I stop at the kitchen faucet on my way out, wanting a glass of water, but a quick glance at the meter tells me we’ve already exceeded our daily allowance, and it’s not even five a.m. yet. Great.
This drought’s lasted for two years—during that time, 85 percent of the world’s crops have failed, all the genetically engineered seeds sold by U.S. companies have proven they’re not drought resistant, farmers in the U.S. have lost their property, our recession has turned into a full-blown Depression, and the northern states have claimed that they have barely enough water for themselves.
Chalk up another win for modern science.
Everyone thinks the Valiant will solve our problems. That sending a rocket to mine natural resources on another planet is going to restore our economy. They think it’s going to create new jobs and, as a result, everyone’s going to have more money to spend. They think that money will save us all and make the U.S. a world power again.
They have no idea what’s about to happen today.
I jog to the park, the sky still dark. Traffic is moving slow, and I pass a line of people getting tickets for the tram. The longest line is always the Barter Line, where people trade SkyPower credits or food vouchers or lottery tickets—anything they’ve got so they can make it to work. The end of the month is always the worst, so people get in line before the sun even comes up. We run out of money, gas, food, water, and we turn into beggars and thieves.
Everyone’s struggling to survive, and I’m fighting to give us another chance.
Natalie waits for me up ahead, standing under a solar-streetlight that bathes her in intermittent pale-green beams. Once upon a time, space solar power was going to save us. Then it was recycled water, then it was urban gardens, then it was free WiFi and free health care and—
And now it’s me. I’m going to save the world, flawed as it is.
“Up until now, I’ve basically been doing the same things over and over,” I tell Natalie. “But they’ve never worked, so why should they work this time? Maybe if we weren’t all alone, maybe if there were more people fighting and distracting the Xua, we’d have a chance.”
Natalie studies me. “You want to warn everyone.”
“Yes,” I say.
“I thought that was against the rules. Part of the whole inevitable thing.”
Technically, the launch and meeting Aerithin were the only inevitable things. Well, that and my meeting some guy named Noah. There’s no way the government would shut down the Valiant based on what a seventeen-year-old girl had to say, so warning as many people as I can won’t stop the launch. Still, if enough people believe me…
“Videos,” I say. “We have to shoot some videos. If people know what’s coming and they know how to fight, maybe that will slow down the Xua enough that we can win.”
She nods and gets her equipment out of her backpack. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
I don’t know what happens in the rest of the world—there was never enough time to pay attention to anything beside Gabe—but I know how the Xua attack L.A. I can only assume they do the same things, or even worse, in other places.
She holds a video camera, red light blinking, and I begin to talk, a faceless silhouette, the streetlight behind me. My hands tremble and my voice wavers, but I get through it.
I should have done this before. Natalie’s got her own site on the dark web, and her stuff has gone viral lots of times. She doesn’t talk about it much, but every now and then I’ve seen people at school watching conspiracy theory videos and Natalie would give me a sly wink.
But I’m not like her, and I’m definitely not used to public speaking, so my narration for our video sounds rough. We have to shoot my part over and over. It’s basically the same spiel I give my team when I first get back from the future.
In the first video, I tell them who the Xua are. I explain how the aliens can turn into vaporous smoke and possess a human. And once they do, that human is dead.
I tell them the aliens will invade right after the Valiant launches, so they have to be ready. I warn them to stay away from mass transit. Don’t even think about getting on an airplane.
Natalie and I watch the first video, make a few changes, and then shoot two more. Each video ends with me demonstrating how to kill a Xua. The sun is rising by the time we’ve got three videos put together. She uses a voice-scrambling program to hide my identity, and I kept my face in the shadows, just in case.
Doing this, going public, even as secretive as we’re being, breaks all Aerithin’s rules, but I don’t care. He’s not coming back, so I’m making the decisions from now on.
I watch the second video again—after all her changes—and listen to myself warning how to protect yourself from the Xua, what weapons to have on hand, what supplies you’ll need to survive.
“There’s going to be a war,” I hear myself say. “You won’t know who your enemy is, so you need to form core groups. Three or four people you know you can trust.”
At the end, I take a can of orange paint and spray a large V on a stucco wall behind me.
“This sign is how you will know who you can trust. Everyone else will think this V stands for Valiant. But it really stands for Victory,” I say. “Paint this in places you know are safe, so other people will know who they can trust and where they can find shelter. Just remember—never, ever give up, no matter what.”
I swallow, my throat dry.
It’s only a matter of hours before the Xua show up.
6
Natalie’s videos went viral, even better than we hoped.
The Century Unified High School lunchroom is buzzing with a mix of excited chatter, laughter, and panicked conspiracy theories. Some students have on T-shirts with bright-orange Vs. Girls are watching my videos on their tablets, then practicing that killer upward swing. Boys are nodding and challenging each other, using plastic knives instead of laser switchblades. They might not all believe what I said, might even think it’s a big joke, but when the invasion starts, at least they’ll know how to fight. That’s more than we had going for us before, and I have to believe it’ll make a difference.
In front of me, students are lining up for the free Syn-Lunch, which today looks like fake tofu in a muddy brown sauce. Across the room, some students huddle in small groups, guarding their food from their stronger, hungrier classmates.
Half the student body is dressed in rival gang colors and sporting full face tats, while the other half is trying their best not to get noticed. Nothing unites this crowd. Not hunger strikes, water rationing, or pestilence control. Not even the gossip about our videos. Except for my team and Gabe, every single one of them is wearing an orange bandanna tied around his or her left arm to support the launch. Almost all of our parents, teachers, and government officials have bought stock in the Titan mission.
Some of these people will live.
It’s almost enough to give me hope.
Almost.
I find my crew. We sit together and we put our lunches on the table, then divvy it all up. Soy milk, synthetic tofu, power bars, peanut butter, bottles of ReCyc. This might be our last meal for a long time, so we do our best to cram in the calories.
Natalie grins and raises one eyebrow, lifting her tablet to show us one of my videos. “Two million hits, girl,” she says, then she snatches a chocolate power bar right as Billy was reaching for it.
“Whoa,” I say. Viral was one thing. I never imagined we’d get that many views.
She shrugs, talking with her mouth full. “I have mad skills.”
“When did you make those?” Justin asks as he passes out chunks of a peanut butter sandwich.
“Early this morning. Hey, Billy, would you grab my brother before he pisses off one of the Blood Lords? I told him to quit bragging about his team winning the World Cup—”
“On it.” Billy jumps up and jogs acr
oss the room. He latches onto Gabe’s collar, points him toward me, then stops to chat with the gang members until they’re all laughing. Meanwhile, Gabe sulks back to our table in pure fourteen-year-old-boy form.
I give him a sandwich and some carrots. “I own you until tomorrow morning, remember?” I say. “Stay where I can see you.”
He slaps a torn piece of paper on the table in front of me. It’s got a skin site number scrawled on it. “The doctor you’re going to see tomorrow,” he says.
I nod and put the paper in my pocket.
“Doctor?” Natalie asks with a frown.
“Just a promise I made to my brother.” Panic rises in my throat, but I push it down. I have a list in my other pocket, one Gabe doesn’t know about. All the ways he’s died in the past, what time and where. Who was with me. Who was already dead or possessed by a Xua.
Logically, I know the list won’t matter. It never happens the same way twice.
I hate cascading events. I hate the Valiant.
I hate today.
Gabe rests a hand on my shoulder and smiles. “I’ll stay with you. Okay? All day and all night. Tomorrow and the next day, however long you need. Don’t worry.”
My little brother has one of those smiles that can break your heart, and damn if mine isn’t ripped in half right now. And then—when I’m made out of broken bones and fragile glass and don’t know how I’m going to survive the rest of this day, much less keep anyone else alive—Justin reaches for my hand under the table. It’s like he’s a SkyPower panel and my batteries are powering up.
“We’re going to make it,” Justin says.
I’d have gone insane if I didn’t have him with me through all of this.
I look at him and, for a moment, I get lost in his eyes. They’re bluer than the sky with tiny flecks of green, and they’re like an instant trip to the ocean. He gives me a slow smile, and every part of my body catches on fire.
I want to kiss him. I want to be more than friends. I’ve wanted that for as long as I can remember. But if we cross this line, I might not be able to stay focused. And we’ll all die if Justin is distracted.
So I take a deep breath and look away from him.
He squeezes my hand. “Is there anything I can do?”
I shake my head. “Just be at my place half an hour before the launch.”
Then lunch period ends with a bell tone that sings in the skin sites that run along the base of my jaw, a tingle that makes my tongue quiver. Like little soldiers, we all stand at attention and head out of the room, single file.
I know the Valiant will ultimately destroy our world. But right now there’s nothing I can do about it.
So, like everyone else in Century Unified, I head off to my first afternoon class.
7
“Are you sure you can trust him?”
Natalie’s a step ahead of me as we walk toward the tram stop. I mean to warn her about the upcoming crack in the sidewalk. She always stumbles and skins her knee—right here, right now—but before I can say anything, she takes a quick step to the left. It surprises me, and that makes me catch my breath. As a result, I forget to answer her question, so she swings her head around and asks the same thing again.
“Are you sure you can trust him? I mean, he’s an alien, so that makes him one of the bad guys. Right?”
She’s talking about Aerithin.
She always brings this up whenever we get close to the launch. I don’t know why, but she’s never accepted that Aerithin is on our side. I hunch my shoulders against the wind, shove my hands deep inside my pockets.
I don’t want to talk about it. Especially not today.
Clouds pass over the sun, darkening the street.
“He’s an alien,” Natalie repeats. “That doesn’t worry you?”
“Aerithin hates the Xua just as much as we do,” I say. “He’s part of a secret resistance team.”
We’re almost at the tram stop, so we can’t talk about this anymore. That doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, though, especially about the Xua. Natalie and I push our way onto the tram, squeezing through one car after another until we find two seats where we can sit together. As soon as the tram wheezes away from the stop, I notice a new bracelet sparkling on her wrist, jade mixed with gold beads. She hasn’t mentioned it. That’s how I know it must be a birthday present from her father. She catches me looking at it and tucks it back inside her sleeve.
She doesn’t like to talk about her dad or how much she misses him or that he lives in Seoul, away from her and her mother, so she tries to divert my attention. She leans closer and whispers to me behind her hand. “You have to admit, there is one amazing thing in your life,” she says. “Justin.”
I blush, and my eyes go wide.
“Natalie!”
“I’m just saying. He’s pretty hot.”
I hope she doesn’t say more.
No such luck.
“I really don’t know why the two of you never hooked up,” she continues, staring out the window. Then she holds her fist on her lap and starts flicking her fingers up one by one. “First, there was that time in eighth grade when we all went to the beach. You were goofing around with Alexander, and Justin pretended not to notice, but girl, he was staring at you all day.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“And back in grade school, remember how his Gen traits hadn’t kicked in yet? Back before everyone knew he was a Jenny—”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”
She shrugs. “He doesn’t care. He’d tell me if he did. Anyway, all the girls in our class thought he was so cute—I mean, he is, but he always wanted to sit by you.”
I’d forgotten about that.
“And this whole time-traveling thing. You have to convince Billy and me, but Justin always believes you, doesn’t he? Right from the beginning. I’m telling you, there’s something there. I know you like him, but I seriously think he likes you, too. A lot.”
“I don’t know,” I say, but I can’t help wondering if maybe she’s right. But I never have told him my biggest secret—that the Xua go after everyone I love. My brother, my parents, my cousins. Even Natalie. It’s horrible what those aliens do to the people I care about. I have no idea how they figure out who I’m closest to, but it’s like they measure their torture based on how much I love someone.
I can’t bear to see what they might do to Justin if they knew how I really feel about him. Better that they think he’s just part of the group.
Maybe this time he’ll make it out alive.
8
The sun sets in the west, shimmering through the smog as it heads toward the Pacific Ocean. In the distance, L.A. skyscrapers turn into tall, spindly silhouettes and, even up here on the roof, the ceaseless thrum of freeway traffic keeps us connected to the heart of the city.
At least a hundred people have crowded onto my apartment building roof for a Valiant launch party. Three people have dyed their hair orange, and one guy has orange face tats. Everyone mingles about, awkward and excited, a strange mixture of ages and races, chattering to one another as if they’ve been friends for years, when in reality, they religiously avoid one another.
The launch is the only thing that could’ve brought them together, that brittle hope of something good on the horizon, as if the shadow of the Valiant can stretch across valleys and freeways all the way to Santa Ana. You can hear that hope in the pitch of people’s voices, see it in the way they carry themselves. Despite the fact that today is the end of the month and most everyone has already spent their paychecks on bills, drugs, and gambling debts. Despite the fact that the Second Great Depression has lasted longer than we expected, and those of us in Southern California have been hit harder than most.
I nod at my downstairs neighbors, trying to remember their names, then I wave at the couple who just moved into 4
B. A playlist of classical music thuds through my skin sites as I lean against a perimeter wall, chewing my fingernails, watching the crowd, waiting for Justin and Natalie. Normally they’d be here by now, but I gave them a list of things to do after our last class.
Every person on my team has a different function, and right now, Billy’s job is to make sure my brother stays where I can see him. They’re about five feet away, and Gabe is chatting with a group of his friends.
A cheer echoes across the roof. Gabe either forgets what’s going to happen or he never believed me about the invasion, because he whoops and yells along with everyone else. It sends a shiver of dread through my bones. Billy and I lock eyes, and he nods. He leans closer to Gabe and whispers something. The expression on my little brother’s face changes, like he just remembered a nightmare, and he frowns.
I’m the nightmare.
He can’t help the fact that he’s loved airplanes and rockets and space travel since he was a little kid. When he’s not reading about the Mars terraforming project or the moon colony, he’s reading biographies of famous astronauts like John Glenn and Neil Armstrong. In every single lifetime, my brother has looked forward to this event like it was Christmas.
I, on the other hand, have looked forward to it like it was Armageddon.
I see my dad, walking around a few minutes earlier than usual, and I mentally go over the list of things I’m going to do differently this time. I’ve already tried running away with Gabe, heading up into the mountains. Once I even convinced him to go with me as far as Arizona. It doesn’t make a difference how far I run—they always catch us.
Gabe survives longest if we hide in a crowd, so this time I’m going to use this party to our advantage.
“Where are you guys?” I say, speaking into the private com channel set up for my crew. I haven’t heard from Justin or Natalie in the past thirty minutes, and I’m beginning to wonder if this is the mistake that’s going to wreck everything. I never know when I do something different if it’s going to make things better or worse. This time, it’ll be too late by the time I find out.
Valiant Page 4
