Exo

by Fonda Lee

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Tate snapped. “You don’t think I want a solution that doesn’t involve dead bodies on the news? We’ve gone past that point. The only way this ends peacefully is if those squishy insurgents come out right now with their hands in the air and return the hostages with a smile and a ‘so sorry for the trouble,’ and I don’t see that happening, do you?”

  Donovan licked his wind-chapped lips; this was it, his last gamble. “Let me go in there. Let me try to talk them down.”

  Tate’s face crinkled in disbelief. “What kind of delusion-causing pharmaceuticals are you on, Reyes? You don’t think we’ve already tried to send in a negotiator? The sapes won’t let anyone near the building. They want to see live media coverage of the detainees from the Warren raid being publicly released or they don’t talk. What makes you think they won’t mow you down with gunfire as soon as you get near the door?”

  “Because I’m the son of Max Russell.” Donovan closed his eyes for a second. “Saul Strong Winter loved my mom, and I think he’s doing this in part because you sent her to the atomizer. There’s only one stripe on Earth he’ll hesitate to kill, and that’s me.”

  Commander Tate stared at him for a long moment. No one moved, not Thad, or Ariadne, or Jet, who still seemed frozen dumbstruck. Donovan waited, his heart in his throat; Tate was actually considering his wild idea, which was all he could ask for.

  She said, finally, “You’re not a trained negotiator. If you got in there—and this is a big if—what would you say to Strong Winter that might possibly change his position?”

  “The truth,” Donovan said. “That all of us humans—stripes and sapes—we might all be done for if we don’t find a way to walk out of this. That whatever fight we’re going to keep having after tonight, let’s have it, but this is the worst possible moment for a showdown and if we do this thing, neither side is going to win, no matter what.”

  Tate said, “You realize there’s a damn good chance they will stick a gun in your mouth and blow your brains out before you have a chance to say any of that, don’t you?”

  Donovan nodded. “I’m counting on the fact that I’m a convicted criminal who tried to save my terrorist mom to earn me around thirty seconds’ worth of brownie points with the sapes.”

  Tate scowled, then glanced at Thad Lowell. The lieutenant arched his eyebrows. “I hate to say this, but at this point, almost anything’s worth a shot.”

  Donovan pressed on. “If it doesn’t work, all you’ve lost is one man, and you go back to Plan A—storming in and taking everyone out. And then you deal with the fallout.” He refused to relinquish his hold on Tate’s gaze. “We’re supposed to protect civilians, we’re supposed to be examples of how exocels and erze markings make us better humans, not worse ones, but instead everyone on Earth, everyone who might one day be a Sapience sympathizer, will believe the worst about us—that we’re nothing but trained attack dogs for the shrooms. My father—” Donovan’s voice wavered for a moment. “My father would never want that.”

  Tate’s jaw clenched; a vein in her neck bulged. “Let him go,” she said to Thad and Ariadne.

  Jet suddenly found his voice again. “Commander—”

  Tate held up a hand to cut him off, her eyes still on Donovan. “I’m giving you one hour, Reyes. I’ll stall the Soldiers for that long. In one hour, whether you’re out or not, we go in.”

  “I understand, ma’am.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Jet whispered in mounting horror.

  “Get him a uniform and a concealed comm,” she said to Thad.

  “No,” Donovan said. “No uniform or comm. I’m not going in as a stripe. Just as … as myself.”

  “Then we won’t be able to monitor you,” Tate said. “Things go south, we won’t know until it’s too late.”

  “It won’t really matter; you’ll know in an hour anyway.”

  “We also won’t be able to hear what’s being said.” She stepped close to him, bending her face down inches from his. “I asked you before if I could count on you to do your duty, and you lied to me. You defied orders again to come here. I’m not convinced you’re in erze, even now.” Her next words were a slow hiss. “Can I still trust you, Reyes?”

  “I guess you’ll find out.”

  “I guess I will.” Commander Tate stepped back. “One hour.”

  Jet was shaking his head in furious denial. As soon as Tate and the others turned around to send word through the ranks to hold their places, Jet dragged Donovan aside. His eyes were so wide it was alarming. “Why are you doing this?” he demanded. “You’re supposed to be in the Round … How did you even get out of the Towers?”

  “You know how we’ve been overdue in pulling a fast one on Therrid?” Donovan managed a rueful smile. “Well, I fixed that.”

  Jet put a hand over his eyes. “I can’t let you do this.”

  “Commander Tate already has.”

  “You’re killing me, D. Just when I think nothing else can possibly go wrong with you … you come up with this … you expect me to watch you …” Jet could barely speak. He took a deep breath and pulled himself together. “I’ll find her for you, okay? The girl. The one I know you care about, who’s in there. Call this off, tell Tate you can’t do it after all, and I promise when we get in there I’ll do my best to find her and bring her out alive. I swear on my marks. I’ll pass the word down; all of us, we’ll do it for you. We’ll finish this, but we’ll bring her out.”

  Donovan gulped back a hot, confusing knot of emotions. Jet’s pledge wasn’t just tempting, it was the best chance he had of making sure Anya survived. “You heard everything I said, Jet. It’s not just about her. If it was, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. But it’s a lot bigger than that. There’s a lot more at stake than my life, or hers, or any of ours.”

  Wordlessly, angrily, Jet unslung his E201 and set it aside. He pulled the night vision goggles off his forehead and unbuckled his sidearm holster. Donovan said, “What are you doing?”

  “Going with you.”

  “No!” Donovan grabbed Jet’s arm to stop him. “Jet, no. There’s a chance, because of my mom, that the sapes will listen to me. That’s not the case for you. This whole thing is freaking me out enough without you being in danger too.”

  “I’d rather eat bullets with you in there than be stuck helpless out here.”

  “You coming with me will doom any minuscule hope of this working.”

  “We’re erze,” Jet said fiercely. “Not just any erze. We’re stripes. We swear the same oaths, we watch each other’s backs, we make our stands together. What would you do in my place if I asked you to sit on your hands and let me go alone and unarmed into a building full of desperate, machine gun–wielding, exo-hating terrorists with nothing to lose?”

  Donovan’s throat was tight. “If there was no other way, if I had to do it because it might save dozens of lives … I guess I’d pray really hard to whoever’s listening. And if you didn’t come back out, then I wouldn’t feel bad about tearing that place apart and sending as many of those sapes as I could to hell.” He couldn’t afford to lose any more time; Donovan pulled his stricken erze mate into an embrace, then turned and walked as fast as he could toward the white building without looking behind.

  Every step of the roughly three hundred meters Donovan had to cross to approach algae farm Building 5 felt like stacking another betting chip on a spinning roulette wheel. Brittle yellow grass crunched under his feet; everything else was silent except for the sound of his own breathing. He kept his arms stretched out and his hands open so it was apparent he was weaponless. They started to ache. Halfway there, two-thirds, three-quarters. Every set of eyes on both sides of the divide must be on him. The building loomed closer: steel lattice frame, off-world fabricated flexible glass paneling that let in the sunlight but was unbreakable and entirely opaque from the outside. Only two entrances, one on the west end, one on the east. It would not be easy for SecPac to storm.

  “I’m
not armed!” he shouted as he took another step closer, and another. His boots ground on gravel now. “I’m here to talk. Don’t shoot, I’m not armed.” The entrance ahead of him was closed. Would they simply not acknowledge him? He kept walking; in ten seconds, he’d be able to reach out and touch the door.

  It flung open suddenly. The sapes were smart enough to have turned out the lights inside; all Donovan saw was the dim outline of two figures with assault rifles trained on his chest. He stopped, every particle of panotin in his body pouring to the surface, half expecting the gunmen to open fire on him then and there. “Don’t shoot,” he said again. “I’m here to talk.”

  “Get in!” shouted one of the sapes, a woman with a black mask over her face. “Move!”

  Donovan crossed the remaining distance and stepped into the building. The barrels of the rifles never wavered in their focus. As soon as he was in, the door shut behind him and for a few seconds, he could see very little. “Walk,” demanded the other sape, a man. A slight waver in his voice betrayed his nervousness. “Keep your hands up.”

  Donovan took several slow steps forward; his boots clanged on what sounded like a metal walkway. “Keep going.” Several more steps. “On your knees, shroom pet.” He obeyed, lowering himself to the floor. His eyes adjusted to the dimness; he could see that he was on a wide, central metal causeway that stretched across the interior of the building. On either side of him were rows of massive, open cylindrical tanks, fifteen feet tall, starting one level below ground and reaching to shoulder level on the main floor, the warm liquid inside them bubbling with cultivated food algae.

  The two gunmen were positioned behind him; the woman kept one rifle trained on him while the man patted Donovan down for weapons. He ran his hands along Donovan’s arms and around his torso. He found only a slim notebook in Donovan’s inside jacket pocket; he took it out and tossed it to the floor. He checked Donovan’s legs and ankles.

  “I’m not armed,” Donovan said again. He glanced around, moving only his eyes. A shuffling noise to his left and movement in his peripheral vision. He turned his head very slightly. There, on the concrete basement floor below him, were the hostages. Two zhree Engineers, their limbs lashed awkwardly together with metal wire, were chained to one algae tank; the six humans, wrists bound, sitting on the floor, were tied together and attached to another tank. They looked up at him, their eyes desperate and hopeful.

  Donovan placed his hands behind his head; it was dark, but they might notice his stripes and take some comfort knowing he was here to try to help them. “Are you all right?” he asked. If any of them were already dead or injured, negotiating would be impossible.

  “You don’t talk to them,” snarled the woman, touching the muzzle of her rifle to the base of Donovan’s skull. The cold metal pressed against one of his nodes; his shoulders tensed as he struggled hard not to battle-armor. The woman said to her partner, “Tie him.”

  I’ve really had it up to here with being handcuffed, Donovan thought, as the man looped a metal cable restraint over his right wrist, pulled it down, and cinched it together with his left wrist behind his back. “I want to talk to Saul,” he said.

  A familiar figure approached, emerging from the shadows at the end of the walkway. His boots clanged on metal, then stopped. “Look at this. Our old friend from the Warren.”

  Donovan’s heart sank. “Javid.”

  Javid’s pale eyes stood out like twin moons against his skin and clothes and dark expression. They drilled into Donovan with undisguised loathing. “Do the shrooms always send you ahead, like some kind of trained canary before they descend en masse?”

  “No one sent me,” Donovan said. “I asked to come. I need to talk to Saul.”

  “You’ll talk to me,” Javid said, stepping closer. “You twisted Max’s mind, and look what happened to her. Maybe you could twist Saul’s somehow, but you can’t pull any tricks on me. I knew back in the Warren that you were leading them straight to us, and I was right. The very next night, they came. I should’ve killed you when I had the chance, but I didn’t follow my instincts, and a lot of good people are dead or captured because of it.”

  “I didn’t lead them to you.”

  “Don’t lie to me!” Javid shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.

  Donovan clamped his mouth shut. He couldn’t say anything more without revealing the identity of an undercover SecPac operative and putting Brett in grave danger, and the angry man in front of him probably couldn’t be convinced anyway. “Okay, Javid, okay,” he said. “No lies. Here’s the truth: This standoff is going to end tonight one way or another. SecPac is going to storm the building and take it back by force unless you release the hostages.”

  Javid gave an ugly laugh. “You came here just to threaten us? Like the army camped out there wasn’t clear enough?” He pointed down at the huddled hostages. “If the zebrahands attack, they die. Maybe you’re thinking you can rescue them, but you can’t. We have explosives rigged to the algae tanks; as soon as we see you coming, we blow the tanks and the entire basement level turns into a giant scummy swimming pool with the hostages on the bottom. Last I checked, armored shrooms and their humans drown at about the same speed.”

  Oath and erze, this was bad. Donovan peered into the darkness behind Javid. Where the hell was Saul? “Even that’s not going to stop them, Javid,” he said. “You don’t understand. SecPac has to attack, even if it costs lives. The High Speaker, the leader of the zhree homeworld, he’s here and watching closely and if he …” Donovan trailed off because at that moment, quick footsteps ran up one of the metal stairways from the lower level, taking them two at a time, and the person Donovan most and least wanted to see hurried up and came to an astonished halt beside Javid. Donovan looked at her and their eyes met as if through a wall of razor wire.

  A constricting pain wrapped itself like a garrote around Donovan’s heart. Hello, Anya.

  The girl’s throat moved in a noiseless gasp. “I’ll get Saul.” She turned to hurry down the causeway, but Javid shot a hand out and grabbed her arm.

  “Saul’s covering the other end of the building,” Javid said tonelessly.

  “We have to go get him,” Anya insisted, glancing back at Donovan and pulling against Javid’s grasp. “If they sent a negotiator, Saul should be the one to talk to him.”

  “That boy’s no negotiator. He doesn’t know anything. They sent him to mess with us, distract us before the main attack, just like last time.” Javid’s voice had gone flat and detached; it sent pinpricks of cold through Donovan’s nodes. “They know what Max meant to Saul, and this is their way of getting to him—it’s psychological warfare. We can’t let him near Saul.”

  “You idiot.” Donovan wanted to throttle Javid. If only he’d gone to the building’s other entrance! “SecPac was going to charge in, but I convinced them to let me come here first. I’m trying to save everyone in here from being killed.”

  Javid’s voice dripped murderous sarcasm. “Oh, of course.”

  Anya tugged again, then stared into Javid’s eyes. “He’s not like the others,” she whispered. “He tried to save Max. I saw it on the news. If he’s here, maybe we can talk—”

  “Don’t you get it?” Javid snapped. “You can’t negotiate with these people. They aren’t even really human! All we can do is make a stand. Take as many of them out with us as we can, that’s what this whole war is about in the end.” The man’s eyes were feverishly bright; Donovan felt all hope slipping away. Javid had the look of a wounded animal; he knew he was going to die. “It’s Saul’s fault we’re even in here,” he went on. “If Kevin were in charge, we would’ve done this right! We would’ve blown this whole scorching place to kingdom come and be hundreds of miles away by now.”

  Javid unslung his carbine off his shoulder and pointed it toward the prisoners below. “We need to raise the stakes. Start sending out bodies so they know we’re serious.”

  Donovan felt as if mounting panic would choke him. “You do that and
there’s no going back, do you understand? You’re all dead. It doesn’t have to end like that, but there’s not much time.” How much time had passed already? Twenty, thirty minutes? “Just. Get. Saul.” He ground out each word.

  As if on cue, there was a crackle of static from the two-way radio unit clipped to the front of Javid’s vest. Saul’s gruff, slightly distorted voice demanded, “Javid, it’s been fifteen minutes already; you going to tell me what’s going on at that end?”

  They all stared at the radio. Javid reached down and pressed a switch to turn it off.

  Anya yanked her arm free and sprinted down the causeway, the echo of her footfalls clanging in the enclosed space. “Dammit, Anya!” Javid shouted. He started to run after her, but she was fast, really fast, as Donovan already knew, and Javid turned back after a few steps, red-faced and cursing. He strode up, madness dancing in his eyes, and raised the muzzle of the carbine to Donovan’s face.

  Donovan saw Javid’s finger curl around the trigger. Time slowed a thousandfold. He was going to throw himself aside; the bullet would hit him but if he was lucky it would graze the side of his skull instead of deforming the center of it. He would roll and swing his legs around and try to catch Javid at the knees. He came by all of these thoughts unconsciously, in one-hundredth of a second—

  “Wait!” the woman with the rifle protested. “If you shoot him, the stripes outside will hear it for sure. They’ll think we’re already killing the hostages.”

  Javid hesitated, then said, “You’re right.” He brought the carbine up and swung it down toward the side of Donovan’s head like a baseball bat. Donovan lurched forward off his knees. The weapon smacked into his cheek but didn’t stop his explosive momentum; he barreled into Javid with his entire weight, shoulder-checking the slighter man in the chest. Both of them tumbled to the metallic walkway with a ringing clatter. Donovan landed on top; helpless to use his arms, he raised his head up and brought the top of his forehead down on Javid’s face.