by Caryn Lix
I was about to call Cage over when her eyes flew open and she jerked upright. “I found it,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
Even though it was what we’d wanted, a cold feeling of foreboding seized my heart. “What?”
“I found it!” she shouted, loud enough to bring everyone running to her side. “Eden’s missile storehouse. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles from here.”
“Rune, that’s fantastic.” I swallowed the strange reluctance and leaned over her shoulder, examining the map displayed on the screen. “If we can head straight there without going through Eden …”
“We can’t seriously be considering this,” Imani objected. “Setting off a massive explosion? I mean, how do we outrun something like that?”
“By skipping the dimension,” I replied grimly. “That’s the plan, right?” And praying we were far enough from the city not to affect Eden and her people. Eden might deserve it. The children did not.
“How do we activate these bombs?” Matt asked.
“Leave that to me,” Rune said softly. But she wasn’t meeting his eyes, and something about her demeanor seemed off. I looked to Cage, who frowned and shrugged. What was worrying Rune? Had she discovered something in the system, something she wasn’t telling us about?
I opened my mouth to ask, but Priya cut in. “You’re absolutely certain Karoch has the ability to move between dimensions? And that you can borrow its power? Because if not, we’ll be walking into a trap with two choices: kill the creatures and ourselves in a bomb blast, or let them tear us to shreds.”
I reoriented on her. “The first part? Definitely. Karoch is the source of their power, the physical embodiment of what they are and can do. It’s their center. And it’s the thing that lets them move between dimensions. As for the second, well …” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “That’s less certain.”
A long silence followed. “Great,” said Matt at last, but without heat.
“You got a better idea?” Cage asked, as if he genuinely hoped for a positive response. I didn’t blame him. I wanted just about any other possibility too.
But no one did, and eventually we all agreed to spend a few hours resting while the vehicles charged, then get moving once the sun went down. Hallam figured he could get three vehicles running, which meant we wouldn’t be crammed in. And there was even food of a sort: dry emergency rations and some kind of weird pouches of clear fluid we gambled were water, and which did indeed seem to quench our thirst.
Mia, bristling with weapons, declared herself our guard and climbed the rope hand over hand. Cage gawked after her and shook his head. “I’d better at least bring her some water and something to shade herself,” he said, pulling a camouflage ball cap out of a locker.
“Planning to climb the rope, gege?” asked Rune.
Cage flashed her a brief grin. “I think I’ll use the door.”
Matt sidled up beside me. We both craned our necks, staring at the gaping hole in the ceiling where Mia had disappeared. “You think she’ll be okay?” I asked.
Matt sighed. “Mia’s Mia. Give her time. Keep out of her way. It’s all you can really do.”
I peeked at him from of the corner of my eye, trying to ascertain how much he was willing to discuss. “Are you okay? I mean, you’ve been through a lot. More than any of us, maybe.”
He scrubbed his hands over his shorn head and forced a smile. “Well, it’s better now that we’ve stopped hunting you. Getting your insides ripped apart, dying over and over, it takes a toll. Legion’s were the first friendly faces I saw after that whole experience, and they took care of me. I bonded to them pretty quickly. When they said we had to hunt you down, I didn’t feel like I could argue. Plus … well, I was angry. I didn’t understand what happened.”
“And now?”
“Now, I guess I do.” He shrugged. “Which isn’t to say I’m happy about it, but … it’s life, right? It happens. You suck it up and move on and hope things get better.”
“Well, they can’t get much worse.”
He winced. “Why would you say that?”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Matt, we’re about to set off an explosion in an alien dimension in the hopes of destroying creatures who might be brutalizing everyone and everything we know and love at this very moment. We’ve already lost dozens of people, some …” I swallowed hard, closing my eyes for a moment. “Some more recently than others. I mean, seriously. I don’t think I’m tempting fate when I say this is about as bad as things get.”
“There’s always more to lose, Kenzie … ,” Matt said softly.
I sighed and looked around at the rest of my friends. He wasn’t wrong. Switching to a lighter topic, I said, “Right now I feel like I’d give almost anything for a big bowl of ice cream, a quiet air-conditioned room, and the latest issue of Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5. I downloaded it on my comm, but I never got to read it.”
“Rune could probably charge the battery.”
I sighed and displayed the gaping hole in my wrist. “I had to throw it away. It was … corrupted, for lack of a better word. It’s okay. I can wait until we kill the aliens to find out what happens to Yumiko. It’ll be my incentive for getting through alive.”
Matt laughed, not unkindly. “That’s your incentive?”
“Not like I have any family to go home to,” I said, sounding more bitter than the flippant tone I’d intended.
Matt nodded seriously. “That’s a big part of why I teamed up with Legion, you know. My family.” He tapped his arm. “Synthetic. Cybernetic core. Strong as hell.” His finger moved to his temple. “Enhanced vision. Better hearing. Pneumatic goddamn Achilles tendons. Even my lungs and heart were upgraded. So if I get away from this life, I can make sure my family stays safe. That’s all I care about now.”
I folded my arms and examined my scuffed boots, ideas racing through my head. “You’re right,” I said at last. “That’s all that matters.” And my family now? It was these people—Cage and Rune, Mia, Jasper, Reed, Imani, and even Legion, all of us bound together by trauma if not genetics.
Matt gave my shoulder a half pat, half punch, and wandered off toward Hallam while I made my way into a corner. I watched everyone: Imani and Rune playing some sort of card game with what seemed to be half a deck, Priya and Jasper dozing in chairs, Reed interjecting himself between Matt and Hallam, apparently as much a fan of car engines as he was of spaceships.
They were a disjointed, mismatched, ragtag bunch of survivors, and I loved them so much it set off a physical ache in my stomach.
Eden had tried to kill them. She’d succeeded with one of us. I closed my eyes and gave myself permission to recall every detail of the base beneath the sand: Alexei’s arms spread wide, the tension radiating across his face, the way he’d passed Mia to Cage. I’d never seen him turn on Mia, not even to restrain her. But I knew Mia, and there had been no other way to keep her from marching pointlessly into death alongside him. And if I knew that, well, Alexei knew it all the better.
Cage came in through the door, his hair hanging limp in his face, his normally bright eyes dull and hooded. He scanned the room for a moment, blinking as his vision adjusted, and when his gaze landed on me, it softened. He crossed the room to sit beside me. “How’s Mia?” I asked.
“I honestly don’t know. She’s talking to me again, but she won’t discuss Alexei or what happened in the base. If I bring it up, she changes the subject or shuts down completely. She did take some water and promised to come in if she gets uncomfortable, so … that’s something?”
“You know what happened wasn’t your fault, right?”
Cage shrugged, and I realized that was exactly what he thought. “I mean, she’s not wrong. I carried her out of there.”
“You saved her life.”
“She didn’t want it to be saved.” He smiled slightly. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it again. I’m just saying I don’t feel great about taking that choice away from her. But it’s wha
t Alexei wanted, and …” He turned away, cupping the back of his neck as if simply saying the name pained him.
“How long did you know Alexei?”
He shrugged again.
“Cage?” I pulled him around in time to see him wipe away tears, and my own eyes welled in response. “Cage. Come here.” I wrapped my arms around him, and he tightened his grip on my arms, holding me almost painfully. His whole body trembled. I pressed my face to his, and our tears mingled in a silent, painful trail of grief.
We clutched each other, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t cry anymore. Cage was right to hide his sorrow. We couldn’t let the others see us like this, not now, not with so much riding on what came next. We had to stay strong for a little longer. And I was getting good at that, after all the death I’d seen. “You’d think it would stop being so awful,” I whispered, half to myself.
“Losing someone you love?” Cage drew back just enough to wipe at his eyes. “I don’t think it ever gets easier. I don’t think it should.”
He was right. The pain meant we were still human. The creatures hadn’t succeeded in transforming us into them, not yet.
Speaking of which … “We created them,” I said dully.
Cage didn’t even pretend to misunderstand me. “Well, not us, exactly.”
“Humans created them. Or … reanimated them. To use in a war.” My face twisted of its own accord, my grief coalescing into fury. “A stupid war that no one even remembers because there’s no one left to remember it.”
“You think Omnistellar wouldn’t have done the same? That was their whole goal, right? Get their hands on alien tech, stay on top of the game.” He examined my expression and sighed. “I’m not saying that to make you feel worse. I’m just pointing out that where you have people, you’ll always have a few assholes willing to sacrifice everything if it means keeping a step ahead. So yeah, humans created them. Does it really matter? It doesn’t change what they are or what we need to do next.”
“No,” I agreed softly. “All it does is make the losses a little harder to bear, knowing that in a sense we’re responsible for them.”
“Kenzie, I …” He closed his eyes in apparent frustration.
I tilted my head, examining the drawn angles of his face, the lines that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. “You’re exhausted, aren’t you?”
“Aren’t we all?”
“You didn’t answer me,” I pointed out. I nudged him over to curl against his side. “You’re right, Cage. Wherever the zemdyut came from, whoever created them, it doesn’t change what we need to do next. Or what you need. Rest. Let everyone take care of themselves for a while.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“I’ll sleep if you will.”
He hesitated a moment, and then a smile tugged at his lips. “Deal,” he said. He pulled me in for a kiss, slow and soft and warm. We were both too tired for it to hold any real fire, although as always, his touch awakened something in my heart, in my stomach, even in the tips of my toes. And then he pulled me in against him, and I nestled in and closed my eyes and finally, finally, let everything fade to silence.
FORTY
JASPER NUDGED US AWAKE A bit later. “Hey,” he said softly, his face shadowed in the fluorescent lights. “The jeeps are charged. We should get moving.”
I rolled my neck and stirred. Cage’s arms tightened around me, and he groaned, demonstrating his usual reluctance to wake up. “What time is it?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, but it’s getting dark.”
I gently extricated myself from Cage’s grasp and clambered to my feet. Everyone else was gathered around the vehicles, and I frowned. “You should have woken us sooner.”
“We thought you needed the sleep.”
He wasn’t wrong. I closed my eyes and checked in on the alien presence, but it was dimmer now. I hoped I wasn’t losing my connection. It seemed like a strange thing to hope for, that a weird alien presence would linger in my brain, but without it I didn’t know how we would find the creatures at all. Or how they would find us. That was the key. Karoch had been on its way to deal with us personally, I was sure of that. It was my job to make sure it found us.
Cage stirred and got to his feet, scrubbing at his face. I smiled in spite of myself.
“We have three working jeeps,” Priya announced, “and I’m going to suggest Legion drive them.”
“Why Legion?” Mia demanded.
“Do you know how to drive?”
An awkward silence met her question. “I do,” I said defiantly. It was part of Omnistellar training.
“Yes, but you also have aliens in your brain,” Hallam pointed out. I decided maybe I didn’t like him so much after all.
“So that’s settled. Matt, Hallam, and I will each take a jeep. The rest of you pile in where you see fit.”
Rune instantly hopped into the passenger seat next to Matt, and Cage and I settled in behind them. Mia and Jasper rode with Priya, Reed and Imani with Hallam. We redistributed the comm units to the drivers, giving us a means of communication between vehicles, and we were off, our car in the lead, Rune directing Matt in her soft, soothing voice.
It was getting dark, and the interior of the jeep was climate controlled, and before long I’d sagged against Cage and gone back to sleep.
I didn’t know how much time passed before I found myself blinking against the darkness, somehow aware that I was not myself, that I’d slipped through my dreams and into the alien hive mind. Maybe it was my dream state, but it wasn’t overwhelming like direct contact was, not a nightmare of conflicting shapes and ideas and fears. I was less of a participant and more of an observer, although the slow, insidious crawl of the hive still called to me.
It was scary how a part of me wanted to turn to it, yield to it, open myself and let the group sweep me away, devour any loneliness or self-doubt or grief. It was the part that wanted to fall and not get up, the part that had curled into a ball when my mom betrayed me, when she died, when Dad died, when Alexei died …
But I was stronger than that part of me.
I’d pushed it aside all of those times, and I did it again now. I was stronger than I’d been when I was merely an Omnistellar guard. Back then I’d thought pretty highly of myself. I’d excelled in my training and I figured it made me better than everyone else. Now I saw myself for what I’d really been: successfully brainwashed, desperately striving for the approval of the people who controlled me. Becoming a wanted criminal had, ironically, freed me.
The aliens offered just another kind of imprisonment. There was no danger of me returning to that.
I took a step into the darkness, and the world shimmered around me. I couldn’t see anything, exactly, not with my eyes, but I sensed them all around me: the writhing collective, the creatures sludging forward, and behind them, driving them all, the massive thing called Karoch. I sensed the force of the aliens, their power, their strength.
A shudder went through me. In my mind Karoch was a black hole of compulsion, drawing me in and repelling me at the same time. I steeled myself to stay focused. The creatures were tunneling belowground. But they weren’t where I expected to find them. In fact, now that I really paid attention, they weren’t moving at all. Had they stopped for a break? Did they need breaks?
My mind brushed the edge of an important awareness, something critical. I turned to it reluctantly. It was further into the collective, further past the safe distance I currently stood at. My heart clamored for me to turn back, but instead I pressed forward, the collective swirling and enveloping and—
“Kenzie?”
I jolted awake, shaking my head as the jeep rumbled over a bump in the desert.
Cage was bent over me, his hand on my arm, and Rune was staring at me in the rearview mirror.
“What’s going on?” I managed. My mouth felt fuzzy.
“You were mumbling in your sleep,” said Matt. “We couldn’t understand it, but you sounded … wrong. We thought
we’d better wake you up.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to spin my mind back to the dream, or whatever it had been. The predominant image was one of darkness and cold.
“Is something wrong?” Rune asked.
“No. The creatures are tunneling underground, just like we suspected. They really don’t like the surface. I guess we’re lucky that wasn’t bred out of them somehow. Otherwise they’d be stalking around up here all the time.” But something was wrong. They’d stopped, hadn’t they? I searched for an explanation, then shook my head. “Having these creatures in your head isn’t as useful as you might think.”
“Cheer up, alien girl,” Matt replied. “We’re almost there.”
“How much longer?”
“Just a few minutes. Look, you can see the facility ahead.”
Cage and I scrambled forward, peering between the seats at the shadowy shape in the distance. “Doesn’t look like much,” Cage said dubiously.
Rune tipped her head back to roll her eyes at him. “It’s dark, dummy. Of course it doesn’t look like much. Besides, what did you expect? Flashing neon signs reading WE STORE OUR EXPLOSIVES HERE?”
Cage fidgeted with the edge of the seat. “Are we sure about this?” he asked quietly. He regarded each of us in turn. “I know it’s our only option. I understand. But … this is so much more than anything we’ve ever done. And that’s saying something.”
“Let’s see.” Rune ticked off each statement on her fingers. “We escaped a supposedly inescapable prison. We defeated a horde of alien invaders and stole their spaceship. We escaped another prison on Mars. We survived a team of nasty bounty hunters.” She slapped Matt’s arm when she said this, and a slow smile spread over his face, although his eyes remained fixed on the desert ahead. “We escaped another exploding ship to travel to an alternate dimension, and then we survived a plot to kill us.”
“Some of us survived,” corrected Cage quietly.
Rune’s face fell. “Some of us,” she repeated.
I hated to see the joy drain from her like that. I nudged her arm. “What’s your point?”
