prattled on about blasting aliens, Marco looked into the other cars, saw other parents, other children, more recruits, more fodder for the war.
It was another hour before they reached the gates. Several female soldiers stood here, hair pulled into ponytails, berets on their heads. They wore olive-green uniforms, their pants bloused above heavy boots, and T57 submachine guns hung against their hips. They looked no older than eighteen or nineteen. Marco stared at the insignia on their sleeves, unable to interpret it, wishing he had spent time studying HDF hierarchy.
One soldier tapped the window, and Father rolled it down.
"Here for recruitment," Father said.
"Trunk," said the soldier.
Father nodded and popped the car's trunk, and two more soldiers rifled through it as Father handed over Marco and Addy's paperwork. The soldier studied the papers, eyes stern, then gave the inside of the car another look. In recent years there were stories of scum loyalists on Earth. The wilder stories claimed the loyalists were clones, grown on the scum's planet using human DNA. Marco still remembered how an alleged clone had blown up an armory a couple of years ago, how he could see the mushroom cloud from home.
Earth Alone (Earthrise Book 1) Page 3
