Salvation

by Caryn Lix

  I shivered. I’d only experienced a psychic intrusion once before, and I hadn’t enjoyed it at all. But this was different. “This is information,” I told him, as much to reassure myself as anything. “And right now, information is power. The more we can get, the faster, the better.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I’m not fighting it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  Eden settled herself on the floor, cross-legged, Wendell in her lap clutching his bear. His grandmother, if that was what she was, hovered in the doorway. “Close your eyes,” Eden told us. “And try to relax.”

  “Will you be able to read our thoughts?” Mia demanded sharply.

  Eden sighed. “No. It works one way. You’re entirely safe. Is there anything else, or can we get started?”

  From Cage’s other side, Rune made a sound. I leaned around him to raise an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head, frowning, her lower lip working between her teeth.

  “All right,” said Eden before I pressed further. “Then here we go.”

  I closed my eyes, and for a moment, nothing happened. And then, all at once, a wave of dizziness overtook me. My eyes flew open, and I was standing on a crowded city street. People surrounded me—normal people like you’d see in any city on Earth—going about their business, enjoying what seemed like a summer day. “This was the city of Orrin before the attack,” Eden announced. I spun to find her walking toward me dressed in army fatigues, her dark hair glistening in the sun. I checked around but didn’t see any of my friends, only her. “It was a normal city in a hot area of the continent. Dry. A desert even then, but with irrigation and the like, we did all right. I lived here. I was stationed at a nearby base with …” She swallowed hard. “With my family. So was Gideon. We were in different sections of the military, but I knew him enough to say hello when we passed.”

  All at once the sky turned dark. Someone screamed. In the distance, sirens went off, and shots rang out. “The zemdyut had attacked once or twice before,” Eden continued conversationally. “We first learned of them a few hundred years ago when they dropped the devices that transformed our DNA. Slowly but surely, each subsequent generation developed more and more powers until it was almost impossible to find someone without an ability. We didn’t mind much. There was some initial fear and resistance, but the abilities were useful, and as more and more people developed them, they just became a part of life.”

  The sky shimmered overhead and formed into a familiar, hideous visage, an alien creature with milky-white eyes. I shuddered, clamping my hands into fists so hard my nails sank into my flesh. I’d seen the aliens before, of course. Faced them down. Stolen their ship, for God’s sake. But not this big, not this vivid.

  It wasn’t real, though, and Eden continued to narrate. “The creatures appeared rarely at first, striking in quick raids, taking our people. We didn’t know why, and we never seemed to be able to predict when they’d appear or fight against them. We began work on planetary defenses, trying to anticipate their arrival. And they, for their part, visited more frequently. Soon they were coming every few years, harvesting in the millions, tearing us apart. Planetary defense became a military focus. The military focus. We poured all of our time and energy into researching space travel, figuring out who the creatures were and where they’d come from. But before we could finish, they returned—this time for good.”

  The world shifted, like someone stirring coloring into a glass of water, and when it resettled, I was standing on the same street in a state of chaos. Fires raged unchecked. A few people huddled in alleys, sobbing or shouting for their families.

  And through the streets prowled the aliens. Dozens of them, hundreds even, when I’d never seen more than a few together at a time. The creatures scaled buildings; they preyed on anyone in their path with relentless determination. And still Eden stood quietly in their midst. “This wasn’t a harvest,” she said. “It was a massacre. The aliens dragged the bodies underground, and we never saw them again, but it quickly became evident that this time, they’d come for only one reason: to kill anyone left over. Our scientists theorized they’d harvested anyone with compatible DNA, and they were doing a sweep of the remainder, wiping us off the planet, the last step in claiming our territory. And that’s pretty much what they did. It was only through the quick thinking of a few soldiers that some of us survived.”

  In the streets, a man I recognized as a younger version of Gideon crept onto the scene, a few soldiers in tow. While others attacked the aliens with makeshift weapons, he and his crew slipped past them, gathering the injured, anyone they passed. They came to a pause in front of a large building plastered with yellow sale banners, and Gideon nodded his head, saying something to the woman beside him.

  An alien lunged from the rooftop. Gideon moved so fast I barely saw him. He snatched the boy the alien had targeted, tossed him aside, pivoted, and leaped onto the creature’s back. It threw its head back and howled, and Gideon’s arm flashed.

  Then Gideon was on the ground, coated in alien slime, and the creature was gurgling on its own blood. Gideon had shoved a knife right down its throat.

  I glanced to his face and saw the same pale eyes, but this time they reflected an instant of fear before settling into the professional mask I’d seen Legion wear so often. He wiped his hand over his face and gestured for the others to follow him. They did, ducking under the banners and into the building.

  The scene shifted again. Now I was looking at the city I recognized, the one I’d explored the day before. It was quiet and deserted, but closer examination showed the buildings weren’t in quite the state of decay they were now. This was some time after the alien attack, but not so long as I’d initially thought. “We survived,” said Eden grimly, and for the first time emotion entered her voice. “We gathered everyone we found, anyone the zemdyut missed in their decimation, and we collected them in the basement of a warehouse store. Gideon led us in fortifying the building. We blocked entranceways. We soundproofed. We created a warning system to alert people if the creatures approached. We cobbled together a rudimentary electrical system using people’s abilities. But we couldn’t rebuild. For one thing, we never knew when the zemdyut would appear. It was clear they hadn’t left, and we suspected they were somewhere in the desert.”

  Then the planet suddenly flew away beneath my feet, setting my stomach lurching and reminding me of antigrav drills back at Omnistellar camps. I struggled to steady myself, but my feet hadn’t actually moved. The world had just withdrawn, giving me a bird’s-eye view of the city surrounded by desert. “We think there’s a group of the creatures living here, beneath the ground.” Eden was standing beside me. When she gestured, a flashing red light appeared in the desert, some distance from the city. “We’ve managed to send a few scouts, and when they returned—if they returned—they reported seeing the creatures slip beneath the surface.

  “After a while, things started to return to … not normal, but more of an equilibrium. We’d go days without seeing the zemdyut. Weeks, even. When they did return, they usually stuck to the fringes of the city. Those areas had always been sparsely populated and, as I’m sure you noticed, weren’t as touched in the attacks.” The area surrounding the city, the outskirts, glowed yellow. “That’s why there were still supplies there. We left them for last, for when we got desperate. It was safer to raid the city center. It’s only in the last few months we’ve resorted to risking the outskirts. We’ve lost a few people. The zemdyut are aware of us now, if they weren’t before.” She hesitated a moment, inspecting the map spread out below us. “That’s why Gideon sent me to steal your supplies. I know what you must think of him, but … he was a good man. He took care of us all. He’d gotten scared over the last few years, paranoid he’d get everyone killed. Frustrated with life underground. Hell, we’re all there. Gideon simply felt it more. And yet … he was too scared to see what needed to be done. Convinced that if we moved a muscle, the zemdyut would somehow sense us, that they’d come after u
s, destroy us. He was willing to imprison everyone in this building for their entire lives as we slowly ran out of supplies, all in the name of security.”

  A trace of bitterness had entered her voice, and in that moment I read her frustration as the commanding officer she’d once regarded with something like reverence deteriorated into a shell of his former self, brushing off her every attempt to make him see the obvious. In a way it was almost like my view of my parents: the blinders falling away, the caring people they’d once been still there but buried under layers of betrayal and confusion. When I’d realized the truth about Omnistellar, I’d been left with no choice but to turn my back on the corporation. I suspected Eden found herself in the same position.

  She shook off the emotion and spread her arms. “I’m telling you this for a few reasons. First of all, I want you to understand who we are, where we’re coming from. Second, I need you to understand how desperate our situation is—and if you’re here, yours is too. Our supplies have almost vanished. Our only hope to find more outside of the city, and that’s impossible. The desert is a deathtrap.” She smiled. “But it’s not all doom and gloom. Because if you help us, well, I just might have a way to help you in return.”

  NINETEEN

  THE SIMULATION LURCHED, AND I jerked, my eyes flying open again. I was sitting on the floor of the break room in between Cage and Jasper, both of whom were gasping for air.

  Priya shot to her feet, the chair falling over behind her. “What the hell was that?” she growled.

  Eden smoothed her hand over Wendell’s head. “Easy,” she admonished Priya. To Wendell, she said, “Thanks, bud. You can go now. I’ll make sure you get something special to eat tonight, okay?”

  The boy raised his eyes, and for the first time he spoke, his voice a raspy whisper. “Chocolate?”

  Eden laughed and ruffled his hair. “I think I can manage that. Don’t tell anyone else, though.” She passed him off to his caretaker with a nod and, as they vacated the room, closed the door behind them. Only then did she return her attention to us. “He’s the reason I can’t give up,” she said quietly. “Him, and all the other people living here. Especially the children. They deserve more than this.”

  I staggered to my feet. Cage and Jasper followed suit and a moment later we were all standing, grouped in a loose circle around the table. “You said you could help us if we helped you,” I said slowly. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

  Eden folded her arms across her chest and analyzed each of us in turn. She wasn’t a tall woman, but she had presence. As she leveled her gaze across the room, not even Mia interrupted her. “We can’t go on like this,” she said. “It’s time we took the fight to the aliens. And with your help, I know where to start.”

  A babble of protest erupted, ranging from a semihysterical laugh from Reed to a drawn knife from Hallam. I only stared at Eden, trying to anticipate what was going on behind those dark eyes. She hadn’t spoken accidentally. She’d known the reaction she would provoke, and she was waiting for it to die down. That meant she had something big to offer. “What did you have in mind?”

  Eden braced her fists against the table, raking her eyes over us. “We’ve tried to fight the zemdyut before,” she said. “There are military facilities near here. Even a missile-storage range not too far away. We tried to get there, tried to blow them up. But we didn’t have the manpower or the technology to move the missiles, and now we don’t have enough soldiers left to try again. We need your help because we need information. I mean, we don’t even know why the creatures are still here, let alone why they want us dead.”

  “And how are we supposed to help with that?”

  “You mentioned that one of you had the power to interact with computers, with technology. Who is it?”

  I winced. The last thing I wanted to do was expose Rune to some half-formed plan. But before I could speak, Rune stepped forward, brushing Cage’s hand away when he tried to restrain her. “That’s me,” she said. There was a calm, almost powerful note in her voice, a confidence that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago.

  Eden nodded. “You might save us all,” she said, speaking directly to Rune. “I told you we thought the creatures were hiding in the desert, in an abandoned military base. The truth is, I know it. I know because Gideon and I tried to raid it once for supplies. We barely escaped with our lives, but before we did, we saw … things. Some kind of bizarre technology superimposed over our own. The creatures were taking over the facility entirely, creating their own base. Of course, even if we could get in there, we wouldn’t have a hope of understanding the tech. But you … you might.”

  “Let me get this straight,” said Priya dryly. “You want us to march into this alien hideout—a hideout we’ve never seen, where you and your pal Gideon almost died—infested with these creatures. Hundreds of them. Potentially thousands. And then you want Rune to mine the alien computers for information. Does that sum things up?”

  “Oh, it gets worse,” Eden replied pleasantly. “Sit down and I’ll show you.”

  Matt and Hallam looked to Priya, and everyone else looked to Cage and me. We looked to each other. But there weren’t any easy answers. “Let’s hear what she has to say,” Cage said at last, arching an eyebrow to see if he had my agreement. I gave him a fractional nod. “No harm in that, right?”

  I expected Priya to argue, if only on principle. But she sank into her chair and slowly so did the others. Those of us along the back wall remained standing. Without comment, Eden pulled something out of her pocket and slapped it onto the table. It resembled a half dome, but then she pressed a button and a shape emerged.

  Rune sucked in her breath. “It’s a holoprojector,” she said. “Way nicer than any I’ve ever seen, though. How’s it still running?”

  “Rechargeable batteries,” Eden explained. “We have someone who can power them.” She frowned. “It was meant to be a temporary measure, but at this point we’re almost totally dependent on him. That’s another reason I need to find new solutions.” She pressed a second button, and the light billowing from the dome took on a familiar shape: one of the aliens we’d seen on Sanctuary.

  It wasn’t my first chance to examine one in detail. I’d seen them sleeping in the dark. But somehow the holographic image removed some of the threat, and I took a step closer, allowing my curiosity to drive me.

  The creature was precisely what I remembered from Sanctuary: somewhat reptilian, with a long tail and milky-white, unseeing eyes. Its fangs curved over its bottom lip, and even its image seemed to twitch with unearthly intelligence. “We call these harvesters,” Eden announced. “They’re the first zemdyut we encountered. I gather you’ve run into them too. They’re the least dangerous of the lot, because they’re mostly aiming to incapacitate.”

  “Wait,” said Alexei. “Least dangerous … you mean there are other types?”

  “We thought there might be,” I reminded him. “On Obsidian. The aliens seemed different, somehow.”

  Eden nodded and pressed against the dome. The hologram shifted into another form, similar to the first. But now the differences stood out more starkly than on Obsidian. There, I’d been working from memory; now, having just seen the harvesters, I realized these aliens were taller, more sinewy. They had longer, sharper claws and more teeth. “These are hunters,” said Eden. “They have a much more singular purpose: to seek, to kill, and to destroy. They’re the ones who decimated our world. They tear through cities like tranol—predatory fish,” she added, catching our confused expressions. I nodded, committing the word to memory. “They leave nothing behind but destruction.”

  “We saw these,” said Imani. She drew closer to the table, a fascinated expression on her face. “On Obsidian. And on the ship.”

  “Hard to forget that face,” Hallam agreed in his slow drawl.

  “Please tell me that’s the end of it.” There was an edge to Cage’s voice, a tension radiating off him, and anxiety stirred in my stomach.

  Becau
se the look in Eden’s eyes told us no, that wasn’t the end of it.

  “There’s one more type,” she said. “We don’t see it very often, but when we do, well … I’m going to leave the hunter active so you have a size comparison.”

  She hit a button, and a collective gasp went up around the room.

  The … thing that appeared was easily three times the height of the hunter, which was already a good five feet tall, even hunched over with its spine bent. It appeared less reptilian than its compatriots and more human, although it was still a pretty far cry from anything I’d try to have a conversation with. But its skull seemed more mammalian, its claws extended from some sort of fingers, and its eyes held an eerie intelligence.

  “If a Sasquatch had a baby with a T. rex,” said Reed dryly, “this thing is what you’d get.”

  Jasper snorted. No one else responded, not even Hallam. We were too busy gawking in horrified fascination at the hologram dominating the room.

  “That …” I swallowed. “Where did it come from?”

  Eden shrugged. She stepped back and studied the hologram appraisingly, and I got the sense it wasn’t the first time she’d stood and stared at the thing. Hardening herself to the horror of it, maybe? Or hoping to find a weakness? “It appeared after the initial attack,” she said. “For all I know, it’s the only one of its kind. To be honest, I’ve only ever seen it twice. The first time was in the aftermath of the city’s destruction, when we were herding the survivors into the store. Suddenly this thing just … appeared. I mean, it must have come from somewhere, but for something so big it was intensely silent. And did you notice its eyes?”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly.

  Milky-white cataracts blinded the aliens. It was our only advantage over them, the only reason we’d ever escaped with our lives.

  But this creature’s eyes peered ahead with dark, menacing intelligence.

  “They can see,” Rune whispered, a tremor in her voice. “Oh my God, they can see.”