Midnight City: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series)

by J. Barton Mitchell

  More fried circuitry, more splits in the ship’s hull, some sort of fallen equipment rack, its contents in pieces all over the floor. But there was no sign of survivors, of whatever had made the noises he heard. He was running out of time. The Assembly would be here in minutes, maybe seconds. He should get out now, he told himself, it wasn’t worth—

  Movement, a shuffling from just ahead. He heard coughing.

  Coughing? Did the Assembly cough? Did they even have lungs?

  Steeling himself, Holt crawled ahead, shotgun ready, pushing through the curtains of—

  Something long and thin and metallic materialized from the smoke, wrapped around his leg, and started to pull.

  “Son of a—!” Holt jumped in fright, scrambled back. Whatever it was withdrew, fading into the smoke and dark.

  He fired his shotgun after it.

  Sparks sprayed from the opposite wall. There was an electronic-sounding screech, like something crying out through a broken speaker.

  And … whispers. Hissings. Something almost like language, but not. Holt couldn’t be sure if he was hearing it … or if it was in his head.

  Shadows moved all around him, coming to life in the smoke. Max barked frantically, alarmed and ready to fight. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.…

  Holt pushed himself back against the closest wall, raising the shotgun, trying to keep low enough to see anything advancing on him.

  The shadows continued to pulse and move. The whispering grew louder in his head, harsher, more frightening. Was this what the Tone sounded like? Is this what the Succumbed heard in their heads?

  Holt flinched as the horrible screech came again. Louder this time, grating, ripping his ears. Something sprung for him. Something big. The whispers again, louder, angry …

  The Ithaca exploded to life. It was a combat shotgun—it could fire shells one after the other if he needed it to, and right now, he did.

  The shotgun fired again and again, blasting the huge shadow backwards. It wailed its strange electronic cry … and then went silent, fading into the dark.

  For a moment, there was no movement. No sound. Max whined next to him.

  And then a shuddering. That was the only way Holt could describe it. As if the air all around him trembled. The sensation grew stronger, more powerful.

  A surge of light erupted from the dark in front of him—so bright, it almost blinded him. Wavering, beautiful, golden light like a churning cloud of energy formed and hovered before him.

  Holt couldn’t open his eyes, it was too bright. The whispering returned. The hissing sounds. They cut into Holt’s consciousness like a razor. They were much louder now, overpowering. They were so loud, it seemed the ship (or maybe just Holt’s skull) might burst.

  He tried to push away from it, gritting his teeth, unnerved. His hands went to his head, trying to seal out the sounds. Max howled in pain next to him.

  And then the light receded. Floated out like a bright, pulsating cloud of color into the air beyond the ship … and disappeared.

  The whispering was gone. So was the sensation of fear and dread. Holt exhaled deeply, breathing hard, his pulse a beating drum in his ears. The light. He’d seen it before, a few times. A field of energy that lifted up and out of Assembly craft when they were destroyed, but he had never been this close to one before. Never heard … those sounds …

  “Hello?” a voice came from the dark. Holt jumped, stunned. “Help…” The voice was human.

  Holt got to his feet, pushed through the smoke toward the voice at the other end of the ship. Max followed quickly after him.

  Ahead emerged a metallic chair of sorts. A figure was strapped to it, held secure like a prisoner. As Holt reached it, the smoke cleared a little and he could see more. A little girl, no more than eight or nine. Her face was covered in soot, and she coughed in the smoke, trying to breathe. But beyond that, she seemed unhurt. As he emerged from the smoke, she looked at him with wild eyes full of fear. Holt didn’t blame her.

  “Hold on, kid, I got you.” Holt reached for the straps holding the little girl to the chair. They weren’t metal; they were made of something thin but resilient. Some sort of carbon fiber maybe? They wouldn’t loosen.

  The girl looked at him, wide eyed and desperate to get loose. But there was something in her look that made Holt pause, too, something behind the kid’s eyes. Those eyes seemed older than their owner, somehow. But wasn’t that true of all kids these days? The only survivors of the invasion? Weren’t they all forced to grow up fast?

  “Please, we have to hurry,” the girl said. “They’re coming back. Please.”

  She was right: the Assembly were definitely on their way.

  Holt shouldered his shotgun and drew the red Swiss Army knife from his belt. It was faded with age now, but Holt kept it in good shape, and it had never let him down. As strong as the little girl’s bonds were, the knife surprisingly cut straight through them. He made short work of all four.

  Holt grabbed the kid’s hand and pulled her toward the tear in the ship’s hull. “Stay low, hold on to me, okay? Can you do that?” In response, Holt felt the little girl grip his hand tightly. Something in the grip implied not only her fear, but her trust in him as well. Holt wasn’t sure if he liked it.

  Either way, he whistled three quick notes, and Max darted back the way they had come, clearing a path through the smoke. Holt and the little girl followed and exited the crashed ship. Outside, the fires from before had extinguished, and everything was covered in shadow again. Holt and the little girl took big breaths of fresh air.

  Holt drew a flashlight, knelt down before the girl, shone it all over her, looking for injuries.

  “You seem all right,” Holt said. It was true—if she hadn’t been covered in grime and soot from the crash, no one would guess she had been through anything remotely traumatic. She stared up at Holt with huge eyes. “What’s your name?” Holt asked her.

  “Zoey,” the little girl said, her voice still a little shaky. “My name’s Zoey. We have to go. Like I said, there isn’t much time.”

  Holt studied the kid more closely. She looked like every other little girl he had ever encountered, harmless and shy, with long blond hair that trailed down her small back, a cute button nose, and perfectly clear, deep blue eyes (still too young for the Tone to begin showing). She wasn’t wearing anything unusual, just cargo pants and a small shirt. Everything about her was ordinary, and there was nothing to indicate what she was doing in that ship. The lone passenger of a strange Assembly craft shot down by its own kind. It was wrong, very wrong, but regardless, as she’d said, there wasn’t much time. The Assembly would be here in force in minutes, dropships unloading walkers all throughout the forest. He had to leave now to get out before they cordoned off the whole area.

  That left him with a decision to make.

  Take the girl with him? Or leave her, now that she was free of the ship? His inclination was to leave her. She was a survivor, after all. If she didn’t know how to take care of herself, she was doomed either way. But … there was something about her, something that stirred feeling in him. It was the way she looked at him, Holt decided. How her eyes held and peered into his without hesitancy, as if she were gazing into him. Not just at his surface, not just at who he appeared to be … but who he really was.

  It was silly, of course, probably his imagination, but still, no one had looked at him like that in a very long time. No one since Emily.

  Taking her, of course, meant a whole host of problems, and problems weren’t something he was short of right now. He’d have to transport Mira and the little girl at the same time. Concentrating on keeping the girl alive meant concentration he wasn’t spending on watching Mira, who was definitely looking for an escape plan.

  “Look who found a friend!” Mira shouted down from her tree, as if on cue.

  He looked up at her, and she smiled back pleasantly. Holt didn’t like it. She seemed smug … and that was the last thing the girl should
be right now. She should be defeated, frightened maybe, but not smiling. Had she come up with a plan?

  Holt quickly glanced around the ground near Mira, saw her pack, but it was well out of reach, so it couldn’t have been that. Still …

  A sound from the east. Far in the distance. Holt looked away from Mira toward it, but the trees were too thick to see anything. He could only hear it. A pulsing tone of sound that blared loud and rhythmic. Over and over. He had never heard anything like it, but he recognized it for what it must be. Some kind of alarm. There was one thing he was sure of, however. It was not man-made, not human. It was too … different. Alien.

  It must be the Assembly.

  But where could it be coming from? There was nothing in that direction, not until you got to—

  Then it hit him. Chicago was to the east. The Presidium. The Assembly, the blue and whites as he now called them, had just raised their alarm. It could only be that. But why?

  He looked back down to the girl at his feet, felt Zoey’s hand grip his even tighter. She looked up at him with pleading eyes.

  “We have to go,” she said again, a tremor of fear in her voice. “Please.”

  “Why?” Holt asked instinctively, though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer. “What’s coming?”

  “Them,” the girl replied. “All of them.” The simple answer chilled him.

  The alarm continued to sound from the east, frenzied and angry. Plans had been thwarted tonight. And this girl, this Zoey, was somehow at the heart of them.

  “Whatever you’re going to do,” Mira said, listening to the echoing, distant alarm uneasily, “do it quick.”

  “Can you walk?” Holt asked Zoey. She nodded, holding his gaze. “If they’re coming in force, we’ll have to keep moving. Can you do that? Move and not stop?”

  “Yes,” the girl said. “Thanks, Holt.”

  Holt nodded, quickly started packing up the campsite. He folded up his cot and sleeping bag, put them in his pack, grabbed Mira’s, too, threw it over his shoulder, then moved up the hill toward his captive.

  “What do you call it?” the little girl asked in fascination behind him. She was standing over Max, staring down at him. The dog stared back, his tail thumping the ground eagerly, hopeful he had found someone to rub his head.

  “That’s Max,” Holt said as he reached Mira and started loosening her ropes. “We have a working relationship. He helps me out, I scratch his ears.”

  “It’s a … Max,” Zoey said to herself. “Can I ride him?” she asked, her voice full of hope.

  Holt laughed. “I’m not totally sure that would work out.”

  Zoey reached down and petted Max. Max made no attempt to stop her.

  Holt started untying Mira’s ropes. As they loosened around her arms, she sighed in relief.

  “Don’t remember tying your arms so tight,” Holt said. “Should have told me, I could have loosened it.”

  “Don’t do me any favors,” she replied, watching him as he untied her bonds. He noticed her eyes again. Green, like emeralds.

  Holt frowned. Emeralds or not, they weren’t pretty eyes. Nothing about her was pretty, he assured himself. She was his captive, and that was that.

  “Sucks to be you,” Mira said. “Transporting the little girl and me at the same time, Assembly closing in. Admit it, you’re losing control, you won’t be able to hold it all together.”

  Holt untied the rest of her ropes, pulled her roughly to her feet. He spun her around, tied her hands with the same rope, then tied it to himself, so she was connected to him.

  “I think I can handle it,” Holt said. She stared back at him without comment.

  With three clicks of Holt’s tongue, Max grudgingly pulled himself away from Zoey and darted ahead into the forest to scout. Holt, Mira, and Zoey followed after him at a quick pace.

  “I’m Zoey,” the little girl said to Mira, stepping into line beside her.

  “I heard,” Mira replied.

  “Why are you two tied together? Are you best friends?”

  Mira chuckled at the question. “Yes. Yes, we are,” she said.

  Holt shook his head, trying to ignore both of them. As much as he hated to admit it, things were getting complicated. He had to keep it all from falling apart. Somehow he had to find a way.

  In the distance, he heard the rumbling of Assembly engines headed their way. Osprey dropships, no doubt. Carrying walkers, Spiders and Mantises. In ten minutes, this area would be crawling with them. But he planned to be long gone by then, melded into the forest. He’d gotten very good at hiding from Assembly these last eight years.

  It wasn’t until hours later, when the sounds of engines and walker legs faded behind them, and the blaring alarm tone from the east finally silenced that he realized the little girl had used his name back at the crash site.

  She used it … even though Holt had never said it.

  11. COMPLICATIONS

  THE NIGHT DRAPED AROUND MIRA as she made her way through the forest. The moon had long ago disappeared beyond the horizon, and the trees were even thicker now, which meant very little starlight got through.

  They’d seen nothing of the Assembly since the crash, but they had heard them. Ships had roared by in the distance, which Mira guessed were dropships. The suspicion was confirmed when they heard the stomping of walker legs behind them. Deep, pointed thumps that shook the ground, even from far away. Only the big ones, the Spider walkers, could make those sounds from that far.

  Holt wanted to be careful about attracting attention, so they weren’t using lights. It was a good call, but it wasn’t doing Mira’s shins any good with the constant scraping and bruising from rocks and thick brush. It was just one more reason why she disliked him.

  Max was several yards ahead, tail wagging delightedly as he pushed through the brush with his nose, sniffing and panting, making more noise than any of them. Mira rolled her eyes at the dog’s exuberance.

  Her rope stretched behind her, trailing all the way back to Holt. Every once in a while, when she got too far ahead, Holt would snap it back to keep her in place. She fumed at the situation she’d gotten herself into. Her, a captive. To him. But she still had the cylinder … and a plan. She clutched the Zippo lighter tightly, biding her time.

  “Holt?” Zoey asked behind Mira. The little girl walked with the bounty hunter, one hand clutching the hem of his shirt. She wasn’t necessarily afraid of the dark, but she didn’t take to it easily either. Zoey looked at every shadow and dark spot with skepticism.

  “What?” Holt said in annoyance. He snapped Mira’s rope again, and her eyes thinned to angry slits. She’d show him soon enough.…

  “We’re still going the wrong way,” Zoey said.

  Mira heard Holt sigh in frustration. He was getting impatient with the kid, had clearly grown too used to being on his own. He didn’t like having to explain himself, Mira could tell. All she needed was for him to lose his cool with Zoey, lose it enough to take his eyes off her, just for a moment.…

  “Listen,” Holt said with forced patience. “We are one hundred percent headed the right direction. And that direction is north. You can trust me on this, I’m very good at what I do.”

  “Not this time. We’re headed right for them.”

  “For who?”

  “The scary ones, the metal ones.”

  Mira heard another sigh from Holt. “The Assembly’s gone, Zoey, I promise. We’ve left them behind, and pretty soon the sun will be up and you’ll see everything is fine, okay?”

  “But everything isn’t fine, Holt,” Zoey insisted. With every step northward they took, she seemed to get more nervous. “When the sun comes up, it will get worse. Much worse.”

  Like Holt, Mira didn’t really buy into Zoey’s concerns either. Why would the Assembly be all the way out here, when the crash site was back behind them? Still, Mira had no doubt the kid believed it. The little girl was a weird mix. Shy and scared and unassuming one moment, then certain and assertive the
next. And there still remained the mystery of what exactly she was doing on that ship. But if things went according to plan, she’d be long gone and not in a position to find out.

  They took a few more steps; then Zoey simply quit walking.

  Mira flinched as Holt yanked her to a stop.

  “Zoey, we have to keep moving. We’re almost ready to stop, I promise.” Holt’s voice was tight with frustration.

  “I don’t want to stop, I want to go back the way we came.”

  Mira turned around to look at the pair. Zoey was staring straight ahead, past Mira, past even Max, to the shadows of the trees beyond. Her eyes were wide with fear. At the front of the line, Max stopped moving and looked back at them all with a frustrated whine.

  “Look, kiddo, I’m about done being nice,” Holt said, reaching for the little girl forcefully. “I got places to go and problems to solve, and you’re really putting a cramp on it.”

  Zoey slipped away from him, stepped back a few paces. “They’re right ahead of us!” she said, clear notes of fear in her voice, staring past them all.

  “Zoey…” Holt, exasperated, moved after the little girl … and turned his back on Mira.

  It was what she’d been waiting for. It was now or never.

  She popped open the Zippo, snapped it to life. A small flame jutted from the top, but it wasn’t orange like normal flame. It was purple.

  Mira touched the purple flame to her bonds … and the entire line of rope, from her hands, to her waist, to the length stretching back to Holt, incinerated to smoke in the blink of an eye. The lighter was a major artifact from deep in the Strange Lands. The small flame it produced combusted any substance (as long as it was flammable) almost instantaneously.

  Mira screamed as the incineration effect burned her wrists and waist; Holt yelled, too, as the rope on his end flared into ashes. But the pain was worth it. She was free.

  Max barked in alarm and Holt ripped around. Mira hesitated long enough to see the look on his face … then broke into a run into the forest, quickly leaving the three behind.