by Maggie Allen
“Take a look.”
There was a sealed plastic case hanging from the wall. Powaw studied the object inside and gulped. It was a long, metal rod about the same length as Tarek’s cane, but with plastic grips for both hands and a few buttons and switches between them. On one end, the rod split into four rounded points, almost like a claw. Powaw recognized it immediately: an energy lance, almost identical to the ones that Lieutenant Hayvers and the Aldrin’s security team carried.
“There’s a lance in there, right?”
“Yeah,” Powaw said. “How’d you know?”
Tarek tapped the side of the case. The model name and manufacturer of the lance were stamped into the plastic. “The letters are raised a bit. I could sort of make them out, but I wasn’t sure.”
“Good guess.”
“Do you think it still works?”
“Yeah.” Powaw studied the case more closely, confirming that it wasn’t damaged. “The military used to transport weapons in containers that protected them from anything—heat, electricity, radiation, you name it. This thing wouldn’t have been fried in the attack.”
“How do you know that?”
“Research,” Powaw said. Tarek turned a little to face him, a motion that Powaw still didn’t really understand from his friend. “Lieutenant Hayvers said I might be a good fit for security—when I ‘grow up a little more.’ I’ve been doing a little research.”
“Maybe we can see if the lieutenant is right.”
“What do you mean?”
“If the lance works, we can shoot out that cable and get the shoes.”
For a moment, Powaw was going to tell Tarek he was insane. Then he looked at the clock on his HUD, pictured his aunt and the others laughing and said, “Let’s do it.”
It took a couple minutes to find the switch to open the case. The front cover slid aside, and Powaw carefully removed the lance. Lieutenant Hayvers had shown him the Aldrin’s energy lances a couple of times; he thought he knew how to check its power level and settings and, most importantly, how to operate the safety.
The safety was a tiny button beside the higher of the two grips, almost in line with the trigger. He pressed it, and a tiny bar started to glow blue on the side of the lance; that meant it was close to fully charged. There were two square, metal objects in the case—extra power packs—and he scooped them up, knowing that Lieutenant Hayvers would want them.
“Okay. Let’s do this.”
Tarek followed him back outside, where Kelsi was waiting below the shoes. “So you think you can actually hit the cable?”
Powaw forgot that she would’ve heard his entire conversation with Tarek over the suits’ com. “I don’t know. We couldn’t find a ladder or anything, though.”
“Me neither. Just don’t shoot me with that thing, okay?”
“Should we make sure it works first?” Tarek asked.
“It looks like it has a full charge still, but … yeah, you’re probably right.” Powaw looked around the street, trying to find something he could use as a practice target. “You think the others will hear the shot?” The range on their suits’ com was pretty short, but the sound of the lance would carry.
“Yes, knowing our luck, and they’ll probably come running. I wish we had found a ladder,” Kelsi said.
Powaw eyed the sign above the general store. He brought the lance as close to level with his eye as he could, which was a little awkward with his helmet. He was trying to remember the stance that he had been taught. The lance wobbled a little in his hands until he balanced the bottom on his shoulder. He took a few long, steadying breaths and closed one eye, using the rounded points at the top of the lance to aim at the tubby figure in the apron.
There was a sharp whine when he squeezed the trigger. A bright red bolt shot out from the lance and missed the sign by at least a foot, burning a hole through the metal wall beside it. He heard Kelsi snicker. His second shot soared under the sign, burning another hole. Tarek tapped his cane a couple times against the ground but didn’t say anything.
Powaw took another couple of breaths and aimed again, trying to put all of his focus on the tubby figure’s belly.
This time, the shot pinged against the sign. Instead of burning it or melting it, the shot ricocheted off and plunged down the street. It soared through the broken window of another building, two down from the general store. Something inside crashed loudly enough for them to hear through their helmets.
“Holy crap,” Kelsi said.
“What did you hit?” Tarek asked.
“The sign.”
“So the sign must be made of … something.”
Kelsi snorted. “Thanks for that. At least you hit what you were aiming at, Pow. Now you just need to do the same thing again.”
“Right.” Powaw’s shoulders felt tense—because of the thrill of hitting his target, or the idea of bringing back those shoes, or because he knew he really wasn’t supposed to be using an energy lance. He tried to shrug the tension away, which didn’t work, and settled on a few more deep breaths as he aimed at the spot where the power cable connected to the general store’s roof.
“You can do this,” Tarek said quietly.
He took longer to aim this time. His aunt liked to tell him stories when he was younger, the Algonquin legends she could remember from when she was a kid. She said it was important to keep them alive, since they might be the last two Algonquin left after the attack. He knew the legends weren’t real, but his aunt also told him about how their people used to survive: living off the land, hunting wild animals and shepherding the environment. He was about as far from a hunter as someone could get, but his aunt did say that the spirit of their people was still inside them, and he wondered if that could help him here.
When he squeezed the trigger, the shot missed by at least a few centimeters. Powaw shifted his aim slightly and fired again.
There was a loud pop as the power cable was severed. The line sprang free from the roof, whipped through the air and then plunged to the ground. The shoes were jostled off at the same time, and Kelsi rushed toward them. They hit the ground beside the cable before she made it; she scooped them up and waved them in the air in triumph, letting out a long whoop.
Behind her, something roared.
Powaw froze. He thought the sound had come from the same building where his ricochet had disappeared.
“Guys?” Tarek asked, and Kelsi shushed him.
Powaw’s mind flashed back to the monster stories the adults told, and he reminded himself that they were just stories to scare children.
And then something burst through the doorway of the building, and he knew they weren’t.
The creature landed in the center of the street. It stood on two spindly legs and raised three arms into the air; each one ended in long, irregularly-shaped claws. Another roar came from a massive jaw that reminded Powaw of a picture he’d seen of a dragon. Something thick and slimy dripped from its teeth, its claws, and other random spots on its body, and he thought of the stain he had seen in the general store, around the broken window. About a half-dozen tiny yellow dots were scattered around the creature’s face, and when they blinked, Powaw realized these were its eyes.
Kelsi screamed. Powaw grabbed Tarek’s arm and shouted, “Run!”
He dragged Tarek toward the general store. His friend kept asking what was going on, but Powaw didn’t have the breath to explain. He just knew they needed to get away from whatever that thing was. He glanced behind him, expecting Kelsi to be following, but instead he saw her disappear into the office building. The creature stood in the center of the street, looking back and forth, as if deciding who to follow.
“Kelsi, find somewhere to hide,” Powaw said into his com. As he pushed Tarek into the store, he raised the lance one-handed, fumbled with the trigger, and fired a wild shot into the air.
As he followed Tarek through the door, he heard the creature roar again.
“Where do we go?” Tarek asked.
&n
bsp; Powaw pulled his friend to the back room where they had found the lance. He shut the door and yanked Tarek to the ground behind one of the rows of crates. Their breath seemed to echo loudly in his ears; he hoped the creature wouldn’t be able to hear it through their suits.
“Lieutenant Hayvers, Auntie Nuna—we need help. Please, you have to come get us right now.” There was a code the security officers on the Aldrin used when one of them was in serious danger, but he couldn’t remember it. With the coms’ short range, he knew it might not even matter.
“Kelsi, are you okay?” he said, but there was no response from her, either. He hoped that meant she was hiding behind something that was blocking the signal. “The creature might have followed her, Tarek.”
“It didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel its footsteps.” Tarek had both hands pressed to the plastic floorboards. “It’s just outside.”
Powaw pressed his gloves against the floor, but he couldn’t feel anything besides the pumping of his heartbeat. “You can feel its footsteps?”
“Vibrations, remember? They’re faint, but each step is pretty heavy. I can just feel enough to know it’s out there.” To his surprise, Tarek smiled. “Being blind can come in handy, I guess.”
Powaw’s head was spinning. There was an actual monster out there, hunting for them. Monsters were supposed to be things from stories. They showed up in some of the legends his aunt told him, like the Mishibijiw, a sort-of dragon thing that drowned people, or the Widjigo, a man-eating spirit that used to be human before it committed an evil act and got turned into a monster. His aunt said the Widjigo was so hungry all the time that it kept chewing off its own lips. Picturing that still gave Powaw the occasional nightmare—but the Widjigo was nothing compared to the thing out there.
He tried to think of a way out of this. With any luck, the adults had heard the shots or the creature roaring and were on their way. If they hadn’t, they would be there shortly; according to the clock on his HUD, Powaw and his friends were already late. All they had to do was wait, and someone would be along to rescue them.
Except that the creature knew he and Tarek were in the store.
“We need to figure out how to get out of here,” Tarek said softly.
“I’ll think of something.”
“I can help.”
“Just let me think…”
“I said I can help, Pow.”
“How?” Powaw asked, more heatedly than he meant it. His heart was still hammering. “I just … there’s only so much you can do, right?”
Tarek frowned. “I can do something. There’s two of us, and we need a plan. Do you still have the lance?”
“Yeah. I’m not that good a shot, though, remember?”
“Maybe I can line him up for you.”
“What?”
Tarek tapped his cane, and Powaw realized what he meant. “No way.”
“It’s something I can do.”
“It’ll tear you apart. You didn’t see its—”
“Don’t tell me. You’ll freak me out.” Tarek pointed across the room. “Go find somewhere you can see the doorway.”
“I’m not—”
“Would you rather wait for it to find us on its own?”
Powaw tried to listen for the creature, but he couldn’t hear anything. “Fine. Just … if this doesn’t work…”
“We’ll be the first people to go out in a blaze of glory because of a pair of shoes?”
Powaw held back a nervous laugh. He got to his feet as quietly as he could and scuttled across the room to a spot between two crates where he was directly facing the door. If the creature came through, he thought he might actually be able to hit it. And if he missed, he hoped the creature would come right at him and ignore Tarek.
He heard a soft, metallic sound, and through the darkness he saw Tarek tapping his metal cane against the ground. Powaw’s shoulders tensed again as he aimed the energy lance at the doorway.
A few seconds went by before something struck the other side of the door. The noise made Powaw jump.
He corrected his aim just as the door burst open.
Powaw didn’t wait. Red bolts of energy spewed from the energy lance as he squeezed the trigger, and in their glare he saw the creature standing in the doorway, all claws and spindly limbs and oozing, gray skin. Every shot seemed to miss, and the creature roared as it took a step forward. Powaw screamed something back and kept firing, until one of the shots grazed the creature’s side. The creature backed away, flailing its arms, and Powaw fired some more. There was one last cry and the creature disappeared.
Powaw heard a loud crash from somewhere. He stood there in the dark room, waiting for the creature to come back, but it didn’t. He could hear Tarek’s heavy breathing over the com.
“Did you hit it?”
“Yeah,” Powaw said. “It’s gone, I think. Good idea.”
“Someone has to be the brains, right?” Tarek shuffled to his feet. “We should find Kelsi.”
This time, Powaw led the way out of the general store. There was no sign of the creature. Powaw wondered if it went out through a window or the door.
And realized neither, when he saw the creature flying down the staircase toward them.
Powaw shoved Tarek to the floor. He tried to raise the lance, but the creature was too fast; one arm struck him in the chest so hard that he fell onto his back. The lance fell out of his hands, and the creature appeared above him. It clacked its teeth together and flexed all three of its massive, mutated claws. When the creature roared, Powaw shut his eyes.
“Get away from him!” he heard Tarek shout. Powaw opened his eyes in time to see the creature cry out as something hit it in the back. Tarek’s cane spun away into the darkness, and Powaw realized his friend had thrown it.
Which meant he had nothing to defend himself with as the creature turned on him.
Powaw knew there wasn’t enough time to do anything.
Over the com, he heard a new voice bellow: “Stay down!”
Bright flashes of energy filled the room. The creature roared and backed away from the front entrance where three figures in radiation suits had appeared. Each figure held an energy lance, and they kept firing as the creature tried to flee farther into the general store. Lasers cut into its skin, leaving deep, smoking burns, and the creature finally turned and ran.
One of the figures, Lieutenant Hayvers, fired three shots into its back, and it dropped to the ground. It didn’t move again.
This time it was Lieutenant Hayvers standing over Powaw, one hand extended to help him up. “You all right, son?”
“Yeah,” Powaw said. He looked for Tarek and saw someone else helping his friend up and handing him his cane. “Thanks.”
“Let’s get you outside before your aunt comes rushing in here…”
They stepped out into the sunlight, and Powaw saw Auntie Nuna standing with the rest of their group from the Aldrin. Kelsi was with them. When she saw Powaw and Tarek, she let out a long, relieved breath.
And then she grinned and held up the pair of blue-and-yellow shoes. There were murmurs from some of the adults, and Powaw started to worry that he had done the opposite of what he wanted.
The only person who hadn’t seen the shoes yet was Lieutenant Hayvers, since he was scanning the street with his eyes. When they landed on Kelsi, his grizzled face twisted into an expression Powaw didn’t understand.
Until the lieutenant’s booming laugh echoed through the suits’ coms.
They told the adults everything that happened. Hayvers directed two of his security people to watch for other creatures while the rest of the adults went to inspect the supplies in the general store. Powaw handed the energy lance and the extra power packs over to the lieutenant. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hold them again.
“Not bad, son,” Hayvers said.
“It wasn’t just me,” Powaw said, glancing over at Tarek and Kelsi. “Sir … what do you think that crea
ture was?”
Hayvers shrugged. “Something for the scientists to figure out. They’ve told me some about what radiation can do to people…”
“You think that was a person?”
“Been a long time since Nebula-Eight was attacked. Who knows?”
He wandered away to check in with the others. Powaw remembered the story of the Widjigo again, and he couldn’t decide whether imagining that spindly creature as a human being made him feel better or worse.
Tarek came over as the lieutenant walked away. “So, security still in your future?”
“Maybe if I can drag you around with me.” When his friend looked confused, Powaw said, “You figured out how to get us out of there, Tarek. What I said in the store—”
Tarek shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. There’s more important stuff than that.”
“Like?”
“Who’s going to get those shoes.”
Powaw grinned and steered his friend toward where Kelsi was showing them off to Aunt Nuna. “If they fit you, I’d say you deserve them.”
Trench 42
by Sherry D. Ramsey
Sherry D. Ramsey is a writer, editor, publisher, creativity addict and self-confessed internet geek. Her books and stories range from middle grade to adult and delve into all corners of the speculative fiction realm. Sherry lives in Nova Scotia with her husband, children, and dogs, where she consumes far more coffee and chocolate than is likely good for her. You can visit her online at www.sherrydramsey.com and keep up with her much more pithy musings on Twitter @sdramsey.
Amari stared out the viewport wall at the graceful, gliding shapes in the water. The exterior lights on the Llyr, casting a shadowed glow on its surroundings, provided the only illumination at this depth. The underwater research station was on the move, its caterpillar-like legs trundling toward Trench 42 for a two-week stay. Amari had heard her mother and father discussing the studies the station might undertake at the trench, and now she sighed. All the scientists aboard the Llyr would be lining up to do their research, so there wouldn't be a spare gillsuit available for her own expeditions for a while.
