by Patrick Ness
The one Skandis stood still, its wet skin pulsing. It wasn’t preparing to spring. It seemed to be scenting the air, taking in its surroundings.
For a moment, the air fizzed, and the creature looked like Neil. Neil with his scalded face, burnt red and bubbling.
Then the air fizzed again, and the Skandis was back. Ram felt a jolt, as though a plummeting lift had just snapped to a halt.
What the hell?
He forced himself to his feet, only for his new leg to choose this moment, this damn moment, to just not. It stretched out in front of him while his other leg, his proper leg, kept trying to straighten up all by itself.
I look like a sodding Russian dancer, he thought, grabbing his gun and using that to get upright, and to try to hobble-drag his way away from the Skandis, which was observing him, almost curious.
What am I missing? Ram thought.
Then he noticed the Combat Chamber had changed. It was no longer a stunning re-creation of an alien world. It had reset to a plain white box. But something was different, something was wrong.
It fell into place. In the training levels the Skandis had been indistinct, with overcompressed edges. Now it was clear. Completely clear.
Ram’s brain worked through three things—the force field failing, the rock wall vanishing, and now the chamber turning off. ‘You’re real, aren’t you?’ he shouted at it. ‘Somehow you’ve reversed whatever this chamber does and you’ve come here.’
The Skandis’ only reply was a nasty howl. Then it sprang towards him.
Charlie was cleaning another Combat Chamber. Automated processes took care of most of it, but what was left behind were some pretty stubborn stains.
He’d noticed that most of what was left behind was human.
He wondered how the Skandis were doing. Were they winning this war?
Which was when one appeared in the Combat Chamber behind him.
The same thing was happening in Combat Chambers across the Void. Virtual environments were gradually crashing, resetting to their base states, but with the aliens still in them. And more powerful, more vicious than ever. Safe words weren’t working, the emergency shutdowns weren’t activating. Worse, the doors to the chambers weren’t opening.
Trapped soldiers started pounding on the doors to the Combat Chambers, until the entire bay echoed.
Then the screaming began.
Miss Quill took the change in circumstances in her stride.
‘A dozen of you. Nowhere to hide. And I’m silhouetted beautifully against the walls. Lovely.’
She was firing as she spoke.
Ram was using his gun to hold himself up. If he tried to fire with it, he’d fall over.
He tried to work out a sensible solution, realised there wasn’t one, and, in a moment of blind panic, whipped the gun up, and fired repeatedly as he fell back over.
The Skandis carried on leaping towards him, its body tearing apart under the blasts from his gun.
It landed on him, and promptly fell apart into three charred lumps.
In the last moment before it shattered, something very strange happened to it. Ram, eyes screwed shut, screaming, almost didn’t notice it. Then when he did, he didn’t believe what he’d seen. He was just stunned to find himself still alive.
Ram lay there for a while, disgusted, then slowly, with endless patience, crawled out from under the smouldering corpse.
A simple malfunction, he told himself. Nothing to be worried about. These things happen.
Damn, his leg still wasn’t working.
He eyed up the door. Not great, but he reckoned he could reach it easily enough. Raise help.
He started crawling towards the door. No harm done. Soon be back up and fighting. Not a great day, not the worst.
Then the air in front of him fizzed and glowed and six more Skandis appeared.
‘You have got to be kidding,’ breathed Ram.
FORTY-EIGHT
DO YOU KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT DIMENSIONAL COMPENSATORS TO SAVE THIS BOY’S LIFE? (SPOILER: YOU DON’T)
‘What the hell is going on?’ Seraphin yelled as the alarms went off.
April hadn’t got a clue and was trying to tell him this, but the noise just wouldn’t stop.
Seraphin was clicking in frustration at his computer. It flashed up the spinny wheel of give-me-a-minute and did nothing else.
He pointed over to what looked like a fuse box by the bathroom. April ran to it. It wouldn’t open.
‘Screwdriver?’
Seraphin dashed back to his desk, grabbed a penny, and used it to turn the latch. The cupboard sprang open.
Inside was a lot of complicated alien technology. And a large trip switch. She yanked it.
The alarms stopped. The room went dark.
‘Don’t let go of the switch!’ Seraphin was yelling.
‘Already have,’ April yelled back, a little deafened.
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’ April fumbled and patted her way through the cupboard, worried that at any moment she’d turn into a human candle. She found a switch, and, holding her breath, pulled it.
The lights came back on.
‘Was that the right thing?’ she asked.
‘Yep,’ said Seraphin.
‘What is all this?’ She pointed to the equipment in the rest of the cupboard—a series of glowing cables and pulsing arrays.
He shrugged. ‘Stuff I’m not supposed to touch.’
‘Ever touched it?’
‘Nope.’ He shook his head. ‘I once totalled a laptop after I forgot to wash peanut butter off my hands when I upgraded the RAM. That stuff is way out of my league. You any idea?’
April pretended to study it very hard for ten seconds.
‘No,’ she announced, trying to convey in her voice that, if it had just been last year’s model, then she’d have been all over it. ‘What I can say is that the lights were all green, and now they’re all red.’
‘Gotcha.’ Seraphin ran a hand through his hair. ‘That’s getting a bit technical for me.’
He darted over to his main computer, which had now finished starting up again. He logged in, waited, opened a browser, and then waited some more.
‘Here,’ he said, pointing to a display map. ‘Looks like something’s going on with the Combat Chambers.’ He zoomed into the map. ‘Got it. They’re all full and the doors are off-line.’
‘What?’ said April. ‘Do something!’
‘Pfft.’ Seraphin jabbed at the screen. ‘All I can do is see the status report. Helps me with my bulletins. I can’t open the doors. Seriously. Why would they give me that power?’
‘Good point.’ April wasn’t really listening to him anymore. ‘I’ve got to find someone who can help us get control. And she’s not going to like it.’
Ram made it to the door and pressed it. It should have triggered the opening cycle. Nothing happened. He peered through the small window, hammered on it, shouted for help that wasn’t coming. Then he groaned and felt around for the manual trigger.
Manual trigger, he thought. What was wrong with having a door handle? This whole place was so screwed up. He located the trigger.
He’d been told that the reason the doors took so long to open was in order to balance the dimensions in the Void. It was important that you didn’t bring anything back from the battlefront with you. A very bit like divers having to decompress. There’d been a lecture on the possibility of bacteria crossing the dimensional barriers. It took ten seconds to fully harmonise the dimensions. But the manual trigger could do it, just about, in five. If he could find it. If it was still alive five seconds after he’d found it.
Trying to find a hidden lever while keeping an eye on six creatures intent on killing you is difficult. You know the expression about ‘doing it with one arm tied behind your back’? Try doing it with only one leg. Ram had settled into an awkward crouch, his useless leg splayed out in front of him and constantly trying to tell him that it really wasn’t happy. Every now and the
n he’d loose off a shot at the Skandis, but his gun was now little better than a water pistol.
At each blast, they’d pause, shudder, then press on. Judging from their roaring and twitching and the way their tentacles snapped, they were angry. Angry and hungry.
Only April could feel sorry for these things, he thought. He fired off a couple more shots, bought himself some time, then got back to running his hand up the door seal.
In training it had been easy. But then, that was always the way with safety demonstrations. Flight attendants made it look like escaping a crashing plane was a calm saunter from fitting your oxygen mask to collecting your life jacket and nimbly stepping out into the water. But come on, it was going to be screaming chaos, wasn’t it? When they’d gone on that school trip to Italy, just while boarding the plane there had been a fight, an actual fight, between vicious old ladies and a football team. Imagine the horror of trying to get off a plane, a plane that had just crashed. And apparently it all came down to the simple act of releasing the emergency exit doors and stepping out. Like that was going to work.
Ram found the trigger. It was, of course, just out of reach. He levered himself up as far as he could, and, fingers clammy with sweat, gripped the trigger and pulled it. So long as he kept hauling on it, it should release the door. He supported himself on his one good leg and waited.
5.
The Skandis were whipping towards him.
4.
His leg was hurting. His whole body was shaking.
3.
Their tentacles snapped at him, their horrific jaws hissing and howling.
2.
Oh, his leg hurt so much. Five seconds? Surely? Come on.
1.
A tentacle whipped past his face, spattering him with stinging slime. Come on!
0.
The door sprang open and Ram realised his mistake.
Charlie was running. There was nothing else he could do. He was in a Combat Chamber with a very hostile alien and all he had was a bucket. He’d already thrown the water out of the bucket.
A tentacle sent him flying.
Charlie lay on the ground, fighting for his breath as the Skandis came towards him.
‘I’m an alien prince,’ he told the creature. ‘I’m not boasting, I’m not expecting any special treatment, I’m just saying this isn’t how life was supposed to be.’
A tentacle threw him across the floor.
Charlie picked himself up, eyes wandering for a moment to the white wall. The whiteness was flickering, a little gentle corner-of-the-eye pulsing.
‘As an alien prince . . .’ He laughed, falling breathlessly onto his back ‘I should, right now, be leading an army.’
The Skandis stood over him, surveying him, the tentacles quivering with hostile interest.
‘I don’t have an army.’ Charlie was still laughing. ‘But I don’t suppose you’d pass me my bucket, would you?’
The Skandis sprang at him, but Charlie had already rolled out of his way, and was up and running.
‘I’ve been learning a few things about being human,’ he shouted as he ran. ‘And one of them is that it’s a really bad idea to kill me. You see’—he paused for breath, a defiant smile on his face—‘my boyfriend is Polish.’
Charlie bolted for the door.
‘Whuh?’
Tanya was exhausted and really, really didn’t know why April was standing in her doorway.
‘I was sleeping.’
‘Tanya, I’ve come to ask you a favour,’ said April. ‘Something bad’s happening and I really could do with your help.’
Tanya blinked and yawned helplessly. ‘I’m so tired,’ she whined. ‘Kill-me tired. There is literally nothing you could do to make me take part in whatever it is you’re up to.’ She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Is it a peace rally? Or a folk festival? That’s it, isn’t it?’
April smiled. ‘And that’s why I brought along my secret weapon.’
Seraphin stepped into the room. ‘Hi, Tanya. Lovely to meet you.’
Tanya immediately grabbed her bedsheet. ‘Oh, dear God.’
Quill stared at the door. The manual trigger was jammed. She hammered at it with her gun. And then, having worked through a few other options, she shrugged and shot the door.
Ram lay on the floor of the bay, listening to the frantic hammering from the other Combat Chambers. He could see a face pressed up against a window, pleading for help.
Then the face was whisked away and something green smashed across the window. There were three thumps and then nothing.
Bloody hell.
And he’d left his door open.
Ram grabbed hold of a wall and levered himself up. He had to close the door behind him. Had to. Before they got out. That had been their plan all along. He leaned against the wall, steadied himself against a door, and got ready to launch himself at his open door. He just needed a bit more strength, a tiny bit more strength . . .
The door he was balanced against blew open, knocking him to the floor.
Miss Quill stepped over him.
‘Nap time, Singh?’ she sneered.
Stunned by the blast, and just generally stunned, Ram looked up at her. ‘Close the doors!’ he yelled. ‘We’ve got to close the doors!’
Miss Quill blinked, bemused.
‘Close the doors!’ Ram screamed again.
Miss Quill shook her head. ‘The blast,’ she explained, shouting a bit. ‘Bit deafened.’
Ram gestured at the doors, throwing himself forward to try to grab one.
Miss Quill stared at him quizzically. Ram howled in frustration.
Then the first of the Skandis slithered out.
‘Oh,’ said Miss Quill. Finally she understood. ‘We’ve been invaded. Interesting.’
FORTY-NINE
HE CHOSE THE WRONG DAY TO BEG FOR HIS LIFE
‘I need you to look at this,’ said April.
Tanya did not appear to be listening.
‘This is your flat?’ she said to Seraphin, amazed.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Well, it’s a set, but you get the idea. Would you like me to switch my dog on for you?’
He leaned down, pushed a button, and Captain Pugsley materialised, and began pottering around the laminate flooring.
‘Wow,’ said Tanya. She’d been saying wow a lot suddenly, and April was getting a bit disturbed.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah,’ Tanya muttered without seeming to hear.
Seraphin winked at April, and went to stand a little bit too close to Tanya. ‘Hi,’ he said, and his smile went up to eleven. ‘Apparently you’re good with computers.’
‘Um,’ said Tanya.
Seraphin tapped his desktop into life. ‘Just . . . this one . . . here . . . I need someone to have a look at it.’ He ran a hand slowly through his hair and shook it out. God, thought April, that is so obvious. But it worked.
‘Sure.’ Tanya walked over and sat down at the computer. She started pecking at it. ‘What do you want?’
‘People are trapped in the Combat Chambers and we need you to get them out,’ Seraphin said.
Tanya squinted at the screen. ‘And you want me to try to use their intranet as a way into the main systems?’ She shrugged and hit view source on the page. ‘Oh, easy. I have no idea who coded this page but they clearly never expected anyone with any knowledge to ever see it. No offence.’ There followed a furious bout of typing. ‘There. See?’
A small Java box popped up with a prompt.
‘Well, that’s hopeful,’ Tanya remarked. ‘Hardly worth you turning on the full charm was it?’
‘I wasn’t,’ protested Seraphin. ‘Back rub?’
But Tanya was already embedded in the system. ‘It’s like this was coded by aliens,’ she muttered, then shrugged. ‘Probably was.’
‘Um,’ said Seraphin, ‘I was asking—’
‘About a back rub,’ muttered Tanya. ‘I have no idea if that works for you, but that’s just weird. Now,
please just stand about half a metre in front of the screen and look vaguely hot, and that’ll be fine. Okay?’
‘Erm, okay.’
Tanya turned to April and smiled at her. April smiled back. And a holographic pug nuzzled around their legs.
The Skandis poured into the Combat Bay. At first it was just the ones from Quill’s and Ram’s chambers. Then they started to open the other doors.
A Combat Chamber flew open.
A relieved soldier staggered out, only to realise what was waiting for him on the other side. A tentacle snatched him up, and threw him screaming against the far wall. The Skandis moved onto the next door.
Ram stood frozen. About an hour ago, this had all been easy—running around in a shooting gallery blasting aliens. The weirdness of the last few days had finally made some sort of sense. And now that had all gone so wrong. The surging force of Skandis—a dozen of them?—looked absurdly too big for the Combat Chamber, the air already stifling with their disgusting smell. Life had got all too much. Again.
‘They’re invading! Do something!’ Ram shouted at Miss Quill. If you’re out of your depth, find a responsible alien.
But Miss Quill, either still deaf or not caring, was backing out of the Bay, firing.
‘We’ve got to stop them!’ Ram shouted louder.
‘Already shooting them,’ Quill snapped back. ‘What more do you want?’
The Skandis crawled across the Bay, advancing as Quill retreated. Ram, edging back against the wall, kept his balance as best as he could.
Against the chaos, the screams, and the blasts, he could hear a voice.
What? He twisted slightly to see what the fuss was. Pressed up against the other side of a Combat Chamber door was Charlie. Desperate.
‘Interesting.’ Tanya had stopped staring at the screen and was instead looking at the holographic pug.
Seraphin knelt down and nuzzled its ears. ‘Is my dog annoying you?’ he asked.
‘No.’ Tanya’s voice was subdued. ‘It’s just . . . It’s awesome.’
‘It is, kind of,’ said Seraphin, watching as the pug clip-clopped over the floor. ‘Some kind of amazing alien thing.’
‘Yeah,’ Tanya said. ‘Sorry, distracted for a bit.’ She tapped the screen. ‘The systems I can get into are the helmet cameras.’ She opened up a browser tab. ‘We can see everything. And there’s a whole load of settings here . . .’ She pointed at a series of buttons at the bottom. ‘They’re greyed out, so you can’t alter them, but it may be a back way in. But to what, I don’t know.’
