Valiant

by Merrie Destefano

  My mom and dad are still up on the roof.

  The Xua are there, too.

  The fire escape sways precariously beneath us as we run, the metallic hum vibrating through us. I glance at the moorings. The connection joints are rusted, and some of the bolt heads that connect the stairway to the building are missing. This thing is unstable.

  I strain to look below us, gauging how far away Gabe is. He’s only one flight below us. I wish he were already on the ground. “Gabe, run faster!” I yell down to my brother. Then I look up and see the horror unfolding above us.

  Either people are being thrown off the roof or they’re starting to jump.

  A chill floods my veins.

  Bodies fall past us, some of them striking and bouncing off the stairway with a dull, wet thud. One woman screams when she passes me, her eyes wide, and she reaches out, trying to latch onto the stairway, but her fingers slice off when she grasps the metal railing, and her blood sprays across my face.

  “Don’t look at them,” Justin says.

  But I can’t stop.

  Because they’re coming after us. People are climbing down the ladder from the roof, so many I can’t count them. Some of them make it to the first landing, but others lose their purchase. They tumble and pinwheel downward, arms spinning. Some of the falling bodies burst apart in explosions of flesh and blood as the Xua inside flee.

  “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” I say. “Don’t wait for me! You can get to the bottom faster without me. You have to save Gabe. I’ll catch up with you—” I can’t stop talking, and I can’t look away from what is happening.

  “I’m not leaving you behind,” Justin says.

  A cloud of Xua smoke swirls around us. All the Xua that jumped off the roof and survived are trying to possess us. They beat against us, almost blinding me, there are so many. But Justin and I keep our mouths closed, and the aliens can’t get past our bandannas.

  “Sara! We’re down!” Gabe calls up to me. “Hurry!”

  But the fire escape can’t hold all the people who are clamoring on. It teeters and sways and groans and it’s going to fall any second now. We’re going to die, and not even two minutes have passed since the Valiant left orbit.

  No. Just no.

  That’s when Justin pulls me into his arms and he jumps.

  With one leap, we’re both over the edge of the stairway and plummeting downward. Even the Xua that were tormenting us can’t keep up. We fall two stories, and I worry that we’ll splat on the pavement like all the other bodies. Justin might be a Genetic, but I don’t know if we’ll be able to do this. Maybe if he were alone he could. Maybe if this were a normal day and we weren’t being chased—

  We land, awkward, crooked, his body taking the brunt of the impact and still, he never lets me go. We teeter and almost fall backward, but he manages to keep his balance, holding me in his arms, pressed against his chest the whole time. There’s a part of me that’s in awe and speechless.

  The other part of me, the part that realizes we’re still in danger, wins.

  I turn my head toward the street and yell loud enough for everyone on my crew to hear. “Run! Get away from the building and the alley! Now!”

  11

  We hit the ground running, and the whole world is screaming.

  Every human, every car, every airplane, and every building. Bodies continue to fall from the roof above, and every one of them is like a bomb that could kill us. The air fills with the crack of bones and the death cries of the falling people, and then the fire escape breaks free from my apartment building. It starts to topple and falls apart on the way, metal landings flying off, steps ringing, bolts shooting through the air like bullets—

  Justin wraps an arm protectively around me as we run, trying to shield me, making sure my pace keeps up with his. Finally, we make it to the street.

  I lift my gaze, searching for Gabe, but I can’t find him.

  Instead, I see chaos and destruction, cars crashing into other cars, silver aliens lining the street and then turning into smoke, mirror doors swinging open and even more Xua pouring out. A jet drops lower and lower in the sky, its descent much too rapid for it to make it to John Wayne Airport.

  “Station One,” I yell into my skin sites. “Answer me!”

  “Station One,” Billy replies.

  But I can’t see him or Natalie. Or my brother.

  The jet crashes a few blocks away, missing the 405 freeway, and there’s an explosion of blinding light. It lands much closer than in any of my other lifetimes, and buildings across the street topple to the ground from the impact. Before I can react, Justin tackles me and slams me to the pavement. Shrapnel from the plane and the buildings whistles past us, thunking into nearby cars and bystanders. More screams echo around us, and the ground rumbles as the jet erupts in yet another explosion.

  “Gabe, where are you? Natalie, do you have eyes on him?” I scream, my face pressed against the ground, Justin still holding me down.

  “Better than eyes. I’m holding his frigging hand,” Natalie replies calmly.

  “Where are you?”

  “No descriptives, remember? Use the code, girl. Clear your mind. Five minutes from Station One.”

  My heart thunders, and I can’t think.

  “Answer her,” Justin whispers in my ear. “You know what to say.”

  My mouth is dry, and panic makes me want to get up and run, but Justin is still holding me down. Where are we, what should I say, what is the next step… Finally it comes to me.

  “Ten minutes from Station One. Keep him safe,” I say. “If we’re not there in fifteen, move to Station Eight.”

  “Eight?” she asks. There’s a pause. We don’t have a Station Eight. It’s code for Do Whatever You Must to Stay Alive. “Got it. See you soon.”

  I glance at my watch. Ten minutes into the invasion and already I’ve lost my brother. I don’t think it can get any worse.

  But it does.

  …

  The space solar panels have always continued to provide power. They’re one thing that the Xua have never tried to take down. Maybe they need them for some reason. Whatever the case, this is the first time the aliens use them to their own advantage.

  We all get a Gov-Net transmission, a jolt of news, right in the face, ready or not.

  “Station Eight!” I yell into my skin sites. I don’t know what’s coming, but now is not the time to follow protocol. We have to survive. We can regroup later.

  “Got it,” Natalie answers.

  I wish my brother would say something. I want to hear his voice. I need to hear it. Instead, I hear David Perez. He stares at me—at all of us—his eyes wide, as he tries to appear calm. His normally perfect hair looks like he’s been running his hands through it. The news must be bad, because when he finally speaks, he stutters. “T-Two cities have just been— They’ve—” He whispers to someone beside him, but it’s still loud enough for us to hear. “I wasn’t going to say attacked.” Then he tries to smooth his hair and begins again. “Some sort of natural disaster or eco-anomaly has— It ripped through Sydney, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand. Wait. Now I’m getting reports from—” His voice chokes as he palms his left ear to receive more information, and he shakes his head. “No—”

  “What’s going on?” Justin asks in my ear, his expression serious. “You must know something. Has this happened before?”

  “No, they’ve never broadcast what’s happening in other countries—”

  Before I can finish my sentence, transparent images flash across our line of vision.

  First we see a holo-mind image of a European city—it must be Rome—the morning streets dotted with tiny foreign cars, half of them smashed into one another, the other half crashed into buildings. Shopping bags filled with apples and oranges litter the sidewalks, a cappuccino cart is overturned, and the Colosseum
is etched in the background. Countless bodies lay still and unmoving in the street.

  “We don’t know what to make of this yet,” David continues, his voice cracking with emotion. “Whatever’s going on, it appears to be happening all around the world…”

  Then we see an apocalyptic montage, similar scenes, over and over again, each one set in a different city: trains off their tracks, freeways choked with unmoving cars, bicycles lying in the street. Hordes of dead bodies strewn about like cast-off dolls.

  Several of the cities are still dark with only an occasional headlight, streetlight, or fire for illumination. Those images are the scariest, because you can see sparkling aliens moving in the shadows.

  “It’s the Xua,” I whisper, in shock. I always wondered what was happening in other parts of the U.S. and in the rest of the world during the invasion, but I never knew. There were never any broadcasts until now. They’ve been attacking our entire planet, all at the same time. But this is the first time they let me know.

  This is worse than seeing the aliens on my roof, worse than when they captured Aerithin.

  It’s the worst attack I’ve ever seen.

  They want me scared.

  It’s frigging working.

  “We need to get out of here,” I tell Justin. “They’re trying to distract us. Something is coming this way; I can feel it.” Then I speak into our com system. “Gabe, if you can hear me, Station One in fifteen. If you’re not there, I’m going to come find you. Don’t make me do that,” I say into my skin sites.

  No answer.

  I don’t know if anybody on my team heard me.

  Justin and I scramble to our feet, and we start to run, back the way we came, down the alley. It’s like an obstacle course now, half-blocked by the fallen fire escape and littered with dead bodies. A few of the corpses are Xua, and their bright shining blood paints the ground and the buildings on both sides of the alley. It lights our way through the darkest night ever.

  We run while David Perez continues to tell us about the worldwide invasion, flashing a continuous montage of images so visceral that they hit me in the gut. I have no idea how small children are handling this. I can barely stand it, and this is my fifteenth time.

  “So far, we have reports of similar incidents occurring in Rome, Paris, Sydney, Beijing, Seoul, Auckland, and Kabul,” David Perez says while familiar landscapes flash through my mind. “Wait. It’s hit the United States, too. We now have video from New York City and Los Angeles.”

  The Statue of Liberty stands in the distance while the city of New York burns, the flames red and orange against a black sky. Then we see the Hollywood sign and a sweeping view of L.A. freeways, a snakeskin of metal cars, all heading toward some predetermined destination. But now, the cars are out of control, smashing into medians and plunging off overpasses. A jet crashes into the seventy-three-story U.S. Bank Tower—

  I feel sick, but I don’t stop running. I can’t. Justin’s fingers lace with mine, and we’re finally at the end of the alley. Our city is being destroyed, and we have to get away from here. I don’t want to listen to the announcer, but I need to know what is going on.

  I have to know how to fight, how to survive, how to win.

  “Right now the death toll is too high to count,” David Perez continues. “But early estimates put the numbers in the millions. And, while everything is still too chaotic to verify, apparently all the governments in Europe have gone dark. We’re still in contact with Great Britain, Canada, and Mexico, but we aren’t sure how long that will last—”

  The images disappear as the Gov-Net transmission cuts off.

  I stumble. I’m out of breath and confused.

  To my left, a woman stands quietly weeping. An elderly man across the street starts to run away. An unnatural silence falls over all of us. I’m still trying to get my bearings when Natalie’s voice comes over our com system. I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or to someone else.

  “Did he…did he say Seoul?” she asks.

  “Station One,” I say to her and anyone else in our group listening. “Stay alive. No matter what.”

  Station One is a parking garage just down the street. I can see it from here. We have some supplies stashed inside, and there’s a stairwell that we locked and barricaded between the first and the second floor. Justin and I have to make it only a couple of blocks and we’ll be there.

  Then I see something—shadowy movement up ahead, a solar streetlight that still sends green beams down to a darkened street. Someone swings a laser switchblade, red beam lighting up his fourteen-year-old face, revealing the fear in his eyes.

  “Oh no,” I say, pulling away from Justin. I can’t do anything about what already happened in those other cities, but I can do something about what’s going on down the street. My legs don’t work at first, then I’m running, faster than I knew I could.

  Something is happening to my brother, right in front of the parking garage. My brother’s life is in danger, and I almost missed it because of that Gov-Net transmission.

  The Xua did this on purpose.

  I thought they were trying to scare me, but it was more than that.

  They wanted to get Gabe when I was distracted, when I couldn’t protect him.

  The Xua have definitely stepped up their game.

  “Hurry!” I yell at Justin.

  Then I pull out my switchblade and I flick it on, ready to fight.

  12

  I’m running toward Gabe, and Justin is at my side. My blood roars in my ears. My heart beats fast, then faster; my legs pump hard, then harder.

  Earth has just been invaded by the Xua.

  But sometimes humans are more dangerous than aliens. You never know who you can trust. Or how much time you have.

  “Leave my brother alone!” I yell, waving my switchblade above my head.

  Two guys have my brother and Billy cornered and pinned down. One of them pummels a fist in Gabe’s face. The other is going hand-to-hand with Billy. I can’t see Natalie.

  I hope she’s following our plan for Station One, even though I gave the order to improvise a few minutes ago. Now is definitely the time to stick to the plan.

  “Station One!” I yell into my skin sites, although I know everyone is too busy to answer me.

  The blond guy beating my brother doesn’t ask any questions. He’s not demanding our food or any of our supplies. He briefly glances up at me and probably figures I’m nobody to worry about, then he pummels Gabe again, faster this time. Like he needs to finish off my little brother before I get there.

  There’s a dark glimmer of bloodlust in his eyes and a grin on his face.

  Both these guys have shining weapons drawn. Knives.

  My brother getting stabbed to death. One of the many ways he can die tonight.

  These guys have to be possessed by Hunters.

  “Let the boy go!” Justin shouts.

  The first guy pulls himself up, stretches broad shoulders wide, blade in one hand, his other fist wrapped around Gabe’s collar. His skin is covered with prison tats, and his blond hair hangs in long, greasy dreadlocks. I wonder if this Hunter is stupid or if he just doesn’t know what’s coming, because he’s not intimidated by the obvious danger here—a Genetic who’s about to roll over his sorry carcass.

  And me. Nobody ever worries about me until it’s too late.

  Blood drips from my brother’s nose, and there’s a deep gash in his forehead. Blood on the cement, on Gabe’s shirt. On this guy’s fist.

  “You are so dead,” I say, leaping into the air, kicking my right foot out and slamming the blond creep in the jaw. He stumbles backward, his grip on my brother loosens, and his knife clatters to the ground. I kick it away. Natalie runs out of the parking garage shadows, looking like she’s been in a battle of her own. There’s a long scratch on her face and bloodstains on her
shirt and jeans. I really hope it’s not her blood, because there’s a lot of it.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  “Yeah, but the Xua-possessed jerks in the parking garage who tried to mess with me aren’t,” she says. Together, Natalie and I check out my little brother, and I don’t like what I see. He’s got a wide gash on his forehead that looks like it needs stitches, but I can’t remember if I packed a first aid kit for this station.

  Meanwhile, Billy swings a brass-knuckled punch at the bald guy who was attacking him, then follows with a nightstick thud to the back of the head. The bald man crumples to the ground and lays there, still. Billy knocked him out so fast, the Xua inside him didn’t even have time to jump. A few steps behind me, Justin grabs the blond-haired Xua and, with a single punch, this guy is unconscious on the ground, too.

  Justin glances back at me.

  “Should I kill him?” he asks, his voice calm.

  “We don’t have time,” I say. I’m still examining Gabe’s injuries when a siren wails in the distance, distracting me. “Are we ready to leave?” I ask.

  “Yup,” Natalie answers, and she jogs back inside the garage. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where’s that girl, the one with the red hair? And what’s her name?” I ask.

  “Ella,” Gabe says. He pushes me away, wobbles to his feet, and looks back toward the garage. “You okay?”

  Ella emerges slowly from the shadows, step by cautious step. She looks terrified, her eyes dark, her hands trembling. She’s covered with blood, too, even more than Natalie, and I wonder what happened. Ella opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

  “You’re going to be all right,” I tell her, hoping my words are true. But I know we all have to get out of here, now. I stare down into the face of that blond thug with the dreadlocks, glad he’s still unconscious. I think I see a tooth missing, no doubt from my running kick.