Virtue of War

by L O Addison

  They all nodded, and Adrien turned back around, silently gesturing for them to follow. Their steps were cautious as they turned to the left and followed the subway tracks deeper into the depths of the crumbling tunnel. Adrien kept a handful of pebbles in one hand and his tablet in the other, consulting the map every few seconds. As he ventured forward, he flicked the pebbles at the invisible traps, activating them and making it obvious where they should avoid stepping.

  As they crept another thirty yards down the tunnel, the red haze surrounding Kaylin seemed to grow brighter. Kaylin realized that meant they’d left behind the last of the natural sunlight; she was relying solely on the night-vision glasses now. But to her relief, the glasses kept her surroundings perfectly crisp and clear.

  Kaylin glanced over at Beck and tapped at the glasses. “Where did the Resistance get these?” she asked. She kept her voice as a whisper, but it still echoed around the tunnel, making Red grumble a low growl.

  “They’re Syndicate tech,” Beck replied. “But human scientists have figured out how to replicate them.”

  “They’re Serru-Min tech,” Marin corrected, her voice curt. “They’re a humanoid species from the planet Ku’rin Tair. The Syndicate must have stolen them before they came to Earth.”

  “I usually hate anything alien, but I’ll make an exception for these,” Adrien said, craning his neck as he gazed around the tunnel. “These things are way better than the goggles I used to use.”

  “Don’t get used to them,” Marin said. “They change the spectrum of light your eyes can pick up. Your brain can adapt for a short while, but leave them on too long, and you’ll scramble your normal eyesight.”

  Adrien shrugged. “Worth the risk.” He turned back to the map, consulting it as they moved forward. In an odd way, he reminded Kaylin of a young businessman, all brisk confidence and no-nonsense attitude.

  A question struck Kaylin, one that had been in the back of her mind ever since she'd met the boy.

  "Adrien?" she said.

  He glanced up at her.

  "How did you end up being in charge of all your siblings?"

  His steps faltered for just a second. Clearly, he wasn't used to people asking about his past. But then his shoulders straightened in a challenging stance, and he said, "Because I was the best one for the job."

  "Why?" Kaylin pressed.

  "I went to a boarding school before the Syndicate War struck," Adrien said. "Saint Augustine's International."

  He said the school's name proudly, like he expected Kaylin to know it. She'd never heard of it, but an elite boarding school explained a few things—how Adrien spoke English so well, his upper-class mannerisms, his obvious intellect.

  "Our school was bombed early on in the war," Adrien continued. "Pretty much all the staff died, and at that point, the only students left at the school were the ones whose families had already been killed. I was the president of my class, so I took charge, because everyone expected me to."

  He said this completely matter-of-factly, as if being elected class president of a middle school just naturally came with the duty of guiding classmates through life-or-death situations. Kaylin shook her head, silently marveling at the boy's resilience.

  "Are all your siblings from your school?" she asked.

  "No," he said. "Only a few. The others have just gradually joined us over the years."

  "You must be a good leader, if people want to be a part of your family."

  Adrien's expression suddenly darkened with pain, and his voice grew quiet as he said, "I do my best."

  Before Kaylin could reply, something ahead of them caught her eye. She stumbled to a stop, peering at the hulking form in the distance. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, but Adrien didn’t even pause. He continued striding forward, leading them straight toward the twisted, towering shape.

  Kaylin let out a breath of relief as they neared. It was just an old subway train, its metal warped and charred from a fire. It had derailed from the electromagnetic tracks and tipped on its side, where it’d smashed into the wall. Crumbled concrete and jagged metal littered the ground around it, and the front half of the train looked like it had been simply chopped off.

  No, not chopped. Disintegrated. A pile of dark dust lay in front of the wrecked train, where it had slid straight into the path of a Scatherian force field. Kaylin shuddered at the thought of the people onboard the train simply disintegrating.

  Red growled, his spikes standing straight up as he glared at the wreck. Kaylin followed his gaze, and a flash of movement caught her eye. It scrabbled over the electromagnetic tracks, raising a small plume of dust, and a twisted metal pane shuddered as the creature dove through a hole in the bottom of the train.

  Kaylin pointed toward it. “Did you see that?”

  The others looked over to her. “See what?” Beck demanded.

  Kaylin waved a hand at him, urging him to quiet down. Then she jabbed her finger toward the train. “Something’s inside the train,” she whispered, drawing her pistol.

  Adrien raised his own pistol as he peered toward the train. “A person?” he whispered.

  “No, it was small. It went through that hole in the bottom of the train.”

  The tension immediately eased from Adrien’s shoulders, and he shot her an annoyed glance. “Just a rat, or maybe a cat,” he said quietly. “Lots wander in here.”

  Kaylin shook her head. “It didn’t look like it had fur.”

  “Then what did it look like?” Beck asked.

  “Like…”

  She wracked her mind, but realized she wasn’t even sure. Could she even say she’d really seen the thing? Not really. She’d only seen the dust it’d kicked up and caught a glimmer of its shadow as it bolted through the hole.

  “I didn’t really see it,” she admitted.

  Adrien gave an annoyed grunt. “Just a rat,” he repeated.

  Kaylin nodded, wanting to believe the boy. But then Red let out another deep, rolling growl, his eyes still locked on the hole in the bottom of the train.

  Something was there. Something that didn’t belong.

  Adrien strode on down the tunnel, his pistol gripped tightly in his hand. “Keep moving,” he whispered.

  Kaylin nodded, realizing that getting away from the thing was probably the best option they had. Adrien picked up the pace to a quick jog, and they followed close at his heels. He kept his attention focused on the map on his tablet, and he stopped throwing pebbles at the Scatherian forcefields, leaving them inactivated and invisible as they rushed past.

  “Just don’t step anywhere I don’t,” Adrien repeated, although there was no need for it. All of them kept their eyes glued to him, making sure not to stumble out of the safe path.

  Kaylin glanced over at Red, hoping he’d relax. But his spikes stayed raised, and he kept glancing over his shoulder, his motions quick and anxious.

  A shriek echoed through the tunnels, bringing them all stumbling to a halt. Kaylin whirled back toward the train, raising her pistol.

  “That was definitely not a rat,” she hissed.

  She glanced over at Adrien, but his eyes were wide with bewilderment.

  “What the hell was that?” the boy whispered.

  Definitely not the response she’d been hoping for. If Adrien didn’t know what that scream belonged to, then that meant they were dealing with a wild card. And after the Syndicate invasion, wild cards really only came in one form:

  Alien.

  “Let’s just keep moving,” Adrien said, but his voice was tense and uncertain as he continued padding carefully forward.

  Kaylin followed close behind him, keeping her pistol trained carefully on the train.

  “Lio,” she whispered. “What did that sound like to you?”

  “A scream,” he responded, his voice tight with anxiety.

  “Well no shit. But what kind of scream? Do you know what sort of species that could be?”

  He went silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Kaylin,
there are over one hundred billion planets in your galaxy. And over five percent of those support life. Which means there are literally trillions of species of life just in your single galaxy.”

  She bit her lip. “Look, there’s no need for the math lesson. If you want to tell me that was a really dumb question, just say it.”

  “That was a really dumb question,” the ambassador said, his voice as steady and eloquent as ever.

  “Noted,” Kaylin muttered, still peering into the darkness.

  They continued past the train, jogging quickly. Kaylin saw the glint of something pale just a few feet to her right, and she jerked her pistol toward it. But it wasn’t anything living. Far from it.

  The bones of a human skeleton lay crumpled in a pile, draped by the mold-eaten rags of old clothing. One of the legs, half the pelvis, and half the skull had been sliced off the skeleton with surgical precision. Lying right beside the bones was a sprinkling of dark dust.

  Kaylin’s stomach twisted at the sight. She’d been wondering what would happen if she accidentally stepped into a Scatherian forcefield, and there was the answer.

  Adrien kept up the quick pace, weaving across the dusty ground as he followed his map. They followed closely behind him, and as the wrecked train disappeared in the distance, some of the adrenaline began to fade from Kaylin’s veins.

  Adrien glanced behind them. “Whatever it was, I think it’s gone.”

  The others nodded, but Kaylin couldn’t shake her unease as she glanced down at Red. He was still fully camouflaged, and that low growl rumbled deep in his throat every few seconds.

  “I think it’s following us,” she whispered.

  The others glanced around, holding their weapons a little higher. But after a moment, Beck whispered, “I don’t see or hear anything.”

  “Red does,” Kaylin insisted.

  Adrien glanced down at her lizard and shook his head. “He’s been nervous ever since we got to the tunnels. Doesn’t mean anything.”

  “You don’t know him,” Kaylin said. “If he’s this freaked out, we’re in danger.”

  Adrien snorted. “We’re in the Paris underground. Of course we’re in danger. So let’s keep moving so we can get out of here as fast as we can.”

  A dull click echoed through the darkness, like two rocks being struck together. Kaylin whirled toward the sound, her pistol raised.

  “What was that?” she hissed.

  Adrien shot her an exasperated glance and gestured to the ceiling with the tip of his pistol. “Look up,” he whispered. “Everything above ground in this area was decimated in the bombings.”

  Kaylin peered up, squinting through her night vision glasses. The ceiling loomed at least fifteen feet above her, but the damage caused by the bombings was obvious. Jagged cracks raced through the concrete ceiling, and vines and moss had started to grow through the gaps, with the vegetation slowly pushing the cracks wider.

  Kaylin glanced down at the ground, and the clicking noise suddenly made sense. The floor in this section was covered in tiny bits of concrete that had fallen from the crumbling roof, clattering to the floor.

  The click came from behind her again. Red let out a sharp snarl that echoed through the tunnel, bouncing off the decrepit walls. Kaylin whirled around, her heart pounding.

  But there was nothing behind her. Nothing but patches of debris scattered across the ground, the empty rail tracks, and the anxious faces of Matteo, Lio, and Marin.

  Something touched her shoulder, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. But right as she raised her pistol, she realized it was just Beck patting her on the shoulder. He offered her a grim smile and leaned closer as he whispered, “Relax. Take a couple deep breaths and conserve your energy. You heard what Adrien said, the real danger doesn’t even start until we get closer to the base.”

  His gentle touch managed to calm her just a bit, and she took a deep breath, just like he’d ordered. She looked down at Red, who was still bristling with anxiety.

  “You’re okay, boy,” she said softly. “It’s okay.”

  His growling cut out, but he stayed tense, slinking close to the ground and staying carefully camouflaged. Kaylin wanted to believe Beck—they’d probably already passed by whatever had shrieked. But she kept her pistol in her hand as she walked, ready to fend off anything that might come at them.

  28

  Kaylin

  They kept walking, following behind Adrien. Kaylin wasn’t sure how far they’d come. Two miles? Maybe three? She glanced down at the comm unit on her wrist, eyeing the time in the corner of the screen. 11:32. They’d only been underground for twenty minutes, not nearly as long as she’d thought. At the pace they were going, with all their weaving to avoid traps, they probably hadn’t even made a mile yet.

  Four miles. That was how far Adrien had told them the street entrance was from the Wardens’ base. It had sounded relatively close, but it was already starting to feel impossibly far away.

  The air grew stuffy and damp, and the musty scent of mold penetrated Kaylin’s nose.

  “Put your respirators on,” Adrien ordered, pausing to draw his from where it was clipped to his belt.

  Kaylin nodded in agreement and pulled hers out of her supply backpack, slipping it over her mouth. Just like the night vision glasses, it molded perfectly to her face, clinging there without the help of any straps. She took a deep breath, surprised to find that she could barely tell she was wearing the respirator.

  “Just who exactly supplied you guys with all this alien tech?” she asked Beck.

  “The German government,” Beck said. “They work closely with the Resistance in Europe. It’s all legal and legit.”

  “Any idea where the Germans get their supply from?”

  Beck shot her a disapproving frown. “Now is really not the time to be planning your next theft.”

  Kaylin held up her hands in an innocent gesture. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  Beck tried to scowl, but it faded as soon as he noticed her teasing smirk. He just shook his head and elbowed her in the side. “Focus,” he ordered.

  She gave a lazy salute and peered forward, trying to get a better look at what lay ahead. Something loomed in the distance, a mass even larger than the wrecked train.

  “The ceiling collapsed ahead,” Adrien said, his voice slightly muffled from the respirator. “It blocks off the main tunnel, but there’s a side passage we can move through.”

  “A side passage?” Beck repeated.

  Adrien nodded. “It was excavated during the invasion. It leads into the catacombs, and from there it’s a straight shot to the Wardens’ base.”

  Kaylin resisted the urge to shudder at the mention of the catacombs. The winding maze of ancient tunnels had been built centuries before; Paris had been running out of graveyards, so the city had decided to create a giant, underground burial space. Miles upon miles of burial tunnels ran under the city, filled with the corpses of ancient Parisians.

  Up until the Syndicate War, the catacombs had merely been a historical site. But when Parisians started taking cover underground during the invasion, the catacombs had become a key part of the Paris battleground.

  They followed Adrien as he headed toward the collapsed part of the ceiling. As they neared it, the clicking sound grew more rapid. Kaylin glanced up, nervously eying the roof. If the clicking was falling debris, that meant this part of the tunnel was crumbling to pieces. And they were walking right underneath it.

  Adrien led them over to the opposite side of the tracks, weaving through multiple force fields and climbing over a mound of rubble. Kaylin couldn’t help feeling a little ridiculous as they dodged around the traps, which were invisible to the naked eye. In an odd way, it reminded her of her brother’s favorite playground game—they’d play tag on the jungle-gym at the park, while pretending the bark covering the ground was hot lava that they couldn’t step on.

  A sudden burst of longing struck her. She wanted to go back in time, back to when her li
fe was simple, when there were no Scatherian forcefield traps or alien invasions or battles for survival. Just her and her little brother and their mom, a small but mighty family.

  She watched Adrien closely as he wove through the deadly traps. He was fifteen-years-old, exactly how old Jaxon would’ve been if her brother had survived the Syndicate War. Her chest ached with a haunting, familiar sadness. Not a single day went by when she didn’t daydream about how things might be different if her brother hadn’t been killed.

  But sometimes—only occasionally, and only with a great deal of shame—she wondered if his death had been a good thing. It’d been quick and painless; a bomb had obliterated their entire apartment complex in a split second. And maybe, just maybe, things were better that way. Jaxon had always been such a sensitive soul—when his pet goldfish had died when he was five, he’d cried over it for weeks. When their mom had died two years later, he’d never really recovered.

  She wasn’t sure how Jaxon would have handled the Syndicate War, if he’d lived through that first attack. But she had a sinking feeling that being surrounded by constant fighting and killing would have destroyed him in ways worse than death ever could.

  Adrien turned around, and for a single second, Kaylin saw her brother’s face. Then she blinked, and Jaxon’s face disappeared, replaced by Adrien’s dark, grim countenance. He pointed toward their right, and Kaylin spotted a hole in the wall of the tunnel. The edges of the hole were blackened from heat, as if it had been blasted open with some sort of laser.

  “That looks too easy,” Kaylin said. “Is the entrance rigged with anything?”

  Adrien nodded. “Yeah. It’s got a Scathar…” He frowned as he struggled to remember the word. Then he gestured sharply at Lio. “Whatever you call the death zappers. It’s got one of those, but it’s rigged to allow people through one at a time.”

  “What do you mean?” Lio asked.