by Caryn Lix
I blinked at her in confusion, then dawning comprehension. Of course. If we were going to tear our way into an underground bunker, we’d probably want to make sure there was nothing waiting for us there.
Matt closed his eyes, then shrugged. “No signs of life. But remember, I can’t sense the aliens.”
“I think I can,” I replied dubiously. I wasn’t sure about my newfound connection yet, but something told me that if the creatures were this close, I would know it. “I don’t think they’re down there. Anyway, it’s worth the risk if it means we can escape this desert.” When no one argued, I turned to Jasper. “What do I do?”
“Feel for something solid, then pull. You’ll know when you’ve found it.”
“Okay,” I repeated, letting Jasper’s power flow through me. I’d never used his ability before. Feel for something solid. It wasn’t as natural as, say, running quickly or fading into invisibility. This took effort and strength. But as I adjusted to his power, I felt it: a connection to something beneath the ground. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Then let’s go!” I pulled with all my might. Instantly I lurched forward as something jerked against me. Jasper did the same and ground his teeth together, digging his heels into the sand, his arms raised as if physically wrestling with whatever we were pulling. I mimicked his actions, sweat beading on my forehead as I tugged. A compelling force nudged the edge of my awareness. We could go much quicker if we simply demolished whatever we were battling, tearing it to shreds and ripping the pieces up individually—but if it was something mechanical or, worse yet, a weapon, we might wreck it or kill ourselves in the process. So I resisted the destructive urge and focused on pulling, my breath shortening, my lungs tight, until finally the sand gave in a shower of silt and grain.
A huge chunk of metal tore straight into the sky, and with its release Jasper and I lurched backward, landing flat in the dirt. The metal spun overhead and plummeted toward us, and instinctively I threw up my hands, but before it could hit, shadows dove in front of me.
Matt and Priya. They’d caught the jagged, torn metal—easily seven feet by ten—and were holding it over their heads with minimal effort, although they were crouched low with the force of impact. They tossed it aside, and it landed twenty feet away.
I groaned and dropped to my back, the hot sand burning my exposed neck. All that work for a huge chunk of metal. We’d probably torn out part of a wall. “Great,” I managed. “We’ve discovered sheet metal. Good work, Jasper.”
“Um, guys?”
I straightened. Rune was standing over the hole we’d torn in the ground, and when she looked up, there was a wide grin across her face. “I think you’d better come see this.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
I STAGGERED TO MY FEET, but my knees collapsed, and I would have hit the ground if Cage hadn’t caught me against him. “Here,” he said, handing me a bottle of water. I took a long drag, grateful even as I was aware of the need to conserve liquid.
“Thanks,” I managed. “Jasper, that was exhausting.”
“It’s not usually that bad.” He ran his hands over his long, dark hair, smoothing it into place. “Thanks, Kenz. I don’t think I would have been able to do it without you.” He shrugged. “Of course, it turns out it was just a big piece of metal and I could have disintegrated it, but who knew, right?”
“Would you two stop talking and get over here?” Mia shouted impatiently. Her two settings now seemed to be silent and screaming, and no one dared to argue with her, not with her grief hanging over her like a demon. Besides, anything was better than the shell-shocked daze she’d slipped into before.
I took Cage’s hand, and we stumbled over the sand to where everyone gathered around a massive hole.
“Jackpot,” Rune whispered. She spun and threw her arms around Matt. “You found it!”
Blood surged to Matt’s cheeks as he awkwardly patted Rune’s back. “Um … yeah. I guess I did.”
Hallam snorted. “Who found it?” he muttered, but he was smiling.
Mia angled a flashlight into the hole. “Looks like three or four jeeps and a whole bunch of lockers. If we’re lucky, they contain weapons.”
“If we’re lucky,” Cage countered, “they contain water.”
Mia shrugged and leaped into the hole.
My eyes flew open so wide it hurt my forehead. “Mia!” I shouted. That was a twenty-foot drop, easy.
“I’m fine!” she called. “I landed on …” That was followed by cursing. “Okay, maybe I twisted my ankle or something.”
Reed groaned. “We’d better get down there. Any ideas that don’t involve jumping?”
“I have a rope,” replied Hallam, pulling it out of his backpack. “And incidentally, you’d better keep an eye on that girl. She doesn’t seem to have much concern for her own life anymore, which means she isn’t going to be particularly careful about yours, either.”
Cage squeezed my hand, his chin set sharply, and I knew the idea had already occurred to him. It was new to me, though. I’d been worried about Mia, not about us. “Cut her some slack,” I replied, as much to Cage as Hallam. We were speaking quietly, but Mia had ears like a rabbit, so I lowered my voice even further. “She just lost the only person I think she really loved, someone who—” Suddenly, to my horror, my own voice choked off as I remembered Alexei—all the times he’d quietly shielded one of us from harm, or the way he’d cared for Anya, the little girl we’d found on Sanctuary. One of us would have to tell Anya he’d died. She was waiting for him on Mars, expecting him to return. The realization rocked me, and my breath caught in my chest.
Cage’s arms came around me. “I know,” he said softly, and there was a tremor in his voice. “But we … we have to get through this first, okay? And then we can grieve.”
“You don’t have to tell me about putting grief aside.” My voice emerged sharper than I intended as I stepped out of his arms. “I’ve lost both my parents and half my friends in this mess.”
“Hello!” Mia shouted. “Is anyone else coming? Cage, you’ll be happy to hear there are emergency rations in the lockers. Weapons, too, more importantly.”
I drew a deep breath. “Right. Rune, do you think you can get one of those jeeps running?”
She frowned. “Maybe, but … I work with computers, not engines. They’re different.”
“Seriously?” Priya gaped at us. “You don’t have a working mechanic on your team?”
“We’re not a team,” I pointed out. “We were thrown together by circumstance, and … wait. Does that mean you do?”
“Of course.” Hallam finished tying the rope off around Imani’s waist. “Hang tight, sweetheart. I’m gonna lower you down to your friend.”
Imani smiled at him warmly. “Call me sweetheart again, and I’ll stab you somewhere nonessential. Just so you know.”
“Copy that,” Hallam replied with a grin. I was starting to like him a bit more. Especially since I suspected he was the team’s mechanic.
“I’m not sure I can lift a jeep out of there,” Jasper said, peering into the hole as Imani disappeared. “My power is more about rearranging inanimate matter and less about moving it.”
Hallam snorted. “I just saw you rip a metal roof into the sky.”
“Yes, by wrenching it off its foundation and hurling it into the air. I was rearranging the molecules as much as anything else. If I start doing that with a jeep, there’s no guarantee I’ll put them back together just the same way. It’s why I don’t usually mess with anything mechanical.”
“Shouldn’t matter,” I said, staring into the darkness reflectively. “I mean, this is a military base. Presumably if they put those things inside, they had a plan for getting them out again, right?”
“Good thinking.” Hallam pulled the empty rope out of the hole and tossed it to me. “Let’s get you down there so you can prove your theory.”
One by one, we all entered the dark hole. It was metal and cement inside and looked like
a garage. It even smelled like one, old electronics and fuel. Hallam whistled softly as he popped the hood on a jeep. That explained why it was separate from the rest of the building, or at least it did in my experience: Omnistellar often stored vehicles and weapons separately, in case of just this kind of disaster. “This is going to take some doing. Matt, scout around for usable parts, would you?”
I inspected the walls. They were plastered with aging posters: mechanical diagrams, family photos, and even an old note, curled with age and faded, that just said STOP STEALING MY YOGURT. I ran my fingers over a dusty workbench.
“At least now we can get to the city faster,” said Rune from behind me. I turned to meet her eyes, and she smiled softly. “I’m not looking forward to forcing information out of Eden. What she did sucked, but … I kind of understand it. I feel like Cage would have done the same thing to protect us.”
“You might be right,” I allowed. “But if she’d only asked us, we might have helped her. Instead she lied to us and tricked us. I’m not going to forgive her in a hurry.”
Rune’s eyes flashed. “Oh, I didn’t say I forgave her. Especially with what happened to …” She closed her eyes for a moment, her lips trembling. “You think Mia will be okay?”
I focused across the room, where Mia was kneeling in front of a locker, stacking what looked like some sort of automatic laser pistols. “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I hope so. But …”
“Yeah,” Rune agreed. She shook her head and changed the subject. “Found any sign of a way out yet?”
“No, but there must be one.” I gestured around helplessly. We hadn’t even seen a door. There was no way they hadn’t built an entrance and exit to this place. Even if someone possessed the ability to telekinetically move in and out with their power, you’d think a garage would be a place you’d want everyone to have access to, not just some random person.
“Come on. I’ll help you look. Maybe we’ll find a computer terminal or something.”
Rune and I spread along the far wall, leaving the circle of light behind us. We had three flashlights, and Hallam had strung two on the lockers, angling them at the jeep. Rune and I had the third. We went along the wall, and after a moment I found what I was searching for.
I groaned loudly. “Rune, there’s a circle lift here, or something like it.”
She joined me to inspect it. “Yup. Nonfunctional for a long time. It might lead to an exit buried in the sand.”
I frowned. Okay, so this was how people accessed the garage, but … “You can’t get a vehicle out this way. There has to be another exit. Let’s keep looking.”
Suddenly, behind us, Hallam gave a whoop of joy. “Okay, that ought to do it! Priya, give this baby a try for me.”
I heard Priya’s heavy sigh all the way from my spot on the opposite wall, but she must have complied, because a moment later she said, “Nothing.”
“Damn it. Okay. I have another idea. Hang tight.”
Rune and I exchanged glances. “You trust them?” I asked.
“We don’t have much choice.” She hesitated. “Does Cage?”
I frowned. “I’m honestly not sure. He trusts Matt, I think.”
A smile blossomed on Rune’s face, quickly smothered, although it resurfaced as a flush in her cheeks. “Matt’s still one of us,” she replied.
We resumed our search, but barely a moment later Hallam shouted behind us. We spun again to see the others gathered around the jeep. “We’ve got it working,” Cage called to me, a genuine grin on his face. I’d thought I’d never see that smile again. “It needs a few hours to charge, but afterward we should be able to move. How are we doing on time?”
I closed my eyes and narrowed in on the alien presence. I’d been tuning it out, which was less difficult than I anticipated, kind of like ignoring a mosquito bite. If you paid too much attention to it, you couldn’t think of anything else, but leave it alone and distract yourself, and it faded into the background. Now, though, I scratched the itch until the alien minds slithered against mine, and I shuddered. “We should have time,” I answered dubiously. Everyone was relying on me for information I didn’t really understand. “The signal still feels distant.”
“Great. Now we only need a way out.”
I returned to the wall in answer. A moment later, my fingers hit something cold and metal and smooth. “Rune, want to shine that light over here?” I asked.
She joined me and we found ourselves regarding a flat-screen panel in the wall. With a frown, she passed the light to me, closed her eyes, and laid her hands on the panel. It flickered briefly, then came to life, revealing an unfamiliar insignia as it loaded.
I examined the row of options. “There’s a door switch,” I said, my excitement mounting. I pressed it, but nothing happened.
“The power’s out,” Cage said from behind me. I jumped a mile and spun to glare at him, and he gave me a quick smile. “It probably runs on electronics. Rune?”
She hesitated. “Get the power running to the whole place? It’s not a computer, gege.”
“No, but you’ve been powering things, electronic things. This shouldn’t be much different. What do you think?”
“Maybe if Kenzie helps?” She smiled at me. “I know the last time you used my power, things didn’t go well, but … this should be different.”
“Sure.” I nodded, trying to mask my apprehension. I wasn’t afraid I’d plummet into the alien world again, but … what if I somehow strengthened my connection with them? Made them aware of me?
Rune must have read my concern. “Let me try on my own first.” She settled on the ground and closed her eyes. For a long time nothing happened. I looked at Cage, and he shrugged. We stood side by side, ignoring the others talking in the background, until finally Rune raised her head on a gasp of air. “I think it can be done,” she said. “But Kenzie, it’ll take more power than I have. I need you. I’m sorry. I do.”
“No, it’s okay.” I settled beside her, drawing strength from her knee against mine, from Cage standing protectively over us. “Tell me what to do.”
“Just … reach out and touch the system.” She smiled ruefully. “That’s not helpful, is it? It’s so hard to describe.”
“Let me try.” I closed my eyes and found Rune’s shimmering silvery power, drawing it in and wrapping it around myself, consciously blocking the area of my mind where the aliens lurked. Then, not really sure what I was doing, I imagined the same power bleeding out of me, flowing into the walls, wending its way along wires and mesh.
For a few moments, nothing happened. Then a sudden shock jolted through me. Even with my eyes closed I saw everything: light and connections and colors and all of it, all of it bound together in a mess of gleaming lines. “Oh,” I whispered, and I touched the connection.
Instantly a sharp rending shot through the room, followed by the shrill of an alarm. My eyes flew open, and I clamped my hands over my ears, realizing as I did that I could see everyone clearly. The lights were on. An alarm was blaring.
And, in front of me, part of the wall shuddered open.
THIRTY-NINE
SUNLIGHT AND HEAT SPILLED INTO the room along with a massive quantity of sand as the wall slid apart, revealing a long, sloped incline. It was covered in dirt, most of which cascaded into the room, covering my feet to my ankles. That must have been why we couldn’t see it from outside—years of sand had settled into the crevice, blocking it from the human eye.
But it was a way out, and a big one, clearly designed for the vehicles. We’d found our escape. Now all we had to do was wait for the jeeps to charge, drive back to the city, beat the location of the missile storage out of Eden, and find a way to defeat Karoch. “No problem,” I whispered out loud, semihysterical laughter welling inside me.
“What?” Cage pulled me against him with one arm and grabbed his sister with the other.
“Nothing.” I shook my head, but I couldn’t help smiling. Finally, something had gone right.
&nbs
p; “You did it. Both of you.” Cage kissed first my cheek and then Rune’s. She laughed and shoved him away, and he let her go to pull me in closer. “If nothing else, you saved us from walking through that desert. And if Hallam can get the other jeeps working, we might have a hope of getting out of here before the aliens find us.”
We set ourselves to organizing the place. Hallam worked on the jeeps. Now that we’d activated the power, it functioned without Rune’s intervention, running on a backup charge. “It just needed a boost,” she explained, her voice distant, already immersed in the computer system—or what she could access, since she said the garage didn’t exactly link to the most important files. The rest of us scavenged the weapons, emergency supplies, and armor while the jeeps charged.
After a while I drifted back to Rune’s side. “Any luck?”
She slammed her hand against the console in frustration. “I’m in the system. The power’s still functioning, so I don’t have to maintain contact now that I’ve turned it on. That should make it easier, but I’ve hacked through all the security and still … nothing. This network isn’t what you’d expect from a military installation. It looks like a child installed it. No rhyme, reason, or organization.”
“Want someone else to take a look?” I suggested without much hope. If Rune couldn’t find the missiles, no one else stood much of a chance. Still, she was tired, and fresh eyes might help.
But she shook her head, her jaw set in a grim line of determination. “A computer’s never beat me yet, Kenzie. I’ll be damned if this one is the first.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “Okay. Just … don’t wear yourself out, all right? Remember, we have the vehicles now. We can make our way to the city, grab Eden while she’s out for supplies, and get the answer that way.”
“As much as I’d like that …” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes glazed over. Her fingers, which had been flying over the keyboards, melded with the hardware up to her knuckles.
“Rune?” I asked nervously.
